The war is over. She can’t contemplate the political implications. Winter cold lurks on the horizon. She barters food for the woman’s wool coat and painstakingly dismembers it, removing the sewn stitches.
A month later, her ten year old daughter, wearing her “new” jacket and pants, makes snow angels.
Carol M. Carman is a retired telecommunications engineer. She enjoys discovering her writing talents in a weekly memoir class in Albany, NY.
They fall like forsaken stars. Tiny sparkling fish, showering down. It happens every year, and I’m always spellbound. Sequin scales shimmer on our skin and hair, glistening and mysterious. And suddenly we’re transformed, shoaling merfolk compelled to answer the sea’s relentless call.
But all you say is, “Fish soup tonight.”
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
We watch different networks.
Mom loves Hallmark. Blue skies.
Sister Nan and I love HBO. Shadowed rooms.
Mom talks positivity, in spite of the job losses, the bosses. Nan and I absorb Machiavellian manipulation from the Sopranos.
Some nights we try to don Mom’s smile.
Broken lines stare through mirrors.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” and “Tales From A Communion Line,” were nominated for Pushcarts. Mir-Yashar’s work has been published or is forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Ariel Chart, among others.
Gray skies this morning.
Darlene abed.
Make her tea.
See she’s comfortable.
Tells me to quit my bothering. Calls me James.
Rain’s holding off.
Afternoon, split wood.
James?
Chop.
James.
Chop.
Dinner. Potato soup, chives.
Wipe the soup dribbling down her chin.
Won’t talk to me. Leastways, not to James.
Tim Boiteau lives in Michigan, is the author of the dark fantasy novel The Drummer Girl, and a Writers of the Future winner. See more at timboiteau.com.
Father was a painter; thus, art was in her blood. Or so they would say.
She could see no art in the blood on her forehead, but she knew all about complementary colors. Orange covers up blue, yellow covers up purple. A smile covers up pain. Still the perfect family.
Sally Wagner lives in Luxembourg; with her two rabbits, and a dream of becoming a published author one day. Until that dream comes true, it will just be her and the rabbits. Which is good too.
“This is nice,” Sarah says, about the restaurant decor.
Gary’s phone rings. She orders.
They both eat one-handed: Gary’s other hand clasped round his phone, hers holding a book.
In the car, driving home, Gary says, “That was nice.”
Sarah pulls a loose thread on her scarf, watches it unravel.
Laura Besley is the author of micro fiction collection, (Un)Natural Elements (Beir Bua Press, 2021), 100neHundred (Arachne Press, 2021), and flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers (Dahlia Books, 2020). Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany, and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. She tweets at @laurabesley.
Birds are made to fly.
Light bones, little beaks, big wings
Ready to steal the skies.
Birds are made to fly, and
Humans are made
To live.
Light homes, little kids, big hearts.
Forging happiness.
But rooms go dark
Children grow up
And hearts break.
Do birds tire of flight?
Ginny Feng lives in Tennessee, where she writes short stories and learns lots.
The story of the week for December 6 to 10 is…
Homecoming by Maggie Nerz Iribarne
All that was left of my father were his journals, musings of a simple man. Pages of ordinary until I reached the final one: red cracked leather much different than the others. My heart stopped upon reading the first line.
First time I murdered a man, I was only 12.
Andrea Allison resides in a small Oklahoman town. Her work has appeared in 50-Word Stories, Sirens Call and NoSleep Podcast. See more at andreallison.com.
The group stood waiting under the trees. Around them the sky dimmed to an ombre sunset. The mother rocked her daughter, staring at the sea.
This time, surely, the boat would come for them.
The two brothers and father scanned the bleeding horizon.
In the distance, their town burned red.
Alyson lives in the UK with her family including her rescue animals. She works as a tutor/editor. Her dark stories have appeared often on the Horror Tree, and varied anthologies, most recently ‘Night Frights’, ‘Were Tales’ and ‘Don’t Break the Oath’. She’s often roaming the moors with her Labrador, Roxy.