family
My Grandmother's Garden
It was the beginning of summer. The garden smelled of fresh, sweet honey and fruits from the warm sun beating down on them. The carrots crunch at the sound of your first bite. Honestly, Lilyanna loved the garden. It was so warm and peaceful. Sometimes she would look up at the sky and see the trees shimmer with life from the sun. That’s when she noticed her first creature and called for her grandmother, Kathy.
By kayla painter2 months ago in Fiction
Before the Silence
Chapter Two The Message That Vanished Jesse Jesse Bennett had spent most of her life preparing to leave Red Creek. She had marked the distance to college on maps, compared dormitories, calculated tuition costs, and imagined waking in a place where nobody knew her as Ranger Bennett’s daughter. Her acceptance letter from Flint Hills University remained pinned above her desk, its lower corner curling in the July humidity.
By Ronna Curtis2 months ago in Fiction
Before the Silence
A Note on Viewpoint This story is told through the alternating viewpoints of Mara Bennett and her daughter, Jesse. Each chapter identifies whose perspective the reader is following. Their separate experiences reveal different parts of the unfolding mystery until their discoveries begin to come together.
By Ronna Curtis2 months ago in Fiction
Sunday Rises
Oh my God I wish that incessant phone would stop ringing. I haven’t even gotten outta bed yet. Surprise surprise, what do I see on my caller ID when I pick up the phone? It’s Kasey. She just won’t let me sleep in on this Sunday morning, but dang it I gotta answer or she won’t stop blowing up my phone. So I reluctantly hit the annoying green answer button and give Kasey a hello with a dragging tone. “That hello doesn’t sound like someone who’s out of bed and on their way to church” she says in the most annoyingly lively accent I have ever heard.
By Joe Patterson2 months ago in Fiction
The Off-Key Mile
I thought I was alone in that car for four years before I found out I wasn't. It was always the same stretch—the last fifteen minutes of the drive back from my mother's house, a flat dark road with exactly one gas station on it that never seemed to be open, no matter what hour we passed it. My daughter would be in the back seat, worn down from a whole evening of being fussed over by her grandmother, and by the second red light she'd usually gone quiet in that specific way toddlers go quiet, head tipped against the car seat strap, mouth open, all the way under.
By Aarsh Malik2 months ago in Fiction
The Song The Florescent Lights Sang
I remember the creaking of the old wooden stairs, each one greeting the tips of my toes as I crept down into the cool of the basement. Dark wooden walls framed the descent into a room that was filled with the magic of lost, drying arts. The fluorescent lights always flickered on with a wink before settling into a familiar hum that lulled lazily - a strange lullaby for a place so full of wonder. The air was scented with the rustic scents of metal and grease - a perfume of mechanics and hands that knew how to labor. Work benches lined the walls and were laid with an organized chaos of tools, rubber, cork, feathers, and dried deer tails - a mismatched craftsman’s rainbow.
By Ellie Hoovs2 months ago in Fiction
Who Said It's Fun?
I must have the meanest parents in the world. Look what they make me do. First, I’m stuffed into this bulky one-piece suit with a hood that is uncomfortably fastened under my chin. I feel as though I’m being choked. Do they even know how difficult it is to move in this thing? If that’s not enough, my feet are stuffed into these rubber things they call boots, so they won’t get wet. Come on, people, I just learned how to walk. Now they expect me to wander around on this slippery white stuff without a care in the world and not worry about falling flat on my face. Seriously!
By Mark Gagnon2 months ago in Fiction
