The 5th Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge!
February 4, 2013 by Nathan Bransford 842 Comments
UPDATE: TIME’S UP! COMMENTS CLOSED!
It’s the grandaddy of them all. The big kahuna. The 32 oz porterhouse with a side of awesome.
It’s our FIFTH Sort-of-Annual um don’t point out that the last one was two years ago oops too late Stupendously First Paragraph Challenge!!!
Do you have the best paragraph of them all? Will you make Charles Dickens wish he ditched “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” for your paragraph when he wrote A Tale of Two Cities?
First and most importantly: ALL THE PRIZES.
The ultimate grand prize winner of the SUFPC will win:
1) The opportunity to have a partial manuscript considered by my wildly awesome agent Catherine Drayton of InkWell. Who does Catherine represent, you might ask? Why, only authors such as Markus Zusak (The Book Thief), John Flanagan (The Ranger’s Apprentice series), Becca Fitzpatrick (Hush Hush), and many more amazing writers. This is a rather excellent prize. You don’t even have to write a query letter!
2) All the finalists will win a query critique from me trust me I’ve still got my query-revising skillz. Said critique is redeemable at any time.
3) All the finalists in the USA (sorry non-USAers, international postage is bananas) will win a signed copy of my new novel, last in the Jacob Wonderbar trilogy, in stores and available online on Thursday, Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp!! Please check this bad boy out I swear you’ll love it and you won’t even get eaten by a dinosaur:
The Jacob Wonderbar trilogy:
Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow
Jacob Wonderbar for President of the Universe
Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp
4) All finalists and winners win the pride of knowing that you are in some truly fantastic company. Let’s review the now-published authors who were finalists in writing contests on this blog before they became famous and fancy published authors:
Stuart Neville! Victoria Schwab! Terry DeHart! Michelle Hodkin! Michelle Davidson Argyle! Joshua McCune! Natalie Whipple! Josin L. McQuein! Jeanne Ryan! Peter Cooper! Travis Erwin!
Are we missing anyone? I sometimes forget THERE ARE SO MANY.
There may also be honorable mentions. You may win the lottery during the time you are entering this contest. Who can say really?
So! Here’s how this works. Please read these rules very carefully:
a) This is a for-fun contest. Rules may be adjusted without notice, as I see fit, but this one will always be here: Please don’t take this contest overly seriously. This is for fun. Yes, the grand prize is awesome and I would have willingly picked a fight with Mike Tyson to have had my manuscript considered by Catherine Drayton without ever having to write a query, but please don’t let that detract from the fact that this contest is for-fun.
b) Please post the first paragraph of any work-in-progress in the comments section of THIS POST. If you are reading this post via e-mail you must click through to enter. Please do not e-mail me your submission it will not count.
c) The deadline for entry is this THURSDAY 7pm Eastern time, at which point entries will be closed. Finalists will be announced… sometime between Friday and the year 2078. When the finalists are announced this suddenly becomes a democracy and you get to vote on the stupendously ultimate winner.
d) Please please check and double-check your entry before posting. If you spot an error in your post after entering: please do not re-post your entry. I go through the entries sequentially and the repeated deja vu repeated deja vu of reading the same entry over and over again makes my head spin. I’m not worried about typos. You shouldn’t be either.
e) You may enter once, once you may enter, and enter once you may. If you post anonymously please be sure and leave your name (no cheating on this one).
f) Spreading the word about the contest is very much encouraged. The more the merrier, and the greater your pride when you crush them all.
g) I will be the sole judge of the finalists. You the people will be the sole judge of the ultimate winner.
h) There is no word count limit on the paragraphs. However, a paragraph that is overly long or feels like more than a paragraph may lose points. It should be a paragraph, not multiple paragraphs masquerading as one paragraph. Use your own discretion.
i) You must be at least 14 years old and less than 178 years old to enter. No exceptions.
j) I’m on the Twitter! And the Facebook! And the Google+! And the Instagram! It is there I will be posting contest updates. Okay maybe not Instagram but pretty pictures!
GOOD LUCK. May the best paragraph win and let us all have a grand old time.
Filed Under: Contests Tagged With: contests
The candles stink of dragon fat as I light them. “Luna hear me, for the day is dark and I cannot find my way.” The last candle in the semi circle sputters before it catches. I blow out the match before it reaches my fingertips. It leaves a streak of black on the sandstone when I toss it down. “So there’s this boy.”
Josh H says
The crash of metal against metal filled the Winter Quarter of the palace, and when Audra closed her eyes, she imagined for a moment hundreds of other soldiers fighting alongside her, in defense of the king. When she opened her eyes again, a sword tip flashed in the air in front of her and appeared to end inches before her throat.
Joanne Huspek says
“Honey, the pain is temporary. Trust me, the payoff will be fabulous.”
Easy for you to say; you’re not on the receiving end. Janna Abraham puffed a series of Lamaze breaths as her arms clenched around the lower column of her enormous four-poster bed. Behind her, a smart ass Southern leprechaun dressed in tight, black spandex pants, flaming fuchsia silk shirt, and indigo velvet vest pulled at a series of intertwined cords with all his might. Janna wriggled away and managed to turn back to her tormenter, a feat of contortion since her stomach muscles strained hard in the opposite direction. After four minutes of constant squeezing, Janna’s once luminous face had turned a ghastly shade of putty. She managed to gasp her displeasure. “What the hell kind of medieval torture is this, Rhett? Do the Feds use this at Guantanamo? If they don’t, they ought to.”
The strangest thing of all was the relief. I didn't expect it, and yet there it was all the same. I was relieved I wouldn't have to wonder anymore, I wouldn't have to hope. I wouldn't have to hear their hushed voices arguing on the other side of closed doors. It was settled, now. Father had won, Mother had lost, and I was being committed.
Istvan Szabo, Ifj. says
“Thousands of stars could tell thousands of stories,” whispered the old man with a gentle smile. “I hope others also see the story of our beautiful star.”
Decades creased the countenance of the weary old man. He propped himself at the balcony, the silky wind ruffling his grey hair. His aged eyes never tired of the stars that pierced the infinite night sky. But despite the enchanting skyscape, his soul, which desired endless peace, was restless. He had one final promise he had made ages ago still unfulfilled; to share the past with those living in the present. A long held secret, a story to tell. Sorrow embraced him, as he knew as the sun rose to greet a new day one unheard story would pass along with him to vanish for eternity. And the time was close.
Rebecca J Blain says
Kalen stared at his feet, at the thick, black mud oozing between his toes, and wondered what had happened to his boots.
Christine Tyler says
Marielle pressed her face to the bathhouse screen, eyeing the world through geometric carvings. The scent of blood, dust, and burnt sugar bloomed in the heat. Steam escaped past her fingertips, mixing with smoke from the vendors below. Fires kicked and crackled. Succulent vapors of herring and ginger, tamarind and saffron, oozed up the sky until they shattered in the cool blue of the ocean breeze.
The figure under the table shifted again. It was a deliberately slow movement, as if whoever it was didn’t want to be discovered, so Kit didn’t say anything. Instead he relaxed his aching body in the black, tepid water, savouring its remaining warmth, and grinned up at the man who had spoken to him last. “Beg pardon, sir?”
Rebecca McMath
Matt Borgard says
Some equations were beautiful for their simplicity. Some for their ability to pair completely unrelated numbers in an elegant way. Some astounded by fashioning real world phenomena as a mathematical formula. Still others were memorable simply because of the sing-song way students retained them. Professor Nin Rylock’s newest discovery was none of these. Nin’s equation was ugly.
Rebecca Harwell says
That stupid android wasn't listening to me again.
MacEvoy says
What is it the old Chinese Proverb says? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step? That’s true enough I suppose. But then I’d never had a problem with that all-important first step- dad’s drunken beatings had prompted more than a few of them across our threshold. No, it was the thousandth, or ten thousandth step that always tripped me up and turned me inexplicably back home. Looking back with the clarity of years, it should have been the easiest thing in the world for me to skip out on my father. I guess it was the passport that finally set me free.
Justine Dell says
I soared down to Earth and hit the pavement of the school parking lot without a sound. Elizabeth bounded down the stairs from the building, brushing by all the people I couldn’t see. An electric smile lit her young face. Today was her day. She’d earned her trip out of Hell. This was the only part of my job I enjoyed. I slipped into the passenger’s seat of her red coupe and waited for her. She hopped in, still beaming, as the engine roared to life. She didn’t see me—no one on Earth could actually see me. I wasn’t a spirit or ghost, though. Only a man who had a job to do. I could reach out and touch her if I wanted, but she wouldn’t feel it. Not that I wanted to touch a human anyway.
heatherkamins.com says
​When I was 14, I was diagnosed with a disease no one knew how to pronounce. My pediatrician wrote its name on his prescription pad, and all the letters looked like they ought to add up to something speakable, but when I opened my mouth to say it, only strange sounds came out. They were the sounds of distant animals in a rainy jungle, the sounds of metal grinding against rusted metal. “We’ve never known how to say it,” the doctor said. “But there’s a lot of research, and we’re closer to a pronunciation than ever.”
Elaine Smith says
Hal hid in the shadows by the stable door. He hoped no one would notice him standing back from the competition. He didn’t know why the challenge had been called but everyone knew that the knight, de Moreville, had named the prize.
Carrie Jo says
Where is she? I shift as inconspicuously as I can, although I know it doesn't matter. I could probably lift the skirt of this dress to flash everyone in the pews and only the other bridesmaids and groomsmen would notice. Every single head in the church is turned, waiting for my sister to come through the back doors and walk down the aisle. As usual, she's making everyone wait.
John Barnes says
I was cutting across the DU campus, on time for work and trying to hurry enough to make it early. It was well over seventy in the first week of November; Denver has lots of days out of season. Against the dead-computer-blue sky, the sparse and clumpy leaves on the trees still flamed orange and red. Dribbling traces of the Halloween snow held on in the concrete drainage gutters and the shadows. The weather was nice but most of my attention was about twenty feet in front of me. You know that state of mind a guy gets into when sex and love and all that is the furthest thing from your mind? You haven’t had any in ages, you think you’re never going to want any ever again, but then you notice someone’s hair is nice or she’s got a real pretty face or something? Like you see some woman just going about her business but while she's doing it, she's being so beautiful, or cool, you think, Wow. Not like you’re all interested and whatnot, necessarily, but you notice.
susanbishopcrispell says
The rules of summer were simple: only one ice cream sandwich per day, no swimming without appropriate supervision, and be home before dark. On the day Luca Grable died, she broke all three. The first two were acts of seven-year old rebellion. The third was an unintentional side effect of drowning in her best friend’s pool.
Lauren Monahan says
When people around here, Southern California, talk about 9/11 they usually don’t talk about the victims, the heroes, or the villains. They talk about themselves. They talk about where they were when the towers fell. They talk about what they were doing, their connections to a friend with a missed appointment or whatnot. And when someone uses “they” to describe a behavior, often it’s her own. Or so I’ve heard. When Karly was attacked on the tenth anniversary of the infamous American tragedy, I was being dumped. By someone I loved. A lot. And now whenever I think of any of the events, I hurt for all of them.
LCS249 says
Wherever you go, there you are. Alan Watts, the Zen teacher, said that. Deceptively simple sounding. But it’s not. It means you’re still you no matter where you go. Being somewhere different doesn’t make you different. You are who you are. Wherever you happen to be. I hadn’t figured that out yet. Hadn’t internalized the lesson. I was still counting on being a different person just by going someplace different.
Cora’s arms ached in protest as she dug the shovel into the dirt one last time. The physical exertion had helped her forget, even if just for a little while, the recent deaths in town. She wiped the dirt off her forehead and climbed out of the child sized grave. Peeling off her gloves, she opened and closed her fingers working the stiffness out. A smile crept on her lips. She’d done it. She’d actually dug a grave all on her own.
Hong says
The pink cloud morphed into the shape of a dragonfly in the sky. Linh gasped. It was as though someone had created the creature to leap out from a pop-up book. She stepped away from the window in her study room, opened the front door, and ran barefoot out of her house in her nightgown on a breezy day, ignoring the cold sidewalk stinging her feet.
Vicky says
I should have known why all the other bikers were taking the right-hand trail. I knew it had rained the night before. But when the trail split into two parallel paths, giving me the chance to pass Letty on the final part of our XC run, swerving onto the left trail was a no-brainer. At least for someone with no brains.
Mirka Breen says
It was going to be the greatest competition in the world, and I was going to win it.
So what if I hate sandwiches? What’s love got to do with it? The prize of all the sandwiches I could eat for life and the title of World Champion were worth going for. Oh, and Mom and Dad thought the promise of a full college scholarship was something too.
Mike C. says
You’ve seen the statue David – Michelangelo’s marble rendering of the ideal male form. My body is a counterpoint to it. No self-respecting Renaissance master would’ve ever wasted his time sculpting me.
The Mazda hit ice. Carter cursed, fought for control, lost it in kaleidoscope swirls, and the vehicle hurtled down a steep bank, jamming Tori against seat and headrest. Terror strangled her heart, breath refused to come and let out her screams. Stillness as the car stopped, engine running, headlights shining on pristine snow. Relief caught laughter in Tori’s throat, until she realized where they’d ended up. The Coldwater River. Confirming her fears, ice cracked loud as a pistol shot. Carter undid his seatbelt. Tori depressed the button on hers. It refused to give despite her frantic efforts. Carter opened his door, got out the car, then bent to peer back in. “Goodbye, Tori,” he said.
Oops, that last annoymous was me – Sue Curnow
Tom Braun says
Not many are left who still remember the World Before. All are old and most are doddering relics, stunted and grayed by the wonders they have lived through. But I have been careful. I have kept my mind as sharp as the sword that my old master gave to me. I have tended its blade like a flower, oiling it every evening and wrapping it in silk. After fifty years it can still split a green reed down the middle. After fifty years I can still remember the day the moon was broken, and the Old World ended.
I am a ninja. My name is MacKenzie.
Ria Frost says
“I think we may have damned the world,” Adriel said, at last.
Zachery almost laughed, but the frown that had lingered on his sister's forehead since they’d met meant she was serious, troubled even. All the same, he couldn't help but give a little jab at her dire proclamation. “Is that all that’s been bothering you?”
untitlement says
Mid-tackle, feet in the air, Jim realized this was the stupidest thing he’d ever done. But it was too late. Cartoon characters could stop time, could backpedal and change direction as they fell. Lowlife vermin Jimmy Scott was no cartoon character.
Untitlement = Caroline Bridges
scarletprimrosepress@gmail.com says
I place my hand on the nose of the brown work horse as Father and Johan remove her dead body from its carriage. He shakes his head and snorts, the steam of his breath floating into the cold March fog. I am not supposed to be motherless. That happens to other children. Yet here I am, watching Father place Mother on a pyre. My legs shake as I approach her for the last time. I haven’t slept in days.
Shawn says
Garvin Reynolds knew two personal saviors, Jesus Christ and Thomas Edison. His faith in Jesus was not optional. The devotion to Edison solidified after Garvin read a profile in the Telegraph Star where Edison said he did not believe in luck. Luck was just so much science that had yet to be counted, measured, and weighed. Garvin's father, Doyle Reynolds, didn’t believe in either Thomas Edison or Jesus. Doyle Reynolds said Garvin was a bad luck boy. Doyle had said it a million times. Garvin’s mother had told his father to quiet his sharp words almost as many. Almost.
Darrell B. Nelson says
Nomi had no problem getting naked in front of the crowd. It was the snakes that bothered her.
Tom Bentley says
I was thinking about my Studebaker when the quake hit. Though it’s not exactly a showstopper, it’s a ’63 Lark, and pretty sweet. The Studey was on my mind because a moment before the building went bonkers I’d been looking at Della’s legs. She was wearing one of those napkin-sized skirts she sometimes wears and her legs are all the way up to there anyway. I always tried not to stare—I think I’ve perfected this method of looking off in a fake distracted way and then flicking my eyes back. I can get away with zeroing in on her stems without getting caught, I think. It was almost quitting time, and I wasn’t paying much actual attention to anything.
DailyDoseofAlli says
Sometimes, when Corrine couldn't sleep, she would close her eyes, breathe in, and lift her arms and legs above the comfort of the crumpled, warm flannel sheets. She’d shift to balance her limbs, and breathe a little deeper. Then, her head and back would forgive gravity and she’d gently leave Moose, her unsuspecting St. Bernard, contently snoring at the foot of her bed. After a few minutes, when she had lifted hundreds of feet into the air, Corrine would finally exhale and let herself come careening down, the cool whip of wind on her back and her hair spreading like a wind-blown halo above her head. She’d be overwhelmed by the freedom and the lightness until it all would culminate in a collision into not the gnarled coils of her old mattress, but into the deep blue water that waited for her below.
Ann Noser says
Dead people don’t scare me…at least not as much as live ones do. Nothing’s as intimidating as a band of mean junior high girls determined to make your life hell. Even though I’d ‘gotten away’ and was now a sophomore at UW-Eau Claire, their insults remained on repeat play in my head. And despite my good intentions to be brave, awesome, and cool in college—so far it hadn’t happened. Stupid things that everyone else on the planet could do with ease—like making small talk at keg parties—paralyzed me with fear. I tried to avoid such situations. Like this cookout my roommate wanted me to go to tonight. Like boys I might meet, fun I might have, none of it seemed worth the risk. Being comfortable meant staying home with a book. Where I was safe. Where nothing bad could ever happen. Nothing good, either.
– Ann M. Anderson Noser
Samantha Heath says
Everyone said she was only running from her feelings, trying to avoid grieving. The truth was, she'd grieved every day for seven months as the cancer in her mother's chest spread throughout her body, into her lungs and down to her bones. Death was on that doorstep long enough for Stella to deny it, to cuss it, to bargain for a trail treatment, and to sob for days on end. By the time her mother drew her last breath, she'd already accepted it.
Atthys Gage says
“Okay, here’s the thing.” Byrne gave the basketball a hard spin between his finger-tips and caught it again. “Originally, there were two different races – one with brow-ridges, the other without. The ones with ridges were rare at first, but then later they became dominant, probably because the females liked that ridgy look.”
Anna Roberts Moore says
“He only touched my breasts. That’s all. It’s not a big deal.” I said. The child protective services officers had taken us out of third period. We were escorted to the teacher’s lounge. Lynn and I staring at each other, wide-eyed, wondering how much trouble this was going to land us in. We knew why CPS was there. The week before during our girls youth group meeting we’d been asked to open up to God, to share our problems with our Heavenly Father, and either Lynn or I – we can’t remember who said it first – had shared that our stepdad molested us. I realize now they probably only used that “open up to God” line to sniff out the troublemakers who were sneaking out, having sex and smoking pot or those who would give up names. Little did they expect to hit jackpot that night. Everyone left the room wiping tears away, hugging each other, assuring us everything would be kept secret.
Artemis Grey says
Viola croaks on me in the backwater banjo-picking town of Sunder. No amount of pleading or sobbing can bring her back. I stand there and watch as two supersized hillbillies roll her body onto a removal truck. Part of me knew she'd never make it, but I had to give her a chance. I couldn't just leave her trapped in that junkyard. And she got pretty far for a '58 Chevy.
Amy Saia says
He owned one of those automatic coffeepots, the kind where you set everything up the night before—the filter, three scoops of Folgers, poured the water in—only he always forgot to do all that shit, and the coffeepot beeped every morning like a dry bomb ready to explode. That’s why he never bought, or used, an alarm clock. He’d gotten so used to the coffeepot going off at five a.m. that he didn’t need one. But dammit if he didn’t need a cup of coffee.
The Screaming Guppy says
Six smiling faces stared back at Trevin Lash in an otherwise undecorated apartment. It wasn’t until after the children were killed, years ago, that he hung their pictures. He touched his cheek just below his left eye, running fingertips over six black dots. The marks of a murderer.
I was six years old the first time I died.
shinyontheoutside@gmail.com
Gianetta says
Eleanor Ann cursed silently to herself as the old lady swerved into her lane as she approached the intersection. She had a lot on her mind this morning and dodging traffic wasn't one of them. Officially, she was approaching an age that was really no different from the year before. But in her mind, 45 was the tipping point. It was the beginning of the end so to speak; the time that everything began to flow downhill. It was harder to do everything–from getting out of bed in the morning to bending over and tying her shoes. Walks around the block were becoming less fun and her breasts; well they hadn't been anywhere near perky in about ten years. Yes, life for Eleanor Ann wasn't turning out quite the way she expected and honestly, she didn't really know what to do about it. "Watch it, lady!" she exclaimed as the old lady swerved in her lane again. "I'm miserable, sure, but I'm not ready to check out yet. Maybe you need to have a driving test or something."
M. R. Pritchard says
One thing I have come to learn, is where there is soil, there are roots. And it won’t be long before they come for me. I can feel them already, stretching through the dirt, reaching for me like a corpse from the ground, calling to me. I kick myself towards the door, my back against it. I scream. I yell. I bang on the old wood with my fists. I call for someone, anyone, to help me, to let me out of this soil walled room. But no one comes. They’ve left me, all of them. Even Dylan, the one person I had left. I watched him swim away, he didn’t even look back. There’s nothing but silence from the dungeon on the other side of the door.
Michelle Roberts says
The orphanage was locked up tight—like a prison. One Kollin had to escape. He tiptoed around the perimeter of the boys’ sleeping chamber. His empty pallet lay forlorn in the midst of the sleeping boys, but Kollin was on a mission. The doors stood directly ahead of him, but they were probably locked. They were always locked. The gates to leave the compound were always guarded; just as the oldest boys were guarded coming and going from their jobs. Gods forbid that any of the orphanmaster’s labor force run away in the night.
Stephanie Garber says
The lightships always came to port on Sunday. Sometimes if I looked hard enough from my boardinghouse window, I swore I could see this planet’s murky brown sky change color. Fragments of blue and white, like pieces of broken stars, signaled the great ships’ arrivals.
jeffwenker says
I sat in my well-worn Lazy-Boy watching Monday Night Football, cursing the Minnesota Vikings, cursing Dan Dierdorf, just plain cursing, when The Roommate walked in, raised a magnum of Anchor Steam and said, “Off your ass, Jack, we’re celebrating!”
T Aydelott says
Drowning Macbeth was an accident. We hadn’t been planning anything so off-script as that, even though our plays usually wound around themselves and did funny things at the end. There were only four of us, so we combined roles and collapsed scenes to make the plays our own. It was never neat when we got to the end of a play. Miss March, who taught literature and wore a bitten pencil in her hair, would have hated it. But we never invited anyone to our performances, not even our brothers, though they sometimes helped out with rigging up the sets and finding some of the more obscure props. They could have asked to watch, I suppose, or maybe they had and we’d forgotten because it was so long ago. Mostly they left us to ourselves and made it seem like they never had time for our antics. And, anyway, what fun is a ruined play to a bunch of boys who train dogs and hurtle up and down trees and are planning to be dragon-wranglers or wood-mages?
Mark Hough says
They called her the pig-woman. No one said it to her face of course—that would be suicide—but they all thought it just the same. She had a great meaty head, a face like a grapefruit gone bad, and a vast, swollen body that left the meat traders desperately trying to get the words “price per pound” out of their heads.
I shouldn’t shape at school. That knowledge is always there, like someone used a staple gun to fix the warning into my grey matter. Sometimes I do it anyway…and then I feel guilty.
Arianna Mercer
Liane says
That summer, there was garbage everywhere. Huge piles of black plastic mouldered under the sun in the parks, while the stench of decomposing fish heads and rotting diapers slithered into our scented, suburban homes. In apartments high above the city, women fanned themselves with old copies of Elle and Harper’s Bazaar while men turned up the air-conditioning and installed domestic trash compactors. Dogs nosed out decaying chicken carcasses, rats chewed on sour milk cartons. The wind, fetid and hot, flung newspapers and discarded magazines across suburban parking lots, as if it meant to repaper the world page by page.
aryllian says
I've always loved my father. What's not to love? He's famous (moderately), he's talented (conceivably), he's gorgeous (arguably), and he stays far far away from me, never substantial enough to matter in day to day life. Which is fine. It's like knowing the daydream about being a secret princess is true, without any of the worries of a future figurehead queen.
K.E. Skedgell says
The goats hoofed at the rails of their pen trying to escape, baah-ing and bleet-ing with desperation. Gheorghe pushed one upon its face back to the ground and set down the pail of water, then leaned over the pen. “Damn it Dan! You forgot to fill their trough.” No wonder the goats made so much ruckus, they'd gone the whole morning without any water, or grain. He lifted the pail over the pen rails and emptied the water intended for his horse into the trough, the goats trampling over themselves to reach the cool drink. They sucked and slopped the water as fast as they could, nudging the other out of the way to get every drop. A hot day like this was not a day to forget to water any of the animals. His brother was going to owe him big.
anya* says
I was born the day the lights went out. I’ve lived sixteen years in the dark. Light. Without it I can’t find anything. The underground bunker is freezing and I feel my latex covered fingers tightening up as the warmth abandons them. I move empty crates around attempting to find the bag of rice Mom swears she stored down here. Some light would really help.
ddelano says
My life began on the sea. Not with my birth, for that had happened in the large state room of our London house with the curtains drawn against Mother’s screams and Father pacing back and forth, his neck damp with sweat. Yet their toil and agitation was not for me, but for the brother who arrived in this world and then departed it even before my appearance. Their grief was so heavy that my emergence from the womb was of no more consequence than the expulsion of the afterbirth.
Randy says
Sabrina stands on the Revere Beach shoreline basking in the crisp ocean air. Cool gentle breezes stroke her hair as she watches the morning sun dance off the rippling waves. Not even the nervous babble of the police officer, shouting into his radio for backup, could destroy her moment of peace. She's home, and, to her, nothing else matters.
“One of you will die.”
Did she just say die? My gum is lodged in my throat, I can hardly breathe. Coughing a little, it goes down, a lump rises; surely, she’s kidding. Death? It’s a joke right? Staring at the closed eyed woman exhaling and inhaling heavily, she’s either going to pass out or her eyes will open and be blood red like something out of a horror flick.
Mister Fweem says
Know this, Jarrod. I will not sing. I will not wear a twee waistcoat, nor allow any damn bird to fly about my head or perch on my back as I work. I will not work. I will not say things like ‘Oh my paws and whiskers.’ I will not scamper. If provoked – and being approached with a hat or bonnet or shoes to wear is provocation enough – I will bite. And draw blood. And I will not – I absolutely refuse – to listen if she sings.
Sam Beringer says
(Sorry if I double-posted; my computer's acting wonky)
It’s hard not to stare at someone with leaves sprouting from her head and skin like birch bark, but I manage not to. For one, the gas station cashier isn’t the first weird-looking person I’ve seen in the past six months and she won’t be the last. For another, if I stare at her too long, she might start wondering if I can see her real face. And if she thinks I can… well, I only have an idea of what would happen based on past experience. But that’s enough for me.
Stacy McKitrick says
Charlene Gentry didn't know what to expect when she died. She wasn't necessarily an evil person, so would heaven welcome her? She wasn't an angel, either, so would hell be her destination? Not that she had a choice, but she assumed those were her only two options.
Certainly not 5542 Sycamore Lane.
Kristie says
When I look in my mirror, I see a girl of flesh and bone. She may not be a beauty queen, but her features are not plain or disfigured. Why is it no one else can see me? I walk by the same students I’ve gone to school with my whole life and not one of them bats an eye. Even the school bus driver misses me every morning – he doesn’t see me either, which means I have to huff it on foot to make it to homeroom on time.
Tessa lived in the most beautiful city in the world and she knew every inch of it: the nooks and crannies of Enki’s Grand Cathedral, each seat in the old amphitheater, the exact location (down to planks of wood) of all three hundred and seventy bridges, and every rose bush, shrub, and lemon tree. Nobody in the city knew it as well as she did. Tessa held a perfect map of Beldessario in her head and she had never seen it.
Lauren Kinney says
A tan and orange beast of an RV was roaring and shuddering down the highway. It was moving at its normal pace, which was a speed that made highway lines tear by, while the sky hovered above like a bad memory. Cynthie had made so many memories lately that she couldn't tell you when they all began if you'd asked her. "My life feels like a dream," she told her dad one day from her spot in the back of the RV. "You know how you said that if you try to think about the past while you're dreaming, you'd realize you were in a dream?"
JC says
Sometimes, there are places that feel like home. As familiar and comforting as a cup of hot chocolate. And not just any cup of hot chocolate, but one topped with whipped cream, dark chocolate shavings and a cinnamon stick. A place where you know beyond a shadow of any doubt that you belong. Well, this isn’t one of those places.
Noel Dwyer says
Heather awoke in the middle of the night, convinced she had lost something. At first she grumbled and told her subconscious that of course she'd lost something, as Alex had stormed off a week ago, and could it please leave off the hysteria and let her get some sleep? She rolled over onto his empty side of the bed and punched his pillow before burying her head under it. But the conviction stayed. Not Alex. Something else was lost. And the trouble with being a practicing witch was that when some deep intuition sat up and told you 'something is wrong,' you couldn't be sure it was just nerves, even when that meant flopping out of bed and into a ratty bathrobe and blundering into the kitchen to make tea at four in the morning.
tonyl says
Amy Rose Ardan pushed the hair out of her face for the fourth time, but this time, she put the pen down and slid the script covered paper into its envelope. She wrote ‘For Beckie’ neatly across the front, licked the flap with a grimace and pressed to seal it. Reaching down, she grabbed the duffel and placed it in her lap while she rooted through it. Okay, she thought, got the special passport, and the GPS. The boat’s papers are… here, good. She rustled through the papers making sure they were complete. The duffel went back to the floor and Amy stretched out on her bed, ready to lie there for the next six hours. Waiting. As she’d been trained, she went over the plan one more time. The weather was predicted good, with, atypically, north-westerly winds fresh enough to move Guppy at seven or eight knots. Sunrise would be at half past six. When the sun broke over the horizon, she wanted to have been underway for at least thirty minutes headed on course 097 for Providenciales Island.
Carissa Taylor says
She’d seen one once before – years ago, with Cameron, in the grove by the seaside. Its little round body flitted between palm fronds like a tiny jeweled fairy. They were supposed to turn it in. But they hadn’t. They’d watched it all afternoon, until finally it leapt into the sky and flew away, back over the Outer Wall. Their secret.
This one seemed even more out of place, amidst the asphalt and the early evening glow of the rail lines in the podcar lot. For a second, she thought she was just imagining it. But then Ethan saw it too.
“What is it?” he asked, gaze transfixed on the emerald blot making its way across the dull bronze shine of the hood.
“A beetle.”
The woman in the chair was a disaster. She sat in it, the lime velvet upholstery wrought with cigarette smoke. Spilled red wine stained the worn fabric with purple blotches like fat, throbbing veins burst from exhaustion and overuse. An explosion lay beneath her innocent questions. I smelled it. Disaster seethed across the blocks and between us like the stench of burning waste. It was in the stairwells, walls, the etched cracks and divots of concrete. I smelled it on her, this familiar stranger, with the keen sense of a tired but hunting dog.
Two hours before Dallas Langdon saw the first zombie, she sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair backstage at the House of Blues in New Orleans. A table covered with microphones and wires stood in front of her, and a fancy camera was pointed toward it. A tray of cupcakes coated with bright pink frosting sat at the edge of the table.
Saybe Scott says
My favorite part of these contests is browsing through the entries… but I don't envy you the task of having to read so many, nor having to pick finalists! Good luck, and thanks so much for hosting this!
The gravel of the rooftop pressed uncomfortably into my belly as I lay at the building’s edge. Waiting. Over the last month I’d established that Monday mornings the target would come here, to this back-alley doorway, out of sight from the public eye. He was careful, never arriving at the same hour, always taking a different route. But not careful enough. I knew he would come. And today I had brought my rifle. Today was the day he would die.
ferris robinson says
I have thirty seconds. My thighs are on fire, but I crouch low to the mat and circle him, moving in and out quickly. I shoot in and grab his leg, then explode up through his body. Again. And again. Sweat streams into my eyes, but I couldn't see him clearly even if he was really there. I watch him, my imaginary opponent, as Three Doors Down blasts Kryptonite around my head. If I go crazy now will you still call me Superman? I check the clock behind the basketball goal, and go again.
Crittias says
"I give her less than a minute 'til she smurfs."
Theo Nicole Lorenz says
“It’ll be okay,” Jaime said, and if he wasn’t dead, I might’ve listened to him. Not that it mattered whether I was listening. He’d stuck to my peripheral vision for the past week, acting like my own personal commentary track. Last night he’d nitpicked my graffiti and hummed Top 40 hits during the security officers’ interrogation, and now, in the headmaster’s aggressively beige office, he’d launched into optimist mode, which was even worse.
I skipped home on Halloween night, the happiest five year-old in the world. My bucket felt heavy with sweet treasure as I dashed to our front porch. My foot slid from beneath me, spilling me forward. The plastic bucket flew into the air. Candy rained down as my chin split on impact. I had slipped in egg yolk. A group of rambunctious, and rather thoughtless, teenagers had egged our house. Worst still, they had smashed all four of our carved pumpkins. The happy faces of our jack-o-lanterns were left a desecrated mess of broken squash. My parents ran to me, their sobbing daughter. They worried at the sight of blood, but I wasn't crying for my chin. My tears were not for the scattered candy or ruined pumpkins. That night, I cried because the spell had been broken. In that mix of egg and blood and shattered smiles, I saw a new truth. My world of wonder could also be a very cruel and ugly place.
Agrodut says
I soared down to Earth and hit the pavement of the school parking lot without a sound. Elizabeth bounded down the stairs from the building, brushing by all the people I couldn’t see. An electric smile lit her young face. Today was her day. She’d earned her trip out of Hell. This was the only part of my job I enjoyed.
agilebrit says
This wasn't the first time the Law of Unintended Consequences bit Alex Jarrett on the ass, but it was definitely the weirdest. That included the time he accidentally turned a private investigator into a werewolf with nanotech. He walked into the basement lab of his exclusive Beverly Hills mansion with a hangover and before he'd had his coffee yet , which was the exact wrong time to be confronted by a two-headed rabbit–with two different heads. The original was white with pink eyes, and the new one was gray with tan rings around its eyes.
Kimberly Unger says
She spat.
Everyone spat. The gutters of Five Points ran thick with spit and offal and the unmentionable sick of everyday life. Annie picked up the habit from Ma whose tobacco habit only added to the seeping stink that trickled down the streets and corners.
kelli_call says
I first saw him in the cemetery. I remembered it vividly. How could I not? It was the night he had come for my parents. The fresh November air came off the sea coast smelling of salt and mystery. I later discovered that was his smell. It was the week of the ‘Festival of the Dead’ and no one was supposed to be in the cemetery after midnight, but I was there. The third night, that’s when the captain was to come and lay claim on his souls, and I saw him.
Diana Sousa says
The cold welcomed me with open arms as soon as I opened the doors. I buried my face deeper in my scarf. I did not want to be ungrateful, but I had just woken up and traces of my warm bed still lingered on me. Only then, with a deep breath to gather my courage, did I throw myself into the awakening streets.
Miller Crawford says
Mum died yesterday. My brother killed her in the end. I tried once, almost sixteen years ago, but Mum was stronger back then. She survived. A miracle, they called it. She’d cheated fate.
Why did she try again?
Kayla Olson says
She appeared in late afternoon, like some two-bit floozy who hadn’t slept til dawn, at the tree line where our mowed grass ended and the wild woods began. Gene and I couldn’t help but stare. With the leaves stuck in her hair, and the way she squinted at the sun just begging it to melt the slits of her eyes, and her nekkid-as-a-broken-jaybird body, we were left to conclude that the only possible explanation was that she’d been born in a hole and abandoned there. But we knew the ranch woods better than our own leathered skin; never once in our seventeen years had we seen a girl our own age out there. We’d never seen anyone out there at all.
dariakus says
Ryoji hadn’t been in this much trouble since that terrible day three weeks ago when the chickens escaped. Master Yamato hadn’t yelled at him yet, but there wasn’t much need for yelling. The old man’s stare, devoid of the slightest hint of emotion, said it all without uttering a word. Ryoji fell prostrate, arms outstretched, nose smashed against the bamboo mats on the floor. The bamboo’s earthy smell filled his nose, eliciting thoughts of his own room over the western gate: a place he’d give anything to be right now instead of here in the main hall of the Fox temple, cowering before its master. Masao sat beside him on his knees, arms folded over his chest, lips twisted down in an exaggerated frown. Just like he exaggerated everything else. Of course, given the trouble Ryoji was in for interrupting his friend’s trial, it wasn’t much of an exaggeration this time.
Rocket says
It wasn't her tears so much that bothered him. It was the fact that they spilled from her eyes like slow moving rivers of sludge, dark and oily and contaminated.
Jess Moore says
My name is Ant. At least that’s what Mama told me when I was three. When I turned nine, Mama told me my name was Christopher. I remember how hard it was to remember my new alias – not to mention how difficult it was to write it in school. I’ll never forget that day in fourth grade when I accidentally wrote ANT in large capital letters on the top of my worksheet. When Mrs. Bowman – my teacher – waved it in the air to ask the class who this mysterious “Ant” was, I froze. Heart pounding loudly in my ears, I remember watching as she passed out the rest of the papers until she realized that it was I who had written the unfamiliar name on the page. When she questioned me about it, I lied and told her it was a nickname.
Erin Steele says
Tomorrow is the day. It’s a day of firsts and a day of lasts, and it is the day that I will become my own again. Tomorrow, I will be Released.
Greg says
John Henry Foster pushed his executive chair away from the desk and carefully scooped up the earrings and panties from where they had been sitting alongside his computer. These, along with a pair of high-heeled shoes that had been positioned under the desk, were obligatory for those times when he updated Ana Claire Johnson’s Facebook page. He crossed the bedroom of his Portsmouth flat and placed the jewelry and underwear carefully in their respective places. The shoes he put neatly back in the wardrobe. Switching the computer off, he picked up his well-thumbed copy of The Holy Bible and settled down to read a few passages. This was how he preferred to relax, lying on his bed digesting the Word of the Lord. The book spoke personally to him. He endeavoured to live his life according to the scriptures – after all, was the Bible not written with him in mind? The peace and quiet of his bedroom was the perfect atmosphere to reflect upon God’s words.
Kyra Jacobs says
I met Evie Michaels the first time she died. As her guardian angel, it was my responsibility to escort her to the pearly gates. But I never expected the gatekeeper to send her back, or Evie to pull the free will card at the ripe old age of six. Her actions that day created a breach between our two realms. A breach that’s been discovered and now must be closed—to save her soul as well as mine.
The Sasquatch says
Jim Stantz spent the final moments of the second-to-last day of his life on a stool at The Friendly Stop Bar & Grille. He was drunk, and he spoke loud to no one in particular.
collectonian says
Blood dripped from the ceiling and slowly ran down the walls from randomly shaped smears that marred the otherwise gleaming white paint. The furniture in the living room lay in various states of disarray. The sofa was overturned, the bronze and glass coffee table shattered. The splintered wood scattered around the fireplace looked as if they once formed a rocking chair.
Summer Ross says
Ebony's legs shook as she slowly put her weight down on the back of the chair, stretching to dust the top shelf of the tall bookcase. Always better to have the hardest one to reach done first. No matter how many times she’d done it, Ebony always hated this part. Heights, the bane of her existence. Well one of them anyways. Her legs shook as the wood groaned then creaked, and her heart dropped as the back of the chair leaned in toward the seven foot shelf. She wobbled and lost her balance. She grabbed both sides of the wooden monstrosity and the knick knacks rattled. That’s when she heard it. The loud thump of his plastic vase hitting the tiled floor.
Lisa Aldin says
They found your body in an empty bath tub. Your face was turned toward the wall and your black curly hair hid your face. You were fully clothed, wearing your favorite leather jacket and ripped jeans. Your feet, snuggled in loose-laced combat boots, were hanging over the edge of the tub, almost like you were waiting for someone to pull you out, to save you from whatever it is you needed saving from. What did you need saving from, Maxwell?
Jessica Silva says
I was going to prove Romonus wrong today. Even though I hadn’t been able to jump the old man’s deuced firewalls or cipher out his security protocols, that did not mean I didn’t have other methods of stealing Dad’s lecture. More direct ones.
Rebekah Postupak says
Trudy was, without question, the most annoying person I knew; so it was just like her and her flair for melodrama to turn up dead last Saturday and completely ruin my weekend. And I’d had plans—shut up! yes, ACTUAL plans, with ACTUAL people—who are you, my mother??—but where other dead people might have had a little consideration, Trudy very rudely up and died right smack in the middle of my first real date in more than a year, without even bothering to return my sweatshirt first.
thewritingspider says
The basket in Lorna's arms was heavy with woolen blankets, and heated stones to ward off the late March chill. The old woman behind her, Lorna stole through the shadows and crept up the steps, gripping the basket to her chest. The houses were all dark this time of night but in a few hours, the lights would wink on, the day would begin to stretch and awaken. The couple who lived here would find the baby on the steps. The voice behind her insisted, “She is the Celestis Navite. She will be the savior of this world. If you keep her with you, he will find you. He will kill her then he will kill you. He knows.“
JDuncan says
The universe has its own voice. It doesn’t speak in any known language or have anything remotely cogent to say, but it is there if one listens. Perhaps it is the summation of all things: the energies given off by the stars and planets, the souls of all living things come and gone over millenia, the actions of untold billions of organisms dissipated into the vast expanse of space. It is a conglomeration of everything, settled into the sediment of existence, buried too deep for the minds of humanity to recognize, and beyond the reach of their awareness. Felice Halladay was, however, aware.
Lara Prescott says
The thing about secrets is they’re not always secret. Dad had his. Mom had hers. And I had mine. My secret was that I knew Mom and Dad’s secrets. I guess that’s not much of a secret anymore. Maybe it never was. Maybe they always knew I knew. Maybe they didn’t care. Or that they cared too much. I played along for as long as I could. Like when I was seven and found out Santa Claus wasn’t real by stumbling upon Dad nailing together the dollhouse I had asked for in a letter to the North Pole. He didn’t know I knew. I played along for as long as I could.
Autexousious says
I assumed the interview had ended. Alice Alderwood had stopped answering questions several minutes ago, and now rested her head against the train window, eyes closed. I started to put away my notebook when she spoke again, "Uncle Max was crazy. But, he basically raised my father. Me too. He taught me so many things. I hadn't realized just how many of them were impossible until I'd been gone for years. But, he taught me that in order to think properly, the body must move. That is the most sane thing I know." She smiled and opened her eyes, "But Uncle Max was crazy."
Andy says
Far, far out in space nothing waited in a box much too large to contain it.
A haze of thick orange smoke hangs like a threat over the southeastern corner of the market. I groan and step behind a fruit vendor’s stand, where I can peek at the magicians through the slats of an empty crate. They’re supposed to be at the docks today, harassing the Islanders and making eyes at their pretty women. Yet there they are, blocking my only route to the saddler’s shop like they knew I was coming.
Zach says
A burnt apple smell pervaded New York City. All anyone talked about that morning was the juicy, crisp and slightly smoky smell. The sun rose, the humidity blasted, and the subways trundled along their way, but as far as anyone was concerned, the apple smell was the only thing really happening. Doctor’s appointments took too long and were delayed. People on subways were unusually friendly. Talking about the smell was like talking about a particularly humid day: absolutely necessary even though everyone else was already doing it.
Jeannie says
Jenna went to her first brothel two years after an emotional breakdown. She removed her sunglasses and squinted in the brightness of a late June evening. The grey building, with silhouettes of two buxom women on the sign, was only a few streets from the main dual carriageway going out of Sheffield city centre. Jenna knew the route well. She shoved her phone and loose change deeper into her pocket. She had left her diamond wedding ring at home.
Jessie Oliveros says
I was standing ankle-deep in rotten pumpkin flesh when I found out my daddy had moved into the bunker without us. When my mama said there was a “bug in their marriage” the Earth stopped spinning for half a minute. Even the south-flying Canada geese stopped honking over our heads and The Doors got all fuzzy on Matthias’ transistor radio. I believe it was those pumpkin seeds sliding between my toes that kept me from flying out to the edge of space—because when the world started up again and the ground slipped out from under me, somehow I was still standing.
Adelle Yeung says
My brother is going to pay with his car keys. At least then I can buy myself something to eat other than mayonnaise. Stealing them shouldn’t be any more difficult than opening a treasure chest in Zelda. I equip myself with a life-sized metal Keyblade, ready for battle if Aaron charges at me with his battery-operated lightsaber.
Writer Tessa says
Up until that fateful Friday the Thirteenth, Jacob Beanblossom’s claim to fame had been the ability to fart on cue. But that was about to change.
Tiana Smith says
When a princess misbehaves, most kings and queens send them to their chambers. Not mine. No, my parents send me to the dungeons. And I don’t get to just sit there and “think about what I’ve done.” I have to clean. It probably says something about my temperament that we have the cleanest dungeons in all of Farfel. Even now, as I sat on my royal *ahem* and polished the bars outside the second-largest cell for VIPs only (Very Important Prisoners), I was hard pressed to find one speck of dust. Of course, that might be because I’ve been on dungeon duty every day this week. Let me just say—cleaning out chamber pots? Not. Fun.
Lauren Thoman says
Something was blocking the door. Breathing shallowly into the crook of his elbow, the soldier’s boot crashed into the dry wood. Dark smoke seeped from its seams like water from a cracked pot. He kicked again, and again, yelling his frustration. The door barely budged. He didn’t have time for this. At this rate, tunneling through the stone wall would be faster. Something shuffled behind the door, and his heart did a nervous somersault. Someone was still alive in there. If only he knew who it was.
Kelly Johnson says
Everything ends. Peace. Distress. Good days. Bad dreams. Life. It all ends eventually. Generally this is something I find very comforting. But generally, I’m not doing everything in my power to postpone an ending.
Jennifer Carson says
Sophie’s knees crushed against her forehead, her breath hot on her face. The small wardrobe she hid in felt like an oven. A rush of prickly heat spread down her arms as her mother cried out. Sophie clenched her hands tight over her ears. Their apartment door had broken into a thousand tiny slivers, scattering across the floor and colliding with the pale pink walls. The ornate silver knob dangled from the ruined cherry panels.
Jennifer Meils says
Death is a cold-hearted bastard. I would know. Being 16 shouldn’t make me an expert at much, but I could tell you more about death than most things. Why would someone know that dying leaves skin dry like shoe leather? Or that the act of dying itself will leave a man’s eyes dark and cavernous like a shameful secret? These are details I wish I could scrub out of my mind, banish them to the darkness where they belong, but I can’t because wherever I go, whatever I do, death lurks and waits to be discovered.
Olivia Haberman says
Three weeks after Nora’s body washed onto the shore of the river, Ivey climbed Catbird Hill to sing her spirit a lullaby. It was easier than apologizing.
birdinabowler says
Jessamine swung one arm above her head, trying to make the long, awkward sleeve of her oversized trench coat slide down to her elbow, while holding a crystal ball in the other. The man in front of her, bright goggles atop his head and a top hat clenched in his fists, peered eagerly at it as she fluttered her slender fingers in the air. She could tell he was desperate and that made everything easier.
My cell has four white walls, a little window too high for me to see through, and a doorway. The doorway looks empty, inviting, but I can’t walk through it. When I try, it feels like invisible hands are grabbing hold of me, gripping my arms and legs, my face and all down my front, and then I’m thrown backwards and end up with an extra bruise from the hard white floor. It’s not just an ordinary force field though. My guards can walk through it either way, no trouble at all. And I can throw things through it, like a shoe. I only have one shoe now.
Christina Cameron
Stephen Boyd says
It has to be tonight, the soon to be father was thinking as he races down the highway it’s colder than usual for this time of year and the falling snow is reflecting the light of the headlights looking like diamonds floating in the air sometimes so thick it seems like he is driving straight into the sun. He has a very important meeting in the morning and if he can make a good impression on these people they could become investors in their fledgling programming company. The only reason they live in this god forsaken place is the remoteness aids in the security of their company and isn’t too far away from civilization that they’ll have a difficult time promoting the new software. At least this time of year the daylight is almost twenty four hours now so it could be far worse he was thinking, the baby might have decided to get here early when it was really cold or worse yet still dark.
Charlee Vale says
Today is my 6,570th day of life. When you say you’re eighteen, people think you’re young. But when you throw around a number like that—almost 7,000 days—they start to realize no one is as young as they think they are.
Robin Dodd Photography says
Echo Raney worried constantly about her pants falling down, and most of the time she wore skirts… what kind of sense did that make? Her decision to go to Camp Catskills Drama Camp this summer instead of Camp Pakawanka, the camp her mother had gone to and her grandmother had gone to and her great grandmother had gone too.. you get the picture…was a victory like no other. She just couldn’t HANDLE the thought of riding lessons, with a helmet, who was she Athina Onassis? Or having to play tennis… or wear those collared white shirts with the navy shorts.. EWWWW. She had fought hard for Camp Catskills and she would stay strong… the very nature of her over dramatic nonsensical way of turning things to her side.. would see her through.. She’d gotten that spectacular talent from her Aunt Crazy, her daddy’s sister. She remembered fondly how Aunt Crazy made black bean soup for New Years Day brunch three years ago and everyone freaked out because it wasn’t the traditional black-eyed peas.
“Her only job was to bring the black eyed peas,” Her mother whispered to her grandmother who then in turn whispered it to her great-grandmother… “And she can’t even get that right!”
“Now we’re ALL going to be cursed with bad luck!” her cousin Joy Ellen exclaimed, mashed potatoes trying to escape both sides of her cheeks.
“PLEASE!!” Aunt Crazy yelled at the top of her lungs..” Get a life!!” Everyone shrank back in horror… and Echo personally vowed that day, to be just like Aunt Crazy when she grew up.
Remus Shepherd says
In a stream of stars that humans labeled the Orion Spur, in the galaxy they called the Milky Way, in a large city named Chicago on their home planet of Earth, in an alleyway off of N. State Street behind a bar called the Zebra Lounge, Eli found a giant lizard unconscious in his gutter. His gutter. Where he slept.
Emily Steele says
In the movies, people wake up slowly. At first it’s just a finger twitch, or an eyelid flutter. They don’t usually wake up screaming. Cassie woke up screaming.
Leigh Michael says
“A disgrace. That’s what they are,” I overhear. One head nods, then another. “We go hungry. We work our fingers to the bone. Them—” the man points, “they reside in the largest house in town.” I refocus on the building these strangers speak of. Like the past fifty-four days, I stare across the street at the Ipatiev House and yearn. Perhaps it’s closer to fixation—I fixate on the wooden fence revealing only the tops of its windows. I don’t yearn the same way as these men though. No, their insults fist my hands into balls. I suffer, waves of longing and rage, because my family is inside and I am not.
Jonathan Wade says
It was an irreverently normal day when Emryn saw his wife laid to rest. There was no hushed silence in the small church plot, which nestled into the side of the Swansea valley. No dark rain clouds gathered overhead to reflect the mood, and there was no chorus of skylarks singing a mournful requiem above the final resting place of his last love; nature, as only he could know, was as imperturbable as time to the sanctity and demise of life. He looked one final time upon the soft brown coffin as the priest spoke his comforting but hollow words, and the mound of dirt was prepared which would mark the passage from person to epitaph.
burningtreelindsay says
I wake up inches away from death. One foot to the right and I would be falling from a twentieth-floor balcony. Just one foot to the right and that freefall would take me somewhere, maybe somewhere beautiful, somewhere without pain or memory or warmth. Just cold, dark nothingness. There’s a strange kind of beauty in melancholy.
deciv says
When the idea of leaving—of just getting the hell out of there—finally came to him, it felt like the best idea he’d ever had. Savoring the tiny speck of excitement he felt, Will Brown tiptoed to the garage and started pulling camping gear down from the wire shelving that ran along the back wall. When his arms were full, he turned and regarded the two parking spots. Leigh’s Odyssey would have been the better choice, given its superior storage space and all-wheel drive. It probably had better ground clearance too, which would have been good for where he was going. But it wasn’t there. It was in a junkyard somewhere.
Paddington is central London, central means busy, busy means going unnoticed, unnoticed means blending in, blending in means I’ll be anonymous. For fourteen days straight I’d told myself that, and yet fourteen days after my arrival my feet had yet to go within ten inches of the front door.
Susan Warren Utley says
In the early morning hours of the third day of the third month of the year, at the precise moment the second hand on the round analog clock which hung in the waiting room of Saint Joseph’s Hospital ticked over to 3:33 and 33 seconds, a baby was born. The waiting room in which the clock hung was empty, save one pudgy, unshaven man sitting in the corner of the room examining a racing program from Buda County Weiner Dog Races & Slots. Shoved in his pocket was a betting slip with Copper to win and Tyson to show. Certainly he could not have been waiting for a baby to be born. No, there was only the birth mother who lay hyperventilating on her back in Birthing Room 201 on a steel gurney equipped with squeaky wheels and sweat soaked linens, her feet up in stirrups.
Susan Warren Utley
Lori A. Goldstein (@_lagold) says
A chisel, a hammer, a wrench. A sander, a drill, a power saw. A laser, a heat gun, a flaming torch. Nothing cuts through the bangle. Nothing I conjure even makes a scratch. I had to try, just to be sure. But the silver bangle encircling my wrist can’t be removed. It was smart of my mother to secure it in the middle of the night while I was asleep, unable to protest.
Melissa Petreshock says
Dawn over Boston Harbor peeked amidst the capital city's buildings and shone brilliantly through the floor to ceiling windows of the thirty-first floor penthouse as he resolved to pull off the silk tie, opting to open the top three buttons instead. Feeling a tiny bit rebellious in the action, King Corrin smirked at the sun, absentmindedly touching the precious silver and gold lodestone ring on his right hand, an ancient habit of self-preservation.
TheJuliaNelson says
Oh shit. Anyone but him.
Lauren froze at the top of the stairs, too stunned to move. Although the gallery loft held several dozen people drinking and chatting, they melted into background noise as she gazed across the space to Taggart Olson—Tagg to everyone who knew him.
And boy did she know him.
thegetoutgirl says
Aurora scrunched in her favorite corner of the couch, glaring at her family, and at HER. The family and SHE carried on oblivious, playing their silly card game as if it was the most fun thing in the world. Which it wasn't. It was gin rummy. Aurora didn't exactly know what she would consider the most fun thing, since things had not really been very fun at all since her mother died. But still. Whatever “most fun” was, it was not these people being silly and childish over a card game. Her father, sisters, and HER. Ms. Martinez. Aurora's former guidance counselor from Fox Chase Middle School. And now, apparently, her father's new GIRLFRIEND. Her pale face got red with fury just thinking about it.
Naomi B says
The mobile slowly turned, humming a soft lullaby to the baby sleeping below. Its light cast a soft glow of dancing fish about the ceiling and walls. The house was quiet; exception given to a rather loud cricket who managed to escape death at the hands of the leopard geckos, and now roamed the house chirping contently. A small shadow, avoiding the silver rays of the new spring moon, slithered up the spiral staircase. The mysterious darkness stole over the top, gliding soundlessly down the hall pausing briefly before slipping under the nursery door. The shadowy figure concealed itself in the darkest corner beneath the crib and waited.
Laurie T. says
Pucker Up. It's two-eighteen on the morning of my college graduation and the number one item on my to-do list is coating my toenails with this clever polish, a light coral shade that's so glossy I can practically see my own reflection.
Cassidy was as sallow and pale as old chalk under the hospital’s florescent lights. Her blond hair was greasy and tangled. Her whole body seemed to shake and she had a rank, metallic smell like old blood. Mercy did not trust herself to be civil. Cassidy was nearly dead. It wasn’t the time to air her grievances.
Crafty Green Poet says
We used to have a language, a culture. We used to have islands, a chain of coral atolls that stretched across the still turquoise seas. We used to have a home. That was all before I was born. One of my earliest memories is of sitting in a harsh dry cabin, blinking dust out of my eyes as Grandma told me the stories her grandmother had told her about how when she was a very young girl she used to swim above the corals, that even then were dying but were still beautiful in places and home to vibrant coloured fish. As she told me these stories, Grandma herself was already slowly dying. Her lungs were scarred by years of breathing harsh desert air, her health weakened by bouts of the cholera and dysentery that swept through the desert camp every few years.
Jessica Knauss says
The stars shone over Zamora. A boy lay awake, his mother’s arms his only defense against the night. It had been a summer, a winter, and most of a springtime since the city gates had opened. Zamora was under siege.
Raven Marlow says
“Part of me wants to run away screaming. But where can I go? What can I do? The only family I have are the man I was created to marry and the teacher/maid he hired for me, Reena. Sure I‘ve met a few people in the nearby town, but I don’t really know them. Besides, they are probably loyal to my betrothed, the Titan, Epimetheus. No, there is nowhere I can go. This is going to happen no matter what I do. Tomorrow, at the ripe old age of 6 weeks old, I will be married.”
Breanna says
Rather unluckily I happened to be invisible that day. Invisibility will give anyone a headache, and it always gives me a sore throat as well. Any sort of anthropomorphic conjuration will—I think it’s swallowing the runes—but invisibility is the worst. Of course, being unseen has advantages that sometimes make up for giving oneself the equivalent of a nasty head cold.
Dan Hope says
Tuck hated that all but the most deaf of humans could hear him coming. With every step, his left knee let out a shrill squeak of metal scraping on metal, and his right ankle cracked loud enough to echo down the dirty back alleys. His corroded metal foot clomped down on the metal walkway running alongside one of the many muddy side streets of New San Francisco, the rotting industrial center on the planet Magnus. The other foot, in no better condition, swung unsteadily by to plop down ahead of the first. With every step, what was left of the synthaskin that once sheathed the feet crumbled and flaked off. The pattern of footfalls continued, an inconsistent thump on the rickety walkway creating a syncopated beat with the squeaking and creaking joints connected to the feet. Lurching along above the feet, on top of a body equally broken and tattered, Tuck's head remained fixed straight ahead, eyes scanning the surroundings in frequencies throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. His original designation was TUC-67/c, but no one had called him that in over 150 years.
Kristy Marie Feltenberger Gillespie says
My heart is frost bitten. The ache in my chest is so pronounced it hurts to breathe. I feel as if I’ve just sprinted 400 meters, in temperatures below freezing, with my mouth wide open like a fish.
My dearest Rosalind,
Alas, I’m being banished to the hinterlands. Perhaps that is a trifle melodramatic, but Mama is most vexed about the trick I played on Mr. Drayton and has decided to ship me off to Aunt Mary’s immediately. I really don’t think that so much fuss is called for, after all, there was only one toad and it’s not like his hat was permanently ruined. However, Mama refuses to see it that way. She had an attack of her nerves, and after much fainting and fluttering declared that she couldn’t take it anymore. And despite her faith in Aunt Mary (a shameless tomboy like me should be easy for a woman who raised two sons), Mama has decided to send Alex along to keep an eye on me.
Kristin Standley
Rachel Stevenson says
By the time I was 31 my liver was shot. My love affair with vodka probably helped this. I should have been concerned when I started introducing people to "my good friend vodka." I had sold my soul to the highest bidder three times, because honestly, who's going to collect on that? And I officially have the worst dating life on record. I looked down at my meal: a white Russian and raw cookie dough. On second thought, maybe this is not the best breakfast.
Nathan Sauerhage says
I sat in the parking lot with a can of lukewarm beer and a snickers bar and waited for Art Howard to emerge from the monolithic black building that towered before me. Inside the car it was hot, and I could already feel the perspiration sliding down my sides from my armpits, each bead leaving one long wet trickle. My window was cracked just a tad because I didn’t want any one of Huerto’s nearly one-hundred employees to notice their Vice President of Operations drinking in his rusty old Grand AM at two-thirty in the afternoon. The air conditioner’s compressor had burned out some time last summer, and I had never gotten around to getting it fixed. Rodrico, my boss, often asked why I didn’t buy a new car. “Memories,” I told him. “This car helps me reminisce about times long past. High school girlfriends. Hills overlooking valleys. Fumbling hands and misplaced contraceptives. You understand?” He would just shrug and laugh and go back to whatever nonsense he was busying himself with. The truth was I didn’t have any particularly special memories about times had in my old Grand AM. I just found it hard to throw things away.
David Daniel says
The sun was just beginning to rise when the Dragon crested the hillside. It was an accepted fact that any maiden, offered to the Dragon, if she survived from sundown until tea time the next day, would be freed and a new, more pleasing sacrifice chosen. You can imagine Millicent’s disappointment then when the great scaly beast came looming over the top of Hagar’s Hill. The huge body was held aloft by great wings which looked to her as if they were two sheets of unspoiled night, preserved unharmed from the killing grasp of dawn’s first light for the specific purpose of bearing the monster to her. It was a poetic thought, and Millicent was proud of it. When she survived the Dragon’s visit, she resolved to become a roaming poet instead of a house wife; though she was certain the town would feel as great a sense of loss for her wanderings as they would for her death.
Elisabeth Lanser-Rose says
When I was a college girl, the Pennsylvania Turnpike was my carotid; it ferried my life between heart and head. Every Friday, two other lovesick girls and I left our studies at West Chester University and made the one-hundred-and-seventy-mile journey to Penn State. We took the Turnpike over the round green hills of southern Pennsylvania to Harrisburg, then swung northwest on Route 322, cranking the gears lower and lower as the highway tilted steeper and steeper. Trees got taller, mountains rockier, and farms and houses scarce. The main artery narrowed until we reached the vertiginous cliffs known as Seven Mountains. The cliffs were the work of men. Men had drilled down into the rock, dropped dynamite into the holes, and blown off the sides of the mountains. You could still see the gouges, like claw marks made by a giant grizzly bear as it fell. We girls would hold our breath and hurtle between the towering stone faces and the freefall. Ours was pretend fear. Amusement park fear. Movie fear. Years later, one of my students died on Seven Mountains. He fell asleep at the wheel, hit a stone face, and pitched his car spinning airborne, like a football.
Michelle Sussman says
It wasn't my idea to keep this journal. The school psychologist, therapist, mind screwer, whatever you want to call him, suggested I do it. He said it might help me deal with the post-traumatic stress of the last year. I'm not stressed. I think everyone else in this tiny town was traumatized. After all, ninjas do not show up in corn fields every day.
Kay Kauffman says
The woods called to him; they always had. Ever since he could remember, Michael had had an overwhelming desire to find out what lurked beneath the branches, what lay hidden in the underbrush. He dreamed of pirates and buried treasure despite the fact that the nearest ocean was twelve hundred miles away. But with age came wisdom and a deeper longing to understand this connection to the forest his father so despised.
Fiona McGier says
He was disturbed to realize that he was naked and hanging on a cross. When he turned his head, he saw that both arms were outstretched and tied with ropes to the two arms of the cross, and his shoulders were going numb from his body weight being held up by them. His legs were tied together. He had no idea how he had gotten here, or why he was being so abused.
Pat B Rivera says
“Gran, come on, we’re here!” Gladys did not understand why her youngest granddaughter had been so insistent about coming to this old house. She couldn’t quite manage the door handle on the SUV that her son insisted was the safest mode of transportation to the beach house, so her granddaughter, her youngest and if truth be told, her punahele, her favorite, yanked it open and held out her arms to help her Gran climb down from the back seat. Smoke billowed out behind her and her granddaughter wrinkled her nose. She knew she was going to be scolded-again-for her own good.
Elizabeth Pax says
This story is true. True in the sense that it really happened and not true in the way my English teacher is always talking about how things are true if they really mean something to people. I don’t understand what she means when she says that and I don’t think I agree but when she says it she always gets that sentimental look on her face so I know it’s important to her and it’s probably going to be on the test. I always pay more attention when she gets that look on her face. Anyway, this story is true, but I changed the names and the places. Partly because Momma always says you shouldn’t air your dirty laundry, that’s what white trash people do, and partly because I know if my family found out I’d told our story that I wouldn’t ever get anything for Christmas ever again. I know if I write it all down none of them will know I did it because they don’t really do a lot of book reading. I made the publisher solemnly swear not to ever sell the rights to be made into any sort of movie, especially not a TV movie, because then I know they’d see the movie and recognize themselves and I’d be in a heap of trouble.
dkfwriting says
It was a hot day, and I spent it as I spend most hot days—-standing on top of my poop.
— from There's Seamen on the Poop-Deck! (A Gay Pirate Romance Novel)
Daniela Torre says
When Mr. Chaplin came home one particularly soggy night, the last thing he expected to see was a large gaping hole where his house should be. Most neighbors were asleep and those who insisted on exploring their refrigerators in the dead of night didn’t seem to notice the house-shaped hole or Mr. Chaplin standing before it.
Daniela Torre (Thanks for the opportunity!)
Sydney Turfler says
Who am I? Wouldn’t you like to know? I would, too. All I can tell you is that I’m not normal. Normal sixteen-year-old girls don’t have a body count. They don’t wait and prey on the innocent. And they certainly can’t kill you by just wishing it. I am not Mara Irons, although, that’s what everyone calls me. What they don’t know is what’s hiding inside of me- who what I really am.
4815162342 says
“What are you doing?” I heard Gloria’s irritated voice ask from the direction of our front door as I shook out the last few bills from my wallet’s billfold into the garbage. I turned around, quickly shoving the wallet into my pocket, to face my angry, sweaty girlfriend, back from her workout bearing grocery bags filled with antioxidant rich dinner fare. The bags hit the floor with a thud as she advanced on me with arms folded across her shiny stretchy workout wear and reddened cheeks huffing and puffing with angry disbelief. “Were you just throwing MONEY into the GARBAGE?” she asked in a way that made it very clear to both of us that her exasperation with me was both longstanding and near breaking point. “Greg, can you answer me, please? What are you doing over there?”
Gary Caruso says
When I execute my job with precision, someone always dies.
I survey the entrance to South High School from the edge of a cement sidewalk. No security guards or roaming administrators. The heat of the late morning Arizona sun is a welcome relief from the blistering cold winds of northern Colorado I weathered yesterday. The neatly-trimmed bushes, spring flowers of red and pink under each window, green grass in spite of the dry Phoenix weather, do little to cover the fear and desperation I know oozes behind the walls of this school. Next to me, the school’s red and black sign casts a shadow across the ground. Home of the Falcons. PTA meeting tonight at 7. Senior Cleanup Project: Let’s Keep South HS Beautiful. Teachers, parents, and students can be so naïve. They've convinced themselves they’re safe from the dangers of the world. That’s what makes them vulnerable.
Lynette says
It’s 1995. I point out the year because it’s among the things that stick in the mind when a catastrophe occurs. My mother is in a rehab facility to recover from a stroke, and her illness triggers an avalanche of uncertainties I suspect will escalate. For one thing, she is secretive; she’s harbored information and concealed documents my sister, my brother, and I now need. I won’t make a point of our family’s peculiar dynamics; aren’t all families’ dynamics peculiar, even to their members? But I will mention that my siblings and I don’t know how we’ll get the money to care for our mother should her condition outlast her Medicare benefits.
Travis Erwin says
I'm certainly not famous, but the paragraph of mine that won (I believe in the 3rd annual SUFPC)was published by a small, but honest-to-God, royalty paying publisher back in November of 2011. The Feedstore Chronicles has not made me famous but it has sold reasonable well and gotten great reviews and I'm proud to say it is a book I probably never would have finished had I not won your contest.
Nathan, I sent you an email way back when letting you know the book was being published and my offer to send you a copy as a thank you still stands if you are interested. I don't spend much time blogging these days but I'm glad to see the contest back. and that you are still helping we writers every step of the way.
Go Nathan Go and good luck to those who enter this go around.
Carolyn Woulfe says
I’ve been to 179 funerals in three years, and this is what I know: No matter how happy, sad, pretty, plain, corrupt, saintly, or anything else you were in life, at your funeral, you will be a star.
DEMETRA BRODSKY says
They say my mom started the fire that took everything. Then she split. Subject closed, according to Dad. But dwelling on that now won’t help me nail my approach. I have a plan: get in, get answers, and get out. Fast. Before Dad has a chance to turn the tables on me. I’m way overdue for what he likes to call our “talks.” Air quotes needed. But today, I intend to pull a switcheroo that puts him on the receiving end of the shrink’s couch. Adapt or perish. That’s what Mr. Malone, my Sociology teacher, said about survival of the fittest. And it makes sense, in theory.
Michelle Levy says
A thick, yellowing fingernail strikes the edge of my desk; two succinct taps forcing me to look up from my poetic masterpiece. Mrs. Hickenlooper's eyes bulge as if her three hefty chins are attempting to choke the life out of her. Her labored breathing only supports the effect of strangulation. "Am I boring you Mister Blackwell?"
vorindi says
The necromancer’s bodyguard was a necro himself, wards tattooed on his wrist, the specs for a summoning drawn up his burly arm. But he hadn’t drugged himself yet, which meant that if something went wrong and this came to a fight, Orlando’d have maybe ten, fifteen seconds to take him down while there was still a person occupying that body, rather than a spook that paid only half attention to the laws of nature. Orlando gauged distances again; he could do it if he had to.
Teresa Robeson says
“I knew you’d be here!” Mui-Mui’s voice echoed through the building that housed the mechanical rickshaws.
john lovell says
“No TV,” the stone-faced boy blocking the oak double doors said. “No cameras.” To Moran he looked seventeen or eighteen, nearly a man. The boy glared down the granite steps of the church at the television news crews on the old brick sidewalk. Three cameramen, three on-air reporters.
Amy S says
I began to wonder, not for the first time, how I ended up in such ridiculous situations. How did I end up here? I mean, I knew how I ended up in England, I even knew how I ended up in Scotland. What I really wondered was – how did I end up in this dark, cold, drippy and probably off limits hallway in a dress that hung all the way to the floor and yet I was still getting chilled. I’d asked for directions to the bathroom – forgetting to just say ‘toilet’ and was given directions one way. After not finding the toilet I asked a man – also dressed in character – for the toilet and I followed his directions. I finally found myself here, in a dark, cold hall. No toilet in sight. It was much colder in this hall than it had been on the floor where our tour was and I was starting to shiver. I couldn’t even remember the name of this castle at the moment. I could only think of two things: first – how much I needed the toilet and secondly – where the heck was I?
Misa says
Ithaca Cain had not been born a killer. Then again, he’d not been born with the name Ithaca, either. He’d chosen that after waking, naked and aching, in a stainless steel recovery ward with Jericho Biotronics’ genetic modifications running rampant in his body. A rename after rebirth had seemed appropriate at the time. The modifications had heightened his senses, sharpened his mind. For eight years, he used them and his natural skills with a rifle to keep Genetek’s metal-hungry creations out of The Dome. Having the ability to keep those inside safe had been worth the sacrifice of some of his humanity.
Tricia says
The memory of finding my husband is only mine and for that I will be forever grateful. I woke our eight-year old before the police and ambulance arrived and with her damp hand gripped in mine, pushed through the branches of the overgrown privet hedge.
“Is Daddy okay?” she asked, as we hurried across the street to our neighbor’s house on that warm May morning.
“I don’t know, honey, I don’t know.”
I knew.
Virginia Moffatt says
I never believed that Adam and I would last. After all our fragile connection was only due to a combination of circumstance, a veneer of attraction and my need for someone to cling to after Mum's death. She had been my compass for so long, that her absence left me stumbling in the fog, until Adam crossed my path. For a while, he seemed to provide a solution, a way out, a Very light to guide me home. But deep down, no matter how much fun we were having, I knew we were unlikely to survive our summer of love
trudgingthroughfog says
I was twelve when I chose my name: Shade. Shade, with all that it implies: the sheltering darkness of the forest in the heat of the summer; the shadow cast by a lone tree or a tall tower in the moonlight; the restless spirit of one whose time came too soon.
AC James says
The story that I speak of is not one of fairy-tales. There is no happily ever after. Beauty does not sweep in to save the Beast from his gruesome nature. We are told that the damned cease to exist and those free from sin are given eternal life. The damned can never be saved and walk the earth in an eternal hell that I can never escape.
M. S. Steed says
I was seventeen. Seventeen-year-olds do stupid things. I'm not justifying it – I should have known better. I knew that even before Queen Diana turned her eyes on me, with a look of disappointment I had hoped would never be directed at me.
I'd be lying if I said I'd never fantasized about Jake Durbin sneaking into my bedroom, but I’d never imagined him with a black eye and blood-stained shirt. And his first words wouldn't have been, "I didn't kill him, Lisa. I swear he was alive when I left."
Today is my sixteenth birthday. It’s also the day of my husband’s funeral.
Two young men, clothed in mourning colors, lower the bundle that contains Xenres’ body into the small grave. I feel like a part of me is being lowered into that dark hole with him, but it’s a part of me I’m glad to lose.
Konfidence Kortney says
Busting My Balls
3.02pm.
Denver.
How the fuck did I end up here? Doing this?
Waiting for my appointment to call.
Fucker better show. Fucker. Fuckingmuthafucker.
How do you trample on someone’s balls?
I’d better not suck at it…
I’d better look confident.
This milk’s gone off.
This yoghurt smells do-able.
The cheese is fattening. Some “mini bar” this is….
The only thing I can eat, pistachios, are gone. Not to mention they were $8 a fuking tin. Why aren’t the m&m’s and snickers the expensive things?!
Taking any kind of inventory is a fact finding and a fact-facing process.
It is an effort to discover the truth.
Amanda Olivieri says
My nights are like this: darkened sidewalk, long lines of anxious customers, bronze and onyx and candlelight, music, music, music, and death.
Always death.
Before Death & Co.’s doors even open, a line forms on the sidewalk, sometimes halfway down the street. The customers wait in the dark, illuminated only by the streetlamps and moonlight, talking and shuffling, eagerly awaiting their entrance. They want to see if the rumors are true. “Are there really floating candles?” they ask me while they wait. “Why do you close so often?” or “I hear this place is haunted.”
A cold shower on a Sunday morning started it all. Pretty ironic the way things turned out.
At 8:07 AM I jerked open the utility closet door with one hand while the other grappled against gravity to keep my towel aloft.
My own in-house horror flick unspooled before me. Starring the hot water heater. The metal cylinder twitched twice, vomited about five buckets of rusty water. Then uttered the Sears Kenmore equivalent of a death rattle.
Time to call the heater's next of kin, my landlord Dr. Farooz. Who answered my telephone SOS with a six-word text. @conference. cairo. deduct rent. am sorry. I looked down at my toes pruning up in the rising water. Then straight at the crackling fuse box.
Water and electricity – never a good combo. Staring at execution by electrocution, did I wrestle with
A: existential angst
B: fear of Hell
C: grief at not saying goodbye to people I loved?
None of the above.
Numero Uno thought: The dirty dishes in the sink would horrify Richard when the police called him to haul away my corpse. Second thought: Why – oh why – hadn't I put on a clean bathrobe before dying? Maybe the crisp pink seersucker with the white lace edging I had bought two years ago during one of our marital romance reboot campaigns.
Regina Richards says
At Willowbrook nudity had never been a cause for shame. Not that it was common. It was not. But in an all-female community occasional nudity – a cool dip in the creek on a hot summer day or lingering on the warm stone benches of the steam hut on a cold winter afternoon – had seemed both natural and comfortable. That was not how it felt now.
richardsfive @ centurytel.net
Ashley Maker says
The empty space beneath Everly’s fingertips sent a plume of panic spiraling throughout her senses like thick smoke released into the sky. She scraped her hand along the bottom of the trunk one last time before slamming the lid down in frustration, almost smashing the fingers of her other hand. Her riding boots should have been there. They were always there; she made sure of it. There could only be one answer: she had been sabotaged.
Kim and family says
Why? Why do I do this? Robin wondered as she strained to see movement through the trees and stumbled over a fallen branch. Her nightdress clung to her legs from the damp night air. Robin clenched her jaw, and her cheeks flamed with fury, while she searched for her older brother. How did Raven talk her into playing night games while everyone else slept? The same way Raven always promised Robin he wouldn’t break the rules and fly. Yet he always hid in the canopy of leaves above her head. She should stop being so gullible since she was thirteen-years-old and knew better.
Susan Ciampa says
“I DON’T WANT IT IN MY BODY!” That was the battle cry that came over the wall from the little girl in the chemo cubicle next to mine on my first day of treatment. It sounded like the straw that broke the camel’s back. In this case I gleaned that it was the mandate that she take some oral Tylenol, probably pre-medication for a blood transfusion. This was not a petulant child, I could tell. She had simply seen enough and was setting a limit. And in so doing, she had declared to the entire Pediatric Day Hospital and the world at large how we all felt about the disease and the treatment.
Creative A says
Once, a long time ago, in a memory or perhaps a dream, there was a boy. It seems very real, now, to watch him walk up and down the darkening streets. He calls softly into the mouths of alleys and up at scrappy rooftops. Taxis whoosh past, so that shadows cascade down his throat. This is a night for invisible girls to dance in steam from the subway, not a night for ordinary, unhappy boys to trudge down the sidewalk calling out names. But then I wonder if it’s my name he’s calling. Me he’s looking for. Maybe he's not so ordinary as he looks.
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt says
What I really hated about being depressed is that I still got horny. I hear it’s the opposite with some guys, but I’m not a guy, I’m a sometimes horny woman. Okay, I’m a very horny woman. But man or woman, when you’re seriously depressed, you usually don’t want to be around people and after awhile, if you’re like me, you get tired of looking at video perverts making stupid noises that most normal people would never make because it’s way too embarrassing. It’s kind of hard to get off when you don’t want to see real people and you don’t want real people to see you so you watch these real people acting fake. You know damn well in real life they aren’t like this. Half of them are probably depressed, too, but they drug out so they can perform. Or something like that. I don’t really know because I’m not a porn star, but I do know all about being drugged out. You do stuff just to get by, and most of that stuff isn’t what you’d do if you weren’t using.
“I don’t want to anymore!” She said out loud. Attending her five-year college reunion may have been amusing had she only been showing some sorority sisters how successful she'd become. Showing up when she'd had no real circle of friends? It was cause for more abuse to the battered self-confidence Alexandra Powell had already acquired in life.
Jeri says
Yuri rubbed a small circle in the frost covering his fourth floor window and looked down on a city buried in snow. Behind him, Misha huddled in blankets on a thin mattress. Ice coated the walls of their small dark room. Snow drifted in around the board nailed over a broken window. And the last mouse in Leningrad was on the stove.
Ferguson Salem parked his bones on a slipshod front porch that was almost ready to meet the stone foundation of what had once been a magnificent house. He stuck a scrap of kindling under the chair to correct the lean of the porch, then grabbed a slice of warm meat and shoved it into a mouth full of missing teeth. After a couple of chews, he spat it out as if it were second-hand pemmican poisoned by Indians who knew better than to trust a white man with gold teeth. For Ferguson, it was a matter of getting back to things he knew, things he didn’t want to forget, things he shouldn’t forget. And now, with heaven beckoning him with more urgency than ever before, all the man wanted was to sit on his porch and listen.
Taffy says
I glance out my dirty bedroom window. The sky promises another beautiful day. If my days were normal, I might hang out at the pool, pretending not to watch the lifeguards. If my life were normal, I might sit under the shade of the trees and daydream. If I were normal, I might gossip with friends late into the night. We would sit on someone’s bed, eating popcorn and talking about everything and nothing. But I left normal behind ages ago–in quiet cemeteries.
Axel says
I started this as a school essay, but I realized no one at my school would believe any of it, especially my English teacher, Mr. Dorfmeyer, and that’s good because I wouldn’t want them too, anyway. I’d much rather be the weird kid with the Hollywood family than the freak from the freak show. Hollywood — it sounds so cool, and like my Dad says — “glamour is a function of distance.” He told me the when we were walking down Hollywood Boulevard at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning, two summers ago. There was some bum puking on the Walk of the Stars, right between Ronald Reagan and Lassie. I got the point. Anyway, the kids at Dalton don’t know anything about that kind of stuff. To them it’s all movie stars shopping on Rodeo Drive and American Idol at the Kodak Theater. Going there gives me a little bump up the food chain. No big deal, just — from kelp to plankton, something like that. I come back from Christmas vacation with a tan. That gets you some points in a New York winter.
For a long time, Violet thought the problem was she hadn't received the proper blessings at birth–or any blessings, for that matter. All her life she'd heard stories about her older sister Lily's christening, and no one would ever forget the fiery near-disaster at the ceremony for the youngest princess, Rose. Violet tried not to mind that she’d been passed over, but sometimes she found herself daydreaming about what fate might have had in store if, instead of Rose, she were the fairest of them all, or was destined to be the greatest ruler Lavonia ever had, which Lily insisted was her fate, even if her fairy blessings hadn't specifically said so. "It adds up to the same thing," Lily repeated, often and with certainty. Violet envied Lily's conviction. She had no idea what her destiny was, today or ever after. Whenever she asked her parents, she got a variation on the "just be yourself" speech, followed by a warm hug and inquiries about whether she'd finished her lessons.
~Elizabeth Passarelli
Robin Delany says
Emilia Marley stepped from her new home the evening of her first assignment. The deepening shadows and sweet fragrance of the nearby roses covered her descent into a world of debauchery. Her gut twisted and her chest seemed heavy. That she'd expected, but the breathless anticipation almost shocked her. Traveling into the unknown of this mysterious night brought adventure to her life. Adventure she hadn't realized she wanted until this very moment. After all, what sort of excitement could a chambermaid ever expect?
Riley Redgate says
When you take them one at a time, twenty-five pills feel like nothing at all.
Rosie Pova says
Holly Hart tried to contain her giggles as she peeped around the hallway corner, camera in hand, waiting for Kyle to come out. She knelt down when she heard the whirring noise coming from behind the door. That was her cue to get in position for the shot and be ready to run.
Shoshana says
I need your help, reads the email subject line. It's from soldierOfFortune@funmail.com, one of those free services anyone can sign up for with a fake name and a made-up address, but adrenaline floods my veins, flushing out the film of exhaustion that has stuck there for the last three months. Dad, I think, even though I know it's impossible.
Jenny O'Hagan says
Dead. A jolt ran through Mannok as he looked at the unmoving bulk of his father, Rokkan Kapok, lying stretched out on the floor in front of him. His eyes widened in horror. He could not, he would not believe he was dead. He clamped down on a sob and held his hands stiffly by his side to stop them from shaking. Though he was sixteen, he felt like a four year old again, consumed by a nightmarish terror. His greatest fear which had haunted him for the last twelve years had finally come true. No! No, he refused to believe it.
Jeanette O'Hagan
WM GOLDSTEIN says
Clouds scudded across the pitch-black sky fitfully revealing a moon that seemed frightened by the evening chill.
Alien Zookeeper says
It's hard, the not knowing. I am a starship astrogator and pilot, but my most important job, even more important than seeing us home again, is to someday destroy our data-base of known human settlements. The holomap is like a strand of pearls glowing in the darkness of the bridge, and from time to time, when we come home, one or two have gone dark. Sometimes there are new ones, and I pull up the entries like childhood sweets, to savor how here, there, are three thousand souls making a living at atmospheric mining on this gas-giant, ten thousand hiding their farms and manufacturing inside this icy little moon, or a few dozen on a powersat spreading black wings under a blue-white sun to manufacture antimatter in milligram lots. Not knowing what has happened to the ones that go dark, and dreading the day when we come home to a dead settlement, that is hard. There is something out there which does not love us. I wonder if they know our kind too well, or see themselves in us, that they can kill without mercy, wipe us out root and branch. But I'd rather not know, if the knowing invariably means my death, and the deaths of those I love.
Robert Wyatt says
One of the hoariest adages in booklore is that a tale should never commence with a description of the weather, but what is to be done if you wish to tell about a wraith found at your doorstep in the midst of an electrical snowstorm? Skip to the good, warm part in the middle? No. You must tell it as it was.
Marie Burghard says
Life didn’t shine anymore. It bled. Flynn grasped the rooftop ledge of the Cryton House, leaning out far enough to observe the people on the streets four stories below. The humans here walked in patterns—from building to building in routes so engrained in their lives their shoes had etched paths into the cobblestone road. He flared his nostrils, snorting in disgust. This town was no different than any of the other tired English towns—drowning in untruths and morally rigid. Such a waste, he thought. A war waged around them, but they didn’t look far enough outside their town walls or stiff mindset to see it. A breezed flaked off the dried blood coating his stone fingers. The outcome needed to be different than the last town or there would be no more blood to bleed.
lalammar.net says
It was a bridge that first lured me to Teradolus.
Teradolus, where myths are harvested, memories are mutated, and lies are braided into the fabric of your mind. It is a land of perpetual darkness where the only light to be found is that of a capricious moon.
That moon… I can see it in my mind’s eye even now as I relate this story to you. I've not seen it in years, but the beaming blue cheese grin remains fresh in my mind, filling me with equal parts excitement and terror.
Just like Carroll’s Cat, that moon would drift in and out of relevance as I crossed the land. Its grin would stretch wider whenever I lingered in the Reeds of Misplaced Recollections, taking great pleasure as I floundered between the real and unreal, enjoying my struggles to reconcile it all in my mind. The grin would settle into a pernicious smirk as I skipped along the banks of Accidia, the unbearable numbness leeching onto my toes and crawling up my legs, causing me to break into a run for the Ponte Veritas as I wondered how I'd found myself on those shores when I’d sworn I’d never return.
And the moon would always, always, dip completely out of sight whenever I ventured into the Redwood of Lies as though it too were fearful of those flaming trunks.
Hywela Lyn says
“Hold tight, Shifter, this is going to be bumpy!” The small vehicle plunged through the tangled branches of the slender trees and shuddered to a halt. For a moment, a blur of green and brown, severed leaves and twigs on the screen obscured the view. ‘Kat’ O’Brien gritted her teeth and activated a control. A gust of recycled air blew the offending foliage from the external screen, revealing a bleak, almost featureless landscape.
The silence rent asunder with the unmistakable whine and shriek of blaster fire, as she emerged from her now useless transit vehicle.
(Hywela Lyn)
Kate Larkindale says
The notes swim on the page, blurring before my eyes. My bow stutters across the bridge and I wince at the piercing noise that squawks out as the E-string breaks.
“Goddamn!” I want to throw the bow across the room, but I know better. I set it down on the table beside me instead. I glance at the clock. Four fifteen. Great. I got an hour in. Maybe a little more. That’s going to get this piece nailed. Not. Stupid Shostakovich. Whoever picked this to be the compulsory piece for the summer school auditions deserves a kick in the ass.
Kathryn Leonard-Peck says
“That’s the yeti’s bed. Yours is over there.”
I let go of the handle of the weird ice-blue box I was about to open, and spun around. My head whipped back and forth, trying to pinpoint the origin of the voice. I could smell the delicate perfume of flowers, along with a deeper, earthy scent, but there was no-one in sight. A pair of lips appeared in front of me, covered in a blackberry lipstick just like mine. Electric blue eyes followed, then a pale face, framed by ringlets of glossy black hair.
Courtney Filigenzi says
Momma always told her that omitting details was equivalent to lying, but Cassandra knew the information she found needed to disappear fast. A sudden breeze off the South River rustled the tall bay grasses and broke the intense, afternoon heat of the sun broiling Cassandra’s skin, as beads of sweat rolled down her forehead and dripped off the end of her nose like a leaky faucet.
Alys Cohen says
Frantic, Juliette St. Claire folded and packed football gear. She gasped, twitching at the slightest sound. The jersey she needed was still in the living room. She sprinted to retrieve his shirt, hoping he would be lenient.
Chris Redding says
There isn’t enough L’Oreal on the planet to cover her white trash roots. Daria Jacks thought this as her black pump went tripping down the long, elegant staircase. It clicked and clacked its way to the bottom of the marble steps.
Chris Redding
lyudmylam says
It started with a lightning storm and a pear tree, although, some may tell you it started with a parade, or rather the fact that I missed it. And miss it, I did.
Weak with fever and cough, and sick to my stomach, I missed the biggest event of the year: the chorus of the hunting horns and trumpets announcing the spectacle, the soft flutes that accompanied the dancers dressed in the cross-stitched holiday attire; folks in their best black vests embroidered with burgundy clematis and gold sunflowers, pannas with knee-long fat braids and fresh-flower wreaths crowning their heads, and husbands wearing linen hats embellished with feathers from roosters' tails. The music and dancing lifted the spirits of the spectators, the fried dough and pirojki-rolls with chicken liver and cabbage filled the bellies of the on-lookers, and, of course, the exhibition of the magical beasts that the Tzar of Khariv was so proud to showcase to his people with the magical firebird being the highlight of the event – I saw none of it.
Cameron Collins says
As he walked across the cold glass, his bare feet left the impression that a ghost had been there. No sound was made or heard except the faint buzz of the air conditioning unit. The man didn't try to avoid the detection of the cameras. The slight bit of human nature left in him told him to hide. Humans always hid, never wanting to be seen, never wanting to be caught for the pleasures they partook. This man was different; he didn't care if they caught him on camera, he didn't care if they saw his face; for he wouldn't be here long enough for anyone to catch him, and he wouldn't have this face for much longer anyway.
Amanda Leigh says
The moment glass shatters is actually quite beautiful. The way the center splinters and spiders out before bursting into nothing. Not many people really get the chance to appreciate the magnificence because everything happens instantly. So quick that you blink and it’s already done. But when you’re convinced you’re about to die, the world tends to move in slow motion.
Marcy Campbell says
Just a few years after Reverend Simon uttered that detestable word in his sermon, I was in front of our house, on my knees, in the moist, fragrant dirt I’d just turned over with my trowel. Deborah knelt beside me, wearing her favorite kitten shirt stained with blueberry yogurt, and cupping an apple seed in her pudgy little hand. Was the hole deep enough? Too deep? I didn’t know. I was gardening on a whim, lately giving myself over to spontaneity, in small and large ways, since life seemed to have no use for my meticulous planning.
lizzie starr says
Buffeted by moist, swirling winds, Tane balanced at the edge of a red rock outcropping near the canyon entrance, watching the rising stream. With storms the past three mornings, he’d expected the creek to flood yesterday. Anticipation, like the empty space filling the moments between lightning and thunder, churned in his belly. No other reason would have brought him out today, on a morning like any other in this eternity of lonely mornings.
This could go two ways: live or die.
Right now, I’d take death.
The pain came first. Pain. Such a stupid word, created by ignorant, naïve fools who knew nothing of true agony. I slumped against the wall, swallowing a scream. My skin prickled, a million stabbing needles, the sensation crystallizing into an acute burn. This isn’t happening. Denying the truth—that’s the way. Despite the beauty and avoidance of voluntary delusion, this was happening.
So soon. Now. I needed to Change, to fully feel like a dragon again.
But this was just another thing out of my control.
-Emily Watson
curtcovert says
When kids have a nightmare, people always say, “Don’t worry. It’s just a dream.” Those people are idiots.
They say it in a voice that sweetly tries to convince you that the dream isn’t real and that the horror you feel is somehow less valid, as though you can just sweep it away like it never happened. But it did happen. The terror is real and there’s only so many times you can be told, “Just think happy thoughts and go back to sleep,” before you realize you’re on your own, truly on your own. That you have to face the demons by yourself and find the courage to go back to sleep, knowing what awaits you when you return. And of course, that was before I knew the truth, before I knew there really ARE things to fear in your sleep.
Jaime Theler says
Artists, musicians, and writers try to capture emotion, but they never get it right. Feelings aren’t colors, sounds, or words—they’re much more physical. The emotions that rode in with the latest visitors were especially tangible. Desperation. Like the gouges of fingernails raking across unprotected skin. Fear, molasses-thick and suffocating. And something else. But buried deeper so Lara couldn’t tell what it was unless she went looking, which she wouldn’t.
The distance between me and the ground was about five feet I guess. Okay, I’d fallen further than that in the past and survived. Admittedly, on previous tumbles I hadn’t had four stomping hooves to avoid.
‘You nervous?’ I heard Ben call.
I turned to look at him as he sauntered across the yard, his ruffled golden hair flopping into his face over his sky blue eyes. A girl looked over a rustic stable door, admiring his muscles as they bulged through his tight fitting grey top. It was hard to believe he was related to me.
‘No,’ I replied, trying to sound defiant. Why people around here considered this was fun was beyond me? Horses have their own minds, or did people not realise that?
‘I’ll look after you,’ he said, smiling. He squeezed my hand.
‘It’s supposed to be me looking after you. I’m the older one, remember?’
‘Age is just a number,’ he replied.
Despite his reassurances the churning knots in my stomach were getting tighter. Thank God I hadn’t had any breakfast this morning, otherwise it would definitely be making a second appearance.
Karen Taylor
Linda Covella says
POUND-POUND-POUND-POUND-POUND!
I bolted up in bed. A streak of yellow light shot under my door then snapped back into darkness. Footsteps creaked past my room. Then a noise that sounded like a monster’s long, loud burp vibrated through the walls. I fell back onto the pillow. Just Mom or Dad using the bathroom. What passed for a bathroom, anyway, in Mom’s hundred-year-old “dream house” with hundred-year-old pipes that made the rudest sounds.
sllynn.com says
I didn’t always look like this, you know. I was beautiful once. Before the Emperor. Before the war. Before the fire.
Invisibles might be angels. I don’t know for sure. I don’t exactly see them but I know when they’re around. They showed up right after Dad left when I was seven and a half. Dad’s a jazz pianist and, according to Mom, a rotten jerk. If she quit saying that, maybe he’d come back. Invisibles love music, same as me. Songs help people who need help, the Invisibles told me. Well, they don’t use words. More like feelings way down in my belly. My head’s a tape recorder, too. I can play or sing anything back exactly, even if I only listen once. Because of that I’m an oddball, according to Mom. According to Dad, a Special Ed head.
The rest of the world is asleep. I know some doctors and police and other people work at night, and they’re out there somewhere, but sitting on my bed, holding my flashlight, I feel like no one else is awake. This is my favorite time of day. Night.
Lisa Weikel says
The description of the day-long program was cryptic and sparse, quite unlike most announcements made by the master sound-shaman and respected academic from whom this offer arrived. An indigenous Elder carrying medicine that pertains to the times to come would be in our area. No name provided, very little background given. If you want to come, come, was the essential message.
GSMarlene says
Most fifth graders think recess is one of the best parts of the school day. Second only, perhaps, to the ringing of the final bell, signaling an escape to after-school activities. Mike didn’t agree. Recess meant fear, hiding and avoiding attention until the bell rang and then sprinting to the door. If he could lay low during recess, he had a decent chance of not landing on The List of Those To Be Pounded After School.
Kel Heinen says
The band Closure was gathered in a large, open office in downtown Los Angeles, California. The skies outside the window were dark, and while a storm was brewing outside, there was a bigger one brewing inside. There were details to go over before Closure and their families left in two weeks on their sold out tour and the most important detail was being uncooperative.
Nomen Nescio says
Wow. Reading so many first paragraphs makes me dizzy and my eyes blink. My name is Justus and here's my first paragraph:
It frightened me. The wooden stairs to my new apartment moaned and cried underneath my feet. I couldn’t help but imagine in which horrible way I might die when it would finally collapse. Unfortunately the elevator wasn’t any better. Its doors made an even more terrifying rattling noise when they opened and closed. It wasn’t as if my fears came as a surprise, the entire house looked as if it should’ve collapsed at least two decades ago. Still, nothing could explain the origin of the various stains decorating the walls of my apartment. And yet, all the elevators and stairs and stains in the world couldn’t have prevented me from taking the apartment. There were two large windows in my living room. Outside was a wonderful tree.
meredithmansfield says
Astrid leaned into the freezing wind, staggering down the beach hunting for driftwood to feed their meager fire. She kept one eye open for anything edible. The gale felt like needles of ice penetrating even the thick white bear pelt she wore as a cloak. The wind swept up the fjord straight off the icy sea, funneled by the steep hills on either side. Astrid paused to take shelter for a few moments under a rock overhang that blocked the gusts. With nothing to hunt for, she let her mind drift, retelling to herself some of the stories her grandmother used to tell her. It was almost as good as sleep to take her mind off her hunger and keep her company.
Julie Schewlakow says
Elizabeth Hutchinson never realized she was being tracked since birth. It wasn’t until the day an owl rested outside her window that there was evidence to the contrary. The blue of her eyes seemed to reflect off the dawning sky, staring at the perched bird. The owl stood without flinching as the warmth of her fiancé’s body pushed against her. She couldn’t help but gaze upon the crisp earth-toned leaves slowly drifting back and forth in the breeze. The delicate detail of the owl’s feathers drew her focus from the warm hand pushing the cotton of her nightgown up around her waist. Gusts of fall barely swayed the animal from its perch. Elizabeth closed her eyes as the tips of Dominic’s fingers brushed her inner thigh, sliding the lace thong from her moist skin. Inhaling she opened her eyes to the frozen owl still perched beyond the window.
Julie Schewlakow
Tori Chester says
At eleven o’clock on the last Saturday morning in May, when my father and the moving team were packing our lives into four-by-six cardboard boxes, my sister Zoe got kicked out of swim lessons. It was her first class of the summer, the fourth instructor in two years, and when Brendan called I sat for a moment, sinking beneath the chatter in the dressing room, wishing I didn't believe that it had really happened again.
Zoe says
Fun…great concept.Here's my entry.
This was not the first time I had come home from work to find three saffron robed monks in our back yard cavorting with our chickens. "Tsering has asked us to call but we were here so we came…" My partner Tsering was a Tibetan national living in exile in Massachusetts. We would often hear of the sightings from our neighbors who were concerned to see strangers in our yard when we weren't at home. We reassured them that a trio of pacifists was in all probability, not going to wreak much havoc. None the less, we asked the guys to call ahead when possible.
Alexis surged through a rusty metal door and quickly swung it closed behind her with as much strength as she could muster, throwing her weight onto it with a desperate grunt just as a violent force rushed her in pursuit. Screaming and tearful with fear and pain she struggled to keep the door secured and tried to hold back the entity that was pounding on it, but each thud and ghastly wail made her feel weak and chilled her to the bone. Each blow was a dreadful warning that death was on the other side of that door.
Lee Sampere
lsampere_17@hotmail.com
The blade curved from years of sharpening. Marisol gripped the handle and sawed at alfalfa, trying to finish the harvest before her knife became too dull to even cut the tender plants. She arched her back and sucked at the new blisters emerging under callused hands—tokens of a long day of work.
CJ Black says
The corpse of the witch had long been claimed by the denizens of the earth but Isbet knew the old woman right away. She knelt in the rich loam and laid her staff Gaemyr beside her, barely noticing that his carved face was in the dirt.
Melinda Friesen says
I yell my voice hoarse and pound my fists numb against the thick steel door. Defeated, I stumble backward. The scent of stale urine mixes with the damp, musty air as
I drop onto the soiled mattress: yellowed circles of dried urine and drops of blood from its former occupants. A fluorescent bulb dangles from the ceiling, buzzing and flickering, washing the room in a swampy hue. The doctor will be here soon. I curl my legs to my chest as though layers of flesh can protect the life inside me.
Joe Arechavala says
The diner was never busy at one in the morning, but this night was slow even by our standards. Just one half-drunk couple in the corner, the girl giggling and the guy groping as they kissed. The only reason Gus hadn’t thrown them out was because the little perv liked the entertainment. At least he had something else to focus on besides my ass. I’d never make any tips tonight. Great. Another month behind on the rent. Hopefully I could sweet talk my way out of this latest time and get myself off the hook without sex with that barbarian. Getting back to school next semester was out of the question too, dammit. My life was going nowhere. Or worse, to the proverbial hell in a handbasket.
Susan Cushman says
Mare’s backpack clinks as she ducks in and out of the pre-dawn shadows. A cold front moving across the state has dropped temperatures to the low forties. She rearranges the aerosol cans and wraps them with tee shirts to silence them. Pulling up her hoodie, she looks down the street. No one is watching. Storefronts are still dark in this Southern city of a quarter million people. Macon, Georgia, feels big compared to the smaller towns of Mare’s childhood. But not so big that she can’t find her way through the mostly abandoned city streets on her clandestine missions.
Connie Berry says
She took a final photograph, crouching down for a close-up of the exquisite inlaid banding, before tossing the camera—a disposable—into her Italian leather purse. The London dealer wanted something to show his contact at the Victoria & Albert. It sounded promising, he said, especially with the unusual provenance. Providing that would be risky, of course—perhaps impossible. But even without provenance, the small, jewel-like box would fetch a tidy sum at auction. Enough to carry her through till May, which was all she needed. It was a beneficence, sent by the god who watched over her—had done so all her life.
Pádraig left the Circle despite his father’s protests when he was 523 years old. He stood at the edge of the Circle, and watched life on the outside as it shifted and changed before his very eyes. The once bare slopes of Connemara were now littered with farmhouses, rocky fields and rangy sheep. Sealed roads had appeared where there had only been rock and hard earth before. Everything changed out there while everything within his home stayed exactly the same. No one really left the Circle any more, but those who did returned with items that they had procured from mortals and with tales of life outside the Sidhe realm. These stories fascinated Pádraig deeply. He wanted to see it for himself. He longed to be part of a world and a life that seemed so full of life and colour, where things were constantly changing.
mlbasham says
On a quaint, tiny street lined with quaint, tiny shops Kelly’s Books and Toys was the quaintest and the tiniest. It was built of red brick and had a bright green door with a gold handle. And from the outside it looked very much like the stationery shop with the blue door and the silver handle on one side and the spice shop with the black door and the copper handle on the other. That, however, was where the similarities ended.
(Middle Grade Fantasy)
Adam Wallace says
This story is a work of fact. Only some names have been changed to protect the innocent. Characters, places and incidents are absolutely real. All resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely deliberate.
Louisa says
Wasn’t gym class punishment enough for twelve year old Isabelle Tresdon? Coach Rayfield’s coffee breath. Spit flying from his whistle each time he piped it. Being trapped in a stifling gymnasium with ten sweaty kids, playing a crummy game of basketball. She’d rather pluck out each nose hair.
Cool contest! Thanks!
Emily Wenstrom says
A stair creaks.With the rain pounding down on the creaky roof, a human may not have heard it. But I do. It is too close, just outside the door. My stomach sinks. A stair creaks, and I know I am about to kill again.
Bryan Hilson says
So before we get started and get carried away and all that, let’s be clear about something: Cam Hanson has not run away from home. Okay, technically, he has, but really, the more sophisticated and professional explanation (out of respect for your intelligence) is that Cam Hanson has taken a brief sabbatical from home. More specifically, a brief sabbatical from his role as hands-on, day-to-day leader of his family and his parents’ only hope at healing their deep-seated psychic wounds. Not too shabby a résumé for someone who’s only been alive fifteen years ten months. Another important point in need of clarification: This temporary suspension of familial duties and Cam’s subsequent departure to an undisclosed location with his notebooks and pens and his memories to write out what you’re reading now, this chronicle of what really happened to the Hansons in those ten months following the day he turned fifteen, is not Cam’s doing by choice, but rather his best option out of several less attractive ones as a result of the unfortunate, inexcusable actions and belief systems of certain nefarious individuals, all of which will be exposed, and rightfully so, in said chronicle.
Tissa says
The angry red lights on my nightstand read 7:00 am. For close to an hour, I’ve been trying to keep myself asleep while ignoring the loud-pitched female voice coming from the television in the living room. Defeated, I remove the pillow from over my head, and finally storm out of bed—Across the hallway, dad’s hand hangs from the side of the couch. He’s passed out. Lying on the floor below him is an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a quarter way full bottle of vodka. The ashtray on the end table is overflowing with cigarette butts, while a dark cloud of smoke hovers over him. As I walk closer, the acidic smell invades my nostrils, and I rub my nose to stop the burning sensation. Every fucking morning, I have to deal with this shit!
He hated hurting dogs; it gave him indigestion. But a promise made is a debt unpaid. Was a dog the size of a furball really a dog? A small voice in his head said yes. He ignored it and popped another Tums, watched and waited.
Seeley James says
Pia Sabel sat still, listening to the limo tick as it cooled. She needed a minute to think. The heat outside began to penetrate the icy interior. Her driver picked up his book, thumbed to his place and read. Agent Marty stood outside the door scanning the street while Agent Tania sat next to her, staring straight ahead. No one spoke. Could the Department of State really press charges?
Cathrine Bock says
Gerund. Apostolic. Vehicular manslaughter. I have this thing for words. Usually big, complicated, fat words, but not always. Sometimes they are thin and clipped. Flit. Plotted. Clapped. It doesn’t matter what the words mean, really, just the way they sound. How the syllables feel in my mouth, if they roll around the fat part of my tongue, leap off the narrow tip, or pitch out of my mouth with a throaty, guttural thrust. Colonoscopy. Fragrance. Pituitary. I draw out each syllable as if it is its own word, and I think about the way my breath hisses over my teeth. My mother hates it when I do this. “Calliope,” she says in her teacher voice, “stop muttering.”
It was a forgotten town, close enough to the City of Compton to get the spillage of criminals, and far enough from Los Angeles that suburbanites weren't bothered by the crime. The cops had long ago turned a blind eye, and when they did, no one was watching over Adelanto. Well, Mary, mother of Jesus, is speculated to have appeared over the water tower, but it was suspect since it came from the mother of Ricky, the leader of the Mexican gang. He allegedly killed someone, and ever since that day, his religious mother was seeing holy figures everywhere. But the town needed a positive stir, and clung to whatever it could. Catholics, evangelicals, mystics and cynics alike camped out at the base of the tower. Two television stations reported live from the scene pressuring the county to get involved. The Department of Water and Sanitation arrived the following day to test the sample from the marking where Mary supposedly wept tears, leaving stains of blood. It was rust.
Rachel Bates says
Cara Medlen felt the growl before she heard it, rumbling through her leg from the dog tensed at her side. She nudged his shoulder to break his concentration. "Easy, Casper. You may not realize it yet, but today's your lucky day."
1856 – enDondakusuka, Zululand
A soft breeze rippled over the tall grass as morning’s first light warmed hundreds of crouching bodies in the golden brush. But it wasn’t the sun rousing the new day. It was the smell of blood. And by day’s end, not just the wind would carry the ominous tale of death across the African continent. The Tugela River would flow red with it.
tfwalsh says
The pen lying on the cashier’s desk gave a sudden jerk, and then rolled a few times across the wooden surface. It was happening again. Adira squeezed the golden pyramid box in her fist, harnessing its power. A few days earlier a chair skidded over the floor with a single thought, and before that, she shook the hell out of the crystal chandeliers. Sure, her foster dad might have collapsed from fright at the sight of his antique store in earthquake mode, but this was bigger than him—it was a moment in time when everything she knew burst into a trillion pieces. Not to mention the minuscule possibility that she might now share a common trait with Jean Grey from X-Men.
Jodi Webb says
"Why did you make me do that?" I moaned, watching Deuce wipe the sweat from his chest and slip on a clean t-shirt.
Jodi Webb
BethMarkley says
so i've just arrived after a shakey ride. seeing the mars mt. olympus mons in the sunset is very gorgeous. glad i have my moon glasses on.
the inflight movie was great, but i'm sure those of you on earth were watching the superbowl, or the puppy bowl.
as you know, i am here to install some cooling stations on mars. but right now i am just enjoying the stunning scenary.
edmiracle says
Schreya Picard racketed onto Highway 54 astride a one-hundred-percent illegal copy of Sticker Tulane's motorbike. Behind her she left the fourteen squabbling neighborhoods of Testament, Oklahoma and one nasty sunrise. If Sticker's scooter could out-run that storm building in from the east, a new life would be hers in Amarillo, just eighty minutes away.
bluerabbit says
Kyle was waiting for Alexa by the entrance to the north wing. The lights had been dimmed to save electricity, and halfway down a side corridor the mall's only claw machine glowed golden and inviting.
Diana Rico says
Diana Rico said…
Between 5:29:26 and 5:31:17 on the morning of September eighth, 1985, a police emergency operator in New York City took the following call. The caller did not identify himself. His voice was high pitched for a male, and he mumbled, stammered, and cried through the conversation.
And Magic surfaced in Shelton.
Forsaking all social graces it arrived unannounced; it did not knock gently nor wipe its feet. It climbed out of the earth and up through the air swinging a mantle of heat that smothered the town, leaving the citizens hostage indoors and the eldest of those scratching their heads. It settled on its haunches and waited away the descending suns.
site angel says
The man who would kill Marcia Weathers sat in the dark and cold, watching, waiting. It hadn’t been long enough, but the pressure was too much, the need too great. He shifted in the driver’s seat; the car smelled of burnt dust and overheated rubber and discarded taco wrappers. Tonight was for reconnaissance, not action, not fulfillment. Knowing every nuance of the neighborhood, the rhythms of comings and goings, lights on and lights off, who had dogs—these were crucial.
marwhitpinky12(at)yahoo(dot)com
whimsicalwerecat says
There was endless darkness. Then, a pulse of compressed energy tore across it, unleashing an outbreak of chaos. Rows of wildly swirling lights suddenly appeared, bright enough to capture glimpses of distorted shapes rushing in and out of sight, chased down by more than their own shadows. The air pressed in, smothering and toxic with fear.
Tracy D says
"I'm gonna shove that guy off the stage," said Townes. There was the small question of getting the lead singer's guitar away from him, and it was a sweet old Gibson — not something he'd want to knock around. Plus he couldn't expect the guy to be happy about a takedown from a random fan. Still, Townes thought, doable.
Dr. Horrible says
Bark had no idea how the ship got in the middle of the desert. He only knew that he would have to steal it.
DelSheree Gladden says
My mom would leave him here to die. My dad would try to save him. But neither of them found him. I did. I have to make the choice between walking away from someone I know can never be saved, or taking him back to the village and casting my lot in with his. Seconds ago I was wishing I had a Geiger counter, wishing Luther didn’t let his hatred of me leave me unprotected as usual. Just because he suspects I have feelings for his son, Zen, he goes out of his way to punish and hurt me. In the middle of my thoughts, I had seen the movement that drew me to the boulder.
Sarah Diviney says
Nick downed another Corona; he couldn’t relax. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way: a four-hour flight that took six, a ground hold in Ypsilanti due to fog on the runway. An unconscious young woman on the floor of the cargo hold, cast aside like nobody’s luggage.
raymond alexander kukkee says
“Nasty business, is it not?" he asked, shifting uncomfortably in the straight-backed chair.
"Miss Moordun? –her disappearing and all, so suddenly, like the others?"
The man cleared his throat, nervously awaiting her reply. He started to twitch when she remained silent. He fidgeted uncomfortably and corrected the angle of the black felt hat propped on his knee. He tried again.
“Without a trace it was, –a couple of days ago, without a trace.”
“I say, a nasty bit of business, it was." he started. She remained silent.
“I heard them talking about it at the hotel, one never knows what shall transpire in this day and age, does one?”
“Nasty business…” He repeated, and then continued to talk, hesitantly, at first, then more to himself than to her. He nervously brushed a hair off of the crown of his black felted hat. Probably from that damned ancient cat sitting there, he thought to himself with much disdain. He disliked cats.
H.L. Pauff says
"You're too fat," the one-eyed blacksmith grunted, trying to squeeze the armor around Pratt's bulging stomach. The enemy was charging and and so far the only thing Pratt could squeeze into was an old potato sack.
Steph Sessa says
The thing about music in the morning is that it always distracts from the smell of breakfast. The musicians outside the restaurant turned down their synthetic amps, relieving me of the overpowering colors. The blues of the song, mostly cobalt and periwinkle, had been mingling with the violet breakfast smells, making it hard to taste anything at all. And I loved breakfast. It was my favorite. Just one of the problems of having synesthesia, my senses were always jumbled.
Colton Tapoler says
One of the worst feelings in the world is having a story to tell but not knowing how to start it so people will believe it’s worth hearing. I guess that’s why I’m here. On paper I’m a pretty average 23 year old. Until recently, my family consisted of a mom, dad, and two younger brothers. We lived in a small town on Long Island in New York until I was 12. I went to the same elementary school and started off at the same middle school that my dad attended 30 years prior. All of my friends were the sons and daughters of his childhood clique. We were a pretty close-knit community. Until then my life was pretty average for a prepubescent boy. We moved to Florida when I started the seventh grade and being that young I never really thought about why. Most people asked if it was because of my dad’s job but I honestly couldn’t answer them. Growing up we were always told that when friends asked what my dad did that we should say he was in the business of “sporting goods”. No one ever questioned what my mom did because she had three sons to take care of and being a stay at home mom on Long Island wasn’t exactly breaking news. For years I told friends about my dads exciting job in “sporting goods” but couldn't actually tell anyone what that meant. If I thought about it I could tell them about the papers riddled with numbers and ratios all over the office, or the mystery lock boxes under his bed, or even the six-month stints in Costa Rica and Las Vegas. But at 12 years old “sporting goods” seem to suffice for my classmates. Thankfully.
Coachwood Critique says
Waking up this morning was hard. Harder than usual. Another unwelcome visit by reality, self-doubt, self-hatred and pain. There was always pain. Pain was my life. Was it any wonder a man would struggle to wake up – and abandon his dreams – when reality was so hard?
Amy Giuffrida says
Juan Paul Rodriguez. I remember his brown almond-shaped eyes, the ones filled with hatred and longing. I remember the stink of his venomous breath on my face and the way his blue tear tattoo underneath his left eye crinkled when he smiled at me. The feel of the menacing smile he gave me as he slit my throat.
Julia Sanders says
Head swimming and vision blurring, the teenager collapsed on the cold, hard ground in the middle of the night…or maybe early morning, he didn’t know. A few minutes later, he groggily opened his eyes to an unfamiliar place. "Must’ve had way too much to drink," he thought, wondering why he was lying down in the middle of an alleyway and how he’d even gotten there in the first place. Literally just a few seconds ago, he’d been in the bar ordering another drink with his fake I.D. He noticed unconscious figures near him and wondered if that was his fault.
Bill Ferris says
Shortly after I vowed to replace Matt with a drum machine, and to replace Jared with the first person I made eye contact with at Guitar Center, I needed a smoke break. I communicated that need to the rest of Snowblower–my band–but I phrased it as, “Let’s run the song without vocals.”
Drew Turney says
I realised the world wasn't as I'd imagined it to be when I found myself leaning against the side of an army jeep in Africa with a short American woman screaming abuse at me.
storymultiverse says
She isn't the first fare to get blood all over my cab, and she probably won't be the last. It's dripping from the long strings of her matted hair, slicking the shabby fabric of the seat beneath her. The smell is so powerful I have to hold my breath and roll down the windows until it fades enough that I can think properly again.
Hollie Sessoms says
Patrick hated it when Nicole sat on the table, so she sat on the table that night, feeling brave, like an impetuous teen acting out while her parents were away. Everyone knew, everyone really knew that she was a nearly, almost completely, thirty-six-year-old woman drunk off white zinfandel doing nothing more, nothing more daring than sitting on the one hundred-year-old table that had passed down through Patrick’s family for ages and ages and ages. She was sick of hearing about that table and the ages it had been through. Really, who the hell cared?
Conny says
“She’s a girl; she doesn’t need an education,” Mom sneered, swatting a hand through the air. “She’ll get married and have kids.”
Dad didn’t agree. In his opinion I should go to high school. He was about to come up with yet another argument when Mom cut him off.
“She’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Albert. She won’t be able to cope. She hates school. Why put her through another six years?”
“Well, then maybe an art academy,” Dad reasoned. “She’s pretty good at drawing. Let her develop by doing something creative.”
“I don’t know, Albert,” Mom shook her head in doubt. “If we were talking about a boy, I’d say fine, let him go to an academy instead of a high school, but we’re talking about a girl — a girl who will meet a boy, fall in love, get married, and start a family. She’ll be a housewife like me. So why does she need a fancy education? I say, let her stay in the school she’s been in for the past six years; let her enter the special program where she’ll learn to cook and sew. That will be all the education she’ll ever need.”
harryipants says
A tall broken man sits under a large stone bridge in a leaky green boat. He wears glasses, but they contain no glass. He smells of fish, but he is not fishing. He is reading, yet he has no book.
ramblinbess says
As Adriana looked up at the crumbling villa, her asymmetrically cut Christian Dior dress flapped against her bare leg in the breeze. Except for the steady stream of passing headlights pulling up to the estate, the only light came from a lantern next to the front door. The cream-colored building glowed against the black sky. Dark ivy crawled down the exterior wall like an army of ants.
Atty Eve says
Suicide is selfish. It tells the world that you are weak. It tells the world your family and friends have failed. It leaves them with the guilt that they should have done more but didn’t. I am weak, but I am not selfish. My suicide will not leave my loved ones with guilt and pain. It will leave them thankful that they knew me for the short time I was here. And when I reach my final goal, to meet my brother in heaven, and we’re looking down at my victims in Hell, he will say to me ‘Well done, Cosette’.
Jenilyn Collings says
I opened the cupboard to look for cereal and found nymphs and naiads instead. If my life were some kind of fantasy, it might have been cool. Unfortunately, I live in the real world and the nymphs and naiads were just a bunch of immature insects floating in alcohol. Disgusting. I closed the cupboard.
Coreena McBurnie says
The dreams started when I was sixteen. That first one is etched in my mind, like it was yesterday, even though it was over three thousand years ago. The hair on the back of my neck still tingles when I think of it: how the gods manipulated me, how the snakes reached out to me, how I learned about the curses that plagued my family, and how I came to realize my true power. The dreams signaled a turning point in my life, both thrilling and horrifying.
Ludmillia Jones says
Life in the New Mexico high desert was not for everyone. Isolated ranches and farms were sometimes visited by wild weather, wild animals and wild humans. Lisa Bancroft stopped hating it there and had come to appreciate the luxurious, sprawling ranch house. As long as her husband gave her the money for frequent trips to other places, she would be fine. But lately, poorly defined events made her uneasy. Strange things were happening at the surrounding ranches and the gossip was jittery and cruel.
Melinda R. Cordell says
As Meira Goldwater awoke one morning from unsettling dreams, she found herself transformed in her bed into a furry fat raccoon.
Tabitha Bird says
The Exquisiteness of Seeing was given to me a very long time ago by a woman who, bless her soul, died with her glasses on, a children’s book in her hands and a pirate’s hat on her head. And by a little girl who fed her garden fairies passion fruit and never gave up hope that one day I would love her.
Emmeline was fond of saying two things: I am one hundred and three my dear. And have you found the little girl?
The day I met her she said both things, and at the time, I confess, I hated her.
Natalie H says
Whatever made that noise had to show itself soon. There was no tree or shrub tall enough to hide behind on this hill, so David watched from the biggest rock outcrop, feet planted, knees bent, his sling loaded and swinging. He couldn't hear much above the rowdy goats, but there it was again. That wasn’t an animal. It was a voice. He used his staff to push himself high on his toes, but he couldn’t see around the bend.
PMG says
It came from beneath, the way a shark checks out its prey, a firm, purposeful nudge that didn’t hurt as much as surprise me, jarring me from my sun-soaked reverie, and prompting me to suck my expansiveness in from the atmosphere like a vacuum. I was tight then, tense, and uncomfortably physical, on guard in a spread of sky that is my domain, where I am inviolate, pre-eminent, and most important, myself – no pretenses, no obfuscations, no watchfulness, no armor. The bump was a trespass and a battery, offensive and intentional. I rolled over to identify the spirit beneath me, like a seal bobbing in the waves, unsuspecting shark bait, pretending at languor. As if my entire being weren’t fully prepared to attack. Knowing all the while that the interloper wouldn’t be fooled, and was probably scoffing. I’d given away my surprise and alarm when I sucked my spirit in close.
Rachel Waxman says
Every now and then, somebody on campus gets taken out by a bicyclist. I don’t mean “taken out” like a date. I mean hit. Hit hard. It’s an accident, of course. Or so most people think, and I too thought, before I became the target. Before life as I now know it ever was.
The basement of my new house stinks but for the moment it is my retreat from the seemingly perfect living space upstairs. If you look beyond the well-executed design of the main floor there is little to be envious of. Below the surface there is a dim yet still organized warehouse of items that cannot be parted with. They're a collection of memory prompts that keep a thin tightrope connection to all that I was before. I habituate to the stench after two or three deep breaths. I superficially attend to the sound of the river running through the French drain. Somewhere within the one hundred neatly stacked plastic boxes, there's a dance journal I kept from a college technique class. It reflects a time of creative birth, introspection, and few true responsibilities. More importantly, it reminds me of a time when life went as planned. Hard work naturally led to desired and expected outcomes. I wish life were still that predictable.
Joanne De Simone
B. K. Mattingly says
The dark clouds swirled amongst themselves as if plotting to unleash hell. Gideon stared out the airplane window at them. Music blasted through his earbuds, drowning out his thoughts. Every couple minutes, he strained to look up the aisle and to the right where a girl his exact age sat. He could just see the edge of her sleeve and the very top of her head, covered in a blue baseball cap. He muted the rock thrumming in his ears. He couldn’t mess up, not again.
Teresa Richards says
It took just one of the plastic rings, thrown haphazardly with impressive force, plus a little luck, and the fate of the goldfish swimming in it's plastic bag was sealed.
Lucy Hallowell says
Oaks couldn’t walk through those doors without remembering the first time she grabbed the handle, her hands slick with sweat and her heart full of nervous hope. She leaned all of her weight back away from the door, her body sketching an arc, to heave the door open. She walked through the door, up the three pale gray, stone steps to the foyer and stood momentarily before seeing the common room full of girls. The door, a wood framed glass panel, allowed her to see everyone who was inside and for her mind to imagine that they could not see her standing there like a lost puppy.
First, there is the smell, even on a frosty morning: it is like a whiff of piglet that has waded a stream and run itself warm and oily. Sometimes they know they are not alone; they throw off the unappetizing stench of urine and sour milk, and that is their fear. Whether they make fire at nightfall or walk the bare dirt paths with big sticks, if they are afraid they don't know which way to watch, even when you are very close.
Julianne Johnson says
I hear dead people. Believe me, I know. It sounds rather like the movie trailer for a joke film. Coming to a theatre near you, Ray Charles starring in The Sixth Sense II! You don’t have to explain the joke to me; I get it. There are days when it seems that my entire life is some hilarious trailer for a fake film on YouTube. Days like today.
Katie huddled on the stained vinyl floor in the corner of the room. The smell of Mommy’s blood on her clothing made her sick; the shrieks from her mother in the next room froze her mind in terror. Sobs shook her body, tears flooded her eyes, ran down her face. Why would anyone hurt Mommy? A scream swelled inside her throat.
Kheryn Casey says
Maman said there’s magic in these hills, and there’s evil here too. That’s what she told Claudine. Maman got down on her knees and took that little face into her hands and she looked straight into Claudine’s eyes, like she’s never looked into mine, and she told Claudine that there’s plenty of evil in these hills, and when evil comes, she has to run and hide and make sure she survives, no matter what she sees. Even if it meant leaving all of us behind.
Gwen Cole says
Nothing extraordinary ever happens in the country.
I’m surrounded by miles of corn fields and forgotten farms. By people who have lived here their entire lives. Some have never ventured out of the state, let alone the surrounding area. It’s a place for normalcy. A place where people are forgotten and lost.
And I don’t belong here.
kourtneyheintz says
Good and evil are so basic. So intrinsic. So essential. To humanity. It’s why we reincarnate into humans. To get a glimpse of the best of ourselves. And the worst. But my family. We’re different. We’re the relics the rest of the world forgot. We’re still here. Pompeii? Yeah, that was me. Bodie, CA. Guilty again. Atlantis was all Gramps. Grams swears the Aztecs were an accident. But I think Mom meant to do it.
We have a long list of lost cities, forgotten civilizations, and decimated places to our credit.
spuddreams says
It’s funny what you notice when you’re dying. It’s not your breath or your heartbeat, or the ripple of your mind slowly coming undone. It’s what you love. For me, it’s the color of the water. First, it’s green like bottle glass. Then it’s deep, dark blue-black, like a midnight sky. The water seeps into my ears blocking everything else out. It creeps into my clothes, through the strands of my hair. It invades my nose, my mouth, and slides into my lungs, into my stomach. It envelopes me, claims me as its own. I’m going with it.
Asil says
I woke up Sunday morning with a hangover that could have legally qualified me as dead. My mouth was sore and cracked. My ears had a constant ringing inside them, similar to a Bee pollinating a flower. Dan, my twin brother, had not even bothered to get to his bed. I found him passed out on the bathroom floor, next to the toilet. Blood and vomit covered his jeans along with something wet— perhaps urine.
Claire King says
The older man's eyes were blue, almost as blue as Cobalt's own, and he couldn't stop the trembling wracking his body as he looked up at the man's request. Master Conrad never asked Cobalt to look directly at him, saying the brightness of Cobalt's eyes bothered him tremendously, so Cobalt had always kept his focus on the ground in his presence.
Oh, how I wish this man were like my master in that regard, Cobalt thought.
Ava Jae says
I don’t usually think much when making out with my girlfriend, but right now I think I might be dying.
ScifiWriterMom says
The first thing I see when I open my eyes, is Grandma Tully staring back at me. Her round wrinkled face hovers over me. Her crescent shaped eyes, pitch-black at the center, open wide as if surprised by the appearance of my blue orbs. “Ah ha!” she sputters, as my eyes snap shut.
Victoria Dixon says
Inside the Peach Orchard Inn, Lord Liu Jie counted around two hundred recruits. He sighed. To bring peace, we must attack our brothers. Beside him on the narrow stair’s landing, Jie’s general drained a tankard and slammed the metal cup against the stair's supporting pillar. General Tong’s armor emphasized his girth and the single eyebrow, bristling mustache and beard completed an intimidating picture, reminding everyone why they’d come.
Nicole Luiken says
Two men-at-arms threw Leah, trembling, at Duke Ruben's feet.
Dixon Bennett Rice says
Tyler Goode didn’t know the man’s real name until he read the obituary three days later. Everyone called the guy Brute. It fit him well. He’d become a legend in northwest Montana for taking whatever he wanted – whether someone else’s woman or a warm bottle of beer – and leaving the victim a bloody, broken mess. He wore his nickname like a medal, as if it were a compliment to his strength and combat skills instead of a summary of his personality. Smart people steered clear of Brute, all three hundred-plus pounds of him. Of course Ty had never been accused of genius.
thewriteedge says
Ambar Chauhan stood back from the canvas, arms crossed, one hand still holding a paintbrush that dripped small points of ochre onto her smock. She felt no connection to the painting. No pressure from her deadline. No joy for pursuing her life’s passion as her life’s work. Suraj’s death gripped her shoulder tightly; it extracted all of her emotions from her.
Rachel S. says
I didn’t like Duncan Jimenez the first time I met him. I didn’t like how he flung himself into the empty chair at our lab table. I didn't like the way his fingers felt — warm like dough — when he reached his hand out so I’d shake it. And I didn't like all of his bouncing. His knees sprung up and hit our table, shaking it. My pencil cup tipped over, sending my favorite Albert Einstein pencil into his lap. I glanced down between his legs — and quickly looked away.
“What are you, ADD?”
B Miller says
It is barely daylight on a chilly fall morning. A light misty rain is falling and heavy fog blankets the mountains where Matt Hampton and Leo Cramer and the other members of the logging crew are working. There is a thick, and very wet, carpet of leaves underfoot which makes it difficult to maintain their footing. Although the day has hardly begun, they have already felled, stripped and nearly finished loading, a truck load of giant logs. This crew has worked together for some time. The men get along well and each man knows his job and can be counted on to do it. Once the final log is placed, the load will be anchored for transport. As this truck begins its long slow crawl down the mountain, work will already have begun on the next load. The men are a good-natured lot and they are joking and wise cracking among themselves as they work. Seconds later many of them will be dead or critically injured.
Ms. McNeilly says
Four years she tailed him. Lost him twice, once in a mall in Tucson, how stupid is that? Picked up his scent again—the smell of his Social Security number—when he made the fatal error of getting employed on a ferryboat. But she left him on purpose at the Tahlula County Fair. Who wouldn’t? The dope missed what anyone could do: get the stinking the ping pong ball in the fish bowl. A blind monkey could do that, given that fat sack of quarters and the right ambition. That’s why she finally gave up on her daddy: he was flat out of ambition.
L.K. McNeilly
Durango Writer says
I’m positive Mom wanted me to find her body. I’d been taking care of us both for so many years that she trusted I’d know how to handle things. She’d say, “Arlie, if something ever happens to me, don’t let the police or ambulance boys find me in a compromising position.” Translation: flush any remaining drugs down the toilet, make sure she had on clean panties and tidy up the motel room. These instructions were rote by the time I needed to carry them out two weeks ago.
They found her lying face-down in the dog's water bowl. Just floating there, motionless, tan skin baking under a relentless July sun.
At least, that's what Ebbson's Marshal, Jesse Clacher, managed to gather from the frantic, bickering twins standing in front of him.
Katie O'Shea says
I’m sure there was a time when I didn’t love Jessica Sterling. It would have to have been before we got married though, and that was when we were five. It was a simple ceremony: just the two of us in a tree. My backyard, not hers, of course. Afterward, we shared a box of animal crackers. The giraffes were always her favorites, and I let her eat them all. She saved all of the gorillas for me. We bit off the heads of the lions and threw them into the bushes from our perch in the tree. Like all good things, it happened during the summer.
Jabez says
Cayo sat drinking two-penny rum in an overheated wharfside tavern in a town he couldn’t name, and he thought, unexpectedly, of his father. He took another sip of rum and grimaced as it burned his throat. His scalp prickled as if his brain were trying to float and carry it aloft; the room continued its slow orbit around him. A greasy cloud of woodsmoke and tobacco clung to the rafters. The tavern boys pranced about in mysterious patterns, ferrying steins to men clustered in hap-chance groups to dice, play at cockroach races, or swap stories and jokes in four languages. Other men sat alone at the bar or the long tables, brooding or sleeping or waiting their turn with the whores upstairs.
Victoria P says
Marli dropped the knife and fled her market stall. She pushed past small children who jumped puddles in loose summer sandals as if enjoying the strange upheaval until they were tugged away by parents who cast terrified glimpses in Marli’s direction. A long streak of blood followed her. It snaked its way through cascades of dirt and debris. It burrowed beneath centuries worth of grime that was being purged from the town. It pursued her relentlessly. As confused shoppers scattered from the market, Elders rushed to tell of impending doom and the town whispered that Marli was to blame for the unprecedented torrent that streamed down unprepared roofs. And for the first time Marli wondered if, just perhaps, they were right to be accusing her.
jme says
I do not belong here, but everyone probably thinks so. County Corrections Orange looks particularly right on me. I have that “damaged goods” look. Perhaps once I had potential but now that I’m wearing this jumper that works nights as a traffic cone, I’m just another poor miscreant on her way to a life of crime. Here is the secret though: I never had potential. At least I never had potential to do any good. Just bad, always bad.
Backfence says
Luke was pining for a woman he had never even met. Even in this quiet moment between battles as he lay savoring the precious and, oh, so rare, solitude, his mind persisted in its nagging obsession with Anna Pickett. Yesterday, he sat on a hill that overlooked an Arkansas farm field and watched hundreds of brave young men fall in death, and yet–there she was, still occupying the better part of his conscious thoughts—her, and that mystifying clock tower through which Julia Pickett had entered their lives.
Suzanne Anderson says
“Do you know what it’s like to die?” Sitting on a bed in the busy Emergency Room of the university hospital, Elizabeth willed herself to concentrate as she held her breath and waited for the answer.
Donna L Martin says
The setting sun bathes the deck in an unnatural light. The men are restless. They have been too long from land, too long from home and it weighs heavily upon their spirits. This night will be a rough one with choppy seas and razor sharp tongues. My hand is firm upon the railing and my body sways in rhythm to the waves. My eyes peer into the fading light as if to see land just beyond the portal. I will get no rest this night.
D.D. Queens says
Oh. My. God. Someone had taken a baseball bat to Albert, and there he was, splattered all over the driveway. His compressed-foam innards were now outards, grinning whitely in the June sun. “And I didn’t even go to UF,” I grumbled, bending over to pick up the pieces of the once-proud University of Florida alligator mascot who had held my mailbox aloft.
Molly Pascal says
The first thing you need to know about me is that my middle name is the letter B. It doesn’t stand for anything. Just B, no period, no full stop. My first and last names don’t matter much in this world. The second thing you need to know is that I have a gift. While the only genetic inheritance at work here is a decent IQ, I have developed a talent. I’ve learned a way of wringing the drops out of the physical universe like a wet towel. I’m no wizard. I’m not psychic. Maybe I’m just the next step on the evolutionary chain. It boils down to this: I have the heightened sensory, auditory and mental skills of a blind man.
Cori Bair says
Standing ahead of me was the monstrosity that had killed my boyfriend: The Third Gate of Hell. The graffitied concrete walls glared at me with their blood red words, as if warning me not to do this. Ignoring their caveat, I got out of the car and grudgingly inched my body closer to the site. There was very little evidence the accident occurred, just a small, missing chunk of cement in the old railroad trestle straddling the road.
Taryn says
Mama called it a castle, but I didn't believe her. Castles were painted in shades of fairy tales. Turrets don’t make castles. Tapestries and ballrooms, mosaics and lounges, French doors and French cooking—these things don’t make castles. Princesses and stories make castles. Our old home was a castle.
Attorney At Large says
Reading these has been so much fun! Such a great contest.
The boat bearing Queen Angharad and her retinue swayed above the bay, each heave of the sailors lowering it inches at a time. She held her chin high, but her knotty fingers clutched the planks until her knuckles were as white as her powdered wig. If a rope slipped or the boat pitched, it would be a race to see if the Queen or Arzhon’s naval career would drown first.
L. Valentine says
I discovered the picture between the pages of an old book. His face was unexpected. At first, it took my breath away. Oh! Where have you been? For a moment, I imagined him sitting on the steps of an unpainted ramshackle porch, a guitar on his knee, a good floppy-eared dog at his feet. He was surrounded by old black, blues-singing men, and he was teaching them Tupelo Honey.
Ian Hunter says
Novak inhaled the smell of musty Kevlar, gun grease and clean sweat. Body armor creaked. One of the younger SWAT agents was breathing out in short, percussive bursts, like he was about to give birth. Novak could smell the chorizo the guy had for breakfast. Behind Novak, someone was whispering a prayer. If Novak had been the type to pray, he might have thanked somebody up there. In more than four years he hadn’t felt this alive.
Georgia says
The market-day crowd should make stealing it easy. I huddle in the wisp of alley between the barber’s tent and the pieman’s wooden stall. At the smell of those pies—fowl, sausage, goat cheese, berry, curd—saliva gushes into my mouth. My throat convulses. How long’s it been? One day? Two? Better not think about my growling belly. Better just watch and bide my time.
skywalker says
Six faces carved out in moonlight watch me, every one of them motionless, all seemingly waiting for an answer to a very important question. I almost break the silence to challenge the logic of what I’m about to do when Thomas clears his throat and smiles at me. A chill threads down my spine when I glimpse that cracked tooth peeking out from the side of his mouth. It reminds me of the first time we met…though now I realize it wasn’t the first time at all. Not even close.
Paige Miller says
Being Normal in Commonville was a hard thing for Norm. Norm was not the norm.
Jackie Brown says
Bebe Kante waddled into African Hair Braiding Associates as if she were Queen Pokou herself, come to be praised by her people. Her two year old, a lump on Bebe’s back, dozed in the sling of a colorful pagne, while in front a future member of the Kante family floated in the swell of his or her mother’s round belly. In full body profile Bebe was shaped like a backwards letter S resting atop a pair of ebony legs.
“Bonjour,” Bebe sang out as she closed the door behind her, spread feet balancing her double load.
“Look who’s here,” said Adjour.
Pairs of nimble braiding fingers halted at the sight, some secured combs in loose sections of thick African hair and others left hair sticking out every which way on their clients’ heads. Bebe’s visit was a welcome break from the braiders' duties, and their regulars who knew Bebe were equally delighted. Bending over, Bebe carefully untied the knot of the pagne supporting her son and a young braider lifted the still sleeping child from his mother’s back, passing him around to the admiring women while his mother looked on with pride. Aiella had remained at her station, braiding with intent and trying to appear unimpressed by the two and a half visitors. Bebe spotted her, taking in Aiella's flat stomach.
“Still nothing, Aiella Nebie? I have had two pregnancies in the short time I have known you. When will you give Ibrahaim a fine, fat son like my own?”
Several snickers echoed around the room. Aiella bit her tongue, not wanting to cause an unnecessary scene at work to dampen the others' excitement, but still she resented being singled out so, having been on her feet for five hours straight and in no mood for nice/nasty insults. With nary a glance in the pregnant mother's direction she responded, “You are doing my share in the meantime, Bebe. You look good.”
Sara Daly says
A cold win blew through Ana on a warm summer day, blowing her long brown hair free from it's braid, and taking her memories as it passed. She had been kneeling in a meadow, picking the small, wild strawberries that grew there. She tensed as the wind went past, and when she relaxed, she knew something was missing. Try as she might, she could not think of what felt wrong.
Jamey Stegmaier says
Daniel Gold was late for his deportation. Again. My parents are going to kill me, he thought as he sprinted towards the train station. He regretted letting his girlfriend stay in bed instead of asking her to drive him to the Portal, but he pushed away the feeling. There was no going back now. Plus, he was too busy debating if he regretted what had happened in Gretchen’s room earlier that morning, or if he even knew exactly what they had done. The sleepless night was blur of breath mints and sweat and hair and possibly a chipped tooth. It already felt like a memory, a puzzle of moments to piece together upon arrival in 2094. That is, if he made it to his deportation on time.
K. Anne Raines says
I’ve come up with a hundred different ways to end my life. But in truth, every one of them scares me. I really don’t want to die, but I can’t imagine any one of those ways hurting more than the existence I have now. At least there’d be no more. I go back to screaming for him to stop. Not out loud. Never out loud. Only in my head. I beg God for the millionth time to send me a way out, even if it’s death. I’m dead already. My soul passed long ago. The continued pain frightens me and the thought that it could get worse has my lips moving on their own volition. “I’m sorry, Dirk.”
Donald McMiken says
Although I didn’t know it, this was the night they killed him. I didn't know who they were then, didn't know the devastation they would bring us. Didn't realise the delicate balance of our marriage was such a fragile thing.
When I begin to fantasize about obtaining a life-threatening injury so that I don’t have to go to the office, when a coma sounds more attractive than a meeting with the boss, I consider quitting my job. Never mind that I worked my whole adult life to get there. It happens one black Wednesday in the cave of a Northwest winter. As usual, I start the day by pleading with someone in my head. I haven’t figured out why I continue to beseech since I already know there’s no such thing as God. My parents taught me, from a tender age, about the nonexistence of forces beyond our mortal vision.
Amelia Loken says
Lesandro d’Orsino decided the poet Dante should have named the onerous search for a bride as one of the seven levels of the Inferno. If he included three days within a cramped carriage, the experience would qualify as the Devil’s own punishment. It hadn’t been too difficult at first, trotting on horseback from manor to castle throughout the spring and summer. The girls themselves were pretty enough, if one ignored the fact that they barely possessed two digits representing their age. The pale things even tried to flirt, coaxed by hard-eyed parents.
Jaime Alexis Stathis says
The disintegration of my mother’s boyfriend—former Julliard prodigy, current schizophrenic madman—was a slow boil, but his final demise was swift. In the beginning we thought he was eccentric. His savant-like talent allowed him to hear a song once and then play it on the piano and sing the lyrics with perfect pitch. The first time he showcased this talent to me was with “Borderline” by Madonna, which I played for him from the kitchen clock radio.
Brooke Younker says
First I smell the burning rubber… Then I hear the screaming. Dark. My head hits something stiff… something––someone’s––arm. Leather cuts into my shoulder and stomach… fabric… a… seatbelt. In a car. A deep voice shouts over the screaming, “Get her covered!”
A girl emerged from the woods and stood at the edge of the dusk-gray clearing. She wore jeans, a man's jacket, and a knitted cap pulled low over her forehead. She almost could have passed for a boy, but her long hair and hips gave her away. She trudged through the weeds next to his garden, her eyes fixed on the shack. She carried no weapons. When she was about fifteen feet from the front door, Zeke swung the shutter wide open with the rifle and aimed at the center of her chest.
Max Brunner says
The tip of a knife pushes into my back and I smile. I’m not sure who it is whispering threats in my ear and to be honest it doesn’t matter. He’s either a fool or he’s hoping I am. No one’s dumb enough to kill me. Not today at least. Not here.
Max Brunner
Shelby Maples says
The last thing I saw was the warm, red slick of my own blood, pooling on the stone floor around me. I tried to speak. I tried calling out for the guards or for my lady but failed, choking on my tongue. Nor, do I think, could I have found the words. My mind swam thick with pain, for the man hadn't cut my neck deeply enough. As I lay bleeding, every nerve screamed out in anguish. Shadows seeped into the edges of my eyes, the strange blackness clouding my vision. The ceiling was spinning, circling and fading with every passing moment until suddenly, the man stepped into my line of sight and the world fixed in place once more.
confessionsofacollegefailure says
All it took was a second. Perhaps if the stars hadn’t shined quite as brightly that night or perhaps if that damned boy hadn’t truly believed he could fly, none of this would’ve happened. But that’s not the point. Sometimes wishing on stars doesn’t get you anywhere because the stars have far better things to do with their time than listen to us whine. After a few millennia passed, it only makes sense they’ve stopped caring.
dmlbooks says
“Hey, Shara! The Gorgon is about to lift off!”
It was Granddad Dennis calling me, I’d been under my VR Hood scrolling through all the specs of the launch, but he wanted me with him when the ship actually took off.
“I know Granddad, I’m coming!”
I ripped the hood off and ran through from my room, Granddad was there on the couch with a space reserved for me next to him. I sat down just in time for the final countdown.
“10” I held Granddad’s hand and looked over at him, his eyes were fixed on the screen, shining with, what I thought were tears.
“9” On the screen billows of exhaust fumes were rising around the base of the gigantic lifting body.
“8” Granddad squeezed my hand “I can’t believe it,” he whispered, “I’ve actually lived long enough.”
“7” My heart was pounding, I’d seen plenty of launches before, but this was different, this was taking the main drive of the Hermes up to Earth Station to begin construction of the starship.
“6” Everything around me disappeared, all I could see was the screen and the ship. I wondered what it felt like to be lying in a g-couch on board a rocket as the power builds up below.
“5” The gantry fell away and the view shifted to a distant camera, showing the stretch of Spaceport One with the massive ship poised to go.
“4 … 3 … All systems nominal … 1 … We have lift off on the initial stage of Earth’s first mission to another star.”
The camera panned upwards as the Gorgon roared its way into the sky, it seemed to be rising impossibly slowly, but that was just a function of distance and the incredible size of the ship.
“Well that’s it,” said Granddad, “I saw the first moon landing and now I’ve lived to see the start of the next Giant Leap.”
Robin Connelly says
The sweet taste of blood lingered on my tongue when I woke on my stomach in a padded, white room. Chains rattled as I sat up, making me aware of the weight on my wrists. I eyed the chains. Great. They were bolted to the wall. Escaping another mental institute was not high on my list.
Claire Fuller says
Early this morning I found a black and white photograph of my father at the back of the bureau drawer. He didn’t look like a liar. My mother, Ute had removed all the other pictures of him from the albums kept on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, and shuffled around all the remaining family snapshots and baby pictures to fill in the gaps. Their wedding photograph, which used to sit on the mantelpiece, had gone too.
Helle says
My last day began without any kind of warning or premonition. I know that’s normal, and I wasn’t expecting a flashing neon sign above my bed saying, “Lucas, this is your last day.” Still, I would’ve liked a subtle hint.
Sherryl says
Wait, Dog. Stay.
She too close. Watch. She not one of them. Not a skweeler. She alone. Good at hiding.
Not good like us, eh Dog?
Want her to go. Want all to go. Valley mine. They ruin. Pigs everywhere. Skweelers hunt me but not find.
Might find her.
Should tell her. Warn.
She has bow. No game left. She hungry like us. Take risks. Stupid.
We hide. She walk on track. I want … but shouldn’t. Should stay here.
Trees sing with leaves. Pig smell. Whistle down valley. Skweeler.
She stop. Listen hard. They come. Get off track, girl. Dog, stay.
Dog’s heart beat hard like mine. What you hear, Dog?
Hide, girl. Now.
kamagrowski says
Wychwood was positively creepy, Aaron decided, slurping his pop, trying hard to look cool as he walked around the summer festival. Everything was so perfectly normal, so completely all-American that there just had to be some kind of dark secrets lurking under the surface. He smirked, imagining himself in the middle of a horror movie. Newcomer to the small town gets sacrificed. Fireworks to follow.
Turndog Millionaire says
"To never the reach the age of twenty-five is unjust, but this is the fate I face. I awoke this morning with my life ahead of me, but now, as I sit on this cold, damp, wooden bench, I see my demise clinging to the horizon. I’m a dying man, a man with a ticking clock. We all are, of course, but most don’t consider it or foresee it or give it a second thought. A few hours ago I was one of these free-spirited minds, but life has a way of changing your course in a rather quick and frank fashion."
alisonwells says
I’m writing to tell you about the museum gallery and that particular exhibit – the Exhibit of Held Breaths. What it will mean to you I’m not sure; and that in itself is strange when it should mean everything, but I need you to believe me, believe in me. I see The Reeves Institute – to give it it's proper title – on one of the last days, my last days that is. It was a day of all seasons, valiant sunshine, flurries of rain, bracing breezes, sudden bursts of heat. A day I decided to return and see. It had long since closed but I had kept a key. I hardly needed it; the side door crumbled, rotten, into flakes and shards. Inside it was a grim place; dust shored up in the corners, spiders spinning improbable threads, descending not from old beams but from torn polystyrene ceiling tiles interspersed with chunky fluorescent lights. How quickly, I wondered, an abandoned building succumbs to decay, this building that once rose out of its stupor and shone its light far beyond the mean spirited town in which it found itself. Perhaps we never escape the mud of our roots. Even in its heyday the museum-gallery was too colloquial for the city folk, too esoteric for the men in brogues. But that wasn’t the reason it closed, it was more complicated than that.
Gwen Tolios says
Michael blinked at the menu in front of him. It was hard to concentrate on the written words with the spoken ones in the back of his mind. He kept having to read them over again when he got distracted. The man behind him was really annoying, thinking thoughts of time and rushing.
MET says
In the recesses of Mythenrock’s largest temple, a young woman knelt painfully on the stone floor before her instructor. None of the artistry of the temple’s façade had encroached upon the stark and cloistered prayer room where High Intercessor Rickford, head of the kingdom’s religious order, was lecturing the only child of the king. In the unadorned, octagonal room, the paltry light of a single candle was just enough for Minteir Rickford to recite from the book of the Scholars, but it cast only shadows upon the defiant princess he was trying to reach.
DN says
I think I see a foot sticking out from under the guardrail. I'm riding in the car, counting horse-trailers, looking for body dumps on the side of the 5. Out from under, I think drowsily, that's three prepositions right there, although in English that's no great feat. Great feat. Huh. Feat. Foot. "Hey!"
Chelo Diaz-Ludden says
I sip espresso from a Japanese tea cup with no handle. Unlike my adventurous sister, this is the way I travel the world, cup by cup. Over fifty countries grow coffee and I’ve visited them all without ever leaving The Cracked Bean. I’ve sampled Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam from this small cup. My thumb traces the porcelain’s gold-filled crack, a Japanese tradition that honors past wounds. Imagine people repaired the same way; foreheads etched with brass hairline fractures, chips of silver embedded along fingers, bolts of gold shot through hearts. I lift the cup to eye level and stare. At this angle there’s no telling how deep the crack. I can even pretend it’s only decorative.
AJ Salem says
My cheerleading uniform hung from the top of the closet door like a corpse. I took another brief look at it before slipping into a pair of grey sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt emblazoned with the word Alaska. I shoved each foot into a worn sneaker not bothering to unlace them. My bedroom was still enveloped in darkness. Pulling back one of the red curtain sheers, I watched as the only hint of dawn was still fastened to the horizon line and I was glad to see that the morning dew had already settled onto the ground and no longer littered the air. I reset the alarm on my cellphone, left it on my night table and walked out the front door.
Lauren B. says
There had always been people who mistrusted the doctors, avoided them, feared them. Men who had convinced themselves that taking care of oneself was a greater sign of weakness than a stubborn march into the advanced stages of disease. Women who kept the latest crops of shamans and snake oil salesmen fattened and well fertilized. Skepticism was healthy. But the prevailing attitudes were not skepticism and even now–after everything–Kallie would not join them. Her rationality would not allow it.
Carolynn with 2Ns says
It is when I am a front seat passenger, window open, arm resting on the edge of the door; I see my mother’s hands, angular, mapped with a highway of raised purple veins and freckled with a lifetime of too much sun. When I look at them I see her, pinching a smoldering Winston between her index and middle finger, or grasping a sweating glass of vodka on the rocks. I used to watch her paint her nails hot pink, when hot pink was the new red. Each little stroke of the tiny brush painted on femininity, if she was anything my mother was feminine. In the side mirror I catch a glimpse of her, but it’s me. My memories of her are like the objects in the mirror, ‘closer than they appear’.
Suzanne Lucero says
This time, Brandon would kiss me. I’d left the college campus at 2 A.M. after celebrating with all the other high school graduates who were eating free food on the quad, visiting booths set up with games, or just chilling to great music. Now I was back, and this time I’d make him kiss me.
Lucille Redmond says
Belinda threw down her mother's leg, splashing the room with blood, and burst into tears. "That's so unfair," she sobbed. "Why can't I have a pony, just because I'm a zombie?"
– @sinabhfuil
minawitteman says
I watch the girl while she sits on a bench that is tucked away in a corner of the park. Trees and bushes screen her off from prying eyes. But not from us. We stand behind the rhododendrons, Jimmy and I, half-hidden by an abundance of crimson flowers and the trunk of an old oak. With my index finger I trace the choppy curled letters of one of the hundreds of names that are carved in its bark. A heart dots the ‘I’ in the name. I force my eyes away from the carved-out heart and back to the girl on the bench. She smoothes her hair with her hand, tilts her face to the sun that peeks through the thick foliage. She tossed her bike in the grass not far from where we are hiding. The front wheel gyrates in a slowly dying motion. The golden rim catches the light of the sun and bounces off into the park like laser beams at a rave. The girl scratches her boney knee that sticks out from under her flowered Bermuda, absent-mindedly she stares into the thicket that surrounds her. Under her armpit, sweat colours her red tee darker. I slide the goggles down, button up my jacket and look at Jimmy. The goggle’s scratched lenses blur my vision, but not as much that they won’t let me see the foul smile that is plastered across his face. “Let’s not, Jimmy.” I try to will the tension out of my neck muscles.
Linz says
It wasn’t the feeling of impact reverberating up my arms that reached through the rage roaring in my ears, but the sickening crack that sounded out beyond the skin and muscle tissue that wrapped around his torso. When he fell heavily to the floor at my feet there was another snap behind the thump and before I could take my next ragged breath my sneakered foot was embedded in his ribs. He wasn’t crying, but rather growling at me through the pain, and that was when I realized I was the one standing above him this time, his bat hanging by my side like an extra limb. I watched him curling in on himself, cursing me between gasps from what I hoped was a punctured lung.
Automan21k says
It was late in the day in the city of Ducane. Early November, the kind of day where you wake up in the morning to a light frost that melts at dawn. Despite the cloudless sky a persistent rumble of thunder echoed through the soulless building. The lights gave a brief flicker and, with a pop, bathed the room in darkness. The machinery that ran the world came to a sudden stop.
Karen deBlieck says
The grave was small but deep. It had to be so scavengers wouldn’t find it. Rosa hunched her shoulders against the chill of the early morning. The shovel bit into the dry earth. Its regular grating gave a macabre rhythm to her task. Wind caught the dust and blew the grit into her mouth and eyes.Fingers of fog touched her skin like a promise, but she knew better. The moisture would burn away once the sun rose, before any of it could soak into the parched ground. It had been so for three changes of the season, and the land was dying.
Carl Shirley says
Of all the women who want to kill me, there's only one I'm truly afraid of. The chick with the knife isn't her. On any other day, even a petite brunette with a nine-inch blade might be enough to make me nervous, but this day all I have to do is open my jacket. She probably doesn't even see my SR9, but is smart enough to guess the purpose of the shoulder holster. That stops her dead in her tracks.
Dying was different this time around. More purposeful and focused. Camille’s decision to do something great and good for the sake of the entire world overshadowed the frantic cries and look of horror on Derek’s face as she mouthed the words, I’m sorry. She lifted her foot out over the well’s seductive darkness and leaned in, relinquishing her entire body to Satan’s persistent beckoning.
Michelle A. Barry says
Noise filled the giant factory as machines hummed, metal scraped and humans and aliens alike grunted under the weight of the work and the watchful eyes of the supervisors. The sounds blurred together into the usual orchestra of unpleasant music. The workers didn't seem to mind though. They knew there were worse sounds, like the buzz of an electric baton and the sound it made when it contacted the flesh of a worker who wasn’t working hard or fast enough. No such sound could be heard in today's symphony, though that could change at any moment. An unusual and equally unwelcome noise was present today, however. The metallic click of military officers' shoes on the concrete floor of the factory. They walked amongst the workers, all slaves, all under the age of 18, debating between themselves of who to choose.
Zan Marie says
I wasn't a mother, but I knew the look of a child whose parents were MIA. And the slight blond at the end of the table had all the signs. Even if I didn't know the story Jen had whispered to us, I'd have picked her out as a child in need.
J.M. Hoffman says
It's like the guy in the joke. You know, the joke? About the guy? Of course you know it. The guy's on his way to work. And his wife calls. It's like that. Everyone knows the joke. His wife calls because she's heard there's a lunatic driving the wrong way on the highway her husband always takes. So she calls his cell. You know, to warn him. She calls to warn him about the lunatic. But the guy says, "one lunatic? They're ALL driving the wrong way." It's like that. But that doesn't mean I'm crazy.
–J.M. Hoffman
Gary Anderson says
A double was levered halfway to my mouth when I got the call from Gwousz. But I had no intention of vectoring a bovey right then. Especially after having already waded well into a binge begun hours earlier to commemorate the loss of my manhood at my ex-wife’s hands. Needless to say it was an ongoing observation. And by ongoing I mean nightly.
Peter Frahm says
John Bowman would have gladly handed over his life’s savings to avoid looking at the face under the white sheet. Already knowing what he would see there made it a thousand times worse. He summoned every last iota of willpower and forced his legs to carry him across the cold, tiled floor. He took in the stainless steel storage units set into the green walls. It was strange that the Cook County Morgue followed the same color scheme as the rest of the hospital: green, the color of healing, with stainless steel trim. Ironic that there was no healing to be found in this room, only death. I don’t want to do this, he thought.
Peter had seen strangers in the road before, but there was something different about this man…something sinister. Most people passed on their way without a thought for what might lie on the opposite bank of the river that ran beside the road, but this man, in his tattered cloak that fluttered restlessly around him, stood bent and still. He seemed to be staring at a spot on the edge of the road, as if he knew that was where a bridge should begin.
Liz Mc says
It was hot everywhere. The air was thick with waves of summer heat and the unwavering shudder of cicadas singing from the peeling bark of choked trees. It was like this one of the last times I saw my sister awake. She had fallen into the Dream the second she went unconscious. I know—I was there.
Gloria Taylor Weinberg says
From the back seat, I could see the muscle in my father’s jaw bulge as he clenched his teeth. “Go on,” he said, without looking back. “Go knock on the door and see if this is the place.”
Margay says
When I was born, all of the demons in Hell cashed in their chips to vie for me. Not for want of me, precisely, but for what I represent. I am cursed – or blessed – with the ability to sniff them out. Kind of like a psychic bloodhound. And unearth them. Literally. But in a crazy twist of irony, I am also the conduit for them to buy their way back into heaven. For one month out of the year, it is my duty to help the truly repentant on their journey back onto a nobler path. Unfortunately, during this time, my senses are somewhat blighted, so I can’t smell them coming. Or send them packing, back into the fiery pit from which they arose. Who makes up these rules? Well, at least they can’t harm me during this time, either. That’s the condition of the truce, anyway. Welcome to Hell –
From my perch inside I watch as Mike separates the drapery, creating a pocket of space above the sill just wide enough to press his forehead up against the cold glass of the windowpane. I’ve lost count of the number of times he has repeated these same tired motions. Wrapped in the gossamer curtains the smell of dust and old sunlight draws up memories of a distant childhood – his or perhaps mine, it’s hard to discern. At times it feels as though I’ve lived more than one life and I suppose that in many ways I have. The line that separates us is often blurred.
Joanna says
Hate; despise; abhor; detest; abomination; intense aversion. I doodle black bats around my synonyms. My dad gave me a thesaurus on my 8th birthday and it’s still on my bedside table. I don’t know why I am getting myself worked up into such a tizz. I should ace it. Anyhow, no one expects great scores from the first SAT exam. I pull out my SAT crammer for one last look through. It’s an hour and a half until the test, so still time before jumping on the bus. Ouch! I look down at the fingernail I have must been chewing on the past few minutes and see I have bitten all the way down to the quick again. WTF. At least my self-abuse ends there, well physically anyway. I look at the two bottles on my desk and hesitate between the purple varnish or that foul bitter stuff. I opt for the latter knowing neither will stop me biting for long. Charlene says my nail biting is a sign I’m OCD. Anna just says it’s part of my tomboy phase I never grew out of. That’s the difference between my US and French friends. Even at 17 so many of my high school friends are seeing therapists and psychoanalyzing stuff. My mother doesn’t like me. What’s there to analyze?
I have seen Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. I have ridden red buses and traveled the Tube more times than I can count. I have sipped too many wines in Southern France. I am having a terrible time. It pains me that I’m going to look back on this trip and think what a big mistake it all was. It should have been awesome. I am young, free, and curious. I was going to have a magnificent adventure. I was going to have amazing experiences and learn stuff about myself. I was going to eat delicious French pastries and meet cute Belgian boys and get legally high in Amsterdam. Instead I’ve been trailing along with whom I now believe are the two worst people on earth: my sister and my childhood friend, both named Megan. And now we are trapped in some French city I’ve never heard of and I’m crying in the train terminal because the Megans are mean and they are bossy and because I never cared that much about seeing Big Ben. There is a train to Hanover and I’m staring at it. Well, mostly I’m staring at the cute boy with the purple scarf getting on that train to Hanover. I know a little German and I hate the Megans. Hanover is looking pretty excellent right now. —-Alison Coffey
Two little girls sprawl half asleep on the sandy bank of a stream beneath a clear blue autumn sky. Midday sun warms their skin, glittering on the fine downy hairs that are not quite fur, but a brisk little breeze stirs the granite dust and crackles the dry leaves under the bushes. Change is in the air.
Peta says
The cardboard coffin lay in the furnace like a giant box of take-out. The residual odour of smoky charcoal clogged my nose and filled my head with images of barbecued steak – well done – and Herring cooked over a brazier. My stomach rumbled. I would have to make sure I had a big breakfast next time, either that or clean the furnace more often.
Katchen says
Nineteen more agonizing steps up the hill and it would finally be over. Her chest felt as if massive stones were pressing down upon her, squeezing every last breath of life from her frail body. But that was not the chosen fate for her today. Her large, blue eyes peered out from her delicate face, which looked pale and gaunt after so much time in isolation. Her long blond hair, now hacked short, lay loose under a thin cap. She gazed up at the tall oak tree stretched before her on Gallows Hill, its branches spread wide open, inviting and comforting against the backdrop of the raging crowd. The tree stood before her, strong and resolute.
Matthew Eaton says
The small tangle in Lily's dye blonde skunk striped red hair moved and growled when she brought her index finger to touch it. She stopped in her tracks, her left eyelid twitching and shoulders sagging. She shook her head like a wet dog, trying to throw the thing chewing on her scalp out of her hair.
Margo Ball says
Rodney rang my doorbell at two o’clock in the morning–proof positive, if there was ever any doubt, that bad luck comes in groups of three. I hadn’t seen my brother, had barely even spoken to him, in more than five years, but I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find him on my doorstep. History had taught me that when phones rang or doors were pounded on at ungodly hours, chances were good that Rodney was involved.
Francesco2409 says
My name is Samantha Watson, I'm fifteen and I'm an apprentice navigator aboard the airship Spirit of Edinburgh. Or at least this would have been the line I'd have fed you a handful of weeks ago. Right now I could tell you I'm the killer of demons, traveller of worlds, rider of gryphons and mistress of machines the pub songs are about, but probably you wouldn't believe me if I said it out of the blue like this, so I guess I'll have to stick to the old way of telling stories and start from the beginning, back when I was still just an ill-tempered brat getting into people's way as everybody sweated blood to save the airship from the pack of dragons infesting the skies over Tokyo. And may Lord Google and Lady Wikipedia, gods of truth and knowledge, strike me dead if I’m lying.
R.S. Gregory says
Johnny Brisco woke to a tangle of sheets that were damp with misbehavior, a throbbing headache and half a boner. At his age he thought, two out of three wasn’t bad.
Amiee Gibbs says
Amiee Gibbs said…
The wind blew from the east the night the ship was first sighted on the Thames.
M. B. Trapp says
The hare had only one half-functioning eye and in the death black of the tunnel he saw nothing. The wetness and cold deep in his fur. Against his neck the wild breathing of the fighters stacked behind. The constant tremors through their frames and the hot pulsing of blood. The hare knew this fear and he did not envy it. He ran his fingers lightly down the dragonleather hilt at his hip, closed his working eye and pictured the blade in the sun. His meditation broken by a wretching in the darkness and the splatter of vomit on the stone. He heard curses and then a voice: "Lead us, son of Hoentas."
CourtLoveLeigh says
They shoved us brightly out the door. We walked, always walked, in rows of four by four by four. To my left was C, and to my right was V. I was B. We had always been this way. Headmistress strode ahead of the twelve of us while he breathed too close behind. We wore pale blue silk pinafores with white boatneck collars. Out of the corners of my eyes I could see the golden glimmer of a dozen blonde heads, hair cropped even with our chins. I saw the gold of rounded building tops, each one with dark speck windows that no face would peek through. The sharp-glimmer pebbles pushed against the soles of my feet, but I had no need to look down at them. I walked this road every day of my life. I felt the large golden-waved sun on my skin each of those same days. I trodded to the tower. We trodded to the tower.
Liz Lincoln says
The body lay face-down in the grass. Dozens of stab wounds covered the woman’s back and legs, some shallow, others deep.
Julie Arduini says
Less than five minutes inside Speculator Falls village limits and the whirl of police lights invade my rearview mirror. Great. Just how I wanted to start my new life—with law enforcement tapping on my driver window. I push the button and form a strategy as the glass partition disappears.
“Officer, it’s not my fault.” My stubby index finger points to the GPS on the dashboard. “The GPS made me do it.”
Saille says
It was a good day until fire started falling out of the sky. The sun was just up, and the leading edge of the spring burn was behaving exactly as the kindlers had predicted, which was a relief, because this was Thus’s first year as an outrunner. Ahead, he could hear the high whistles of his herd of capas, and see their broad silver backs parting the grasses, leaving gleaming, vee-shaped wakes behind them. They moved toward the firebreak restively, but without panic. He supposed they must have grazed their way back across it in the night. It didn’t matter. This was the one day that Thus and the other stewards didn’t need to be responsible for their small allotments of the People’s larger herd. A capa could keep out of the way of fire more easily than the People, because capas weren’t responsible for putting it out. He still felt a wash of protectiveness, though. He’d delivered some of the young for the first time this year, turning their tapering heads and soft, wrinkled paws to lie correctly along the birth canal before drawing them, dark and shining, into the world, where the rhythm of their mothers’ hearts gave way to the susurration of the grasses.
allodoxophobia says
The first time I saw Emmy, she looked lost. Her dishwater blonde hair was waving around her ears, so much shorter than all the other girls in our class, which is what made me notice her right away. Until she entered the school, I was the only one with hair shorter than my shoulders. Long hair was cool then. Even though we were fourteen and in the ninth grade, she looked about ten. Her tiny frame was almost emaciated and her plain t-shirt and jeans hung off her body. The look in her eyes, as I spied her across the courtyard, was pure fear, like a squirrel deciding if it should cross the busy road or not. I watched her watch everyone else, trying to decide where to sit. She’d obviously eliminated the cafeteria as a viable place to eat lunch that day. I knew how she felt. It was easier to hide and not look so alone out in the courtyard where you could sit under a tree or on a bench with a book and pretend to be studying. As she passed by me, tiptoed almost, I called out to her.
Davy says
Puked-up orange soda. That was it, for sure. I’d spent the whole first week at my new school trying to figure out what the color of the lockers reminded me of. Now, with my arm twisted behind my back and my face pressed right up against them, it finally hit me –the lockers looked like they were covered in puked-up orange soda.
In the inkiest, most hair-tingling hour of the night, Jasmin Punk crept towards the house and whipped her knife from its sheath on her calf. She settled her feet in the flowerbeds beneath a low sash window and see-sawed her blade between the sill and the frame. Her nose twitched in satisfaction as the lock shifted with only the faintest of clicks.
Lavinyaa Pash says
"The summer was really great. But it ended fast. Well, I really wanted it to end faster. Probably that I am the only girl in the world to want summer to end. I think that everyone wants to… What do they want? I don't know. I can't read mind. What I know is that I want my birthday to come faster. Not for presents, money and much love, I want that because I want to become 18 faster. My mother thinks that I am still a child and maybe at 18 years old she will change her opinions.
Marguerite Hall says
“Holy shit! That would be so cool if it weren’t about to kill us,” Adam exclaimed as he and his fellow firefighters gawked in awe at the sight unfolding before them. The full magnitude became clear as the fire truck made the last turn as it raced toward the scene.
surreptitiousstudios says
There are many kinds of maps. Maps that mark the paths of rivers through dark forests. Maps that line by line trace the height of mountains, hills and valleys in between. Maps of stars and maps of the moon, and maps which contain folded secrets, if you only knew the trick. Even maps of the imagination. (How many times did I have to check that map at the front of the book while reading The Hobbit?) This was not one of those maps. This was a hand drawn map of human hopelessness. Twenty-two, twenty-four and thirty-five Beasley Crescent. My little brother's paper route, and I was tucking folded wads of newsprint into mailboxes, one by one while he was at home, and sick in bed.
Katie Bartlett says
Cape Mare, the sandy spit of land I call home, has a secret. Over one hundred years ago, the Settlers, its first inhabitants, vanished. They left behind traces of their lives, lost treasures that no one but us locals can find. Mac and I especially. And this summer, we're making money off what we know.
The mystery of our island will be available for tourists to buy.
For a dollar a piece.
Becca says
The clouds choking the sky spoke of snow as Jacob Patterson walked bare foot along the grimy sidewalk, in search of a certain number. He checked the tarnished metal numerals on the tall and ominous buildings he passed, comparing them with the torn, soiled scrap of paper he held in his hand. The ad printed upon it bore a picture of a woman with a serene smile – she promised food and a place to live in exchange for a year. He wasn’t keen on being a “test subject,” but he was starving to death and he knew it. If he didn’t volunteer, he would be giving up on himself and his life. The ad was his last hope in a dying world, a world that was taking him and everyone else with it to the grave.
"Follow me."
The words are whispered as he walks by my desk in music theory class. They aren't a command; they're an invitation. But with Conor, commands and invitations are one and the same. He walks right out of theory, bag slung over one shoulder, and aside from our teacher tripping over her words about Bach and counterpoint, his sudden exit goes unacknowledged. That's Conor's way. If he wants to disappear, he vanishes. If he wants to be seen, you can't see anything but him.
I haven't been able to see anything but him for a year.
There were fish swimming all over the Shopping Precinct, brightly coloured shoals of them swirling past me as I waded against the tide. The colours became a rainbow blur so I took refuge in a doorway. From there watching the stream as it flowed past, made me feel dizzy. I knew I would have to wait, before launching out again. I should have known better than to venture into the shops on a Saturday, but had to go out. I had promised David Collins. I closed my eyes to steady myself. I knew the doorway was safe. A man like me, if he stands very still, becomes invisible. If you hold out your hand, as if begging, they ignore you even more. It can be very useful, at times. But you could also die in that place and no one would notice. When I ventured a peep, of course there were no fish, just people rushing about, hurrying by, going about their business, shopping for things they thought they needed. I wondered how big their houses were to be able to have so many things inside them. I wouldn't want to be living like that. When you own very little, you have room to breathe.
I order eggs benedict with smoked salmon and champagne hollandaise sauce. It was days after Hurricane Sandy and Babette’s in East Hampton was doing brisk business. Hampton’s Booksellers and even the town’s Starbuck’s had reopened. Charlie Rose and Amanda Burden were dining in one of the outside tables and halfway through their meal Alex Baldwin stopped by to say hello. Virgil was facing the street and could barely hold back his distain as he drained his bloody mary. After a few minutes, he couldn’t help himself and went over to say hello. I stayed in my seat and sipped warm tea. He came back smiling but as soon as they left he was full of sighs and complaints. He had been in a foul mood since the day the storm hit. Ginger from the New York Times had called to politely cancel and Samantha from ARTNews emailed to reschedule.
“They’re acting like they’ve never been in a god damn rain storm before,” he said.
~Stephanie Smith, NY
Whispers hiss through the room, slipping through cupped hands and coiling on eager shoulders as secrets are spilled. None of the shared murmurs reaches my ears, but I’m not surprised. My classmates are more likely to talk about me than to me.
Glory Lennon says
It was a horrible thing to say, but the best thing that ever happened to Briana Leybold was her Great-Aunt Eliza Sheffield dying and subsequently leaving all her worldly possessions to her estranged niece. This was an aunt Briana barely knew and only just remembered her when prompted by the lawyer who had been searching tirelessly to find this poor old lady her last remaining relation.
Sean Breves says
I didn’t know what was more nauseating, the cab driver’s overuse of the brake pedal or my head spinning to crane at the buildings. Back home, we had one stop light, and that usually just flashed yellow. But, this is what I wanted, a fresh start, an opportunity to move away from the daily hazards of my old school, where bumping into one of the burly football players would usually end with me in search of dry clothes and a taste aversion to toilet water. Years of torment because everyone thought I was different. I’m sorry; I wasn’t into sports, and I didn’t get the girls who fought over whatever new teen pin up boy was popular. The only identity I could forge was behind the safety of a computer screen. There, I was confident. I was someone whom others respected. In short, I was the opposite of who I presented myself to be. But now, I get a new start, a second chance at high school with others who were more like me. That is what Professor Drillings preached, a group of likeminded teens on the precipice of greatness.
Sharen Ford says
Slipping through the midday crowds, she searched the oncoming faces for any indication that she still existed. There were more tourists than New Yorkers pushing their way through the doors of the Fifth Avenue stores, and she could identify at least four languages among the snippets of conversation. The Italians among them would once have looked her up and down in swift, approving appraisal. Compelled by the feeling that she had somehow become transparent, Allegra tried to make eye contact with at least one of the strangers she brushed against. When that failed, she glanced sideways to make sure she could still create a reflection in Bendel's window.
Through his nose Hapi took a deep breath and thought to himself, ‘I’m fucked up.’ He leaned against the bar and began the effort of focusing on the girl in the white tank top who was throwing darts again. She and the dart machine seemed to sway left and right, and a bit sideways too which reminded him of why he hated boats. Or was it that that boats reminded him of when he was fucked up, he wasn’t sure
Kim Jorgensen Gane says
She closed her eyes against the bright overhead lights and tried to remember her yoga breathing; tried to be someplace else; tried not to wish too hard that this time things would work; tried not to curse her barren, wretched, traitor body for the millionth time for not being able to do the most natural thing in the world.
Kim Jorgensen Gane
Krystal Marquis says
I hear them before I see them. I always do. Something gives them away like a thought too loud to conceal. This time it’s two pairs of footsteps, wheels on a tile floor, and angry whispers. Keys jingle in a singsong rhythm with my increasing heartbeat. “Please, keep walking. Keep walking,” I chant to the girl in the mirror as if she has any power to keep the quarreling couple from entering my temporary living quarters. Deep in the apartment I wait, motionless, straining to follow the sounds emanating from the hall. The soft glow of the night-light casts dark shadows over the room. Cracks in the tile stand out like potholes. The gourmet coffee in the pantry tugs at my insides. Images—thoughts—that aren’t mine skip through my mind. It’s happening again. All it takes is a little adrenaline. I close my eyes and let my exceptional hearing do its work.
It was so quiet, you could hear a mouse fart. The mice always broke wind just before daybreak. I took hearing them loud and clear as a sign that my debut crow would run like clockwork. After all, the rodent’s biological proclamation was the first rule of three in the Top-Rooster-In-All-The-Land-Wingbook. It specifically stated: Once the mice pass gas, it is time to prepare for the morning crow.
Barbara Binns says
Four months. One hundred twenty days. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty hours. I refused to do my time in minutes. My old clothes stretch tight across my chest. My pants are too short. I rip off the black canvas slip-on shoes we inmates have to wear, no laces, because God forbid we should try to strangle someone, even ourselves. Suicide is frowned on; the media makes a big deal out of death in juvie. My real shoes, size eleven high-top sneakers, smell a little ancient after sitting in a locker for months. At least my feet didn’t grow and they still fit. For a few seconds my fingers can’t remember how to tie the laces. Then I step out of my cell for the last time, and face my cousin.
Mia Hayson says
The second act nearly always involves fire, that's what Biscuit told me this morning as he adjusted my shoulder plate. THEY'LL TRY TO BURN YOU, he said. He began brushing soot across my cheek bones, his fingertips tracing the patterns of our ancestors, before he continued with fingers that puffed up soot as they spoke, BUT YOU MUST REMEMBER WE WERE BORN IN FIRE, AND SO IT CANNOT TOUCH YOU.
Carrie.l.roth@gmail.com says
Carrie.L.Roth
My mother holds my face in her hands for a brief moment before returning to the morning dishes. I wish she could hold me like she did when I was a boy. Maybe then some of her goodness would rub off on me and make me a better person.
K Callard says
Zane slouched in the shade of a stall, casually eating a fig, while he watched his prey move with purpose through the market. The man seemed anxious to keep out of the sunlight that was drenching the market in heat and light, but whether it was to keep cool or to protect his shadow, Zane didn't know. Either way, he'd have to be careful.
adkwords says
There were many things that fourteen-year-old Jacqueline Puddle knew. She knew that the name of her town, Slalomville, suited its residents and every-day pace perfectly, because it reminded her of a sloth. Or the word "slow." Or something equally sluggish and sl-ish.
Dee Dee Mozeleski says
The first man my mother brought home was broken by life. The second, third and fourth were destroyed by it.
V. N. says
They say my father was a hero.
Tonya Assid says
The three year old girl peered down at the old man lying in the bed. He was dying and only the two of them understood what was going to happen. She so new to the world and he so old – they had the knowledge of what was before and what was after.
Four thousand long nights had snaked by, yet I immediately recognized the voice calling to me from the hallway. I begged him to be quiet but he repeated: "Amalia, Amalia… let me in!" Over and over again. I worried that my neighbor would hear the noise and see him there. Just how would I explain the presence of this man in front of my door? My fingers slipped as I fumbled with the lock, but finally the tumblers clicked into place. I pulled hard, the heavy mahogany panel swung inward, and I watched helplessly as Alejandro Mendez fell into the room, and back into my life
Pamela Kripke says
My mother had planned a tag sale for that day, Saturday, not expecting my father to die on the Thursday before. At five minutes to midnight, the nineteenth of August, so many Augusts too soon. Linens and sneakers and cassette tapes were piled on tables in the garage, and Mom thought we should just have the sale because we were prepared. We had written prices on stickers, determined whether someone would want a typewriter or a vase that comes to the door when you get a bouquet. We had categorized items by type and made it look like a store and we had nothing else to do that day, that Saturday, as the oxygen tank had been picked up and the dishes rinsed and beds made after leaving in a hurry, a horrible hurry three days before. The arrangements were set for Sunday, so we should have the sale, she thought. We should welcome strangers into our garage and take their dollars in exchange for board games and costume jewelry that we did not like anymore. It would give us something to do. It would be good for us. While the people made new life of our old belongings, my brother stood on the driveway and communicated the plan.
Debra Lynn Lazar says
Alice grabbed the knife from the counter and began swinging wildly. It was a good thing Lila and the boys weren’t home or heads would have literally rolled. Ooh, her sister could make her so mad! How dare she suggest Alice move out? The house had been in their family for generations. Who did she think she was to lay claim to it? If only Mama and Papa were still around. They’d set things straight. Chills ran down her spine as she whisked the pesky memory from her mind. What was done was done. In the meantime, Alice knew it was not only time to make dinner, it was time to make a few choice decisions. The loud noise from the knife smacking hard on the granite countertop made her smirk. At least the horsefly wouldn’t be bothering her again anytime soon.
The hieroglyphics sealed Teine's fate. They were chipped into the cave wall and filled with vibrant oil paints. Three suns, each identical apart from the rays, which grew stronger and more pronounced from left to right. Below the suns, a lone mermaid with a fire-red tail swam ahead of her blue-tailed tribe, leading them to a new home.
Kate Lansing
Carter Higgins says
Even the grass grew taller that summer, and it wasn't because Franklin Mattingly was dead. Strange things happened to all of us, the kinds of things that make your eyebrows wrinkle and your bare feet itch. “In time, Sugar Sue,” June Mattingly was always telling me. She was right. Triple's champion turtle won at the Heritage Inn Fair On The Fourth Of July. The Raphine Rockskippers won more games than they lost. Betsy and Lollie Plogger finally stopped ignoring me. And I, Derby Christmas Clark, knocked it out of the park.
Easier Read than Done says
I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but I couldn’t help it when my father smiled up at me. It was the same look my two year old gave me when I came home from work. He reached out with his bony hand and pulled me closer. "Don’t cry,” he said, his voice slow and weak from the morphine drip. “I remember it all.”
Holly Alexander says
Everything darkened as a head appeared in the gap above me. All I could see was wisps of curls and the outline of Will's jaw but I knew he was angry. He reached down towards me and I grasped his hand, letting him lift me to the top of the rocks in one motion. The waves were much closer now and a shudder jerked my shoulders as I realised the crevice would be flooded in under an hour.
'Jesus Ari, you're freezing.'
Will's voice dropped to a sigh as he spread his fingers and began to rub heat into my skin, pausing for a moment on the ridges of my spine.
‘How long did you last today?’ he asked.
A lie formed on my lips but I swallowed it, knowing there was no point.
‘Until lunch.’
‘They’re going to call your dad soon Ari, you know that right?’
mandy says
The forest lay thick with canopies of trees. The humming of birds and buzzing of busy bees could be heard all around. While the sun shone bright and the world stood happy, eight best friends spent their time playing in the wide forest glade. This was a place they had known all their life. This was a place they called home. This was a place where they grew up and lived the free life.
JamieKate says
I used to like observing people at traffic lights, but since everything in the world had imploded, it had just become depressing. I caught fewer lip-synchers and nose-pickers and more people crying or just staring into space wondering how to pay off their credit card debt. It was downright sad. Not that anything in my life had ever been particularly uplifting, but the nose-pickers had been a comfort, somehow. They meant that even if my life was its own little tragedy, even if I lived alone and had only enough money to pay for groceries (not electricity, heat, clothes, or cable), other people’s lives were okay. It used to be enough.
(Yikes! I think my comment was eaten.)
I wasn't a mother, but I knew the look of a child whose parents were MIA. And the slight blond at the end of the table had all the signs. Even if Jen hadn't whispered her story to us, I'd have known that this girl had lost it all.
I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew where I was: 8th Avenue, the vein that runs from Greenwich Village to the rest of Manhattan. My tan flats pounded the pavement and my long brown hair flew out behind me. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but I knew I wasn’t going to turn around, un-slam the door of the brownstone, climb the narrow steps to my apartment, and take back what I’d screamed at my boyfriend of five years: How could you? I didn’t know that I would end up running farther than I thought possible, to the foothills of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, to a town called Hecate that you will have difficulty finding on a map, to a farmhouse you would get lost trying to find, to a room whose ghost you will never see.
I only knew that I, Suzie Monarch, was heartbroken.
rsantos says
My father never had much to say. He wasn’t interested in the sit down have a beer how’s life oh that’s too bad it’ll get better kind of thing. No way. Instead, he communicated through grimaces, smirks, and an occasional arm yank. He’s been dead twenty years and my right bicep’s still bruised. My brother had it a little better. Lighter bruises.
The old man never fit in New Mexico, land of a thousand Catholics. He was an only child. Maybe he was alone too much. It made him mean.
Kevin Harkness says
Jenny hated the bus ride home. Nothing matched it for sheer misery, not even gym class or spreading chicken manure on Gran’s garden. Today she was late, the last one on the bus. It wasn’t her fault; Mr. Haynes had kept her after school to talk about her history mark. It was one of those oh-so-serious chats about consequences and lost opportunities. She had dutifully nodded and said “yessir” in the right places. Then she had run for all she was worth to the front of the school to catch the farm kids’ bus.
A.K. Watts says
And so it was. The sky grew dark and lightening tickled the rolling clouds over the small island. In the center of a large ring of people stood a dark-cloaked figure folded down onto his knees by the pressure of the vacuous air around him. Oh, how he hated them and their close-minded values! He managed to reach up and cling to the onyx obelisk in front of him for support and fought not only for life, but to defeat these insufferable maij. For centuries this pathetic Council had been no match for him—but this was majick that even he, in his wildest dreams, never expected the Council to have the gall to attempt with all their rules, regulations, and taboos for harmful magic. His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden sensation of prickling hairs on the back of his neck, and the full force of his situation began to hit him: Oh, shit.