December, 2019 Archives
Dec
Requiem For The Unappreciated
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“Did’ya hear blah died?” the barman had imparted, rather than asked, punctuation notwithstanding.
“Names don’t stay with me,” I’d admitted, and lifted my pint – eyes pointedly on the telly.
“Used to be regular – face all scarred.” Hint not taken.
I’d shrugged and adjusted my angle to him.
“You know him.” It was a slow day – the other customers had wisely chosen not to sit at the counter.
“Probably,” I’d ceded, thrusting my annoyance deep beneath a façade of affability.
It must have leaked, for the subject was dropped.
Two weeks later I noticed that an acclaimed local poet had died.
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Dec
Humbug New Year’s
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
On the television, the ball in Time’s Square dropped. “Happy New Year,” the crowd shouted. I gulped my wine, not a fan of champagne, and shut the TV. After all, I detested New Year’s Eve. It’s a lonely holiday for some, myself included, and I’d rather get drunk on wine in the comfort of my own home, warm by the fire.
Tired, I took off my robe, climbed into bed and turned off the lamp. I told myself, tomorrow would be just another day.
Instead of spending the first day of the new year relaxing, I typed my resignation letter.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Dec
Love Triumphal
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Mother hides me in the closet.
You won’t go back to that school. I’ll deal with that asshole father.
She smells of lavender perfume and sweat. Not like Dad with his Old Spice, calculated aroma, who mocks Mother. Arranges my future with Headmaster Edgar. Harvard, law.
Men bang at the doors. Buzzwords waft into my musky space: “Custody arrangement,” “Legal orders.”
Fuck off. Mother’s words hold firmness, edge.
Footsteps draw near, unpleasant pounding.
My mother tells them I’m her son. I’m someone who needs love.
I absorb that word, so foreign, while she spars, words rising.
Love. What beautiful form.
From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri.
Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. His work is forthcoming or has been published in journals such as 50 Word Stories, Silent Auctions, City. River. Tree. and Ariel Chart.
Dec
Christmas Morning
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Ben watches the kids open their presents. Sharon’s smile is frozen in place. His too. It’s like a hard layer of snow has settled over everyone, precluding self reflection.
He remembers the frenetic joy that would build as his presents got bigger, even as they became fewer. After the last one, a shameful disappointment set in, a feeling he refused to acknowledge even to himself.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. He slinks to the bathroom to read the texts in solitude. Sharon already suspects.
He uses the holidays as an excuse not to say anything. Let’s wait until January.
Dec
Parting Sails
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The seas clash between her and the shore. Yer crew lined up on the edge of the beach. Her sails are riddled with holes from cannon fire. Her hull crushed and impaled by other vessels that have crashed beside her. Quite a miracle she can float even now. As yer crew take their final glances, ye walk until the water reaches yer knees as ye recall her the most. Through storms, valleys, and currents. With a staff of flame on yer right hand, ye set her ablaze in a last gaze of glory. She rests in the sea’s foamy waters.
From Guest Contributor Nahum Zewdie
Nahum is a student of general studies in Pikes Peak Community College.
Dec
Art, Music, Philosophy
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Our 5-year-old daughter, Celeste, was singing to herself. She suddenly stopped and said, “Why do I always fart when I sing?” Then a French farmer while plowing on a hill uncovered a rusted revolver that may be the very one Van Gogh used to shoot himself. I looked at my wife, who was looking back at me. I can’t keep drowning, I can’t. There are little children living without parents in freezing tents in detention camps. The ancient Greek stoics maintain a complicit silence. I just want it to end. Every kind of music is meant to be played loudly.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.
Dec
Eight Maids a-Yelping
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“What’s a milkmaid to do? The only thing bovine hereabouts is the Silly Cow who owns the place. During the first seven days of Christmas, she let her true love convert her manor house into an aviary.”
“Tell me about it! I’m a housemaid, but I don’t do windows and I don’t do guano.”
A barefoot parlor maid lamented, “Look at my bloody feet after half a dozen geese pecked my corns.”
The other five recently-hired maids commiserated with them.
“Let’s tar and feather the harpy. We can substitute pine pitch, in a pinch, and there’s no shortage of feathers.”
From Guest Contributor John H. Dromey
John’s short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly Magazine, Stupefying Stories Showcase, Thriller Magazine, Unfit Magazine, and elsewhere.
Dec
That Day
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
He dreamt of one. Then another and another…until the sky was
crowded with them. Umbrellas. Pristine white. Open. Descending from up
high. Why?
They were irrelevant in his daily life. Not so for his wife who needed
different umbrellas to complement her wardrobe.
Upon awakening he realized what triggered the scene he envisioned. Why
he told his boss he wouldn’t be at work that day.
“Does this go with my sweater?” his wife asked, opening an umbrella by
his bedside.
The man quietly slid back under the covers.
No way was he going to move on Friday the 13th.
From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs
Krystyna, a former librarian, gathers tidbits from around the
world in her travels, strings them into delectable morsels of poetry
and prose, and stores them in her gopher hole in the Canadian
Prairies. She is open to sharing, upon request.
Dec
The Gift
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Timothy wants a brother for Christmas.
His mother, divorced, comes up with an alternative solution and sits Timothy on her lap. “Honey, there’s another way we could give you a similar present. Each month we can sponsor a child.”
Timothy tilts his head. “What does that mean, Mommy?”
“Well, each month we’ll send money to help the boy get food, education, and whatever he needs. Some children in other countries can’t afford these things and need help.”
Timothy’s face lit up the room with his radiant smile. “I like that, Mommy.”
In Bangladesh, a little boy has a happy holiday.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Dec
One Last Time
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“Be a good boy,” said my mother. “Stop playing cricket in the graveyard with you likkle hooligan friend. I don’t want to hear that you trying to see duppies by washing you face with rice water.”
I didn’t want to disappoint my mother, a God-fearing woman, who left Jamaica ten Christmases ago to work as a hospice nurse in Miami, comforting the soon-to-be dead. I’d been a good boy until last week when she came home in a box. So who could blame me (and I know she would forgive me) if I tried to see her one last time.
From Guest Contributor Geoffrey Philp
Geoffrey is the author of Garvey’s Ghost