As the bartender prepares her a drink, he tells her how he’s a poet at heart and will publish a book of poems one day.
“Will you write one about me?” she asks, grinning.
He starts to recite something of Frost’s as though it’s his, drunk with his own lie.
Debbi Antebi (@debbisland) lives in Istanbul, Turkey, and blogs at debbiantebi.wordpress.com.
“Halt, dragon!” called the knight.
“Who are you calling a dragon?”
“Oh, pardon me,” said the knight. “You looked like a dragon from behind.”
“How rude! I’m just big-boned!”
“I’m terribly sorry, gentle lizard. How can I make it up to you?”
“Don’t struggle,” said the dragon, and ate him.
Why’d you do it?
I didn’t do it!
Three people say they saw you do it.
They lied! All four of them!
Three.
Oh, yeah, three.
You confessed to the arresting officer that you did it.
All cops are liars.
Suppose you could do it again. Would you?
Well, sure.
Richard Pannbacker is a retired biochemist/teacher/sheepfarmer living in Manhattan, Kansas. He is the winner of the 22nd Annual “Kansas Voices” fiction contest and has had stories accepted by Fifty-Word Stories, The Bad Futurist, Daily Flash: 2012, Subtle Fiction, Writers Amuse Me and The Right-Eyed Deer.
“I’m very rich,” he told her.
“I have seven doctorate degrees,” he told her.
“I’m an Olympic gold medallist in track and field,” he told her.
“I have starred in three different Broadway productions,” he told her.
“I’m wanted in fourteen states for forgery, perjury, and fraud,” he told her.