Category: General Fiction

All Stories, General Fiction

Courage Anniversary by Amita Basu

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I stroll down the promenade and onto the bridge. This one is closed to automobiles.

Between its dead-gray embankments, the river glows noon-gold. I’ve seen the river at its source: young, leaping motion-mad. Here, near its mouth, matured into inertia, the river drifts.  Over the river, past me this balmy June Sunday, people jog, stroll, power-walk, and bicycle. Dog-walkers discipline the curiosity out of their dogs with smart little leash tugs. Old couples, combining constitutionals with treat-shopping, have finally found all the time in the world.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Equal Rights by Frederick K Foote

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Lux Brandon is sitting at his kitchen table at 6:51 am, comparing a printed document to a Word file on his tablet computer. He writes on the paper to note a difference between the two sources. He rubs his shadow-bearded chin in frustration.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Disappearance by Michael Bloor

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There’s something about small islands: a bounded space, every corner familiar, memory-laden. I understand the attraction because I left and then returned. Like a lot of islanders, I joined the mercantile marine, but a bad fall left me lame in the right leg. So I came home to work as the harbour master. And now, in my sixties, I’m damn pleased I did.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Night Stranger by Torger Vedeler

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“Mommy! Mommy!”

As the summer sun neared the horizon on this longest day, the heat of late June only fading slowly, Ann drew fingers through her dark hair, trying to work out the beginnings of a tangle. I should just cut it short, she thought. Everyone else my age does.

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All Stories, General Fiction

It Was Best Like This by Margarida Chagas

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They’re talking about me. I can’t hear the exact words, but I know it. Their eyes carefully shoot glances from time to time while their mouths move fast with worry and sympathy. I need someone to tell the doctor tomorrow that I don’t like this new medication. It makes my thoughts dizzy and my legs slower.

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Long Time Between Yesterday and Tomorrow by J Bradley Minnick

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Mr. Overalls comes into Old Da’s room at Henrytown Home for the Elderly and Infirm at night—not each night—but often—and pisses in the radiator. This is particularly problematic in winter. She tells Nurse Bee that she hears the hiss, which, she says, makes her queasy and uneasy, and she says she worries that if she can get used to the smell, she might be able to get used to anything, and she says she fears what it is she may have already gotten used to.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Blue Heat by Susan DeFelice

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Neighbor, how we can talk of bone-on-bone arthritis woes, our children, and the Highlander’s muscles over the fence in less than ten minutes! Listen, I have a gift for you for watching over my house whenever I’m on a trip. It’s a bright blue pottery cup with hand-painted fuchsia flowers, suns, and lime green leaves swirling around it. It looks unusual here, but it isn’t in Mexico. Stores are crammed with that lovely pottery and delicate glassware splashed with chunky abstract designs straight from the impulsive mind of the painter.

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All Stories, Editor Picks, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Week 440: Cherophobia; Another Sane Summer Week; Actual Site News and More Rejected Questions

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Liquifying Cherophobia

Cherophobia is the fear of happiness. Fortunately, it is a treatable if not curable phobia. I guess I have the condition, but I view it as more of an aversion to buying into happiness than the fear of it. Sort of like counting a Gift Horse’s teeth, certain that your free Pony has a set similar to those of a Great White Shark, and that they will be dripping blood–and not Horse blood, either. Cherophobics suspect good news and are constantly listening for the other Horse shoe to drop.

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All Stories, General Fiction

  11:11 by Charles Sutphin

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A man who is middle aged wakes up in a room . . . a middle-aged man wakes in an unfamiliar place where he has lived for the past 30 years, except that’s not right. A man awakens in a house where he has lived since getting married. His wife is deceased, his daughter leaves for college this afternoon (or tomorrow). I’m not sure which . . . but she leaves soon enough and I’ve waited a long time to tell this tale.

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All Stories, General Fiction

L’amore di una Madre by Claire M Welton

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When I am stressed, I sit on my bed and count five things. A booklight, melatonin tablets, black nail polish, faded jeans, and knitting needles. Name four things I feel: the dangling pillow tassel, the chilly windowpane, the geography textbook, my pinky toe. I cannot hear three things, because my uncle is working, and my mother is quiet. So I listen to the consistent hum of the heater three times as long as normal for good measure. I can smell the cheap air freshener and my soccer shoes. With the window open, my tongue catches the breeze and I taste cold.

When my mother is stressed, she slits her wrists in the bathtub.

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