He’s impatient, insisting she experiences this fantastic view. It’s spectacular, definitely worth the strenuous climb. Turquoise sea, golden rocks, shy wildflowers. Swooping boat far below, sails billowing. He’s standing right behind her, laughing, pointing everything out. She suspects his uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Sidesteps just in time.
He barely makes a splash.
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
There was something about the doll that was just a little off: its eyes asymmetrical, hair wild and wiry, lips a little too pouty, skin mottled. Still, her daughter loved it, playing with it often, embracing the creepiness of the strange toy in the way only a lonely child could.
Ran Walker is the author of over 30 books, including Apollo’s Toy Box. He teaches creative writing at Hampton University and lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter.
Chattering coyote laughter woke a sweat-drenched psychic; clairvoyance tormented her with nocturnal visions of travelers in torment. Shovel-in-hand, the village soothsayer climbed the moonlit eastern ridge of Iron Mountain. She prepared to save a life or dig a grave. The glowing yellow eyes of an owl followed her cattywampus course.
A.R. Carrasco is an American writer based in Oakland, California.
The pilgrim arrived in his 8,232nd universe quite fatigued, sweat dripping from beneath his mask. Spying a large temple, he headed there. Arriving, he looked upon a large statue, and slowly removed his mask. The figure was nearly his likeness. Mask back in place, he headed for the next universe.
Ed Walker is a retired engineer currently living in Catalunya, Spain. His work can be found in The Arcanist, Blink-Ink and elsewhere.
The story of the week for September 2 to 6 is…
Raked History by Yash Seyedbagheri
Mom was allergic to “fur-throwing” animals. Bright yellow canaries sang us through an otherwise ideal childhood. My children will have Real Pets, I resolved—dogs, cats and hamsters. And they did. Curiously, when the nest was empty, I got Tickles, a sweet pink canary, and it’s he whose memory lingers.
A prolific writer, Carol Reeves is loving the freedom and challenge of Flash Fiction. She is frequently published in Flash Fiction Magazine and 50 Word Stories. Her memoir, “All the Little Miracles,” was published in 2022.
I heard leaves and branches singing to the sun
I watched the trees singing as one
Grace for the day
Prayer for tomorrow
A daily prayer for one hundred years
A daily prayer answered
Until today
Whirring of encroaching engines portends the end
Of one last sunset
And no dawn
David is a St. Louis-based writer who enjoys all forms of writing from microfiction to novels.
Upturned glass wavering, I carry terror incarnate.
Every instinct screams, “Kill it! Squash it! Obliterate it!” I resist; outdoors, its freedom awaits.
Now it sits, in its newly spun web, remembering the warm, dry bedroom it once inhabited. It watches, and slowly and surely, it draws its plans against me.
William Mitchell lives in East Sussex in the South of England. He is an award-winning author, having had early success with various Horror and Science Fiction publications before winning the Writers of the Future contest in 2012. His first novel, CREATIONS, came out in 2014 with John Hunt Publishing.
When mom passed, we joked over boxes deemed for the dumpster about her catchwords of somedays and one-days and soons. We never had much growing up, but we had each other. We finally moved her old bed, only to discover a thick mat of lottery somedays and one-days and soons.
Deb DiTomaso lives in Connecticut with her husband, a dog, and a bunch of chickens. She’s a career nurse with a lifelong passion for crafting stories. Her work has placed as a finalist in CT Tassy Walden Awards for New Voices in Children’s Literature.
I love to rake. There’s a power in drawing leaves, clearing muck and nature’s chaos. It keeps me outside musk-filled rooms, much too big. For a moment, I smile; then I remember malaise, arguments, slammed doors. I tear my rake into earth and emptiness and whisper sorrow. More leaves tumble.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.