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Weekly Contest #70
I like to be cold. It reminds me of you and your cold hands -- you and what you’ve done to me. You always liked winter, and now I do too. Summers are cluttered and hot, but winters are high and lonely and crystalline, like you. When we first met I did not like you. You were stubborn and sometimes cruel, but that wasn’t it. It was because I felt myself falling in love with you -- your auburn hair, your sly, slow smile, your winking eyes and unexpected laughter. When we first met, we shook hands and smiled. Lindsey Gupta, head of a...
Weekly Contest #68
Chill wind blew down the long asphalt street in Palestine, Texas, picking up sud-like dust and limply turning over dead dry leaves. The town was tired and quiet; only a handful of pickups drove leisurely down the street. Jason Lynn Pennsylvania sat behind the counter of AmeriCo Bank, shiny shoes propped up in his neighbor’s empty chair, white collar unbuttoned, Killing Floor open on his lap. His head tipped back against the rim of the sleek swivel chair, snoring. He was the kind of man who would go bald early but not care, the kind of m...
Weekly Contest #64
I arrived at Warwick House too early. Jude looked back at me when I checked my watch—9:10—as we drove under great iron arches toward the looming manor. “You okay, Bethe?”“I’m fine. I’ll wait outside. Thanks for driving me, Jude. I owe you one.”“Anything for you, Bethy.”“Shut up.”He laughed.Gravel crunched and spat under my feet as I rolled my suitcase over the driveway. Jude turned in an ungainly circle in the white driveway and the car disappeared from view. He was proud of that car, a nice little 2017 remodel.I went all the way u...
Weekly Contest #63
The afternoon came slowly, like a young blossom turning glory red in the dusk. The coffee shop was dark inside and time seemed to run slower, like the heat had taken time in hand and stretched it out. Outside the street was busy and chilled with cold rain, but inside it was gently warm, quiet, and peaceful. Avery finished pouring daidai batter into muffin tins, slid them into the oven, and pushed her short hair back from her face. She stood for a moment behind the counter with her hands on her hips. There were few people inside the Star...
Weekly Contest #58
It was a crisp May morning when the sun blinked out.And it's a go! came the cry and with a mighty heave the silver-braced elevator moved up, choked, and shivered to a stop. Inside, Jupiter worked her cuffs off with her teeth, sighed in the storm of siren silver dust, and tried hard to think. Above her, the immense pale yellow light flared down, smiled with all its teeth, and shut out. The outline burned in her vision long after the sunned light forced to a stop. Throughout...
Shortlisted for Contest #57 ⭐️
Old man Mawson was a timeworn, craggy giant of a man who was older than the hills and who had been the second man to settle in that part of the country. Who was the first man? It was Mawson’s older brother, reportedly murdered by the third brother after a mix-up of who chopped down a certain bloodred-barked dogwood tree in the third brother’s yard. Mawson, the real culprit, buried his older brother in his front yard and kept all secrets and the grave tended for the next seventy years. Mawson had huge beady eyes and ears that stuck straight ...
Weekly Contest #56
They arrived at the same time but since one went to the back door and the other to the front, they didn’t see each other. Pat clicked her car keys, standing at the front door of Cora’s house, and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She let her keys fall into her purse and then snapped the purse closed. Clouds were gathering, thin and wan, stretched across a darkening winter sky, and just before the door opened, Pat put up a hand and two tiny snowflakes landed. They melted perfectly into the suede palm of her glove, and then the do...
Weekly Contest #54
The sun lies dappled on the casual, drifting reuland leaves, a rare and beautiful sight, but all it does is make you lightheaded and sick. The leaves are bright green, poison-green, and shiny in the merciless light. Around you are the crackling of heavy footsteps through the brush, and singsongy, whispering Clan chants, and the occasional swish of a blade through the underbrush. Everyone’s feet move in silent, brushing Indian steps across the leaf-covered forest floor. Your father’s hand is on your shoulder, heavy and warm, and you want it t...
Weekly Contest #53
The lavender and the mallow sat watered in the sunny windowsill, looking out at the cracked stone plaza. Tendrils of ivy and honeysuckle swept into the window, trailing into the suds in the sink at each heavy, hot breeze. From somewhere in her house came touches of jazz and breaths of some heavy beast moving about on the floor.February’s house was in the middle of the Thistle Wasteland, now in the most cunning heat wave of sun and surety in a dozen years, and she had never had a visitor. She lived alone, in her house that looks like someone ...
Weekly Contest #47
On your right is a boy you haven’t seen in fifteen years. War is an incredible thing.You try to turn your head and look at him, but a nurse rushes forward and tells you No. That word again. She adjusts the brace on your head and smiles a moist pink smile and says, “Not yet, ma’am, not yet. Keep it still, coupla more days. Then reevaluate.”You sigh. Out of the corner of your eye you see that he is asleep anyway.The nurse smiles again.“What happened?” you croak. All you can see is white, white, white, and her wide pink smile, and dark in the r...
Weekly Contest #44
The island of Quadra was strung with lights and lanterns. Strings of popcorn lined the dirt streets, cranberry ropes adorned the necks of tall faceless candle-lit buildings downtown, and turkeys lined up innocently to the slaughtering block. The islanders were preparing for Thanksgiving. A thicket. Densely wooded with blackberry bushes and blackthorn trees scattered haphazardly, the sky was hidden by the knit of thorns and thin twigs. Miles from the coast and miles from the town. The thicket of Quadra was the middle of the island, and the co...
Weekly Contest #40
Iras“Darling,” I say sweetly, stroking her hair, “Darling, sweetie, are you really going to let that slide?”My girl doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even look at me. Just picks an olive leaf off the tree and flicks it at a shrilling wheatear standing on an arching olive root. I take strands of her long hair, the color of ripe apricots, and begin threading them through my fingers, knotting, braiding, tying, until half her hair is trapped to my fingers in a lovely five-strand braid.“Darling,” I say again, then stop. I won’t allow the whine to enter...
Weekly Contest #39
It was cool and clean outside, the dusk just beginning to fall. Somewhere in the treetops a little nightjar was singing full-throatedly, accompanied by the handful of crickets the late-spring heat had lured out of their sleep.Iz sat on the outside of the deck with her feet dangling over the dewy ground, looking up at the heavy night sky, drained of stars. It had recently rained: the wooden deck was damp and the earth smelled distinctly of dark new things poking up from the inner dirt, worms and seedlings and birthed white grubs. Killdeers an...
Weekly Contest #37
On the porches the Venezuelans played salsa while it rained. Outside it was dark and the air was heavy, and the earth thick with loam and steam, but on the porches illuminated with lanterns and candles and flashlights it was bright and whirling, quick, flexible music floating from each house.Around the backsides of the clapboard houses the jungle was creeping in, trying to grab each house around the waist as if for a dance, intent on consuming the village. But the people beat it back each day, a refusal to dance.They said no, we’ll dance on ...
Winner of Weekly Contest #36 🏆
Yellow Day Today is a yellow day. The sunlight sneaks in through the window, writhing on the floor like a snake. Outside, the leafy pecan tree shakes in the wind. To be honest, I do not write. When I do, it is facts and information. In the city I did not have time for poetry or pretty words. No one wanted pretty words or expected it of me. But now, alone with the cold stone and cold yellow light and snakes made from the sun, I have time. I can hear humming in the restless air. The entire compound is apprehensive. It is because we are expecti...
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