She saw him walk from cubicle to cubicle, and her heart filled with longing for him to drop by.
“Would you like a date?” his sweet voice softly whispered in her ear. She stopped breathing for a moment, until noticing a plastic bag of dried fruit next to her face.
Katya Duft is a translator, interpreter, and language teacher, and enjoys writing short stories, poetry and her blog Tales from the Bus.
It was Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve (December 17th). Emily crossed the softball diamond in the snow, to where Sister Amy had had a tooth loosened by somebody’s loose ball in autumn.
“I’m fine!” she’d told them, face in hand.
Secretly Emily practiced alone until spring.
John Gabriel Adkins is a Pushcart-nominated writer of microfiction, anti-stories and other oddities, and is a member of the Still Eating Oranges arts collective. This year his work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Literary Orphans, SPANK the CARP, Five 2 One, Sick Lit Magazine, The Sleep Aquarium, and more.
The story of the week for March 6 to 10 is…
Mothering Sundae by Tamsin Seymour
The emotional depth of this story is so surprising, which increases the potency.
They call it astral projection. Plane-walking. Body-jumping. I’ve been doing it for years: I’m the master, the sensei.
To float above your body, your anchor to the world, is quite the trip. Most of the time…
That’s me down there, lying so still.
That’s home.
And I’ve lost my key.
Kevin G. Bufton has been writing flash fiction for nearly eight years and still hasn’t got it out of his system. He lives in Birkenhead with his wife and kids, who seem to tolerate him. He writes his darkest stories wearing his brightest shirts, and believes the world could do with more rum. He blogs on an irregular basis at kevinbufton.com.
The first time I jumped I was trying to impress some kids my age who seemed much older. The second time I was in college, and I led the way because I knew how. The third time I had something to prove to myself, but now I can’t remember what.
Justin Hook is a comedy writer and coder living in Los Angeles. Visit justinhook.com.
Ceremony? Booked.
Flowers? Done.
I was working my way through the wedding checklist, making sure I had thought of, paid for, and arranged everything.
Cars, reception venue, meal, gifts. I’d cracked it. A job well done… and with days to spare!
Now I just needed to find someone to marry.
Jon is an aspiring writer from the North West of England, currently boring himself to tears working in local government. He is looking forward to getting wed himself in the next month, but fears his own checklist is never ending… You can read more of his ramblings on the new web presence he has finally gotten round to creating at writingsonthewall645.wordpress.com
Clear your mind, she said. He quietened his thoughts leaving only the crack and snap of burning logs. He gazed deep into flames.
Watching. Waiting.
A shape appeared. A face? Yes, his face, screaming, twisted, contorted in anguish.
Suddenly cold, he tore away. The camp was empty. Everyone had gone.
Steven is taking tentative steps into the murky lake of fiction writing. This is his first submission to the site. There may be a second.
Nick was the lazy type but he did put on his best suit to chair the Orbital Station’s OH&S meeting on Tuesday which was just too bad because the station suffered an explosive decompression that day and he was the last person sucked out right before the emergency force-fields activated.
It may not be good for your health and safety but you can visit Joey at joeytoey.com.
As she was leaving the office, she bade her coworkers farewell. “The end of days is coming at 12:27,” she reminded them, “and I’m stepping outside to witness the glory. I pray that one day we’ll meet again in a better place.”
Everyone was tactful when she returned at 1:00.
Alex believes that one person’s truth is another’s heresy.
“Choklat,” he demanded, his eyes glistening.
She was buying him ice cream. Again. Because she adored the way his little tongue twisted into the cone, chasing down the last oozing dregs.
And because, when he gleefully wiped his sticky fingers across his cardigan, she knew her suppressed resentment was justified.
Tamsin can currently be found poking writing with a stick, and then running away scared.