My wife left me for good this time. She euthanized our dog, an action I believed extreme. Quit her job, salted the flowerbeds, grabbed a suitcase it turns out had been packed for months, banged the door behind her. Didn’t even say goodbye to our boys. Just stared at them for a moment, as if ciphering. Me, she’d learned to unsee. Then she scrammed.
marriage
Through the Curtain by Diane M Dickson
The police showed her his watch. His watch and wallet, and his wedding ring. No matter how much Amy asked to see her husband’s body, they dissuaded her. None of them actually said that he was unrecognisable because of his injuries but, through the shock and horror of it all, the message was eventually received. She picked up the timepiece she had bought a couple of years earlier. The engraving on the back ‘All My Love Stuart – your Amy’ left no room for doubt. His wallet held some money, his bank cards. His driving licence was missing, that was how they had found her.
The Sixth Victim by Cassie Gross
Rose Dawkins had a terrible secret. It wasn’t something she had done, per say, but it was a secret, a tightly coiled spasm of shame in her chest, a roiling nausea in her stomach. The nausea, in fact, was related to the secret.
The Green Light by Ximena Escobar
Eleanor’s siren hair streamed like moon rivers on her shoulders, livened by the bluish hue emanating from the television. Simon lay on the couch, stretching his nape just enough to kiss the glass on his chest. The lime-green light on the baby monitor remained still. And I, as usual, didn’t pay attention to the movie.
Darjeeling; The Hands of the Daughter by Lari Heino
Unbeknownst to Noa, his and Sneha’s future was decided over a plate of American chop suey in a tea shop in central Darjeeling.
An Engagement by Michael Hyde
The scene is set on the top floor of an old greystone apartment in Chicago’s North Side, the windows of which look out to a black Lake Michigan. Two plates sit on a pub table. One is cleaned and on the other half a pasta portion remains. The diners have taken the wine to the couch, where they are presently reposed; John with his feet up on the coffee table, Lauren with her legs across his lap, her head on a pillow on the far side. Sinatra plays faintly from a speaker, about the same volume as the crackling fire across them. John reads and Lauren thinks. But then….
Marlene Dietrich by Riham Adly
My promotional Facebook ad campaign is far from ready. An upside down, high resolution, Marlene Dietrich holding my self-published book awaits my intervention. I hesitate before choosing the rotate option or is it the flip? Marlene looks regal, confident in her fur coat. What would Marlene think of a book starting with:
She loved lemons and would squirt them on everything, their yellow rind reminding him of her sunshine. Lemons never tasted sweeter. Without her, his heart wouldn’t beat right.
