Polarized
Analyzed
Hypnotized
Sedated
All the king’s horses
All the king’s men
Never put Black back together again
All flights canceled
All ships docked
Sunrise
I kick the can
It’s heavy
My coffee waits
Stirs a young man’s dreams
Into these old bones
I pack the tent
And transistor radio
Patrick Yu notes that sometimes things can get very dark, but life is like that.
We’ve been here for years, laughing among ourselves at your silly stories of UFOs, balloons, and Roswell crash. Visitors from outer space! your newspapers say. Cover stories, we say. Not understanding your culture and language made us stick out at first, but we’ve learned. We mingle freely among you now.
Connie Taylor left California to become a commercial fisherman in Alaska. She fished salmon, crab and shrimp for twenty years before settling in Cordova to become a printer and art gallery owner. Now she’s a publisher, photographer, and author. See more at fathompublishing.com.
In a quiet Hawaiian neighborhood where nothing ever happens
we steal lilikoi to make them “splot”
wriggle through squishy red dirt, under fences, to escape the enemy
collect every flower in sight (a lot)
In a quiet Hawaiian neighborhood where nothing much happens
to our neighbors
we are what happens
This story was written by Erin Gilmore, who has to imagine the stories her grandparents never told her.
The last Martian watched mournfully as gun-wielding Earthlings and smog from brand-new factories smothered his once beautiful red planet. He bitterly remembered the day fifty years ago when a satellite from Earth landed and then left with a Martian soul. Breathing his last, he lamented “Your homecoming doomed us, Elon.”
Yogita Khandge wrote this story.
The story of the week for February 20 to 24 is…
Sunday Afternoon in Ward C by Mof Afdhaal
He played one of the scratched 78s he had found with the wind-up gramophone. Danced through the rubble with no one watching.
He had spent years telling himself that tomorrow he would start trying to meet someone. Now it all lay in pieces around him: the last man on earth.
Brian Maycock’s short stories have appeared recently in Paragraph Planet and Creepy Pod. He lives in Scotland.
Conversation didn’t hold as much interest as Tom Cruise running for his life on the fun-size flatscreen did. But in the misery of intrusive catheters and a relentless urge to retch, her soft snores from the visitor’s chair said “I’m with you to the end” better than any conversation could.
Moh Afdhaal lives in Sri Lanka and writes flash fiction. Find him on Twitter at @mohwritesthings.
I’m in a crowded banquet hall shaking hands with the Governor’s son-in-law. She’s peering at me from across the room. I once passed her notes through a chain link fence in a nameless hometown. The sadness behind her eyes ruminates on those days. We’ve outgrown all juvenile afflictions except desire.
HNK is an up & coming young writer and aspiring novelist located in coastal North Carolina. In his free time he likes to fence, play chess and practice physical comedy. His writings can be seen at prayaboutus.net.
He asks for my hand and inspects every wrinkle, connects every freckle, traces every line with his fingers.
He quietly analyzes my palm, with a look of angst drawn on his young face.
He tells me how many babies I was supposed to have and when I’m going to die.
Deirdre Smith has dabbled in writing for as long as she can remember. She is a part-time Guidance Counsellor and a full-time mom. She resides in the always colorful St. John’s, Newfoundland.
A moment before you wake, a bird escapes your dream. You find it waiting for you, watching you, flapping and fluttering, perched atop a stack of books arranged like a staircase. When you grab for it, the bird turns into a sunbeam slanting down from a pinhole in the curtain.
Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.