January, 2020 Archives

25
Jan

Dinner Time

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Sam sat, crossed his hands over his chest, and sighed.

“Baked chicken, boiled potatoes, and string beans. Really, Mom?”

“You know the doctor wants you to eat healthy,” she answered, filling his dish.

Sam swallowed a piece of chicken and it was like a rock had hit his stomach. He missed the crispy taste of fried, juicy white meat.

“String bean pie for dessert,” he chuckled and noticed a hair on his dish.

Sam removed his hat and a clump of his hair fell on the table.

“Does this mean the radiation is working?”

His mother gasped at the sight.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

24
Jan

On The Train

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Poof went my idea for a poem, off it charged into the common air. It could be anywhere on this train now, traveling up the coast. Maybe people are talking about it in the dining car, maybe the conductor’s thinking about it as he takes their order for dinner. It could be in the heart of the young marine from Camp Pendleton, a lieutenant, stationed there for three years. He’s on his way to San Francisco to see his girlfriend. He has something important to tell her, something that just came to him, while the sun set over the Pacific.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Linda’s stories and poems have appeared in Outlook Springs, Crack the Spine, New Verse News, Star 82 Review, Indolent Books, A Story in 100 Words, and others.

22
Jan

21

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

My sister’s 21 years older. She’s 37. Often jokes I’m the milkman’s son.

Nancy calls me Saint Nick, says I’m too giving. Nicknames me dummkopf when I trip.

I love her energy, when she jokes about my clothing or love of Debussy. She’s an Elvis-loving newspaperwoman.

Yet, the banter lacks that natural rhythm, that give-and-take. We didn’t grow up playing or fighting together. But Nancy says age is arbitrary.

I wonder if she feels self-consciousness. Especially when she calls me little brother, accentuating the words.

I just banter. Call her sis. Joke that she’s my secret mother.

It’s almost believable.

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.

21
Jan

Mother

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

“Mother is upset,” a Wiradjuri tribal elder said. All heads nodded in agreement. Elders from the Ngungawal and Walgaulu tribes had traveled days to be at this meeting of Aboriginal peoples.

“Our sacred trees are gone,” he continued. “Our land is on fire; our mother is on fire.”

“She is hotter every year. More fires burn this year than ever,” a Ngungawal elder said. “We must appease our mother. We have perpetual grief, but the time is to focus on the mother, not us.”

Heads nodded.

Meeting was over and nothing was resolved. The elders returned to their burned-out bush.

From Guest Contributor NT Franklin

20
Jan

After A Painting By David Lynch

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

He said to me, “I am dying.” I said, “How is that my fault?” but sat down on the bed and held him and rocked him. Somewhere out there the lake was being strangled. I was frightened the fish would die, and that this would instigate the death row shuffle for everyone. The sound of endless wars in far-off places is still buzzing in my head. I stop, I look. The boy and the car are gone. It’s just crying and anger here, and farmers who make less than a dollar a day having an arm or leg blown off.

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.

17
Jan

Blessed Curse

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Near dawn a rooster crowed.

“Mary died,” the midwife said, “I couldn’t save her, but you have been blessed with a baby boy.”

John pounded the table with his fist and with a heave, overturned it. The cup and saucer clattered to the floor while the wails and cries of an infant traveled from the other side of a closed door.

“God why did you take her?” he keened.

The midwife returned from the other room and placed the tiny child into his arms.

John prayed the baby would die. His life would be worthless without Mary. Damn the child.

From Guest Contributor Catherine Shields

16
Jan

Hungry Hannah

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

“HUNGRY HANNAH EATS REAL FOOD!” I thought all robotic dolls were creepy, but my twin daughters loved that commercial.

And they loved Hannah.

At least until tonight. Tonight I find the babysitter’s back gnawed down to her spine. Karen lays legless, dead mid-scream, a broken doll herself. Samantha’s face is chewed to tattered strips of scarlet skin — wet ribbons staining hectic red hieroglyphs across the carpet. Her eyes and scalp are gone.

I find Hannah looking up at me. Her painted eyes are flat black coins. Her plastic teeth, still moving, are soaked in violent crimson.

“Feed me,” she bleats.

From Guest Contributor Eric Robert Nolan

15
Jan

I Dreamt The Ocean Was A Woman

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

I dreamt that the ocean was a woman and she swallowed me. One second I was laying in my bed, and the next I was sliding down her throat. As I tumbled down, I felt seaweed and kelp cocoon around my body, wrapping tighter and tighter as I dropped further and further down her gullet. Her stomach was bedded with coral that deeply cut my arms and legs. All I could do was lay there, bloody, defenseless, and petrified.

Suddenly, I awoke from the dream, jumped out of bed, and walked towards the ocean to feel it all over again.

From Guest Contributor Melissa Maney

14
Jan

Caught On Tape

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Funny, no one notices who is watching them. Overhead cameras, hidden inside rooftop owls, are wired to scare away drifting seagulls eating garbage bin leftovers. Genius: catching two birds with one shot—two kinds of thieves that never pay attention. 24/7: every move recorded, like clockwork. The boss reads the tape & sees you hustle into the crowded store, stopping first at the newsstand for a free newspaper; then, heading to the back where wild caught clams sit on crushed ice. It’s always a gamble, perched there like a fixture, until they switch off the lights for the night shift.

From Guest Contributor M.J. Iuppa

M.J.’s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 31 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

14
Jan

Addiction

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Juliana knew it was psychological. But the distress of withdrawal was real.

Her travel wanderlust was more than an indulgence. It was a craving deep in her cells. Journeys broke the shackles of the mundane and had become the embodiment of her independence.

Her last fix was fifty days ago. She kept distracted with work and avocation diversions. Yet, her mind would drift to the need, and normally steady hands would tremble.

When the seductive siren called, Juliana’s immobility became a shrinking coffin. Claustrophobic and suffocating.

As the taxi dropped her at the airport, she was able to breath. Freedom.


From Guest Contributors A.L. Gabriella and Billy Ray