Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
Kissing Her at the End of the World
The apocalypse is just something made up for shock value. I’ve seen the old-time movies where monsters rise from the sea, where alien invaders populate the skies with their ships, and where natural disasters give humanity its comeuppance at last.
By Jillian Spiridon3 years ago in Fiction
A Chance.
My heart was pounding wildly in my ears. I could hear shouts and curses behind me. ''Get her! She must be caught.'' I pushed my poor exhausted body on, towards the blue. If I could only reach the sea, I stood a chance. Max had taught me how to swim when I was five; ten years before 'they' took over, with the promise of a better life, a future, equality. Since then, no-one on this small island was allowed near the ocean. We couldn't stray from the perimeters of the electric fence. Anyone who did manage to escape was shot on sight. After months of planning, and with help, I was now running.
By Deborah Robinson3 years ago in Fiction
2:47 AM
“Ma! Mother! Hey, Ma!” Ellie yells to me from the bottom of the bleachers where she’s standing with a few of the older girls from the squad. She stamps her foot on the pavement, hands on hips, ponytail swinging and face scrunched into a red-cheeked grimace of teenage frustration that she inherited from me. I slowly weave through the dispersing crowd towards my daughter. It had been a terrible game. This will be the third loss in a row for our boys, and the disappointment in the crisp evening air is palpable.
By Jessica Conaway3 years ago in Fiction
Stalemate
He calls for the last time on a Sunday night in late September. His voice is soft and slurred, and before he asks I tell him that I’m not coming this time. But we both know it’s a lie. So I pull myself together as I have done many, many times before, and I drive through a chilly rain to our old spot. He’s already in our booth; ghostly, half asleep and tapping his lucky blue lighter against the Formica. The green neon light from the Seventh Street Diner sign spills across his still-handsome face.
By Jessica Conaway3 years ago in Fiction
New Names
On my way to Touch Me, I drove through a little town by the name of Look At Me, and as I expected, there was nothing to look at. In Hear Me, there was nothing to listen to; in Smell Me, even the smell of the New Industrial Revolution was lacking; and in Taste Me, tastelessness was quite evident. What happened to the world? Did we become madder? These questions followed by a string of successors ached in my brain, and when the answers seemed to have acquired a central theme, the pain seemed to have receded as well.
By Patrick M. Ohana3 years ago in Fiction
Jonathan
Jonathan Dryden’s red popsicle was melting. It dripped through his fat fingers and when he wiped them on the front of his faded old tee shirt it looked like blood streaks. Jonathan probably did that on purpose, though. Jonathan always did weird stuff like that.
By Jessica Conaway3 years ago in Fiction
The Busboy part I
Friday, 13 February 1981 It had been a tough shift, an odd one for the opening of the weekend for Cyril Litton. Normally there were two busboys working during the week and three on Friday and Saturday, but the other guys scheduled weren’t there. And one of the bartenders was out, too. That left Cy as the only person bussing tables and he had to deliver ice and restock the bar. And, of course, the wait staff hadn’t bothered to help him out with any “pre-bussing,” getting plates and stuff off the table when patrons were finished. “Friday the Thirteenth, go figure,” he said to himself.
By L. Lane Bailey3 years ago in Fiction
Brown Sugar
I am inexplicably, unconditionally, irrevocably in love with him. The way he looks down when he smiles yet the corners of his lips turn up, its manic what he does to me its like death and life combined to form him in the image of their deepest desires in a manifested, physical form.
By Emma Ewart3 years ago in Fiction