I entered my marriage with a moving van full of living room furniture – a couch, love seat, accent chairs, a maple desk, and three nested tables.
The legs wobbled. The colors clashed.
I walked out of my marriage carrying a gym bag – jeans, tops. shoes, books, and a turkey sandwich.
Roberta Beach Jacobson lives in Fairyland. See more at linktr.ee/roberta_beach_jacobson
You laughed when I said I wanted to be a tree.
Time and age chewed on my youth, wrinkles turned my smooth skin to bark, and my bones creaked when the wind blew hard. You planted me deep down.
Our great grandchildren laugh in my shade.
Jenna is a religious fanatic, a marriage fanatic, and a motherhood fanatic. She has too many farm animals and not enough farm in Houston, Tx with her husband and three beautiful, brilliant babies.
You took my bliss, stripped me of warmth, a bandit of sorts.
You broke me, fled.
I’m guessing you think you had the last word, dear, but I’ve got a few. The July sun’s rising-rising-rising, flesh stinging as I scribble-scribble, plenty, to your pregnant wife on our fancy hotel stationery.
Angela Carlton’s fiction has been published in Every Writer, Everyday Fiction, Pedestal Magazine, 6S, 50 Word Stories, Spillwords Press, The Dribble Drabble Review and Friday Flash Fiction. In 2022, “A Jigsaw Life,” a collection of stories was released. In 2023, her story “Swallowed,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. See more at Angela Carlton Stories on Facebook.
Each spring, without fail, a robin builds a nest above my front door. For weeks, she sits quietly. A mate arrives, worm dangling from his beak, and feeds their brood. The pair take turns. Two weeks later, flight beckons. The nest is silent and empty. Above it, only blue sky.
Upon retiring as a financial manager at NASA, Ms. Lindstrom took a memoir writing class to explore her childhood and began attending writing conferences, retreats, and workshops to hone her craft. Six stories about her childhood have appeared in online publications under her pseudonym, Lori Lindstrom. See more at lindstromwrites.com.
I met a fox on my moonlit walk. He stopped on the roadway to look at me: eyes aglow. I paused too. Did my eyes glitter like his?
When I moved, he trotted forward on the other side of the pavement. Each on our own journey, we moonbathed together.
Danielle Marie Cahill is a neurodivergent poet, novelist, mother, witch, and soprano living in North London with her family and two enchanting cats. She studied English at the University of Cambridge, and in 2024 she won The Caledonia Novel Award. Danielle’s words have appeared in Bangle, Witches, Livina Press, Suburban Witchcraft, Witchology, Underbelly Press, Quarter Press and MoonLit Getaway magazines.
His teaching reputation finally did him in. Facing termination, the guests at his farewell raised a vessel from the administration decorated with a Greek meander. “Half-empty or half-full?” they asked. “Can’t tell,” he replied, balancing it on his hand. “But it smells like hemlock.” And he slowly drained the cup.
Joel Savishinsky is a retired anthropologist and gerontologist. His Breaking the Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America, won the Gerontological Society of America’s book prize. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and a California Quarterly, Cirque Journal, Passager, Third Wednesday and LIGHT Magazine award winner, his poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in Beyond Words, Devour: Art +Lit Canada, The New York Times, and Windfall. The Poetry Box published his collection Our Aching Bones, Our Breaking Hearts: Poems on Aging. He lives in Seattle, helping to raise five grandchildren, and considers himself a recovering academic and unrepentant activist.
The story of the week for May 20 to 24 is…
Inheritance by Nathan Jones
and
I Grow a Metropolis by Rachel Turney
I don’t remember my first steps. Home movie cameras, with their herky-jerky pictures, were rare, and seldom on hand at such moments. Instead, my earliest memories are me, running, skipping, twirling and jumping—actions that came as naturally as breathing—all gifts I thought would last forever. Silly old me.
A prolific writer, Carol Reeves is loving the fun, freedom and challenge of Flash Fiction. She frequently writes about the privilege and vicissitudes of aging. Her stories are frequently published in Flash Fiction Magazine and 50 Word Stories. Her memoir, “All the Little Miracles,” was published in 2022.
And he lived happily ’til the end of his days, enjoying life’s simple pleasures, never knowing that in granting his wish for happiness, the genie did not give him his heart’s desire but rather erased it, so the man would never suffer a day in the yearning for his dream.
Whitney is still working on her heart’s desire–to be a published novelist. In the meantime, writing, on most days, makes her quite happy.
I bought a packet of wildflower seeds and sprinkled them in the back corner of my lawn. In mid-May it wasn’t flowers that bloomed, but an entire miniature city filled with tiny people. They live a full life there. From time to time I take them water and other supplies.
Rachel Turney is an educator and artist located in Denver. Her poems, research articles, drawings, and photography can be found in a few publications. For more, see her blog at turneytalks.wordpress.com.