Short Story
What A Not-So-Lovely Buffet
I will never understand what possesses humans to the point of owning animals as pets, especially fish. It sounds pretty ironic coming from me, seeing I am a pet cat, but let’s get one thing straight. I own the humans, not the other way around. That is beside the point.
Alexandria StanwyckPublished 2 years ago in FictionBaited
Apparently, there was an aquarium near the Bermuda triangle. A tourist attraction, one I’d thought very little of even though I’d never heard of it before. The leaflet they had sent me gave me enough information to peg it as a tourist trap, though perhaps with a little more substance. It boasted a café with five-star service, near proximity to at least three ocean-view hotels, a wide range of the usual creatures you see in an aquarium, and the main selling point: an underwater tunnel that reached right into the Bermuda triangle itself, so you could impress your friends by saying you’d visited and survived.
ChickenFarmerPublished 2 years ago in FictionA Bloom of Jellyfish
“When does she get here?” Frankie yells across the room. I take a long pause, knowing she’s not coming today. Frankie breaks up the lull in the air with a sigh, “Ah, I know what that silence means.”
Comedist Beaus and Benny the Goldfish
Trigger warning: story contains topics of domestic abuse. It happened again. This time MaryAnn’s nose gushed the red fluid that stained everything it touched as she staggered to keep her balance. Mitch drew his hand back once more as she cowered to her knees, her hand shielding her face. This type of incident was becoming as frequent as MaryAnn dashing food into our fish tank. It was the vibration of flesh meeting flesh that made me swim to the glass to see what was happening. Goldfish are quite perceptive after all. I can affirm the validity of our sensitivity in a modest way. Our senses are subtle yet acute, confined to the size of our fish tank.
Dana StewartPublished 2 years ago in FictionDeath Swims In The Aquarium
My gloved hand floats in front of my eyes, weightless. My heart’s still beating; my lungs continue to accept air. But the rest? Pretty much a whole lot of nothing. Whatever Jack did, it’s working. I’m paralyzed, and I’m pretty sure Jack’s responsible, somehow. This certainly seems like his handiwork. I’m guessing he put some kind of paralytic in my wet suit, and I suspect I’ll still be floating here, submerged, when my air tank runs out and I slowly suffocate.
TM SkiltonPublished 2 years ago in FictionAqua Vitae
This is the life for me. When you come into this building at the zoo and pass by the fourth section nearest to arctic life – yeah, I know exactly where they put me – you see me, a beautiful octopus. Call me Frank. The media calls me that, and I think that it is a pretty good name (more about it later).
Kendall DefoePublished 2 years ago in FictionTechnical Error
The Phone I remember when I could remember phone numbers, but now I don't have to because my phone remembers every number for me. Not only that, those numbers are backed up to “The Cloud” in case I lose my phone and have to get a replacement, so, in theory, I have space in my brain to remember other things, in theory! (I know I repeated myself there).
Mike Singleton - MikeydredPublished 2 years ago in FictionThe Fishbowl
I hover in pools of blue-green gloom, undulating light filtered through water, glass, vitreous humor thick with dreams of pure, clear, unimpeded sight, unimpeded knowledge, which way to turn, which A leads to what B, what C. How all paths lead to D, and then the terror of unimpeded knowledge, glimpsed in the glancing light, and the easy retreat, the siren call of the half-light again, in deep blues and greens, distorting edges and darker recesses. I hover. In the subaquatic gloaming I am cocooned, held, stasis-like by the endless lopping muffled soundtrack, an imagining of the composition an orchestra of squid might play for endless hours on the seabed to lull the passing whales to keep passing, and not look down. I am drowning. Air, or water, it does not matter, my blood is filled with oxygen, bright and red and capable of staining the blue a darker hue, but still, my brain is starving, my consciousness waning with every passing particle of time.
Hannah MoorePublished 2 years ago in FictionJelly Fish
Brothers Noah and Steve walked into the jellyfish exhibit in the aquarium. Noah was twenty-two, Steve was twenty-five. Tubes that ran from the ceiling to the floor held jellyfish as well as glass containers mounted in the walls. Blue ripples lighting made a watery effect on the floor. The lights in the tubes and cases changed from aqua marines to blues to lavenders to reds and greens. The jellyfish floated oblivious to the changing lights, their movements like a pulse from a hand clenching and unclenching. The jellyfish were average human hand sized and milky almost transparent white. Or lungs breathing. Noah took out his iPhone and filmed. Steve noticed the filming and looked at the display with narrower eyes and a head slightly tipped, trying to see the art his brother saw.
Cameron GlennPublished 2 years ago in FictionSecond First Date
“Can I remove the blindfold yet?” I ask as I feel the car come to a slow stop and hear the car get turned off. I hear a chuckle from next to me before I feel my seatbelt get unbuckled and then pushed off me. I smile as my driver and other half places a quick kiss on my cheek.
Elizabeth TownsendPublished 2 years ago in FictionHappiness Vs. Success
James Elliot, a reporter for the National Globe, teased Charles Goodwin while interviewing him, “you are successful, wealthy, and smart, yet none of your four children have followed in your footsteps. Why not? It doesn’t bother you that you have no heirs to take over your life’s work when you die? Everything that you have created, where will it go?”
Annelise LordsPublished 2 years ago in FictionMain Attraction
The first thing I noticed was the cold. It seeped through my dreams, trails of frost and foreboding tugging at my consciousness. I squeezed my eyes tight, afraid to open them. Afraid to make it real.
Angel WhelanPublished 2 years ago in Fiction