“Today is the day,” Dr. Zoungrana said. Decades of mind-expanding research, painstaking calculations and meticulous execution of findings led to the peace-making chemical she has dispersed in the air. It spread quickly, annihilating fear and aggression in every one.
She waited until the gas lost potency before removing her mask.
Emmily Magtalas Rhodes is a freelance writer and mother of two boys. She lives in a spa town in England.
One of the strongest of his kind, Jude was one of only a few left. He had resorted to means of survival he’d never even considered centuries before.
But the humans weren’t the only race to ignore the dangers of climate change. Now the vampires were nearly out of food.
Chad Bunch writes speculative fiction from the suburbs of Saint Louis. He is going to publish a novel this year if it kills him! You can find some his other nonsense at diaryofmadness6719293.wordpress.com
The volcano erupted.
Pride took selfies in front of it.
Envy copied but got fewer “likes,” so she jumped in.
Gluttony ate on, lava lapping at the door.
Lust opened Grinder for a final fling.
Anger raged against Volcanologists on Twitter.
Greed robbed empty homes.
Sloth couldn’t get an Über.
Natalie is a Clinical Psychologist and aspiring writer in Wales, UK.
It is 2003. The year of SARS. I tell my husband that my face mask is for his protection.
“Protection from what?” he asks with a shocked look on his face.
“My mouth. It is now off limits for fourteen days,” I reply. “But it will be worth the wait.”
Marjan Sierhuis has learned there is a first time for everything.
“Guess what?” Alice’s eyes sparkled. “I told Dad what I really think of him. No more holding back. And you’re right, I feel so much better.”
“Well done.” Her husband relaxed. “You going back next week?”
“Yeah.” She rubbed her scarred wrist. “My turn to put flowers on his grave.”
M.H. Thaung can’t decide between writing tiny stories or speculative fiction novels, so she has a go at both. Find out more at: mhthaung.com.
The story of the week for February 17 to 21 is…
How Long Do You Wait? by Ursula Hoult
“I’m afraid I’m leaving you,” you said at dinner.
Slightly drunk on wine, I smiled. Later, I kissed you goodnight. My dreams were troubled.
In the morning you were gone. Sunlight failed to warm or wake you, so I rose and walked to the kitchen. A stranger in our house.
Jeremy lives in Ontario, Canada, with his wife and two young children. He loves to write, but seldom does. He has amassed a significant pile of books as “must reads” by his bedside that get picked at page by page, but have not been finished. Jeremy loves his children, and looks forward to finishing those books, whenever Paw Patrol is not a thing anymore.
We’re having a proper snowstorm—wind blowing sideways, schools cancelled, roads unplowed.
We’ve been expecting it, yet we are surprised and take inventory of our supply of bread, milk, and toilet paper.
All the while, there is a stirring of Spring bulbs, waiting to erupt in a blaze of ego.
Candace Kubinec posts her stories at storydribbles.wordpress.com and her poetry at rhymeswithbug.com.
The aging butler placed twin goblets down, then left with a bow.
Melissa took one with a shaking hand. Her brother’s apparition took the other; they tapped glasses.
She downed the cup in one gulp.
The ghost twisted into flesh, wine splattering his skin.
Her cup clanked to the floor.
Katlina Sommerberg lives in San Francisco, where the summer nights are colder than the winter days of her childhood. She is a cog in the machine for Big Tech, where she writes software and loves to hate her company’s perks. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in AntipodeanSF, 365tomorrows, and 101 Words.
We would watch the same series on TV every night. There was something reassuring in watching the bedraggled, anti-social detective’s steady but honourable mental decline. She’d point at the screen and joke that that was me. Since my diagnosis she doesn’t say it anymore, but then she doesn’t need to.
John Peter Kay is a primary school teacher by day, and a poet by stealth; who finds time to write during his commute to work. He irregularly reads his work with Ware Poets. After a decade abroad, John now lives with his wife and daughter near London in the South of England. His blog can by found at balloonysaintjohn.wordpress.com