Short Story

The Missing Key
I was scrambling to get out the door to head to work. Surprise surprise, I’d lost track of time. What else is new? In what felt like a whirlwind motion, I threw my jacket on and grabbed my bag. And even though I was in a rush, I took a second to go through it to make sure I had everything, just out of habit.
By Jaye Ruggiero-Cash3 years ago in Fiction
Monkey
My person is a little girl. She is the cutest little girl on this planet, she loves me more than life itself, and is currently leaving me behind....
By David Brandy3 years ago in Fiction
Missing
The day it all started falling apart was the day she dropped me into the loose floorboards of the old farm kitchen. Not to brag, but I was apparently the only thing holding them together. The day she first started wearing me, I was sure they’d stay together forever. The words the guy was saying were for once kind of sweet and sincere.
By Camillia Simonds3 years ago in Fiction
Dancing
The first air I recall was permeated with pine. The first light I saw was red, then green, then blue, then all the others that cascaded down the short evergreen which rested just in sight behind him.
By Atrayu Sweet3 years ago in Fiction
Always Missing Him. Top Story - February 2024.
Darkness. That’s what I had been submerged in for so long. Dark and empty were my new feelings. My new surroundings. My new existence.
By Blue Dymond3 years ago in Fiction
The Perfect Pair
The landing wasn’t exactly soft, but, honestly, it could’ve been worse. My grip had been getting steadily and scarily less secure all night. It was that last spin around the floor that really did the trick. She never could resist an R&B throwback. I managed to hold on a bit longer, but I finally let go in the bathroom stall. Ironically, it was as still as she’d been all night. I got tangled in her hair and bobbed there for a while before falling to her sleeve and getting knocked into the graffiti-covered door and landing with a splash into a disgusting puddle.
By Paris Giles3 years ago in Fiction
A Different Expiration
The table shook as the door slammed shut. It is not your average table. No, this particular dining table is the literal and figurative center of the house. At any given time, it is covered with mail, books, dishes, toys, markers, or the odd pot or pan.
By Noah Glenn3 years ago in Fiction
After You
I’m in a box. Nothing fancy I guess, just a brown cardboard box. She’s hid me though. Under a tree. It isn’t just any tree that she wouldn’t be able to recognize and confuse it for another tree. No, this is the tree at the park next to the lamp post. The lamp post that lit the seat where they sat that night. The night where I fell in love with him. The night where they had their first kiss. That tree. I remember so much from that night. The tree and light from the lamp post played together to create irregular shadows on his face, but absent from any shadows were his lips, highlighting the path to seal my love. I felt so different then to how I feel now, I was falling in love with the man who I thought would be the one. I felt love, you know, that swollen but fluttery ache of love. There is a lot to remember from that beautiful night. But that is where she put the box. Dug a hole and placed it under that tree.
By Katheleen3 years ago in Fiction
Places I'm Not
I can see his alarm clock from where I'm sitting. The alarm sounded at 7 a.m. and I already had a feeling this is how it would go down. The bright red digital display has spent the better part of an hour trying to point this doofus my way. The gesture is appreciated, we inanimate objects have to stick together, but he barely pays the clock any attention while it's performing its function. The colon between the hour and the minutes flashes futilely. By now the clock has burned 7:xx into my retinas -- at least it would have, if I had eyes.
By Rebekah Conard3 years ago in Fiction
Scrabble Philosophy. First Place in Misplaced Challenge.
Dax’s fist clenches. Lorraine can’t tell what he’s about to do next. But I can. I’ve seen it play out so many times since Lorraine lost me up here years ago when the house was still new and the ceiling fan first went up. The first thing I noticed when I got lost was that I could see Dax and Lorraine from a different angle. Dax doesn’t look as tall from this point of view as he did from Lorraine’s ear.
By sleepy drafts3 years ago in Fiction
The Last New Day With Her. Top Story - February 2024.
A warm, yellow light began to peek under the bottom of the fridge — the start of a new day. Right on cue, a shadow fell across the strip of light. A black nose immediately stuck itself in the gap between the fridge door and the floor, the white, furry mustache below the twitching nose visible in the slowly disappearing darkness.
By Muchtar Suryawan3 years ago in Fiction
All's Fare
Things get left on the New York subway system all the time. A drunk co-ed abandons her purse after a night of binge-drinking overpriced picklebacks at a hole in the wall bar on the Lower East Side. She schlepped all the way from Brooklyn, so it sits abandoned on the L train- she doesn't worry about anything beyond nursing her hangover; the ID was fake, anyway.
By Christiane Winter3 years ago in Fiction