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Weekly Contest #337
Content Advisory: brief, non-graphic mention of off-page suicide Mama moved us to the moon when I was ten. I don't know if she was trying to follow Daddy to heaven’s doorstep or if she was desperate to escape the soil that fed on his flesh. I do know she spent every dollar in our pocket to buy our way here. Colony 343, a lunar purgatory carved into a labyrinth of caves near the edge of Cressida Canyon. “Willa?” I'm pulling on my moonsuit when Mama comes around the corner from her studio, clad in coveralls splattered with grey and black....
Weekly Contest #330
My sister and I pull up to the church in the minivan Mom bought for the grandkids she saw twice a year. My phone is set to silent, tucked away in my pocket, but I'm well aware of the notifications flinging themselves across the screen. Every email is marked ! despite my out-of-office warning. I am away from the office until Monday, August 31. If your inquiry is urgent, please contact Acting Director Gemma Rhodes. Otherwise, I'll reply to your email when I return. Of course, a solid handful of the emails (and texts, and voicemails) flying in...
Weekly Contest #309
Margaret had been alone all her life. She never thought to be any other way, despite the sermons of Cosmo magazine and Disney princesses and the occasional concerned adult. She was perfectly capable and content to cruise through life on her own. The fastest sinking ships are partnerships, after all, as her dad used to say. If he was joking, it was lost on Margaret. Bailey Mason was a decent man, but decent men burdened by the unexpected weight of single parenthood can only do their best. He never spoke about his late wife, and Margaret le...
Weekly Contest #308
*Content includes: substance use, physical violence* Sunlight smacks the oak coffee table with the enthusiasm of a Saturday morning. Lemon and vinegar bleach the air. The sink gargles, chugging down its morning blend of soap, crumbs and crusty egg. Reba’s vocals dance on dust motes swirling in the light. Mom’s dainty wrists are lost in elbow-high rubber gloves. Her wispy hair is tamed into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. She flies through the living room, the vacuum cord wrapped three times around her waist. I lift my feet. The thunder o...
Weekly Contest #304
You should write it down for her. Karrigan storms the castle, the ancient sword of his forefathers in hand and the lost armies of Barthanum at his side. It is their final stand. Max types furiously in the attic. The screen’s blue glow casts shadows in the circles sunk below his eyes and in the haggard crevices carved between his brows. The lifeless grey of pre-dawn slips down the windowsill and crawls across the floor toward his desk. The murmurs drifting up from below are calm, unchanged. There's still time, but not much. He pushes on re...
Winner of Weekly Contest #288 🏆
We’re seeing some big storms roll through south of the capital region, bringing hail and even a few isolated funnel clouds… Rachel mutes the forecaster waving his arms at the churning mass of red, yellow and green spinning in their direction on the radar map. She retrieves ice cubes from the freezer that hiss and spit with displeasure as they’re plunked into a glass of ginger ale. She slides the patio door aside and hovers in the midst of combat between the heavy humidity and the cool AC. She lifts a trembling hand to her brow, shieldi...
Weekly Contest #284
The dark bags under Ben’s eyes droop like day-old tea bags. He’s washing the breakfast dishes, a tattered tea towel flung over his shoulder. “Have you been sleeping, love?” Ruth asks, troubled eyes tracking him from the table. “Not really, Ru. You’ve been sleepwalking again.” “So? Let me sleepwalk.” “It’s dangerous.” Souvenirs from her witching hour sojourns bloom on her shins under the creeping vines of varicose veins. He noticed them this morning while he helped her with her socks. “Lock the doors if you’re so worried I’l...
Weekly Contest #283
The final splashes of pastel recede to the west as the harvest moon rises in the east. Its glowering face emerges over the old railroad tracks, flanked by silhouettes of the crooked barn and creaky windmill. In the brief moment that it’s tethered to the horizon, I can almost reach out and pluck it from the sky. Closer to home, mewling kittens tumble over each other in their soft nest of hay at the foot of the bales. Their mother stalks the shadows in search of her own dinner. Horses whicker, soft snorts hanging like wispy ghosts in the cool ...
Weekly Contest #178
Mom tried to lay down ground rules at Christmas this year because respect couldn’t be counted upon to intervene.“Come in, come in.” Dad pecked cheeks and swung kids to the foyer ceiling while Mom and Grandma wrestled with the turkey in the kitchen. “I’ll take your coat. You’re so tall! What grade are you in now?”The kids barreled into the living room to inspect the name tags dangling on carefully wrapped boxes guarded by the twinkling tree. My aunts and uncles piled in after them, leaving Dad staggering under a mountainous armful of winter w...
Weekly Contest #117
“Full moon tonight,” nurse Mary Bennett remarked, tying the strings of her paper gown with raw cracked fingers. The rest of the night shift stirred uneasily. Louise kissed the delicate silver crucifix that hung around her neck and muttered a prayer to the ceiling. Michael re-tied his shoelaces three times. Shelley lifted her face shield to chug the remains of a Red Bull. Superstition always flicked its forked tongue in the face of science on nights like this. Outside, the fluorescent EMERGENCY sign shivered awake. A splatterin...
Weekly Contest #108
Ash drifted down, dusting their lives and lungs grey while hell’s fingers scuttled across meadows, sprang over rivers, and sprinted between trees. Mother Nature thwarted every effort to contain the flames, scoffing at prayers for rain and instead delivering dizzy winds and dry lightning. The billowing smoke plumed so large that it developed its own weather system—creating more lightning, igniting more fire, and belching more smoke. Sari leapt as high as her little legs could muster, dancing on their driveway face flung upward, tongu...
Weekly Contest #102
The cluster of skyscrapers that define the city’s skyline loom impassively across the river, sparkling glass teeth sprouting from concrete gums under the red tongue of a late autumn sunset. Sometimes I marvel at the fullness of this city life—opportunities always available in the unknown, absolute freedom in every unfamiliar face, space to pursue passion without personal persecution. Other times I despair at its emptiness—anonymity dismissing family legacy, unpredictability abolishing comfort, novelty closing the door on community. ...
Weekly Contest #101
The mirrors in my room are hidden under white sheets that hang like silent ghosts. The nurses think they’ve contained him, but I still catch glimpses of Creepy John—watching, waiting. His rotting teeth snap from the edge of the stainless steel sink. His rolling amber eye leers from the curve of the polished doorknob. His gnarled finger marks me from the window. The surgery they tell me I’ve had has shaken my fortifications, vibrations of pain and drugs sending the stone walls of my will crumbling. He senses the we...
Weekly Contest #99
Caterpillars rained from the sky that summer. The sticky, squishy, hairy creatures destroyed trees and suffocated crops, crept up legs and crawled down necks. The lettuce in our garden fell victim to their hunger and the cornstalks wilted under their weight. They survived the heat. They persevered through rain. They gripped on to life with astonishing strength against the constant threat of swinging brooms and stomping boots. “Change is coming,” Grandma said, gently tugging a mottled orange string of fuzz from her shoulder and placing ...
I sit with my chin on the steering wheel and watch the stars wink out over the office, slowly stifled by sly hues of violet and then suddenly smothered by angry slashes of pink that just as quickly fade into pale swaths of blues and golds. I love my job. I love my job. I hate my job. Shit. The truth creeps into my morning monologue yet again. I’m parked in front of the squat brown building where my dreams are dashed day-in and day-out against the poster-slathered walls, where my creativity is cursed to curdle in the confines ...
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