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Weekly Contest #359
I didn't know I wanted Jim Ulrich dead till I shot him in the face. It was a clean wound to the head—about a quarter-sized hole. A short spray of crimson and he went down, kinda like a steer in the slaughterhouse. It was a sudden twitch of my finger on the trigger. Just one of those momentary itches you get after holding something too hard for too long. Then I just stared at him curled up on the dirt. He didn't whimper none. Just gone. I kicked aside the cell phone in his hand. He was fixin’ to film me. I think the word is dox or docs or som...
[Continued from No Fishing Past June, Part II - Check it out by visiting my Reedsy profile]. "ON my mother's life man!" Jimmy holds up his hands as the Ranger shines a flickering flashlight in his eyes. "It was just a campfire that got out of control. " Burning the buds didn't go as planned. Once the fuel was lit, it ripped across the crimson flowers like they were black powder. Even with a fire extinguisher in hand, I couldn't control the blaze, and it engulfed our back acre, spreading a firey tongue towards the Lazy-J Ranch and e...
[Continued from No Fishing Past June, Part I. View my Reedsy profile to read it]"MUST be on the microfiche," the senior librarian says as she reads her monitor screen. The Star Municipal Library is empty save for her and what looks to be Jimmy Justus, the store clerk, wearing earbuds while reading a graphic novel, "Arkham Nights" at a back table. “You still have microfiche? Wow.” I smile, “That’s a blast from the past.”"Sometimes, the old ways are best." She replies and stirs from her seat with a grunt. She shuffles to a stack of ...
We dance round in a ring and suppose,But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.-Robert FrostRiddles are keyholes; Their first words are the key.-The Cattlemen’s Cipher THE first day of summer break, and I'd promised Sasha we'd share the afternoon at Lake Lowell.“No Swimming After May, No Fishing Past June,” Sasha moans as she reads the worn weathered sign nailed to the dock post. “Seriously?” “Sorry kiddo, them’s the rules.” I say and paw at her braid.“Dad! Stop, it took me an hour to get this right.” She slaps my hand away. “Now Im g...
Weekly Contest #148
"Doctor, heal thyself," I hear the first-year intern mumble to his cohort and the murmur of the newly degreed physicians as they leave my room.I've forgotten my case files, and my hair is windblown and drenched from the rainy walk across the street to the patient pre-op apartment tower. But as Saint Bernadette's leading psychiatrist and a woman nearing her thirtieth year in practice with the remnants of menopause clinging to my body, they don't dare say a word more. A sudden hot flash would burn through my eyes and char their careers with a ...
Weekly Contest #141
"One star? Are you serious? We're assessing by stars now?" In my ten years of teaching, I had been given feedback in person, peer review, and quantitative test scores of my students but stars were new to me. "Ginny prefers stars. We accept all forms of feedback here." Tricia Patterson, the head of the parental board, said matter-of-factly. I shouldn't have been surprised. I knew my last day as lead instructor at Sunnyvale Friends School would have its hiccups. I didn't realize the hiccups would lead to a total career seizure.And it star...
[CW: Violence, Some Racial Slurs] [See My Profile to Read Part I]I didn’t know what to say. She’d kept them inside, locked away, and I couldn’t imagine the loneliness she’d carried with their memory. Mama looked at me with that old knowing smile that I came to understand was sealing away her pain.“Poppy always blamed himself for that, so no matter what, he kept that old wagon running from that day on, and you know it works like he’s still here. Even backfires like he used to after a plate of beans.”We laughed for a time and watched the breez...
[CW: Violence, Racial Slurs] People say my family’s white wood farmhouse on Old Chicago Road is haunted, and they’d be right that specters of the past dwell there, but not the kind that goes bump in the night or terrorizes young children as they pull the sheets over their heads. No, the haunting here runs deeper. It sinks below the threadbare rugs Poppy taught me to dance on and goes lower than the root cellar where Mama Rose kept her preserves. It dwells in the very soil itself. The presence here runs under the fallow ground that encirc...
Shortlisted for Contest #138 ⭐️
CW: substance abuse, abuse“Dad taught me some sign language at five, but I learned to fear my father when I was seven. Tangled blonde hair pressed to my arm, covering my face. My hand retreating from my backside, the welt of a belt mark stained red across my knuckles. Begging, screaming for my mother to come out of the bathroom, to rescue me. But she was hiding in the shower, he had already educated her on when to get involved. Now, it was my turn. I had encouraged Ziggy, our cocker-spaniel with one blind eye, to race through the room, acros...
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