The small cross stood on a windy rise inches outside the cemetery fence. No baptism; no Christian burial. Just exclusion. My heart ached.
Spring rains softened rocky soil. The post gave way, nails twisted, boards slid.
I hammered the post in its new spot. Relief unfurled: my baby could rest.
Tawnia is an elementary teacher in Ontario who started writing a few years ago. You can find her on Twitter at @TawniaCourage. This story was written in memory of her grandmother.
Dreams danced as she scanned travel sites while sipping coffee: exotic locales… cuisines… exploration by sea and sky.
The past eighteen months had been traumatic and painful. Now she basked in the warmth and optimism of a single word: remission.
No more looking back, only forward. Her “someday” had arrived.
Lisa Chambers is a Texas girl whose work has also appeared in 101 Words.
Joseph sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. A woman in a nightgown stood at the window, silhouetted by the silver moon. The air around her seemed to shimmer. “Can’t sleep, honey?” Joseph asked. He groped around for his glasses.
“Hmmph?” his wife mumbled, in bed next to him.
Greg Schwartz works in a cubicle and occasionally writes haiku, short fiction, and novelty slogans.
“Did you see?” Rose asked.
“Hush,” her mother said. Her sisters gave her the eye.
“That was daddy,” Rose said. He’d been out in the field, standing there. Watching.
Her mother hissed: “Rose, your daddy was buried today…”
But Rose seen him, watching. She said: “Did you hear them crows?”
Victor Kreuiter lives in the midwest.
She said she was okay. She said things were getting better. We laughed. We cried. Thank God for friendships that have no secrets; until she did.
She wasn’t okay and things were not better. She left our friendship, her family, her world. Another piece of my heart went to heaven.
Terri has published her first book, “Three Little Words to Look at Things Differently”. She lives in Bucks County, PA, with her “Hubbles” and their “Fat and Fabulous Calico – Gracie Girl”. She’s working on other writing projects so stay tuned!
She spent the winter wrapped in a chrysalis of heavy coats and bulky sweaters.
He laughed when she passed. Made references to the Michelin Man. Yetis. Stay Puft Marshmallows.
Spring came; ice melted. She shed her coats and emerged a butterfly. Shook his apologies off her wings like water. Soared.
Kathleen Latham’s work has most recently appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, Boston Literary Magazine, and Fictive Dream. She lives outside of Boston, MA and can be found online at KathleenLatham.com.
She sang in the shower
She kissed her spouse
She baked cookies with her children
She listened to her friend complain
She folded the laundry and swept the floor
She laughed at a silly joke
She walked the family dog
On the same day she went for her last jog.
Lorraine Christie enjoys drinking coffee while unscrambling word jumbles.
It’s the way the toxic air attaches, he explained, through a puff of ringed smoke.
He requested I read my poems at the cemetery and I promised I would. Then with a contemptuous glare, he pushed his cigar down onto the ash tray.
My words spoke of spring and rebirth.
Tricia Sankey has traveled the United States as an Army wife while blogging her poetry and flash fiction at triciasankey.com. She managed to obtain an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University along the way and enjoys tweeting her micropoetry on Twitter at @triciasankey. Her poetry has been published on sites such as Red Wolf Journal. Her short stories have placed in contests, most notably an Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest.
They call it beach nourishment, dredge sand off the ocean floor, and push it through a pipeline to shore.
He lost a house in the hurricane that took the beach. That took his son. But the misplaced sand doesn’t make anything right. It’s nothing but bait for the next storm.
Jon Fain’s most recent publications are in Molecule, Star 82 Review, Scribes Micro Fiction, The Drabble, The Dribble Drabble Review, and The Twin Bill. Follow him on Twitter at @jonsfain.
What if dreams are real and ordinary life is a series of nightmares?
What if the whole world and everybody in it is sleeping in your closet?
What if your bed is actually hiding underneath the monsters
and the crooked shadows keeping you awake aren’t from the coatrack at all?
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.