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Weekly Contest #272
Cold, so cold. I have no recollection of the rest of the night. I’m missing time. My eyelids feel like they are frozen shut. I force them open. I can’t feel my fingers or toes. Bright, so bright. The celestial rays of morning sun embrace the frigid earth, a welcome visitor to my hoary appendages. The ground has a thin layer of frost atop it. I bask in the warmth from the heavens, hoping it is a harbinger for the better. Sore, so sore. My muscles scream at my brain. I feel like a human pinata. What happened? How can I not remember a severe be...
Weekly Contest #269
My father was nothing if not predictable. He got up at four am every weekday to start getting ready for work at the office. The night before he had laid out his clothes, packed a brown bag lunch, and set up the coffee maker. He would shower for ten minutes, no more, no less. He brushed his teeth from left to right on the top and right to left on the bottom in perfect one-inch circles. He shaved using a quarter-sized dollop of shaving cream and always went with the grain of his beard. His routine was as fine-tuned as a Swiss watch. Every seco...
Weekly Contest #258
We both knew with absolute certainty that it would never happen to us. Our love was solid as bedrock. We were friends first, having grown up together, seeing each other's awkward phases, our ugly ducklings, our dark sides of the moon. We stayed friends through our swan phases, me clearing up my acne and growing into my body, her ridding herself of the shackles of braces and a training bra. Our love wasn’t based on looks, or passion, or any one thing. It was a collection of little moments in time, our first kiss, first date, first child. It w...
Weekly Contest #256
True love is never a wasted effort. Be open to it, share it even in the darkest of times. As the sun set, he went to work doing for them in death, what he couldn’t in life, protect them. Grabbing a spade from the barn, he dug a grave for each. Deep enough to keep out the coyotes, each freshly tilled mound, capped with a fieldstone. He had watched in disbelief as Penny and the entire McCormick family were skinned alive by the ravenous horde of locusts. Their skin, clothes, hair, organs, all devoured in a rapacious cloud of death and destruct...
Weekly Contest #247
In the before-time, water was plentiful. You could turn on something called a faucet and fresh, clean water would spill out for all to enjoy. The wasters, as the before people came to be known, did not worry about the day when the water ran out. They used it to grow a decorative grassland in front of their dwellings. Filled up exclusive wading areas meant for recreation. They dammed up rivers to feed their gluttonous ways. Changing the landscape, changing the world to fit their needs. By the time, the wasters realized how dire the situ...
Weekly Contest #246
He was my closest friend and ally growing up, my imaginary friend. See being an only child it got boring, like watching paint dry boring. No siblings to play games within the neighborhood until the streetlights came on, the universal signal to go home for dinner. The stragglers would have their parents screeching out of front doors or open windows for them to share that family meal. No neighborhood actually. I grew up on a dead-end street next to the train yard, one of only four houses. It was a one stoplight kind of town, anonymous to...
Weekly Contest #243
Invisible Forces The rain came fast, heavy drops hitting the windowpanes like tiny birds. He half expected to see a dozen sparrows below the windowsill, heads contorted, necks broken from a force invisible to them. No, no pile of martyred avians. Just the constant thumping of rainfall from the heavens, mirroring his mood, dour and defeated. Kevin Bishop had never been an overly religious man, honestly not even a semi-religious one. Invisible forces. Even as a kid, he had trouble with the idea. He was supposed to believe in a powerful ...
Weekly Contest #237
One cannot look at a sunflower and be sad or melancholic. It triggers a dopamine rush, happy juice for your brain. The contrast of the dark, almost black, center to the vibrant golden petals, the large head set upon tall green stems. Fields set up in endless rows, joy radiating from the earth from a flower named for a celestial object. Just this vision warms my insides, starts the corners of my mouth into the beginnings of a tiny smile. Aurora herself might be tricked into thinking that dawn was stretching across the land as she gazed up...
Weekly Contest #234
“Stay in the house at night and lock the door behind you” he said. Good advice any parent would give their child. Don’t talk to strangers and don’t hitchhike were a couple others my dad used to say. That was a long time ago…. Before the virus Before the change Before humans were an endangered species The year was 2056. Over the past thirty years, one virus after another has ravaged the earth’s population. Nipah virus took twenty million to their graves in the 2030’s. They said it was fruit bats that were the source of the contagion. It ...
Weekly Contest #228
I can still smell them. Sloppy Joes. The simple combination of sauce and ground beef. The steam rising off of the stovetop. Sizzling beef, cracking and popping, my mouth still waters at the sound. It was a Thursday. Payday. Sloppy Joe night. They were a family favorite. We didn’t have much. Mom was raising three kids all on her own. She did her best on a teacher’s salary. The money was stretched to its limit. We never knew. The mark of a great parent. Your kids may not have everything, but they want for nothing. The absolute joy on my little...
Weekly Contest #206
Chapter 1 He stood on the edge of the green bridge looking down at the black water, watching the river rush past, a living thing. He wondered if anyone would miss him. The darkness would just wash him away. No more pain, no more sadness, just no more. His grip on the railing was loosening and he thought maybe it was for the best. No more people to disappoint. His ex-wife, kids, and his parents had either stopped talking to him or were headed that way. The cheating, drinking, drugging, and lying hadn't helped him maintain healthy relationship...
Weekly Contest #203
He examines me with bright eyes. Eyes, the color of amber, a rich deep yellow like shimmering honey fresh from the comb, glistening and wet. Its pupils dilating from the beam of my torch, thin vertical slits of glossy obsidian. Stygian daggers piercing the stillness of the night. A tremulous hush overcomes me. Leaden legs, frozen in fright, hold me in place, a mortal sculpture. Crocodilian humanoid underground dwellers, C.H.U.D., for short, had been an urban myth. Folklore passed down through the generations to scare people off from this ar...
Weekly Contest #197
Josie’s new babysitting gig for the Harpers down the street was perfect. The latest family to move into their cul-de-sac, was a family of three. Mr. and Mrs. Harper, plus their sole child, a seven-year-old boy named Aiden. No potty training, no teenage attitude, the perfect start to her babysitting business. Do well here, and I’ll be getting work from the rest of the neighborhood, thought Josie. The Harpers hired her for only two hours of work, for some Halloween office party at Mrs. Harper`s company. Fifty bucks! She was getting fifty bucks...
Weekly Contest #196
Kenny King covered his ears with both hands, squeezing hard, trying to block out the noise. It wasn’t working. Raised voices seeped through, dishes being broken, threats exchanged. He grabbed his pillow with the Spiderman pillowcase burying his head, covered in a thick shock of ginger hair, like a tortoise trying to find protection in its hard carapace. Stop, stop fighting! he screamed into the matching Spiderman comforter. He knew they wouldn’t. It was a wishful mindset. More times than not, the flashing lights of the black and whites, the ...
Weekly Contest #195
Why did I take this job? Never respected, never listened to, always taken for granted. I know the perks are great but, is it really worth it? Boss is always on my butt, a real control freak, micromanaging every move I make, every decision, every choice. Hours suck, on call, 24/7, physically taxing to the point of abuse, not to mention the training time and hours put in on a daily basis, sometimes six to seven hours. Weight training, aerobics, martial arts, cardio, yoga. Weapons training from katana to staff to nunchucks. We always have to do...
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