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Weekly Contest #350
Buy a Nose The penis tickled my face. But with New York City police, one did not mess around. Especially at two in the morning, when the city belonged to taxis, steam grates, and crimes with serious consequences. Thirty minutes earlier, my best friend Lisa and I were linked arm in arm, wobbling on high heels, several paces ahead of my fiancé Jimmy and Lisa’s husband Paul. We had that fizzy, electric feeling that comes from a night that’s gone exactly as planned and then veered delightfully off script. Several engagement tequila shots in Jim...
I Rest My Case “Your Honor, I would like the court to understand that none of it, including the shooting, was my fault. I was certainly present, which I admit does not look ideal. Still, presence and responsibility are two very different things, as anyone who has ever attended a town meeting can appreciate. “No, ma’am, I do not need or want an attorney. I have chosen to represent myself. Although, my daughter, bless her heart, believed the decision was a terrible idea. She said that judges prefer answers that travel in straight lines. Unfort...
“Officer, I Know What I Heard” In July 1984, I was nearly killed by a fire extinguisher. I was eight months pregnant and couldn’t sleep, so I sat in the dark kitchen eating a pint of vanilla ice cream. Suddenly the overhead light snapped on. My husband stood there in Snoopy boxers, raising a fire extinguisher over his head. “What the …?” He staggered back, lowered the extinguisher and sighed in relief. “You nearly gave me a heart attack; I thought you were an intruder! Really, Izzy? No lights? No warning you’re down here? No concern that it’...
Weekly Contest #348
Heart and Soul Thump thump…thump thump…thump thump… She was two before she was one. Piper believed, for a long time, that everyone lived this way. That beneath the ordinary rhythm of breath and bone, there was always a second insistence. A companion pulse. Something just behind the first beat, arriving a fraction too late or too soon, like a thought you almost remember. It never aligned. It never corrected itself. It simply existed, layered, patient, certain of its place. She did not question it. Children rarely question what has always been...
Weekly Contest #335
SNOW-GLOBES and MOONBOWS The day after Christmas, snow fell in the Northeast like it had a purpose. It came thick and fast, nearly erasing Bethlehem’s grimy steel mill’s lofty smokestacks, and blanketing the surrounding row houses into something gentler, quieter. Inside the Miller home, 6-year-old Noah stood on a chair staring through the ice-sequined kitchen window. Snow was stacked against doors, burying parked cars to their side-mirrors. The early morning glow of streetlamps blurred into soft, trembling halos. Noah watched his father make...
Winner of Weekly Contest #330 🏆
TAG The jungle never slept. The air buzzed, especially at night. Danny got used to distant gunfire, but in his dark bunk, the most paralyzing was the unknown. An invisible dread that wrapped around a man’s throat and whispered, Morning will never come for you. The guys only knew each other for a few months. Yet, since their tour of duty began, together they’d survived oppressive heat, monsoons and mudslides, mortar fire, and the soft murmurs of uncertain prayers and stifled sobs while hiding in foxholes. They just wanted to go home but when ...
Weekly Contest #317
Downloading Hemingway When someone dies, people bring things. Mostly, they bring food and alcohol, but even edibles and Xanax get passed around like breath-mints these days. Food you will never eat is on every surface above the waist. Personally, you’d prefer cash. These people who hold repast in their McMansions do so for fear of being robbed should they be away for any length of time. They hire a house-sitter for the service. They do not even submit an obituary until after the fact; just a very sentimental post on Facebook the next day, of...
Shortlisted for Contest #313 ⭐️
Muscle Memory It was the kind of quiet you only notice in high-end department stores on weekday afternoons, with its low lighting, plush carpeted floors, and overhead speakers playing a song you used to love. Most of the items were well out of Madelyn’s price range, but this was the store the engaged couple had chosen for their gift registry. The wedding invite was from an old college friend who was seven months pregnant and marrying her longtime boyfriend. Madelyn was excited for her friend but only agreed to attend if she didn’t have to b...
Shortlisted for Contest #311 ⭐️
Seven Crayons Are Enough They always arrived in the late afternoon. Slow beams of yellow light moved across the wall behind the hospital bed and highlighted the hand-drawn pictures he'd drawn on their visits. His very own art show, Mom had referred to that wall after she taped-up his third drawing for Grandma. He was so relieved when his mom immediately took his hand in hers. Grandma looked very old, and it scared him. So small and bony, her wrinkled face reminded him of the worn-out, crocheted blanket she'd made him when he was born. Under ...
Winner of Weekly Contest #260 🏆
We were death partners before we were friends. The day we met some 30 years ago, I was so pregnant with my first child, I resembled an over-stuffed sausage about to burst its casing. I’d forsaken style weeks earlier when my shoes no longer fit. I couldn’t even reach around my massive torso to shave my legs; limbs sporting enough hair to scrape clean a barbecue grill. You, on the other hand, had just wrapped-up an open-house and strode across my threshold for the first time, like a seasoned runway model. I’ll never forget your chic...
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