NT FRANKLIN: Roxy

Submissions, Touching, , ,

The world went quiet when she was eleven years old. Deaf as a stone. She compensates now if you know what to look for. You can’t tell any difference unless you call to her. Same spirit, same energy, only now has to be watched out for.

Still a faithful dog.

N.T. Franklin writes after his real job hoping one day to have it be his real job. He writes cozy mystery short stories, nostalgia short stories, and Flash Fiction. When not reading or writing short stories, you might find him fishing or solving crossword puzzles.

DEBORAH GARWOOD: Tidy House

Adventure, Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

The first thing we did was hide the body, which was not a small thing.
Then we came home, tidied up, and made dinner as though nothing had happened.

If she came home and found the house a mess—even if she couldn’t find our brother—we’d be dead, too.

Deborah Garwood ​is a writer from Missouri. Well, not really from Missouri, like, she now lives elsewhere. She still lives there. Forever and always. Probably.

LAURA BESLEY: Farewell

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

This beach, with its smooth stones and jagged waves, was always your favourite, wasn’t it, Mum?

That’s why I’m standing here with you now, one last time, a small tin in my hand that I can’t bring myself to tip. But I know I’ll have no choice in the end.

Laura Besley squeezes writing into the beginning and end of her day, when her young son is sleeping. She has been published in several anthologies and online. She had recently moved back to the UK after ten years abroad.

CECILIA DOCKINS: Ten. Heaven.

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Kit hopscotches her age over the trash in the parking lot where her friend was last seen more than a month ago.
Four. Five.
Feet wide.
Six.
Feet together.
Seven.
The happy little jingle is distant at first. An ice-cream truck.
Elation.
No.
A rusted white van with tinted windows.

Cecilia Dockins lives in Tennessee and spends most of her time wrangling words and parrots. She is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Her fiction has appeared in Sanitarium Magazine, HWA Poetry Showcase Volume I and III, and various anthologies. For more about Cecilia, check out her website at ceciliadockins.com.

JANE HERTENSTEIN: Never Too Late

Submissions, Touching, , ,

It’s never too late, she said, strapping on her mandolin.

Time doesn’t wait, she said, studying a map of the world.

More and more, she said, before hurrying to board a train.

Is this seat saved? she asked.

For you, he answered.

Into the night, wheels turned while they sang.

Jane Hertenstein’s current obsession is flash. She is the author of over 80 published stories, a combination of fiction, creative non-fiction, and blurred genre both micro and macro. In addition she has published a YA novel, Beyond Paradise, and a non-fiction project, Orphan Girl: The Memoir of a Chicago Bag Lady, which garnered national reviews. Jane is the recipient of a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Hunger Mountain, Rosebud, Word Riot, Flashquake, Fiction Fix, Frostwriting, and several themed anthologies. She can also be found blogging at memoirouswrite.blogspot.com.

ELLEN SINCLAIR: The Man Who Hugs

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

He comes to the jam most Sunday nights,
This gentle, unassuming man, carrying his
well-worn guitar.

Note for note, played or sung, pitch perfect and
resonating with feeling.

But it is the hugs he gives so generously and effortlessly,
full of kindness, that seem like music
and feel like love.

Ellen lives in Maine and plays at the jam.

TAMSIN SEYMOUR: Adjacent Plots

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

“Awful man,” she muttered, kicking the encroaching brambles. “Beautiful woman,” he mused, as sunlight haloed her fair hair.

Every evening he’d toil, moving snails from her delicate beans and dahlias to his indestructible thicket.

She never wondered why her allotment flourished. Or who left the gifts of glorious blackberry jam.

Tamsin doesn’t have an allotment, and she has to be her own snail shepherd. Despite best efforts, her runner beans are still being severely chewed.

CONNELL WAYNE REGNER: The Mensa Application

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

After applying for many years he made it into Mensa. Finally, he was among the most intelligent people of his time. Cerebrally unmatched yet socially awkward, he wondered what he’d be doing there until he was told to put on some overalls, get a bucket, and mop out the toilets.

Connell?????

YONG TAKAHASHI: Mother

Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

Mother wears her sorrow like a wet fur coat. As the days pass, every step she takes weighs her down. Each rancid choice she makes pushes us further apart.

She asks why I stay away from her.

I worry she’ll bequeath the coat to me and I’ll repeat the cycle.

Yong Takahashi won the Chattahoochee Valley Writers National Short Story Contest and the Writer’s Digest’s Write It Your Way Contest. She also was a finalist in The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, and runner up in the Gemini Magazine Short Story Contest and Georgia Writers Association Flash Fiction Contest. Some of her works appear in Cactus Heart, Crab Fat Magazine, Emerge Literary Journal, Flash Fiction Magazine, Gemini Magazine, Hamilton Stone Review, Meat For Tea, River & South Review, Rusty Nail Magazine, Spilt Infinitive, and Twisted Vines.

PONTIUS PAIVA: Solarism

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, ,

Lune, a savage brute, smothers Sola under his tremendous weight. Everything goes black.

Determined to keep her midday throne, Sola overcomes and bites her aggressor, drawing blood. He concedes, retreating in agony.

Victorious, Sola screams her own praises with fiery breath, reasserting her position as supreme ruler of the skies.

Pontius Paiva’s interest in the phenomena of celestial bodies could only be eclipsed by his desire to make up stories about them. Find out more at pontiuspaiva.com.