My mother enjoyed researching our family tree – searching through census data, sending off for birth certificates, the lot. She painted a fruit tree on the wall, adding names and photos to its branches.
Then she discovered Great-Grandpa was a member of the KKK.
We burned his picture on the lawn.
Mark Farley writes novels, flash fiction and the occasional poem.
This odd can of fungus in water was my mother’s choice, strangely symbolic of my life growing up. She could take any good thing, any proud moment, and tear it into pieces, leaving fragments of a once happy child.
I was 14 before I knew mushrooms could be bought fresh.
Michelle is a contributing author in the most recent Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Spirit of Canada. Her writing has won several awards, and appeared in The Globe and Mail and a number of local magazines and newspapers in Alliston. Recently her short story “Lightning Strikers” was made into a series in the Focus 50+ Newspaper because fans asked for more! You can find her online at michelledinnick.com.
The story of the week for June 26 to 30 is…
Ten by L.S. Engler
My name is Ten. I have killed ten people. My lover, my lover’s lover, their child. The Avalon brothers, boom boom boom. Four. Five. Six. Seven almost killed me, but Seven Eight Nine, all in a row. Ten? Just a job. This? Another job.
Hello.
Goodbye.
My name is Eleven.
L.S. Engler writes from outside of Chicago, though she grew up chasing dragons in the woods of Michigan. She is the editor of the World Unknown Review and author of the Slayer Saga, a trilogy about zombies. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post, Phantaxis Magazine, and Pulp Modern.
“Isn’t Darryl joining us?” I ask my host.
Otis grunts, gnaws on a BBQ rib. Should ribs be that big?
They’d argued… I heard thuds. This is hillbilly country!
A bruised Darryl appears. “Dang, Otis! Don’t freak our dinner guest.”
Then he stage whispers, “You know fear spoils the meat!”
Mary Sheehan hails from southern Ireland and is vegetarian…
honestly!
I am in greenery. I needed peace more than I knew.
Peace is the sigh of life, a sudden loosening in your body and your soul.
I sit in that park for an hour, and stand up to leave, only to see another path.
“Oh!” I breathe, prayerfully, “There’s more!”
Anna finds life to be an overwhelming cacophony of beautiful sensation. She writes so that she can capture even just a little bit of it.
He carried me over the threshold. That, in itself, was not an easy task.
I should have loved him for that alone, but I always wanted more.
“You missed a spot.” I twirled the just-washed glass around in the sunlight.
He reached to take it, but I smiled. “Let me.”
Susan Gale Wickes hails from the Midwest. She likes writing and daydreaming about where it might lead.
“We need to talk.”
“I’m sorry!” he shouted, thinking he knew what she wanted. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I can’t be the son you want. I’m sorry I can’t get my life together. You want perfection… I’m only human.”
“Ah,” she said, smiling sadly. “But you’re not.”
Sarah Krenicki is, in fact, only human. She makes up for this about writing stories about people and things who are not.
Paper hearts for wooden souls. Wooden souls for men with minds of cellophane who yearn for women made of air (sweetly scented air) encased in expensive, crystal bottles.
Only the plump sofa is sincere, pleasant in its dowdiness. And the radio, in love, spends its day warbling serenades to it.
Lourdes Tutaine-Garcia is a novelist who has published several poems, the last of which appeared in Avocet.
Fifty-word stories, you say?
I wrote two:
one imaginary, one true;
one momentary, one eternal —
thoughts growing from language kernel.
For a second’s worth a thousand words,
a word a thousand seconds.
A fiction hides a thousand truths,
a truth a thousand fictions.
Word and truth aren’t reckoned by restrictions.
Angela Brett wrote this poem for her blog at angelastic.com as a way to announce her previous two stories published on 50WS.