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Weekly Contest #362
Click Click Fwoosh! Fire; miniature blue torches dancing in a circle. They stand at attention, nary a flicker. Steel bars form a loose ribcage above the ignited burner. I place a cast iron on the heat and drizzle in a flick of oil. From there, the smoke. It’s ghostly, whisps of white that flicker skyward toward the vent fan whirring above the stovetop. This isn’t the worst of it I think as I pull the sirloin out of the fridge. I pat it down with paper towels again, removing any excess moisture I might have missed. The cut isn’t anything spec...
Weekly Contest #343
NOTE: TW for those with emetephobia (fear of vomiting). This is story might be uncomfortable to certain readers. The doom comes first; that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when your partner tells you that they’re sick. It’s imprisonment by love. There is now an inevitability. Lynne was sick a day and a half ago, headfirst in the toilet. In situations like this, people like me do their best to support from a distance. I set chilled liquids, saltines, fresh clothes, towels, bedding and her computer outside the bathroom door. For t...
Weekly Contest #337
“How about C-7?” Fox asks through the crackling static of the communicator fastened around Boar’s neck. Boar himself puts a finger on the third row of his game board, runs it to the right until it graces the empty space of the seventh column. “Miss,” Boar says, placing a white peg in the corresponding hole of his battlefield. Fox was close; one space shy of sinking Boar’s submarine “A-3?” His question is followed by the gentle hum of empty air as he imagines Fox’s contemplation. Then her voice. “Miss, as well,” Fox says. Boar clicks his tong...
Weekly Contest #332
It comes on occasion; this is one of them. There is a tempest rolling in over the hills of our self-imposed lifetime. It’s deceptive, starting fluffy and white; a lamb coasting along the sky. We’re always too naïve to see the sea of black sheep behind it. There is no weatherperson to predict a storm like this. All that can be relied on is your own intuition and a really thick raincoat. The wind arrives first, stirring the leaves into a frenzy before they are clipped free of their home to exist somewhere further below. It tickles, teases the ...
Weekly Contest #279
Content Warning: References to distressing times, blood, violence, and death. Mention of dead animals, as well. There's no active, gratuitous violence in this story. Did they get you? Is the sun coming up shortly? If that’s the case, I’d advise you to listen. I, along with… the rest of the world, have been in your shoes. We can all testify that what follows isn’t so pretty. So, if you’d like a remote shot at survival, I’d suggest that you read and read fast. Time flies with a good story. I want to preface that if they didn’t get you and th...
Weekly Contest #228
Leo saw the apple orchard before the house. It stretched for ten acres to the east beyond the road to the driveway. Leo thought of late May, when the blooms began to unfold upon the branches, then mid-June, when the fruit emerged from its sweet cocoon and formed a green bulb. By the end of July, they were plump red planets, striped with yellow and specks of green. That’s when they’d be picked; sliced, pressed, baked, you name it. It was September, and the grace of the summer sun had waned to the congested chill of early autumn. From the pas...
Weekly Contest #139
“Well?” the boy asked. He paced back and forth, polite enough to be without his shoes. “Don’t quite know yet,” said the father. He was hunched, had the young girl’s head pressed to the door frame. “Hold still, sugar.” “I’m nervous,” said she, fingers drumming on her thigh. The father etched a marking on the frame with a red pen that read ‘Milwaukee’. He smiled before the kids could. “Take a look,” he said, turning his daughter to face the frame. It was a work of art; a spine composed of multi-colored vertebrae, some straightened by rulers...
Weekly Contest #138
TW: Language I believe that most of the guys who work in a kitchen were, at some point in their lives, the pickiest eaters on the planet. I, for one, would bare my teeth and recoil when broccoli or green beans would arrive on the paper plate set in front of me at dinner time. Sorry about that, Mom, but then again, they were canned. Though getting through even a cup’s worth of mashed potatoes is still a struggle, I promise my palette has changed. On the other hand, my brother Stu ate mashed potatoes by the handful when we were young. He coul...
TW: Language and Chaotic Sequences Terri set the cooler and tote bag on the grass beneath her feet. She pulled the big blue blanket out of the bag, gripped the edge, and let it unfold in the breeze before setting it on the ground. She set the cooler on one corner, the tote bag on the other diagonally opposite. “Well, come on, then,” said Terri. Her eldest child Lexi, carrying her youngest brother Ezra, stepped onto the blanket. She let Ezra go as she crossed her legs, scooping her red hair behind her ear and away from the wind. “This isn’...
Weekly Contest #136
The cursor blinks into my staring eyes. There’s nothing scarier than seeing that small dash fade in and out of existence at the top left corner of the page. It taunts me, winking at me with every minute I don’t put my fingers to the keys. My temples ache from staring at the screen for too long. Some music might help, says the right side of my brain while painting a picture that’ll never translate the same on the blank canvas tucked into the back of my closet. Do your damn work, says the left, smoking his twenty-sixth cigarette of the day. ...
“I’m going to lose,” said Mazon. He shuddered as a breeze crept through the alley. The cold sweat on his back made the turtleneck sticky and the leather vest over it even more uncomfortable. “Probably,” said Cloose. He had his back to the wall opposite Mazon. The sulfur from the match he lit stunk as he put it to the pipe balanced between his teeth. He took a puff and stomped the match into the dirt. “But you’re not accounting for luck. I’ve seen guys twice your size lose.” “But have you ever seen a guy like me win?” asked Mazon. Cloose st...
Weekly Contest #117
"So, tell me what this is again?" Heidi asked with the crabby tone that was typical for her nowadays. She scratched at the messy bun atop her scalp, a frock of red hair barely held together by a pink scrunchie. "It's an event I get paid to do," said David, brushing his thumb over the laptop's trackpad. "What, did you forget all the gigs I've done over the last four years?" "If by gigs, you mean hitting play on a Spotify playlist, then no, I haven't forgotten." Heidi kicked at a blue pebble, watched it skip into the street. "Har de har har...
Weekly Contest #80
“Thank you, Vanessa,” said Clyde Brackenbaum from the anchor chair, hollow brown eyes filled with two white dots coming from the studio lights behind the camera. He did that turn all anchors do; that gentle spin when you duck your head to the side just a touch and bring up the left arm, letting the right palm slide across the polished wooden table with grace. There was nothing gracious about this man at a first glance, but what he lacked in beauty, he made up for in charisma. “Now, this just in, we’re receiving a breaking news report from S...
Weekly Contest #68
Abraham Danver never amounted to much until his third heist. Born in New Mexico and adopted by a crowd of bandits at the age of seven, he grew to admire the lifestyle of an outlaw. Despite the murder of his parents, the boy didn't seem traumatized; Jordan Hilliger, boss of the bunch, said the boy had "no life in his eyes." The disconnect seemed to help him in the future. After Hilliger's death, twenty-year-old Danver became the newly appointed president of The Red Bully gang. Due to the casualties of a shootout -caused nonetheless by a fals...
Weekly Contest #67
Argu had never been overly fond of public taverns. They were crowded, noisy things that made him anxious; he felt spying eyes were always watching him from hidden corners. Strangers came and went in places like these, some eating, others drinking and a few unconscious with their heads to the tables in front of them. Argu shuddered and looked down at his drink, hands cupped around the mug of steaming Yerith brew. Yerith soothed his stomach but always came out piping hot, leaving Argu to stare at it as the steam slowly receded into the cup. He...
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