December, 2016 Archives

29
Dec

Roswell Café

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Occupants of the flying saucer are being chased by their archenemy. Desperately looking for a safe place to hide.

Radar shows a habitable planet nearby. After scanning the surface they decide to land in a town called Roswell. They wait until late at night, create a thick fog, and then land the spacecraft. They scan the Internet and soon have the information they need. As the fog clears one of the aliens puts a sign on the front hatch that reads “Opening Soon.”

Billy and Betty Simms drive past the saucer. “Looks like another new restaurant,” Betty says to Billy.

From Guest Contributor Denny E. Marshall

28
Dec

The True Meaning Of Christmas

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Three-year-old Hannah placed a reindeer ornament on the Christmas tree while her mother put on the sparkling red star topper. The tree with its colorful lights lit up the room.

Hannah’s mother admired its beauty. “Your father will be very surprised.”

“Do you think Santa will bring me everything I asked for?” Hannah danced in a circle.

“Presents aren’t the true meaning of Christmas. We celebrate the birth of baby Jesus.”

Hannah didn’t quite understand, but picked up the baby Jesus from the manger.

“Mom can we buy Jesus a present for Christmas?”

Hannah’s mother touched her face and smiled.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

26
Dec

Christmas Eve On The Eastern Front

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Schmidt and I carry Braun into the church. Outside we’d freeze to death this Christmas Eve.

Icy wind blows through the shell hole in the cupola. We break up a pew for a fire.

It illuminates a statue of St. Michael.

We share a cup of schnapps.

Braun cannot partake. His stomach wound means he will die during the night.

We hear the squeaking of metal tracks.

“Tanks!”

Schmidt extinguishes the fire. If they’re T-34s we’re doomed. The Russians take no prisoners for what we’ve done to their land.

In the darkness I sense St. Michael’s eyes staring down unforgivingly.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

22
Dec

At First Blush

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Did it again! He never puts his grubby fingers on the older ones. No, just me and the few new arrivals. If I’m to be honest with myself – we’re less curvy than they. Maybe that’s it? Maybe he thinks we have less grounds for complaint?

Oh! Those two ladies walked right past without saying anything: neither caution nor cursory rebuke. What sort of workplace is this? Here’s me all clean, shiny, and new – arriving full of energy at this library – only to be fondled. Huh, the creep’s calling someone for assistance.

“Excuse me, is this touchscreen supposed to be pink?”

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

21
Dec

Ideonomisis I.

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

“There are no Absolutes in intelligence — rather, there is collaborative education to share the flow of stock, (the durability, and woodiness of our external, noumena-phenomena: that is, the definiendum we “usually” perceive in itself, vs., the definiendum — or object in question for definition — perceivable by an outward projection of appearances) omni-interactions like a launchpad within our Activision concavity). Perhaps, the boundless spectra of profoundly vague, all possible worlds Finnegan’s Wake sempiternities “n-gon-like;” lopsided, (and sew) “imprecise” Syracusian-moona-aquifer impassible linearity akin to all of us — will thus, liberate ex-communicators in the dogmatic chapel of all intelligence testing.”

From Guest Contributor Tiana Lavrov

20
Dec

My First Lie

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

My stepfather had Parkinson’s disease. Before he died, he was one percent of the person he had been. It’s cruel to say that at fifty percent he was a kinder person.

I found him once, on his back, like an upturned ladybird in the garden. I was now a stranger. I helped him up and in a moment of rare clarity, he asked, “When will this end?” He was all ears, his face ready enlightenment.

I lied to him once. It was my first ever real lie. “Soon,” I said.

Four years on, at his funeral my lie became true.

From Guest Contributor Alice Kibbe

19
Dec

Crazy?

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Every second changes everything. Even in a padded room with nothing but white walls, a locked door, and himself, he knew this as truth.

All that seemed mundane and inconsequential to others was of the most dire significance to him. How many times he blinked per minute. How many seconds it took the orderly to unlock the door for dinner. When he felt his bladder swell — it all worked towards the preservation of reality.

He sat in the corner, eyes wide. If his left foot moved, the Earth explodes. If the right, then all was well.

His left toe twitched.

From Guest Contributor Patrick Winters

16
Dec

Exiled

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

The road is not straight. It swines and curves. Like a path of destruction. No journey here I called. I couldn’t see ahead. Deviation, pain, loss, pricked at me. They said no left turn, back up, 6 months, maybe less. Who decides, hurray, take a right? No, down that alley, over there. A light, but you can’t escape. It creeps in deceptive, unimaginable, taking everything. There is no humility. It feeds off itself until the end. Then a rapture egresses, no more pain, no more exile from the human race. So many, yet one name. So common – cancer awaits.

From Guest Contributor Dana Sterner

14
Dec

The Birthday Party

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Once the lawn chairs have been folded and stacked inside the shed, the plastic wrap stretched across rows of cheese glistening with sweat to be stuffed into the fridge and forgotten, the shrieking of grandchildren and boozy chatter of distant relations swept out the front door and down the driveway, and the candles—slabs of wax carved into a 7 and 5 and crusted with cake—tossed into the sink to be dealt with later, the man lifts legs snaked with purple veins onto the recliner and makes his annual wish: that he won’t be here this time next year.

From Guest Contributor Doug Koziol

Doug is the Fiction Editor for Redivider, a journal of new literature and art. His work has appeared in CounterPunch, Driftwood Press, and theEEEL.

13
Dec

On Behalf Of A Boy

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Dear Mr. Pankhurst:

As you know, my adopted son John Wesley is only the second American to have netted a clownfish with a single-flue toggle iron harpoon. As a result he has been offered a scholarship to the New Bedford Academy of Utter Disregard for Marine Life (formerly the Herman Melville Institute for Misplaced Revenge). To compliment his coursework, I’d like to inquire about an internship at the Pankhurst Center for the Study of Severe Saltwater Psychosis and Alarming Aquatic Aberrations. I believe you’ll find John to be handsome, alert, and fond of ribbons.

Awaiting your response.

Elliot C. Balderdash

From Guest Contributor Amiel Rossin