in Diary, Essay, Poetry, Short Story, Club Favorites
Short Story
Martha.
…journey continues into the cold, empty void of space. Martha's voyage takes her far beyond the scope of what we have explored.
She leaves another mark faintly with a pencil on the metal of the cockpit wall. One for every 24 hours she is contained in this cage.
Space is a horrible place to be left alone. She started this voyage in hopes of finding someone, or something. When traveling at 95 percent the speed of light with no objects nearby, one loses track of everything: speed, direction, purpose and reason. Her metal sarcophagus continues to drift through the great…
By Jason Garden
Read MoreFallen Apple
Some writers have great skill and determination. Some just have luck.
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…the daughter of a famous suicide is a valid career path. One bullet and no door has ever been closed to me.
On the last Tuesday of October in 1962, a jewel of a day with the kind of blue sky that makes you want to cry, my mother put her notebooks in order, chronologically, and sent a final draft of her last poetry collection to her agent. My sister and I were at our babysitter’s so the only one to hear the report of the pistol was our…
By Remington Write
Read MoreComrade Commissar
in Short Story
…the little town of Netrizovo, in a 3 room dacha lived Comrade Commissar Pietrov. It was his duty today, as it had been every Tuesday since joining the Party, that he patrols the rabochiye polya and make sure all was well and all the happy children of Comrade Stalin were working to their hearts' content.
Comrade Commissar Pietrov was a rather handsome fellow if you asked his babushka, and he had a pleasant if not stern look about him, as all good Comrade Commissars should. He stepped out into the crisp morning air taking a deep draught of the smell…
By RayFed
Read MoreMind Numbing
…broke my first neck when I was eight. I didn’t even know I had done it when it happened. I just stared at the stupid PE teacher who was yelling at me and I wanted him to lie down and die. And he did. Just like that. It was the first of many neck breaks. And car crashes and plates broken. But, like I said, I wasn’t even aware that I had done it. Ost of the kids were just scared and screaming as the blood escaped from the corner of Mr. Brightman’s mouth. His eyes were wide open staring…
By T Gamache
Read MoreInto Lightness
Previously published in Shirley (issue 2, 2015)
This story is about a dog that escapes into his dreams.
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…air was warm and the ground beneath me was soft, and wet, and I was running.
The earth was moist, and I was sniffing the earth, letting my nose guide me to the answers that lay underneath the ground.
Maybe I had escaped my kennel, or maybe someone had unlatched the door, but that ceased to matter to me once I scratched the ground and found earthworms, chicken, twigs. The smell of food was thick enough to chew on. I heard barking in the distance, and ran to meet…
By Monica Macansantos
Read MoreNinja Nun
in Short Story
A zombie invasion threatens a fictional American city and Sister Mary is the only one who can stop it.
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…Sister Mary, how ya doin t'night? It's always good to see ya. Say, if you see Mr. Thomas would you tell him his dinner is gettin cold? He's been acting kinda funny lately.", says Mrs. Thomas, a short round woman.
"Yes, Mrs. Thomas I'll do that. Have a good night now."
Minutes later Mary rounds the corner of some industrial buildings. There she sees a figure crouched over a dog, looking suspiciously like he's eating it. In fact he is…
By Sanfmo
Read MoreThe Room
in Short Story
…room was empty. He sat by the wall staring at its blank surface. The white, unadorned, uncovered slab of drywall before him was easier to deal with then the emptiness behind and inside of him. He sighed, knowing he'd have to face it, all of it. The hollow shell of what his life once was. Still he sat, cross-legged not sure as to why. The wall wasn't going to change, the furniture wasn't going to be placed back. He was alone, he always felt alone, but it seemed worse now. There was no escape from the…
By Wil R. P. McCarthy
Read MoreSacrificial Atonement (Book 3 in the Ville Rose trilogy)
in Short Story
This is the opening chapter in Book 3 in the Ville Rose trilogy:
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Chateau Eugénie, Albas, France, 22 November 2036
“She is now fully dilated. It’s time to leave the bath,” said the mid-wife, whose name was Jessica.
“Come on Jules, you gotta get out of this bleedin’ bath unless you wanna give birth to a blinkin’ tadpole!” Tracy said and signalled to Didier to take her sister’s other arm. They lifted Juliette from the water and onto her feet. He scooped her warm wet body into his arms.
Juliette wanted a natural, water-birth for her baby. She chose to have the child…
By Gillie Bowen
Read MoreSecrets
in Short Story
A CIA Agent gets more then he expected from a debriefing of a former KGB agent in 1993. A strange tale emerges of a secret Soviet Space project and a flying saucer in 1969.
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In Memory of my Late Wife Susan who helped edit this story.
…a deep sigh the clean cut CIA agent stood up and snubbed a cigarette out in an ash tray on the heavy wooden table before him. He looked intently at a bearded dirty man in tattered clothes on the other side of the table. He tugged at his blue tie and turned to his right and walked slowly away from the table. He looked into a long nearby mirror and slowly shook his…
By Lee Crystal