Blog Archives

Fanatic, by Stephen Ground

27/10/2019

Thick fingers around his throat, boa squeeze with speed and strength – the girl shrieked, shielding herself with sateen bedsheets. Throat crushed, lungs burning, he flailed – knocking platinum records from their perches on the wall.

I heard you…I came…like you asked.

Vision crackling with stars, curves and craftsmanship shattered his gasping’s monopoly – the fingers released, and they rolled off his chest to the floor. He sat, rubbed his throat. Dialled by memory.

Hey. Happened again.

She whimpered.

One, he said, surveying splinters littering the rug. No, nothing we can do.

Scattered, by Marjan Sierhuis

25/10/2019

His undivided attention smothered her: a breakfast tray that appeared on her lap every morning, scribbled loved notes shoved under tear-stained pillows, kisses that were planted on turned cheeks, bruises hidden under long-sleeved sweaters, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates received on Valentine's Day, birthday presents no longer appreciated, promises made but never kept, family heirlooms shattered in a thousand different pieces, broken bones and a heart that could no longer be mended, unspeakable acts that begged for forgiveness, ashes that were scattered from a fire that burned long ago.

No Tales, by James B. Revell

25/10/2019

'Slow down, son...'

I recognised Mark as he ran into me at the street corner...He had also clocked me.

This estate was his home, and I knew that he had recently been suspended from school for drugs offences.

Across the rain-swept street, two shadowy figures watched as I steered Mark into a concealed shop entrance. Water dripped on us as I waited for him to catch his breath. I could see terror in his eyes...

Thrusting a package into my hand, he suddenly ran off into the night.

I glanced across the street.The mysterious onlookers were gone...

Trends, by Ella Craig

25/10/2019

‘Poor love.’ The woman points to a picture in a magazine.

I have no idea who she is.

‘Kassie Klare is famous!’

‘Ready for you now, Mrs Tate.’ A gawky girl appears.

‘Don’t forget the head massage this time.’ The woman stands and passes me the magazine.

I read about a reality TV star who married a footballer. They call her a Z-List celebrity and a media whore. At least they call her.

‘Are you Susan Leonard?’ A stylist stares at me. ‘I used to love your films.’

Another hairdresser looks up. ‘I thought you were dead.’

A Real Education, by Martina Kontos

25/10/2019

“Repeat after me,” you said. “I am loved. I am whole. I am one with the universe.”

“I am hated. I am broken. Everything is relative.”

Sighing, you looked up from your full lotus pose. “Ben, when will you stop messing around?”

“When you get a real job.”

“Teaching yoga is a real job.”

“Then how come you can’t get a degree in yoga-ology?”

“Because degrees are from institutes that enforce idiotic indoctrinations on our impressionable youth.”

“Well, at least they teach us not to alliterate so much.”

Laughing, you threw yourself at me.

We were the definition of juxtaposition.

The Penguin, by Bruce Levine

25/10/2019

They laughed and couldn’t stop laughing. Her description of him as a penguin was just too funny.

When their laughter finally subsided he asked why she described him that way. She answered that when he got up and started walking before he was fully standing he waddled like a penguin.

He didn’t think the description was particularly flattering nor funny, but that didn’t stop them from laughing again.

There’s a saying that laughter is the best medicine and, in the future, every time they thought of penguins they started laughing. At that rate they’d never be sick.

Happy Pills, by Henry Bladon

25/10/2019

So many choices. I normally get new pills every other month, but these are the fifth different type in as many weeks. They’re all okay at first. While they last my head feels like a sunny balloon and my grin cuts through the gloom. But when they wear off, I feel miserable again, a bit like a dirty sponge. If the drug companies could make something longer lasting that would help, it would stop me having to deal with so many prescriptions, too. In fact, if they made better pills, I might even prescribe them to my patients as well.

The Craft, by Joseph Crossley

25/10/2019

You must practice, they said, for practice will improve your craft.

I turned back to my story today and tried my best to perfect it. But there was no magic, and today’s words are worse than yesterday’s words, and with the luck I’m having tomorrow’s words will somehow be even worse than today’s.

So today I shall make a difference. I shall wait for the magic. When the words come to me, I will carry on.

I wrote no more today. Nor tomorrow. Nor the day after.

This way, all my work is equally brilliant.

A Wild Tingling, by Gip Plaster

25/10/2019

Cleo walks daily at the mall. One of her doctors told her exercise would help.

Rotund is the kind way to describe Cleo, but morbidly obese is more accurate.

As she gazed downward last Thursday, she noticed the broken tiles mending. The dark stores brightened and reopened before her eyes. That hunched old man straightened.

Then she felt a wild tingling in her body, her distress releasing and her aches easing. She wasn’t a praying woman, but it was what she’d hoped for.

“I must be losing my mind,” she mumbled. “One of my doctors told me that would happen.”

A Matter of Honour, by Mary Wallace

25/10/2019

He had never seen anything so beautiful, her pink blush, her perfume, overwhelmed his senses. They were made for each other, there could be little doubt the way she welcomed his caresses.

Suddenly they were interrupted, a hand pushed him out of the way, as if he were nothing. Now, his love was clutched to another.

Furious, he plied the only weapon at hand, knowing he would die for his moment of madness, but unable to hold himself back. What choices were left to an abandoned bee, when his favorite flower is plucked.

Dystopia, by Bex Gooding

25/10/2019

The stock market had collapsed taking the City with it. The once fat cats on the council struggled to maintain balance of the finances, launching regeneration projects in an effort to convince the people that the City was on the up, but it was nothing but a gilded lily. Beneath the surface the streets were filled with many evil predators, not all human.

The citizens need to open their eyes and face reality. New threats will emerge, old alliances will be reformed and a few will fight to protect and preserve their way of life.

For these are dark times.

17 Minutes, by V. L. Draven

25/10/2019

We had no idea what was coming, arrogant in our presumption that we were safe. All this time, we were on the edge of annilation, as a threat from the heavens loomed. Everything we built would burn.

With no warning, it began with a pulsating sky: orange, green, blue. Transformers exploded. Cell phones winked out. The lights stopped. The world went silent. It was the beginning. Flames struck from above. People screamed. Concrete buildings melted and burned. Bodies lined the streets, till boiling seas washed them clean. The Earth was scorched.

The solar micronova changed everything, in just 17 minutes.

Flame and Smoke, by Mark Tulin

25/10/2019

Joanna loved flame and smoke. Even as a girl, she enjoyed watching a matchstick being struck. It made her eyes twinkle as Joanna watched the dancing red and orange flame. She dreamt of wildfires and bonfires and fires of the heart, making sure to be careful not to get burnt.

As she grew older, fires had become an occupation. She landed a job with a local weather station. She specialized in covering big blazes up close and had a romantic interlude with a first responder. He wanted her to stop her dangerous infatuation, but she couldn’t douse her burning desire.

Making Friends, by Sophie Moran

25/10/2019

Her chest thumped in her ears. The heavy thud mingled with the music that was drifting from behind the door onto the street. Her bright red cheeks burned in the cold night air.

She fumbled in her pocket for her phone. The screen was flecked with moisture from her trembling, sweaty palms. She checked the address one more time.

Voices and laughter in the distance lurched her forward. She ran up the stairs and slipped through the door. Empty.

A solitary barman looked up without words.

“I’m here for the Meetup,” the uncertainty becoming a question.

“No Meetup here, love.”

Brittle, by Philip Owen Weller

25/10/2019

At the altar he thought of his childhood home, decaying as it was, despondent, dismayed and just waiting to fall; like he was. Looking into his bride’s eyes he remembered the brittleness of rotting wood not holding his weight but cradling his life.

And the walls had whispered: “Not yet.”

Rhapsody in The Rain, by Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri

25/10/2019

When rain falls, I embrace wetness, splash through puddles. Forget about mustache man, who tells me to use people. Dissects a son. Calls me senseless dreamer. I dance with rain, childish energy unfurled. Rain whispers lullabies, tender acceptance. Once it stops, dampness sinks weary feet. Muddy ruins of fleeting love.

Lighters and Matches, by Lisa Miller

25/10/2019

We stood on the standalone porch in the aftermath of a house fire and stared. Twenty kindergarteners from the church across the street. A fireman told us about a five-year-old boy starting the blaze while playing with a lighter in his closet. The house was reduced to a pile of rubble and ashes. You could see an outlet blackened from smoldering on the only standing wall, initially thought to be the culprit.

Still, it seems like yesterday. Working for our local fire department because of that little boy who lost his life. Like us, whose life had barely just begun.

The Choice, by Stella Gaucher-Murovic

25/10/2019

Gerry excited about the impending trip to the big city, was worried.

"Is there some way I can tell?" he asked her.

"Of course...you just have to know where to look."

"They are beautiful, but I don't want to find out too late."

"Too late?" she asked, knowing exactly what he meant.

"Are you going to make me guess?"

"Ooh, you are the impatient one," as she pointed at her throat.

Bewildered as he stared at the supposed answer, his face visibly brightened.

"Yep, that's right," she said "off you go little brother, choose well."

Waste Not, Want Not, by Kim Favors

25/10/2019

Joanne hasn’t forgotten the mandates of childhood.

She furnishes her small hillside cottage with garage sale leftovers. Decorating her dining table are discarded church bouquets.

Thrift-shop mismatches make up her silverware, empty food containers are washed and reused, cleaned jars are now drinking glasses. Food scraps feed stray wildlife.

Then there are the men: Dumped boyfriends, ex-husbands, grieving fathers. In addition to comforting conversation and tea, Joanne sometimes offers herself for a night.

Most mornings, she celebrates her achievements with affirmations in front of the mirror.

Lately, however, a question has begun disrupting her thoughts:

Want not?

Bridge, by Alex Z. Salinas

18/10/2019

Harry Munoz bled into his work. Divorced, self-blacksheeped, working underneath Old Parsons Bridge, he slashed and scratched ancient feelings into his canvases—red and black blurs of fire and corruption. Brickmold, rat flesh and the occasional tossed bottle shriveled his brains. Fischer thanked the flood of ’62 for gifting him the slimed black painting with a signature in rust. His mother slapped his child face for bringing home that grotesquery. Now Fischer executes his part. Bridges crumble, rebuild, rename. Cities stack upon boneyards. The terror leaks; his daughters can’t sleep. Higher calling—choice? The artist cuts smooth, practiced initials. Nods.

Winter Awake, by Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri

18/10/2019

Shoveling snow, he relishes stillness. Flakes falling, ground blanketed in white, he’s reluctant to clear it. Snow renews one, buries darkness, grudges, criticisms from father’s mustache.

Hills covered in white, he imagines a self defined by no one.

He dances, shovel raised, victorious memento.

He wishes the snow wouldn’t end.

The Thinking Place, by Mary Wallace

18/10/2019

She parked her car at her thinking place high above the water in the old quarry, she could see the lights of her small town in the distance. Many milestones in her life had been decided behind that steering wheel, just staring into the darkness.
She remembered that early decision to break off her engagement and to fight alone and then her decision to continue fighting even when mainstream medicine failed.

Today, the results of that experimental medication gave her the strength for one last decision as she stared into the darkness.
Drive or reverse?

Family Gathering, by Nicky Johnson

18/10/2019

Finally, everyone was together under one roof. Besides wearing an overpriced suit, Thomas was elated. The subtle man was a gracious host; even little Jenny told her mommy how pleasant he looked. He didn’t point out that they were all invited to Sunday dinner each week for years. He didn’t mention that during every telephone call, he asked to meet his great granddaughter. He didn’t remind them that he tried to organize every holiday, to no avail. He didn’t say anything at all...as each one passed by his casket.

Side Effect of Revival, by Paritosh Chandra Dugar

18/10/2019

He lay there half comatose with a team of physicians bending over him. In their attempt to resuscitate the MI patient, they were administering life saving drugs, some directly into the heart and some intravenously. As time passed by, the monitoring machines indicated a worsening outlook. Then there was a straight line on the monitor, and the doctors hastened to pick up the defibrillator. One…two…three. The line became zigzagged--the proof of life.

Then a strange change began to appear in the convalescent. He tended to be more and more narcissistic and gradually became a chronic bragger.

Devansh and I, by Joseph Crossley

18/10/2019

During music class, Devansh and I got into a fight. In our defence, we didn’t like each other. The teacher had no idea, but still, he should’ve seen how we glared at each other.

We argued. Devansh snapped. He said I was done for.

‘After school, we’ll meet outside, by where the school buses park. We’ll fight like real men do.’

We were in year nine.

I took the bus home, watching the spot outside the street where the buses parked. I was too good for fighting. Or too scared. I didn’t care.

Devansh was sitting two seats behind me.

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