I removed the dust sheet from the harpsichord. I wasn’t expecting this. There was sheet music underneath; old music with old keys.
I dredged my memory for the fingering of, say, B quadruple flat, and pressed.
It was badly out of tune. Or was it supposed to sound like that?
Mike Lynch is an amateur author, father, runner and cyclist. He is 44 and lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.
This was the first spring Ruth had visited the bluebell fields with her four-year-old, Sophie. Her thoughts drifted to her own first visit when she stood on the beautiful carpet of purple and blue.
Sophie ran towards her holding a single flower. “Mummy, it’s wonderful, but this bluebell doesn’t ring!”
John B Sinclair is a much-travelled Scot who has now returned to Scotland, where he enjoys freelance writing on a variety of subjects.
A set of screams had been heard days ago. A police officer went to check the Millers’ house to see if everything was all right.
“Regan,” he said. “Honey, where are your parents?”
“I tried to tell them my doll was bad,” she said. “But she got to them first.
Kelsey D. Garmendia, 23, graduated with a Bachelors Degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Garmendia is featured in Midnight Screaming, Poydras Review, My Unfinished Novel, The Stonesthrow Review, Penduline Press and Embodied Effigies. She has two self-published novels titled Burn Our Houses Down and If I Lose.
A cold, cloudy morning provokes action. Everyone has decided to hug a tree in a frantic effort to keep warm and connected. Yet all the trees are just standing there with arms folded, not wanting to engage.
It’s an awkward dance. Suddenly, rain falls and people flee. Only trees remain.
Two dozen keys on a ring. Twenty four times he’s a trusted man.
“Dad, why do you have so many keys?” his young daughter asks.
“Because I am an important person,” he says with a smile and a chuckle.
The child imagines the abundant ring of keys in her future.
Priscilla is a retail manager by day and an artist by night. She just recently stumbled upon this writing technique, fell in love, and decided to try it for the first time.
You presume the palm trees surrounding the cabana block my view of your fingers as they trail across his thigh. Preoccupied, you fail to see the ocean inhale water from the beach.
I consider calling your attention to the towering wave approaching, but the palm trees stand petulant between us.
Tom Barlow is the author of Welcome to the Goat Rodeo and I’ll Meet You Yesterday.
I was lying in bed when the phone rang. Sleepily, I picked up the receiver to answer it, and realized something was wrong.
I put the tube of hand cream down on my bedside table, put my glasses on, and picked up the real phone, instead.
It was nothing important.
Anne Lever is recently retired and is a mature student at ChristChurch University in Canterbury.
I could do no more for her body, which had progressed from lithe toddler to this wooden being, joints forever locked.
Eye contact. We were transported together beyond Earth, beyond time, somewhere beyond… Then back in the clinic, stunned.
Dad quietly stated, “She does that to me all the time.”
Jacqueline Mast is a pediatric physical therapist and kid whisperer.
She sank back into her bleak reality, removed her sensory visor, and switched off the game.
How she wished she could be destitute and live by her wits, surviving unscrupulous landlords, pimps, and drug dealers in her real world.
“Alas,” she sighed when her chauffeur came to pick her up.
Connell wrote this after he stopped being inspired by others, but just how long this will last is anyone’s guess.
He was drunk. Staggering drunk.
I was the only guy, so I walked him to the bathroom, holding him up every step of the way. And every step I wondered just how much help he would need.
Fortunately, not much. I held him up while he peed on his shoe.
Harry Demarest has retired after careers encompassing scientific research, teaching at a university, software development, web application development, and voter database compilation and distribution. He is now spending his time with his grandchildren and writing memoirs and short stories.