Come with me and I will show you a name on a brick. A brick, fading red, in a crumbling wall. Three rows up, twelve bricks along.
Written there long ago in the smallest, neatest hand. Before the sun set and the clock chimed. And the girl’s name changed.
Forever.
Rachel Canwell wrote this story.
As a boy he would steal away from home of a summer’s night and climb upon a wide fence post at the corner of the farmer’s field to sit and wonder at the star-filled sky. Now, as he lay dying, with eyes closed, he beheld the inner firmament and understood.
Nick Young is a retired award-winning CBS News Correspondent. His writing has appeared in the San Antonio Review, Short Story Town, Danse Macabre Magazine, Pigeon Review, CafeLit Magazine, the Green Silk Journal, Typeslash Review, 50-Word Stories, Sein und Werden, Flyover Magazine,, Sandpiper, The Chamber Magazine and Vols. I and II of the Writer Shed Stories anthologies.
My mother keeps photographs—cars buried under white hills, doors blocked ankle deep, trees casting blue shadows.
When I phone now, her voice is soft and tired.
When I visit sometimes, I catch reflections in her eye.
A snowman, an empty sled—puddles glistening on salted blacktop the following day.
Jacob Ian DeCoursey was born and raised in Maryland. He’s a master’s degree dropout and “essential worker” laboring too many hours for too little pay. Since 2007, his writing has appeared in numerous publications (many now defunct) both online and in print. Reflex Press has longlisted his flash fiction for their quarterly international competition. In 2019, during a stint of unemployment, he released his first book, Vivid Greene: and Other Unusual Stories. Follow at billy_collins_in_hell
The story of the week for December 27 to 31 is…
Point Price by Salman Ansari
“I know your secret.”
Shocked, I jerked away from the child who’d whispered in my ear.
Which secret? The possibilities—from innocuous to appalling—flipped through my brain at lightning speed. I feigned nonchalance.
“Really?”
He leaned in again. “You’re 61.”
“Oh, that.” I smiled weakly, relieved. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Laurie P. Mendoza is a 61-year-old elementary school counselor with a checkered past.
Why does the hummingbird scold? Tiny, ruby-breasted emerald with mighty wings and robust voice: Hurry up, frivolous phoebe! Why do you loiter, languid butterfly? Look at the egret, way up high, practically motionless, gliding on an easy zephyr. And that poet’s muse… a lifetime treasure hunting for the perfect words.
Roberta Kay, poet and teacher, has spent a lifetime treasure-hunting for perfect words.
Smells of dinner float out from the trailer parked behind Safeway. Music and voices sound. On a patch of green grass, a child plays, counting daisies. Inside, her parents count crinkly dollars; hoping there’s enough for paper towels, Cheerio’s, a battery-operated desk fan to get them through summer.
Lisa Marie Lopez has been published in a variety of literary journals and venues including Blink-Ink and The Ocotillo Review. She loves coffee, quiet walks, and animals.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
“I’m a victim of porch pirates.”
“Which delivery service?”
“None! Why ask me that?”
“We may want to interview the driver.”
“I don’t know who drove the getaway truck for the board bandit.”
“The what?”
“The thief. With sky-high lumber prices, someone stole my hardwood porch.”
John H. Dromey’s short fiction has been published in Mystery Weekly and many other places.
In the end, she takes the plant. The room feels so full of ghosts, arguments had, hands on her cheeks. Demanding, who could love you this much? Who?
A one way ticket burns her wallet. Don’t worry, she soothes glossy leaves. There are other shelves for you, in other rooms.
Riley Montag is a former child, and most recently, an adult. Follow them on Twitter.
I loved visiting the gallery, licking every piece clean with my eager eyes, running home to pour inspiration onto canvas, until that terrible day, when I was asked to critique, and I did, pointing and pontificating to an eager audience, lumbering home stuffed full of applause, but starved of passion.
Salman currently resides in Walnut Creek, California. He’s writing and illustrating his first book — a collection of fables. He also publishes a newsletter on creativity and self-awareness called Quick Brown Fox, and mentors students in the online writing course Write of Passage. He’s inspired by whimsical tales like The Little Prince, which deliver profound wisdom in a playful way.