February, 2016 Archives
Feb
Career Change
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Gareth had retired from the superhero business because he grew weary of dealing with the inflated egos of supervillains. It didn’t help that many of the people he saved from certain doom were generally ungrateful and occasionally blamed him for causing more harm than good in his frequent efforts to save the day. Feeling burnt out, Gareth went to law school and became an attorney. Almost a year into his new life, following a particularly loathsome day, he decided his old job wasn’t so bad after all. Gareth went home, donned his tights and cape again, and never looked back.
From Guest Contributor Dan Slaten
Feb
Love Be The Devil, But It Won’t Get Me
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
We were watching the show from a splintered, weathered picnic table in front of the big stage at The Shack when she told me she was leaving me. It was midnight, but it was still a hundred degrees out and sweat rolled down my face and into my eyes as she walked away. The Burnside boys were singing their brand of gritty, corn liquor soaked blues. My heart thudded in my chest like it was threatening to make an appearance but the toes of my boots kept tapping the dirt and eventually I threw my head back and sang along.
From Guest Contributor Sarah Reddick
Sarah Reddick is a writer who is currently in the MFA program at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. Her work has appeared in Cattywampus Magazine, Salt Zine, The Local Voice, and the Mid Rivers Review.
Feb
Swan
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Why such sorrow for the swan on the water? Why is it her head is hung with such woe? The moonlight lines her with silver as she glides ripples atop the placid pond. And there are banks of passionflowers that glint their crimsons through the night. Had I been that swan, never would you see my nape so weak and crestfallen, so inwardly curved like tendrils at winter’s start. Because there are other swans on the pond with dispositions just the same. And if I swam my sadness to theirs, perhaps our troubles would combine like violin strings and bows.
From Guest Contributor Man O’Neal
Feb
Fire Elemental
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The craft eased through the continuum corridor, leaving old worlds behind.
Lick wondered what the new universe would be like. Elders had assured explorers that it would sustain life. Lick wondered if it could.
There was a concussion which buffeted Lick’s form; and the craft disintegrated around him.
He landed naked in a tangle of what he assumed was the plant life which had been incorporated into his exploration briefing. Some huge and hairy bipedal form was brandishing two rocks.
He was suddenly very frightened and terribly hungry. He began to consume the dried grass and twigs.
The primate flinched.
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Feb
Milk
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
In the beginning, I cried for it. Yet each night after dark, I threw up that sour formula, that fake milk warmed in glass bottles my mother tested on her wrists, so I wouldn’t burn my mouth.
Still, my mouth burned. I was a difficult baby, thin and colicky. I hungered but could not accept nourishment.
That’s how I began: Born at just five pounds, brought home in a receiving blanket, placed in a crib where I protested and screamed, the vein in my neck throbbing.
Years later, I’m still protesting, still screaming.
It scares me to close my mouth.
From Guest Contributor Cinthia Ritchie
Cinthia is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee who writes and runs mountains in Anchorage, Alaska. Find her work at Water-Stone Review, Evening Street Press, Third Wednesday, Best American Sports Writing 2013, Sports Literate, The Boiler Journal, Cactus Heart Press, Mary: A Journal of New Writing, damselfly press, Memoir, Sugar Mule, Foliate Oak Literary Journal and other small presses. Her first novel, Dolls Behaving Badly, released from Hachette Press/Grand Central Publishing
Feb
Day 4 In This Dismal Place
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The monster looms down upon the invariable doom that has captured me. I hide in a little rock den, but it knows I am here. I try to blend into the decaying leaves and dirt that surround me, but its two spying eyes fall and focus on my abdomen and eight legs. The beast knows how to disable the shield and picks the rock up. Its meaty paws drop down hoppers for me; a peace offering to feast upon. I show the four-legger my fangs, and it drops the rock down over me. It must not know how to fight!
From Guest Contributor McKenzie A. Frey
Feb
Water Pitcher
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The mustard-lustered staircase was slick with California rain. Loaded with bridal shower largesse, like some kind of Sierra-Sherpa goat, I lost my footing—and lost the water pitcher over the balustrade escarpment. The abysmal fracture at your feet flashed within your eyes; oh the silence, oh the rain. There must have been other gifts, but I remember this one only, and others: forgetting to set the alarm for the eclipse, going to the airport on the wrong day, and missing Sasha’s graduation. The mind adheres to misadventure like a stubborn sticker on glass. Even the dishwasher of time can’t dislodge.
From Guest Contributor David C. Miller
Feb
Nightshirt
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
It was shocking to find the moon to be just as Joey had always seen her in paintings: the pointy chin, drooping lids and blue glitter eyelashes, the silver curlicue smile. Cold as it was, she smelled like steaming milk, and the look in her eyes was warm and vast, outside and inside at the same time. She was almost two-dimensional, but he knew she had room for him. He climbed on, nestled his knees into the hollow under her bottom lip, hooked a hand around the bridge of her nose, and fell asleep in the pillow of her cheek.
From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat
After graduating with a BA in English from Vassar College, Brook landed her first paid writing job as a reporter for a small-town Colorado newspaper. She left it to travel to India, where she fell in love, got married and canceled her ticket home. She and her husband Gaurav write freelance articles for dozens of publications, including Outpost, Ecoworld and Little India. In 2013, they launched www.BluePlanetJournal.com, which she edits and writes for. She also teaches writing at a community college, is earning her MFA in Writing at Lindenwood University, and is writing a novel.
Feb
Betty’s Style
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Amanda glared accusingly from the living room doorway. Her father and brother didn’t even notice. They were engrossed in television. Their shared triumphant roar startled her.
“What’s wrong, love?” Mam rocked herself out of the old couch and approached. She fondled Amanda’s curls.
“Betty’s hair is a mess. I brushed it yesterday.”
Mam smiled. “Let’s see what we can do.”
***
The doll’s coiffure was perfect when Mam put her back in the toy cupboard and tucked Amanda in.
Betty waited until the lights were out before indignantly reaching up and ruffling her hair back to the way she liked it.
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Feb
About Hearts
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
She told him he had no heart. He was shocked.
Didn’t she appreciate his help? He opened doors whenever she carried heaped laundry baskets. At mealtimes, he cleared the table and piled dishes in the sink.
Not fair! He planned to prove her wrong.
When dinner was ready, he called her over. She was surprised. Said he had a huge heart to spend hours fixing that gourmet meal. He was speechless.
In the outdoor trash lay packaging from the foods he presented. Topped with a heart-shaped box of chocolates. It got crushed by a car after falling off his bike.
From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs
Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published at: Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, 100 word story, 101 Words, Boston Literary Magazine, From the Depths (Haunted Waters Press), ShortbreadStories, SixWordMemoirs, and Espresso Stories.