Eighty frozen peas, thawed, four times a day, down the pigeon’s leathery beak.
An ambulance. Across the street. Up, down, with a body, siren mute, lights still blaring.
Baby bird cries for more.
New widow already in black.
Weeks later the pigeon flies back to the flock.
Unrelated, but inseparable.
Nicholas De Marino is a former journalist and aspiring bon vivant. Read more at nicholasdemarino.com.
She used to call every month. When we last speak, she asks if I think about her. Every day, I say. But she doesn’t believe me. She hangs up in a fury, and I stare into the last piece of artwork our daughter ever made, still taped to the refrigerator.
Graham Fortier lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. He is a survivor of the Altadena wildfire.
A nurse came back in after the room was cleared for them, gestured at the remaining machines, and asked if they wanted the sound to be muted. They shook their heads. Alone again, he told her for the first time he’d always hated her whistling. She told him she knew.
Seth Rosenman lives in the Philadelphia area. He has taught ELA in the city and EFL in China. He currently does a bit of this and hopes to move on to some of that. His writing has appeared in The Bookends Review, Jokes Review, and elsewhere. His blog is infiniteseth.blogspot.com.
I sang. I danced. I explained the upside. I listed reasons for hope.
You’re young, I said. You’re beautiful. Smart. Talented.
I held her hand and convinced her she could turn her life around. She brightened up, but only for a moment.
No. No divorce. I’m not signing, she said.
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.
“This is nice,” Sarah says, about the restaurant decor.
Gary’s phone rings. She orders.
They both eat one-handed: Gary’s other hand clasped round his phone, hers holding a book.
In the car, driving home, Gary says, “That was nice.”
Sarah pulls a loose thread on her scarf, watches it unravel.
Laura Besley is the author of micro fiction collection, (Un)Natural Elements (Beir Bua Press, 2021), 100neHundred (Arachne Press, 2021), and flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers (Dahlia Books, 2020). Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany, and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. She tweets at @laurabesley.
It felt like love, honest love, for a good long while. Then one morning in a bedroom without curtains I woke exactly as her eyes blinked open, our faces aligned in sunlight. I saw in her eyes what she saw in mine. And we both understood we’d only been dreaming.
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.
You said you’d always love me. I said the same. Your hand touched me, soft, like swansdown. Unseeing, I folded my body inside the comfort of your embrace, nestling into your feathery warmth.
Too late I felt you move apart, your wings opening wide as you lifted upwards and away.
Pauline writes mostly crime, and has a novel published on Kindle in her pen name Paula K. Randall, Hangman’s Wood. She also enjoys writing in short bites. See more at wivenhoewritersblogspot.com.
She runs… every day, of every minute, and every hour… from the present, from the past.
He tries to catch her… every day, of every minute, and every hour.
They’re Soulmates. Only when they’re hand in hand does time stop, for a split second, until it moves again.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Andrea Damic lives in Sydney, Australia with her husband and a seven-year-old daughter. She is an accountant by profession but writing was always her first love. The only time she can actually write is at night, when everyone is asleep. She had a couple of short stories previously published by 50-word stories. She has written two children’s picture books (no publications yet) and is working on a novel as well.
It’s easier to love from afar… he types.
Two thousand one hundred and ninety days ahead. Fingers strike dirt covered keys. X’s marked across calendar squares. He sits facing the wall. A photograph of a woman hangs loose. A guard rattles a baton across steel bars.
…when all is lost.
Milton Swami Parraga is a writer and a visual artist from Mexico City. His work has been featured in Microfiction Monday Magazine and Defunkt Magazine. He currently resides in Houston, Texas.
After a year of combing through my memories on social media, I’ve finally deleted every photo, check-in, and tag with my ex. Public records and memories are all that’s left of our relationship.
Coincidentally, there was a devastating fire at the courthouse last night.
Now only those who remember remain.
When Eddie D. Moore isn’t playing with his grandchildren, he is driving and visiting strange new worlds via audiobooks, or he is lost in his imagination writing his own tales. Pick up a copy of Poe-ish Tales Forevermore today! You’ll be glad you did… if you can sleep tonight.