Seated at a table for one in the exam, writing lyrics instead of history, wondering how to go about my life, I tipped on two legs, fell backwards, and lay in the ruins of a perfectly good chair.
It opened my eyes. I knew what I didn’t want to do.
Stephen Goodlad wrote this story.
Margo used to wonder about her friend Ellen’s strange requests.
“Would you mind picking up some industrial-sized trash bags?”
“Can I borrow your duct tape?”
“Wanna hold my new pistol?”
“Just take my phone.”
Now, sitting here in prison, it all made perfect sense.
Ellen wasn’t her friend after all.
Susan Gale Wickes is a writer from Indiana. She claims nobody was harmed in the writing of this story.
The tragic play unfolded in reverse. From the kitchen window mother saw the ragged hole in the ice on the frozen pond. Footprints in the snow backtracked to the door. The little red boots were gone, and toys lay abandoned on the floor. The television droned on, speaking to emptiness.
B.C. Nance is a native of Nashville, Tennessee where he works as a historical archaeologist. In his spare time he writes fiction and poetry and has published several of his short stories.
He carried me over the threshold. That, in itself, was not an easy task.
I should have loved him for that alone, but I always wanted more.
“You missed a spot.” I twirled the just-washed glass around in the sunlight.
He reached to take it, but I smiled. “Let me.”
Susan Gale Wickes hails from the Midwest. She likes writing and daydreaming about where it might lead.