“I think the cutie has her mother’s eyes,” remarked one passerby while the new family was out eating breakfast.
The couple knowingly smiled at one another: their child was adopted. It had only been six months, but despite not necessarily having their likeness, she already resembled them more and more.
Jonathan H. Smith lives and works in Phoenix, Arizona.
“I’m not sure what I’m hungry for, but this definitely isn’t it.”
She meant me. Us. Our sacred union.
Playing house had become wearisome, mind-numbing work.
Our holy matrimony had leaked whatever holy it held.
We’d become seasick passengers, nibbling at remnants of a sacred ritual gone sour.
“Happy anniversary!”
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.
It wasn’t a lonely life.
It was just different.
She talked to the flowers, and they listened.
She could almost see the marigolds raise their little orange heads as she passed.
And the lilies always waved.
But you couldn’t trust a yellow rose…
Or the man who gave you one.
Susan Gale Wickes is from Indiana. She likes all flowers, even yellow roses.
Subdued sunlight
plays over stained glass
as I sink to my knees
before the God who made me.
My eyes fill when
I lift them to meet His.
We glow as
love burns a bridge between us,
and I am consumed
but not destroyed.
At long last,
I am home.
Maria is blessed.
Bacon. Two eggs, over easy. Two slices of white toast, with butter and jam. Coffee with cream and sugar. The Sunday paper held up with one hand, nothing but coverage of the recent crisis.
Indigestion. Headache. Slight anxiety.
Tomorrow? Oatmeal. Almond milk. Juice. A book of poetry. And a smile.
C.M. Bunch writes (mostly) speculative fiction from the suburbs of Saint Louis. He is trying real, real hard to publish two novels and several short stories. Keep your fingers crossed for him.
The story of the week for June 22 to 26 is…
Whodunnit by Kate Fellowes
I get mad at him
I blame him
Sometimes I can barely tolerate him
Then, I have to remember
He has dementia
He can’t always help what he says or does.
When he’s rude, annoying, overbearing
I have to remind myself
To have patience.
He has dementia.
What’s my excuse?
Edna Deeter is an American freelance writer. She is currently living with her husband who is suffering from dementia.
When the doctor returns with the information the man remembers how his wet hair turned to ice the night he jumped from his bath and ran across the unfurrowed field, water dripping down his hairless legs, his feet pounding the frozen potato dirt, where no summer fingers now ever dig.
John Riley’s fiction and poetry have appeared in Metazen, The Dead Mule, Smokelong Quarterly, Connotation Press, and many other places online and in print. He lives in North Carolina.
Hands, rough from years of hard labour; hands, morphed to the shapes of their tools; hands, discarded, unwanted, idle; hands, now tornadoes of boredom and rage and frustration; hands, locked together with bracelets of steel; hands that would’ve toiled until the life drained out of them, if they’d been allowed.
Laura Besley writes short fiction in the precious moments that her children are asleep. Her fiction has appeared online, as well as in print and in various anthologies. Her flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers, was published in March 2020. She tweets @laurabesley.
It started with surreptitious phone calls. Overheard whispers about holding her… “she’s the one.” How could he?!
Jenna’s heart raced as his car pulled up. Ready to confront, she threw open the door to find him cradling Millie, their new Labrador puppy.
Moral: distrust can be ruff, but fur-giveness heals.
Lisa Chambers is a Texas girl who enjoys writing and appreciates the amazing writers of Fifty-Word Stories.