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Submitted to Contest #337
July 10th, 1986 Fergie sits at a café on Las Ramblas with a café con leche in front of her. She is writing her first letter home. Home is a variable feast now. This letter is to her ex-boyfriend Mike in Texas. “I’ve made it to Barcelona. The train trip across France was interesting. I could see the architecture changing each day, from the tall gray narrow buildings in the north to the colorful relaxed architecture of the south. Each night I left the train and stayed at the hotel by the station, having good French food at each stop. Thank God...
Submitted to Contest #336
*** Contains adult themes. *** Jamilla threw her purse on the table and nodded to the waiter. “Top shelf margarita, rocks, salt,” she said. “Thank you.” Marina took a long sip from her cocktail before staring at Jamilla. “Who pissed in your Cheerios?” she asked calmly. Jamilla frowned. “Freddie locked me out of the accounts and closed my credit card.” She drummed her fingers on her cell phone, glaring at it as if it had insulted her. Liz laughed. “That is sort of to be expected when you get divorced, Jamilla. I’m surprised he hadn’t done tha...
Submitted to Contest #335
I’m waiting for Gerry to come home. It was a simple task; go to my ex-husband’s home (I no longer think of it as my old home) and pick up some winter clothes for me. My ex-husband is called Kim. He’s not a bad man, but I don’t trust him around me. Kim and I had – have – a really toxic relationship. When we first met, we were both young and open to new experiences. We experimented with everything, and I do mean everything. If we wanted to, we could blackmail each other for years. Here’s the joy of Mutually Assured Destruction. We can’t pull t...
Submitted to Contest #334
Flora calls to invite me to the kitchen. “Sorrow, there’s something here for you.” The woman is sitting in the kitchen, crushed, staring at the burned remains of her apple pie. She has been emotionally delicate since before the birth of the baby and having a baking fairy mess up her attempts to cook for her family doesn’t help. Fortunately, this is my specialty. I slide up next to her and inhale the delicious perfume of her despair and depression. “Flora, you’ve outdone yourself today. Maybe you should try to give her a day off every so ofte...
Submitted to Contest #333
It’s a cold night. The wind is whipping along the streets and around corners with a howling noise. There is a light rain – not quite cold enough to freeze, but close. I’m wearing a heavy winter coat and a woolen beanie pressed down over my ears. I don’t generally feel the cold too badly, but tonight I’m hungry, and that brings its own chill.* * *Decades ago, there was a night just like this. I was cold and waiting for my ride home. I sat hidden in a shop doorway – all the shops had closed for the night, the only light coming from a diner two...
Submitted to Contest #332
Jane, Libby and Bailey were living in Texas. Only one of them was human. They lived in a ridiculously big one-story house in a gated community. This is the story of the big storm. Libby:I don’t care much for rain or storms. I used to live on the streets, and storms were often a threat to my safety. This day, we had the oppressive feeling of heavy storms on the way. The sky was dark, it had already started raining, and Bailey was hiding. Bailey goes and hides nearly an hour before the storm hits. She seems to have a seventh sense about these ...
Submitted to Contest #331
As we drove toward the house, Katy gasped in awe. “OMG, it’s like a Christmas card!” I was driving, so I pulled to the side of the icy road to see what had affected her enough to take her nose away from her phone. The house looked beautiful. It was a large family home, extensively modernized back in the 1990s, and set on a mountainside in a winter wonderland. We had seen it before the snow started, but today it was ours and the weather had completely transformed it. The pine trees were all shrouded in snow, and the light from the setting sun...
Submitted to Contest #330
*** Content Warning: Contains mental health and end of life issues. ***We left the doctor’s office together. As together as we can be these days. I was fully present, while Nick was in his half-world. He would follow along with the conversation for a while, then go silent, apparently lost in thought. From time to time, he forgets who I am, but we are fortunate – he seems content to follow me around until his mind clears again.I put his walker in the back of the car and helped him into the passenger seat, then walked around to the driver’s si...
Submitted to Contest #329
*** Content Warning: Contains adult themes, sexual situations. *** Demons don’t sleep. Obviously. So, I work a more or less twenty-four-hour day, seven-day week, no holidays. I work while the humans sleep. We don’t really have names either, but I think of myself as Lilith or Damien or Echo, depending on the client’s needs. Now, I know you may think I am evil, because I am a demon. I hope to persuade you that you are quite wrong in your assumption. I like to think I provide a service for my human clients. They need me to deal with the stresse...
Submitted to Contest #328
Natalie’s Story “Why didn’t you stay married?” asked Britt, “Didn’t you love Uncle Martin?” I was entertaining my great niece while her mother was on a business training weekend. Britt was technically a young adult and had started to show an interest in the various marriages and divorces in our family. “Love,” I responded, preparing for an intense conversation. “Love’s a funny thing. I was so in love with Martin, I lied to the police to protect him.” Britt’s eyes widened. When you’re young, you can’t imagine the sensible older people you kno...
Submitted to Contest #327
CW: Themes of death, witchcraft, demonology, physical violence and gore Call me Beltane. I’ve had other names through my lives – Grimoire, Sybil, Fluffy (don’t ask, that was a huge mistake), Lilith, and Sabbat – but Beltane is my latest incarnation’s name, and it’s festive. I’m a familiar, the Igor to my current witch Lenora. House cats lie around getting lazy and fat and occasionally slaughtering the local wildlife. Familiars have a more important job to do. No fancy cushions and expensive cat food for me. When I was a little kitten, eyes n...
Submitted to Contest #326
*** Content Advisory: Mentions sexual themes, substance abuse, physical violence and gore (not explicit) *** “Let’s play charades!” Jimmy said, and everyone applauded. Last weekend, Jimmy Butler had invited eight of his friends from college to spend Thanksgiving at his huge home. His family would join them on Wednesday afternoon for the traditional holiday celebrations, but today was Tuesday. Jimmy was the richest of the group, and the youngsters were treating it as a campus party in unusually luxurious surroundings at the Butlers’ estate in...
Submitted to Contest #325
As I walked into the bedroom, a cool breeze gently blew past my ankles, causing me to look down to see if I was brushing against something on the floor. I was in a house I had known well when I was a teenager. My aunt Toby was a widow even then, but she had been the most sophisticated and glamorous person I knew. Now she had died, and I was the executor of her will. I found myself back in her house on the edge of Exmoor, still full of the things she had collected on her travels around the world. The house seemed familiar but strangely empty....
Submitted to Contest #324
I had no experience sailing a boat. In retrospect, I don’t think Billie had much either. The boat was undoubtedly the baby of her Navy SEAL husband, who was currently overseas. Billie had full use of the seventeen-foot sailboat, and we took it out on Saturdays on the big lake, weather permitting. We were capable of raising and lowering the sails, and using the small outboard motor to enter and leave the slip. With the confidence of thirty-year-old professional women, we considered ourselves indomitable. It was September, and we knew there wo...
Submitted to Contest #323
Miguel wakes up each morning and patiently goes downstairs to wait for the rest of the household. There is coffee in the coffeemaker from yesterday, so he pours himself a cup and heats it in the microwave. He’s waiting for breakfast, one of the main events of his day. He can actually make his own breakfast, with cereal, milk, a banana, and toast. But he hopes that today Lillian will decide to make an egg dish for him. (Miguel never cared to learn how to cook, and he notices that Lillian gets irritated when he makes mistakes.) He used to go u...
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