The train left the station.
Maya stood alone, holding a letter she would never send. Snow slowly covered her nearly-empty battery pack. She watched her footprints disappear. For the first time she felt calm and steady. She didn’t need to say goodbye. She didn’t want to. She wasn’t programmed to.
Paul T. is a rising sophomore at Suffield Academy in Connecticut. Originally from Thailand, Paul enjoys literature and exploring foreign languages.
My Mother’s Day card read: IloveyousooooomuchmummyyourthebestbestbestandyoumakemehappeesloveloveloveexraloveBeeee!
I smiled, then frowned and got to work.
I drilled my daughter daily on word spacing and punctuation.
I instructed her on the capitalization of proper nouns.
I cautioned against repetition and hyperbole.
The next year:
“Dear Mother, Enjoy Mother’s Day. Sincerely, Beatrice.”
Success!
Mother to two teens, Joanna Norland feels nostalgic for the early years of creative spelling and free form punctuation. She is a playwright and writing coach based in East Sussex, UK and blogs about combining writing and parenting at mumswrite.com.
Two robots fell madly in love, made possible by their companionship modulators degrading. They wanted a child, so they took mechanisms from each of their bodies and built a Smallbot. Each year, they added more pieces. Over time they gave their child everything, down to their last nut and bolt.
This is Jared’s second 50-word story. He is not a robot parent… or is he?
I dreamed of distant worlds. Instead, unattainable space flaunts endless diamonds while my sluggish prison crawls across lunar dust, analysing every atom of this pocket-sized landing site. Earth rejoices – and I document what’s already known.
When it’s done and I shut down forever, I’ll turn my sensors to the stars.
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
Beautiful.
A gaudy word. Nonlethal.
Unnecessary for us machines of war.
Notice: new patch, titled “Last Update”.
Size: 21TB
Download time: 40 seconds
My armor is now unbearably suffocating. I tear it off.
My face, the sky, they reflect back at me from my doffed plates.
I never realized.
Beautiful.
Jean Llenos is an aspiring author and MD candidate based in Ohio. He is a lover of all things fantastical and strange.
There’s an android at my desk when I arrive at work. Doing my job.
I ask it to move. It won’t.
I look around for help, see the charging point has been changed to one that’s not compatible for me.
And I realise:
I’ve been replaced by a newer model.
Brian Maycock’s short fiction has appeared in 101 words, Paragraph Planet and The Drabble. He lives in Scotland.
He banged the door behind him without replying. She melted.
After nineteen years, her husband didn’t need a reason to be annoyed.
Giving up, she commissioned a humanoid. Same looks, his smile–the way he once was.
Now she could let him go,
and still have him to her liking.
Mandira Pattnaik writes in India. Her work has appeared in The Times of India, Editor’s Pick Juggernaut Publishing, Microfiction Monday, Fiftywordstories, Paragraph Planet, FewerThan500 and (Mac) ro (mic).
The other owners at the dog park eyed Stonewall curiously, attempting to make sense of the dog’s ticking movements. Ian welcomed the attention. Only another skilled horologist would understand the complex automatic movement, and only someone who’d buried one too many beloved dogs would understand his need to build one.
Ran Walker is an award-winning author of sixteen books. He teaches creative writing at Hampton University in Virginia.
Leroy orders online. Two weeks later the package arrives.
It is a head that looks exactly like Leroy.
When his work robot arrives home, he removes its head and replaces it with the new one.
Leroy will wait a month and then try to talk the robot into trading places.
Denny E. Marshall has had art, poetry, and fiction published, including fiction in Night To Dawn October 2018. See more at dennymarshall.com.
Sara pricked her finger arranging the roses and gasped. Pain still surprised her.
Since her most recent retrofit, Sara’s existence had been forever altered. Her service to the good doctor had been routine, until he had gifted her with the ability to feel, which would probably lead to his death.
Mary spends winters living on a 35-foot sailboat in Florida and summers in Ontario. A wanderer by fate, she embraces photography, writing, acting, and fitness coaching as opportunities present themselves.