I don’t know which haunts more: bombs exploding or the eerie silence that follows. The aftermath… Lives taken. Property destroyed. Devastation complete. Birds no longer grace the skies, their morning songs gone silent. The quiet of nothingness hovers as the dust settles upon the ruins. And rubble makes no sound.
Alyce Clark will continue to pray for peace.
Displaced people exchanging pieces of
their shattered love
with friends and family at the station.
Those left behind
Forge those shards of loss into love of country,
sharpened and breast pocketed
over hearts beating with courage and hate
and told by their blood
to seek the blood
of their oppressor.
Stephen Tilden is retired and giving voice to yet another outrage that we are facing.
Editor: May we all work towards peace so that no blood need be shed, Ukrainian or Russian or otherwise.
Their ships dropped from the clear Winter night like angels, the air as brittle as our so-called civilisation. By Spring we were defeated, but too stubborn to surrender. Summer turned, the Resistance organised itself, and we began to hope. But we would never see the stars the same way again.
Alastair Millar is an archaeologist by training, a translator by trade, and lives in the Czech Republic. His flash fiction can be found through linktr.ee/alastairmillar and he lurks on Twitter at @skriptorium.
The story of the week for March 21 to 25 is…
Mendocino Headlands by A.K. Cotham
“Not viable.”
The doctor’s words seared through her, stole the breath from her lungs.
Granted, the timing sucked, but her fiancé’s visible relief chafed.
Tonight, she curls up in bed alone. Sorrow weaves through her, clinging like vines—grief for a future she had never known she wanted… until now.
G.R. LeBlanc is a haiku poet and fiction writer living in Atlantic Canada, where the winters are long and harsh but the people are warm and kind. Learn more about her at https://sleekbio.com/grleblanc.
Distill from Moret’s unfinished sketches
the melancholy of a seaside town in winter:
Lay of her letters from exile a waterstair,
closed souvenir shops, a broken shutter banging.
Near dark now, in an unsigned corner,
a woman struggles with a torn umbrella,
surrenders with a wordless curse
to the wind.
Mark Reep is an artist and writer. His drawings and photographs have hung in galleries, museums, and juried exhibitions in the US and UK for more than thirty years. His work has appeared in publications including American Art Collector, Endicott Journal, Wetcanvas, Metazen, Prick of the Spindle, Blue Fifth Review, A-Minor, Artgraphica, and Postcard Stories. Mark was founding editor of the limited-run quarterly lit & arts journal Ramshackle Review. He lives and works in New York’s Finger Lakes region.
I eat my lunch with a man I shared a glance with across the courtyard: the first interaction I’ve had in a long time.
I name our kids, Julian and Ava. I want an outdoor wedding. No. Indoor. Both? I check up on my husband across the courtyard.
He left.
Aside from choking people for sport, Brianne Robertson–the Jiu Jitsu competitor–enjoys writing short excerpts and poems in her spare time.
The contours of his salty smile are formed by rock, his body by luminescent algae, his spirit from the cornucopia of spray that crashes, sunbound. We visit and he greets us with joyous thunder, my brother, long lost to these depths and long since having forgiven us for failing him.
A.K. Cotham writes fiction and edits nonfiction in Northern California. Other short pieces have been published in CommuterLit, Brilliant Flash Fiction, 101 Words, and Every Day Fiction.
Worn eyes reach daylight
Slowly count to ten
Stay still. No movement
Listen for the men
A moment of fragility
Tears down one cheek
But soft cries of “daddy”
Banish feelings so weak
Emerge from the rubble
Of a life we once knew
Together we’ll succeed
And start life anew
Richard has followed 50-Word Stories for a number of years, though generally only writes for himself.
He had no choice.
His debts were piling up. His landlord had increased rent; grocery prices were astronomical.
He stepped outside, albeit reluctantly, summoned his rainbow, and dug where it ended. He removed five pieces of gold from the pot, noting sadly that there were fewer each time.
Darn inflation.
AJ Joseph tweets very short stories as @sonobeus.