For fishing trips, she would tie her own flies, taking the due care which her grandfather had taught. Like him, her feathers of choice were rooster, mallard flank, and pheasant tail.
Come evenings, she would dress for dinner, meticulously attentive to the detail. And, as with the flies, lethally attractive.
Thomas Malloch began writing in retirement. Short stories, mostly. Sometimes very short. Once or twice a year he gets published which raises his sprits, perhaps more than it should.
He, born to dirt, smoke, and blood-stained rocks, watched his clan diminish in this harsh environment.
Now alone, longing to share his fire, he searched empty horizons.
His journey is inscribed in etchings and ochre on cave walls.
The Neanderthal’s light dimmed, never knowing his distant spark would reach us.
Mike (and his 3.2% Neanderthal DNA) uses speculative fiction to explore the boundaries between what was, what is, and what could be.
I hit my son today–slashed my wedding band across his little blond head. His mother took him to her mother’s. I watched them drive off, windshield wipers dragging rain.
When I went to say goodbye, he flinched–like I’d done it twice.
The bruise isn’t even visible. Not yet.
Nathan Jones is a writer from Tennessee whose work explores themes of grief, faith, and the uncanny. He recently graduated with a degree in English from the University of Mississippi and plans to pursue an MFA in fiction. When not writing, he enjoys letting his puppy chew on his digital watch, running tabletop campaigns, and drinking coffee.
The world devoted itself to building faster, smarter and better AI. More factories, more cubicles, more servers, more chips.
It was a testament to the greatness of humankind.
For when the seas surged and the storms struck and great fires ravaged the earth, obliterating every shred of humanity, AI survived.
Millie Sun is a Taiwanese-Kiwi lawyering in Australia. This is her very first submission anywhere. Her website is milliesun.com.
He was generous, that’s what everyone said. He just passed away.
He was a Weber, lived three doors down from us. There’s never been a shortage of Webers around here.
Halloween, he’d pass out quarters. Quarters would get you into a movie back then.
Harold. That was his first name.
Victor Kreuiter lives, reads, and writes in the Midwest. His stories have appeared in Bewildering Stories, Halfway Down The Stairs, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Literally Stories, Tough, Del Sol SFF Review, The Windhover, Crimeucopia’s 2024 “Let Me Tell You About” anthology, and other online and print publications. His story, “Miller and Bell,” originally published in the August, 2022, issue of Mystery, was selected to appear in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of 2023.
He lumbered into O’Shea’s like a beaten horse. I tipped my glass. He declined. I thought of the irony, him girdling the trees as our dad lay dying to birdsong. I signed the waiver, allowing him to gut and rebuild what should be leveled and turned into a dog park.
Deb DiTomaso is a graduate of Sacred Heart University with a bachelor’s in science. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, a dog, and a bunch of chickens. Crafting stories is her passion. Her middle grade novel GRAM RIDDER placed as a finalist in CT Tassy Walden Awards for New Voices in Children’s Literature.
After the funeral, as I’m tidying your shed, I find a wooden box tucked away on a high shelf behind an entanglement of brooms, rakes and garden tools. Inside, you’ve nestled a glass jar of seeds in crumpled newspaper. What were you saving, Dad? Shall I plant them, and see?
Fiona H Evans eats alphabet soup and arranges words into stories. She lives on Noongar Boodja in Western Australia, in a cottage near a river where black swans swim.
The boy fashioned a tiny bird with arched wings.
Twists and swirls in the glass resembled feathers.
He placed the bird in his father’s calloused hands.
The old man, who was blind, held the bird without looking.
He pressed two fingers to the glass, as though feeling for a pulse.
Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.
The Demolition Pending sign went up only days after the old lady died. The bulldozer was already waiting nearby. That night I snipped the sunset- and dusk-hued hyacinths blooming in her yard. She would have wanted that. I thought they would smell like Spring but they were tainted by death.
Sherri Bale loves using the fewest words possible to tell a good story. So why the heck has she just drafted a novel that stands at 387 pages?
At the eulogy, he spoke of his daughter’s qualities; her patience; honesty; kindness. Easy claims to make, these abstractions.
But towards the end, he became more specific.
In a voice that wavered, he listed her donations; liver; pancreas; both kidneys.
“Generous to the end,” he said.
“And beyond,” say I.
Always a reader, Thomas Malloch took the opportunity of retirement to try his hand at writing and sometimes he even gets published. Examples of his work can be found in “New Writing Scotland,” “the barcelona review,” “Gutter,” “Ringwood Publishing,” “Bath Flash Fiction,” “Reflex Fiction,” “Fairfield Scribes” and, of course, “50-Word Stories.”