Blog Archives

Tempting Fate, by Mary Wallace

24/7/2020

I can feel the cold from the window, but still I refrain from closing the curtains. To block out the raindrop trails and to mute the storm would be to tempt fate.

I sit wrapped in a blanket staring out of the window, waiting for his headlights to turn into our driveway. The news continues in the background; An accident on the A4.

Relief engulfs me. I focus on the yellow glow the headlights create. My brain refuses to register the blue flashing lights.

Spinning Grey into Gold, by Sandra James

24/7/2020

Grey day. Grey week. Dark clouds plagued me and I feared I’d never escape.

Mowing the lawn. Back, forth, back, forth, one step after the other; the monotonous routine the only way to complete the task, and to get through the long day.

An elderly woman passing the gate beckoned me. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, ‘I just wanted to tell you what a wonderful job you’re doing.’ She smiled and continued on.

A glimmer of gold permeated my grey world.

Thirty years on I don’t remember her face but her kind words are etched into my heart forever.

The Sponge, by Marc Littman

24/7/2020

How much can a body absorb,” Judy thought to herself as her teenaged daughter and husband unloaded. She listened empathetically to their woeful tales of broken hearts and unhinged bosses pausing to take calls from her mother complaining about chemo and a girlfriend venting about her wayward husband. Of course, no one ever asked Judy about her troubles.

After she had soaked up all she could, Judy retreated to the bathroom to wring out her emotions. She turned on the faucet to mask her crying, mopped up her tears then stepped back into the fray to face yet another flood.

The Choice, by Pamela Kennedy

24/7/2020

Each night your eyes took on a crazed glare. The verbal barrages of insults were hurtful and your tirades seemed to never end. My life had become a litany of misery.
You were disappointed in yourself and the very poor choice you made, but your rage was always directed towards me instead of inward towards yourself.

Peace was there for the taking. The ambulance came on a timely basis. I just hadn't called them on a timely basis.

You won't ever let me enjoy that peace, will you? Did I make poor choice?

Now that You've Left, by Gerald Kamens

24/7/2020

For good this time, you said.

I treasure my freedom.

My space. I have the whole house to myself. Can sleep as late as I like in the morning. Don’t have to share a closet.. Or wait to get in the bathroom. Can eat my vegan diet without your beefy moans. Can play my kind of music, whenever I want. Can buy a potter’s wheel And matching dishes. Can go to the beach when I feel like it – and watch the seals. Or cross the ocean.

I treasure my freedom.

Actually, I’d give up all of it if you returned.

Skin, Is All..., by Stella Gaucher Murovic

24/7/2020

Arms swinging, legs skating, mindless until I crashed, writhing before a voice halted my squeals.

"Anything broken dear?" asked a face enshrined by dandelion-puff hair.

"I'm fine," tottering up.

"You're bleeding. Come. I have just the thing," she said, opening the white picket gate.

"This will sting a bit," she warned, swabbing the evil-smelling stuff on my knee.

"Got this over seventy years. We'd mix it with baby oil, smear it on our bodies to get a nice dark tan. Wanted to look like you. Beautiful. Takes more than iodine."

Leaving, I pecked her withered cheeks — beautiful like mine.

Fear Has Big Eyes, by Maria Tonu

24/7/2020

Fear has big eyes going to the doctor. I have a policy and some principles with the visit to the dentist. I go to the dentist at the first signal, you get there anyway, but the sooner the better, the less pain, the less fear. When I sit in the chair at the dentist, I close my eyes and remember the most beautiful moments of my life or meditate deeply.

I had a case when I was so far away in my beautiful thoughts, that the doctor said to me three times, "All right, the tooth is treated!”

Comfort Eating, by Sally Arkinstall

24/7/2020

Seminary did not prepare him for parish ladies bearing cake. Lockdown changed nothing. Daily offerings of his favourites: chocolate, coffee and walnut, carrot cake. In isolation, he devoured them all. His clothes grew tighter; his trousers shrank, his cassock too. Once flowing, pulled in by its belt, its seams now strained.

Church doors closed, services were recorded; eucharist was shared on social media. Prayerful kneeling initiated the ominous explosion of breaking thread. The cloth felt looser, more comfortable now. Less comforting, thoughts of his escaping flesh.

Thanking God for his vast white surplice, he turned to face the camera.

Asymmetric Warfare, by Don Tassone

24/7/2020

The young man blended in with the crowd of shoppers at the open-air market.

He stopped between the two most popular booths, murmured something and pulled the cord on his vest.

Eleven thousand miles away, a man sat at his desk and leaned closer to his computer screen.

Having located his target, a truck driving north, he moved his cursor over the image and pushed a button on his keyboard.

Technically, asymmetric warfare is one-sided. But to the victims, all war is symmetrical. To the victims, there is no difference between pulling a cord and pushing a button.

Stalemate, by Paritosh Chandra Dugar

24/7/2020

I had miscalculated my capacity to combat the biters-battalion of Nature. I regretted. But it was too late. I had come too far from the repository of my protective shields. As greetings and handshakes ended, my struggle began. Nobody saw them dig their pikes into my marrow, making me shake like an epileptic patient. Suddenly, he looked at me. His casual glance turned into an intent gaze. Could he sense I was fighting an invisible foe? He rose, walked close to me, and gently placed his muffler upon my neck. My battle with Shimla’s cold ended up in a stalemate.

The Old Country Blues, by Ed N. White

24/7/2020

Grandfather came from the “old country” for a visit on the first cross-Atlantic passenger ship after WWII. He was a tall, flush-faced, austere man. Always dressed in a suit and waistcoat with a gold watch chain running from pocket to pocket and carried a walking stick. His thick brogue was barely understandable to the boy.

Grandfather returned home three months later and died while cheering for a football club he sponsored.

The boy became a man but never went to the old country. Now he downloads YouTube music of “Scotland the Brave, “Five-Hundred Miles,” and becomes Isabel Dalhousie’s secret lover.

Today's Horror, by Wendy Forshee

24/7/2020

Oh, no, she froze. Her long, delicate fingers began to quiver. Apricot lips mouthed the words, “Oh my God.”

He came closer. Cavernous lips and nose folded into wide jowls and a chin four layers deep. He began to reach for her. A sun-browned, knotted, farm-raised hand with calluses and oily nails meant to sicken her. “I have children.” she wanted to scream but instead…..

she bolted like a summer doe on a busy highway over a kneeling store clerk and straight out of Food Lion dropping her purchases while cursing the maskless man.

Might Be Something in It, by Gordon Lawrie

24/7/2020

They were both reading: she was browsing Women's Health, while he was deeply engrossed in Golf Monthly. Suddenly, she broke the silence.

"It says here that couples who share the housework have much better sex lives." She didn't look up.

"Hmm?" He didn't look up either.

"I put the dishes in the dishwasher." He didn't reply, so she continued, "There are still pans to wash."

"Hmm?" No more.

She sighed, stood up. "I'll deal with the pans, then I'm off to bed."

"Goodnight, love," he said, eventually.

"Goodnight," she called back, then added more quietly, "Might be something in it."

A Sixth Sense, by Marjan Sierhuis

24/7/2020

He needs to act swiftly and not dawdle. After all, curious eyes can be on him this very moment. He advances down the walkway holding a large paper bag and approaches the front door. He places the bag by his feet, removes a set of house keys from his coat pocket, and quickly unlocks the door. A flash of dark fur followed by an excited bark suddenly descends upon him and unceremoniously knocks him off his feet. Nothing ever escapes that dog of his. He can smell his treats a mile away.

U.F.Os, by Teddy Kimathi

24/7/2020

They flew past above them. Everyone ran because their leaders told them to run. She saw it coming, from the stench of the rivers and thickening of the air. Piles of chocolate bars filled her room, making her parents wonder whether she had lost another boyfriend. “One chocolate a day, will keep fear away,” she assured herself. All she could do was to ration her supplies until when the stars would forget they were horoscopes.

Not Remotely Close, by Krystyna Fedosejevs

24/7/2020

“Got you a new toy, Pops,” smiled Tomas. “More features.”

Henri accepted. “I’ll put it in my pile of collectibles.”

“Shouldn’t you first learn how to use it?” asked his wife.

“Nothing to learn.”

Later on, Henri stood before the TV pointing a remote.

“Darn, why isn’t this working? Piece of crap!” he fumed, tapping repeatedly with increased momentum.

When the doorbell rang, his wife ran to the front door.

“Hi, looks like your garage door is malfunctioning,” stated the neighbour from across the street. “It’s opening and closing, opening and... dozen or more times in the last fifteen minutes.”

Stinky, by Sue Clayton

24/7/2020

“Can I have a stinky white bear, Mummy?” Leo, my six-year old begs.

“What’s wrong with Barnaby Bear?”

“Nothing, but the white bear’s gonna get stinky and die; the TV man said so.

When Leo was tucked up in bed, Barnaby snuggled in his arms, I turned on the evening news.

I welled up as I watched the bear and her cub gingerly tiptoe across the ice flows.

“Polar bears face extinction as arctic ice begins to thaw,” the serious-faced newsreader began.

If they could be saved from extinction they could be as ‘stinky’ as they liked.

Fire Me! So I Can Write, by Yola M. Caecenary

24/7/2020

“Today is the last day you are working here.”

As a human, that sentence numbed me, but I started to breathe freely.
I finished all the handover documents insensibly. By the time I opened the glass door and walked out from the place that confined my senses as a human being for a couple of months, I heard my heart beating, felt the movements of my lungs, and became like Michael Jordan for a moment with a flying ball through the basket.

Just before I opened my room, I was sane again, took my laptop and began to write.

The Woman at the Window, by David Lowis

24/7/2020

Richard admitted, he was envious of the woman at the window. He'd met her once before, knew her name was Karen and that, like him, she was an aspiring writer. Every evening, whilst walking his dog, he saw her sitting in her dimly lit study, staring at a screen.

I wish I was that disciplined, he thought. By the time she's finished her novel, I'll still be on my first chapter.

As Richard wandered past, Karen readied herself for her next game of Fortnight Battle Royale. She'd practiced long enough. Tonight she was determined to be the last player standing.

The Dime Box, by Jim Woessner

24/7/2020

Father made it from steel. The size of a cigar box with a narrow slot for dimes. Our box of dreams – Disneyland, Grand Canyon, Hawaii. In our treasure hunt, my sister and I searched under sofa cushions, saved tooth fairy money, cut grass, sold lemonade, and washed cars. Each week we held the box, felt its heft, and talked about where we wanted our fortune to take us. When Father finally cut it open, we had enough for a trip to Lake of the Ozarks. Even so, the Dime Box took us to all those other places in our imaginations.

Under A Magic Spell, by Swapan K Banerjee

24/7/2020

I was on Rajdhani Express, fixated on a book called An Artist of the Floating World, not aware that dinner had already been served, that a co-passenger was trying to attract my attention.

“I’m a weird art-enthusiast”, said she, perusing the book. “I couldn’t have survived the world’s disdain without this author’s immersive narrative.”

“Critics call his narrator ‘unreliable’.”

“Strangely, he’s to me what Scout’s to Calpurnia. Uniquely reliable!”

“His eighth novel is due out soon.”

“Yes, where his muse, a mannequin, ponders on ‘human bondage’”…

Other passengers were already tucked up in bed. We’re still under the author’s spell.

Home is Where the Heart is Broken First, by James Thellusson

24/7/2020

Home is where the heart is broken first

Father scowled from behind his whiskey and wails. He ate supper with them but did little else, except alone.

His sons understood his laments against those who did him down each day an aching aeon but resented a pain they couldn’t cure and never forgave him his self-pity.

Mother, an indefatigable surgeon in a war, stitched their wounds until the anaesthetic and her goodwill ran out, as she did.

Then the boys woke up rib cages broken back and hearts raw, alone in the operating theatre with only stark surgical lights.

The Successor, by Mark Tulin

24/7/2020

After years of suffering in the North, the evil King retired from the throne, and a successor would soon be appointed.

Once the villagers heard the news, there was jubilation. “Finally,” the people cried, “something good will happen to our kingdom.”

But the wise women of the village warned, “Beware, villagers, there will be a lot of work to do. The King has destroyed our economy and polluted our air. Pestilence has ravaged our homes, and our country is divided.”

The townspeople refused to listen. They believed that the successor would bring people together. Faith was more valuable than truth.

Soulmates, by Haley Duncan

24/7/2020

Two wildflowers stood tall in an open field. Together, they waltzed through the wind, basked under the sunlight, and protected each other through storms. As they grew, their love grew. As they flourished, their love flourished. As they became stronger, their love became stronger.

All of a sudden one day, a young couple visited the field to have a picnic. They decided to set up their things in front of the two flowers.

“Look at how they complement each other,” the girl said. “I hope our love grows to be that strong and beautiful.”

“Me too,” the boy replied.

Slipping, by Justin Wall

24/7/2020

David glared at his daughter's birthday cake. He was only three days into another fad diet, but defeat seemed inevitable. With every passing moment, temptation was tightening its hold, refusing to let him go.

David glanced at the kitchen clock. It would be at least two hours before his family came home. This would give David ample time to frequent the local supermarket and cover his tracks. The perfect crime.

Using a large cake knife, David eagerly hacked off the sponge head of Kevin the Caterpillar and gorged on his sugary remains.

"Not today, quinoa," he muttered joyfully. "Not today."

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