Sad was a girl with no history.
Dropped at a shelter as a baby. Foster system: tossed in the wind. Sad’s the only name that took.
Tear-streaked, walking the streets, cold seeped through her skin.
“Come in,” said the man. She did.
Now she knows a new form of sadness.
Blanche Baxter is a freelance writer and storyteller rom Pittsburgh PA. She loves a good story, big or small.
Emil Catt yowled piteously at the door for an hour this morning.
“Enough!” And I let him out.
He came back when I called, and as I picked him up to ruffle his head, I looked into the eyes of the owl sitting in the tallest pine, feigning distinterest.
Liar…
rJo Herman dreams of writing the perfect story her grandchildren will always remember. She lives with her grey striped companion, Emil Catt, I, on the Colorado high desert.
Just a minute it took and she was gone.
I put the baby down in the cradle and
picked up your rinsed shirts.
She slipped in the deep
rushing down out of reach of my grasping and gasping last breath.
Tomorrow I’ll reach her.
Today I’ll drown here under quilts.
Ginger Hopkins lives in the Texas Hill Country on top of a mountain where she Celtic dances and teaches English Composition online for Brookhaven College in Dallas, Texas. She holds a BA and MA in English from TX A&M University.
One whiff of the cheap perfume at the door, she went ballistic.
“Gotta smell the same as when you left,” she declared, and chunked me out.
Tried to tell her cops contact odors a car-wash won’t erase. Funny, I was innocent, that time at least.
I moved into my pickup.
Gary Clifton, forty years a cop, has fiction pieces pending with over sixty venues. Retired, he has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University.
Mrs Klein the housekeeper had had enough, the ungodly cries, constant electricity drains, no access to the cellar, then all the gossip in the local inn.
“This is the last omelette I’m making for you! I’m leaving!” she cried.
“Okay, I’ll read it later, thanks,” murmured a distracted Doctor Frankenstein.
Alex Sinclair was born in the winter of 1973 in Nottingham, England, and, on the cusp of his 40th birthday, is still trapped there. He longs for a looser, more liberal society where his own shaky morality and absurd beliefs could find succor and praise. Until that day, he bides his time, waiting to pounce like a graying and jaded ocelot. To amuse him and occupy all available time for the next 40 years of his life, he has just become father to twins, who, though but 3 months old, are acutely aware that daddy may not be quite right in the head. This small matter is overlooked as he can expertly and lovingly feed, burp, and nappy change each baby in just 15 minutes, whilst also attend to cooking duties downstairs with good humour. He lives with his long-suffering partner Shona, and cats David and Mogwai.
We sit amid butterflies and impeccably tended grass each day.
“Tea?” I pour from the cool pitcher on the tray.
She nods, demure. “Two sugars,” she says. “Why haven’t we met before?” She looks up under her lashes. The nurse behind us clucks in sympathy.
“Just bad timing, I guess.”
Delancey Stewart is a fiction writer living in Southern Maryland. When no indulging her imagination, she works for the man as a tech writer and tends two small boys who, her husband assures her, are hers. Find her at delanceystewart.wordpress.com.
Lying down on the grass, feeling comfortable, I close my eyes and start to drift away.
A warm feeling enters my hair then flows onto my body. My whole body is filled with warmth.
A cold breeze interrupts my dream.
My brother shouts, “Dude! That’s my brother you’re peeing on!”
Richard Phan is currently a senior attending Cerritos High School. He is both passionate and enthusiastic about everything he does and his work is guaranteed to make you a Phan.
Dave expected her to acknowledge his fearless and effective confrontation of the dangerous street gang in the front yard. Praise, awe, even an exceptionally enthusiastic hug came to mind.
What came, though, was silence. No recognition. No accolades. No big hug. He didn’t understand.
Hadn’t he done as he should?
Rock Conner writes stories In Atlanta.
“Sarah, love becomes a habit, like putting on socks before sneakers.”
“Well?” I looked down at my cold, untouched coffee. God, separating our stuff would take forever.
“Like resisting sleep after an all-nighter.”
Was this cup mine? Or would he pack it up too? “Cut the analogy crap.”
“We’re over.”
Colleen Colkitt is a freelance writer of fiction and poetry. She lives in Buffalo, New York with her family. She will graduate from SUNY Brockport with degrees in Creative Writing and Communications. Her work has recently been published in Bare Hands Poetry, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Poetry Bulawayo. Look for Ms. Colkitt in Daily Love, as she will be featured on the site in February.
LeBeef and Rochambeau, walking along the bayou, found two bombs.
“Rochambeau, we’d best take these to the high sheriff,” said LeBeef.
“What if one go off, LeBeef?”
“Rochambeau, sometimes you are so dumb as dirt.”
“What ‘chu mean?”
“Listen fool, one goes off, we don’t tell ’em we found two.”
Gary Clifton, forty years a cop, has over sixty short fiction pieces published or pending with online sites. He has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University.