March, 2020 Archives
Mar
Panic At Sea
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Mary attached her life vest to her body, squeezed through the screaming crowd and made her way to the lifeboats. The cold air chilled her body and numbed her feet; she could barely walk. Frozen in fear, she waited. After being placed in the lifeboat, panicked passengers tried to jump in as the deck hand began lowering them down. He took out his gun and started firing at no one in particular and shot a poor elderly man.
Mary, stunned, looked at the dark sea beneath, bodies floating by.
Titanic began to sink, and the lifeboat collapsed into the ocean.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Mar
The end times are nigh. Let’s write some stories.
by thegooddoctor in News
With forced quarantines around the world, there’s never been a better time to stay in and write. I’d like to help. That’s why I’m adding a new feature to the site.
Beginning April 1st, each month I’ll be opening up submissions based on a particular theme or genre. Every day, I’ll post one story for the contest, saving my favorite for the last day of the month. (I’ve amended this part of the contest, because it didn’t make sense when entries were still incoming. I will post the stories as they come in, and then announce the winner at the end) Assuming we get enough submissions, that will be 20 or so stories a month. And that’s in addition to the general submission stories I’m already posting.
Basically, it means you’ll get to enjoy two stories a day instead of one. Plus, some lucky writer will get to tell their readers they’ve won a flash fiction contest.
For month one, starting in April, the theme will be Historical Fiction.
The rules are simple:
- All stories must be set in a time period pre-2000.
- While it doesn’t need to be obvious, there has to be some indication within the story what the time period is. This might be anachronistic costume or technology, archaic language, or anything else you can imagine. Be creative.
- The story must be exactly 100 words, not including the title.
That’s it. Start writing. I hope I get plenty of stories, so spread the word.
Could there be a better way to face the end of the world?
*Note: This contest is meant for fun. While there are no actual prizes, extreme bragging rights are involved!
Mar
Coda
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
He followed the familiar tune through the fog: strings, horns, that impossibly sweet voice. The gloom lifted to reveal the girl, singing her heart out under the spotlight, invisible orchestra in accompaniment. He cried tears of joy, felt love, and also something not quite love.
“You sing it to me every night in my mind. But it sounds so much clearer now. Why?”
She smiled sadly. “Can’t you guess?”
*
“Is he dead?” The reporter watched the killer’s body inside the execution chamber.
“Yes.”
He peered closer. “What does he have to smile about? He murdered that girl right on stage!”
From Guest Contributor Clay Waters
Mar
Barking At Shadows
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
One minute I’m falling exhausted into bed. The next I’m getting beaten by goombahs wielding metal bats. “I’m going to die,” I think. “I’m going to lose everything.” My body trembles like it’s not under my jurisdiction anymore. I don’t want to make this sound worse than it is, but there isn’t a lot else happening, just assorted crises, each at a different point of unfolding. It’s an intricate universe. When day returns with a button or two missing, I’m spooning hot cereal into a small white dog that has been exhibiting signs of incipient dementia. Heartache is everyone’s neighbor.
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.
Mar
This Message Cannot Be Delivered
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Old friends’ emails become inactive, enveloped by electronic monsters. My message cannot be delivered, electronic gatekeepers proclaim.
I can’t tell them of being alone. I can’t hear their off-color jokes about paraplegics and suicide, youth at its most delightfully stupid. Tell them of empty, sterile walls. I can’t confess I absorbed their stories of family, an electronic voyeur.
I keep trying. Messages come back.
I drive to distant homes. But staring through lit windows, I feel like a magazine, an obnoxious knickknack among order and precision. I imagine them discarding jokes, smiles replaced by starched replicas.
This message isn’t delivered.
From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri
Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. His story, “Soon,” was nominated for a Pushcart. Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, 50 Word Stories, (mac)ro (mic), and Ariel Chart.
Mar
Along The River
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Tawny wings tail the Arkansas and their shadows brush Russian olive. A hoo! drifts along begging recognition. Drowning the scuttle of waves, a quavering reply invites determination. Feathers ripple towards cottonwoods, nudging the fading sunlight across leaves and between branches. He allows a hoot to stray ahead asking for her to answer with a wandering whistle. The night approaches with a dimming silence that hushes happenings of the day and offers silhouettes. Moonlight shifts over a hollow as a frayed figure sails with unfurled wings. They settle below the canopy and dust bark with steadied feathers, ceasing flight for tonight.
From Guest Contributor Kristi Kerico
Kristi is a psychology major at Pikes Peak Community College. She is studying to become a horticultural therapist. She currently works at a bookstore and volunteers at a zoo and nature center. She began writing after enrolling in a creative writing course at PPCC. She enjoys poetry the most, considering it’s brief yet complex beauty. She also loves writing with a focus on nature.
Mar
My Time
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The smell of food wafted through the apartment. I groaned as I moved off the sofa. My old bones ached as I made my way to the small dining table. My wife smiled at something from behind me.
“It’s back isn’t it?” I asked her quietly.
She nodded and reached out her hand. I’d never seen what she had. Even so, she described it as a little girl, wearing a yellow sundress, and her eyes were always glossed over.
“It will be my time soon, Jacob. That’s what she had said.”
I just shook my head. I didn’t believe her.
From Guest Contributor Amber Brandau
Mar
Sweet Lullaby
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Brianne gently swung the bassinet humming a lullaby. It had been in her family for years and it was her turn to place a baby in it.
She decorated the nursery with teddy bears and yellow duckling wallpaper. She spent the majority of her time in the baby’s room holding the many tiny onesies her family gave her and reading the children’s books for the baby’s library.
“Honey, I’m home,” said her husband Greg as he entered the room with a bouquet of freshly scented red roses.
Brianne began to weep.
It was time to tell him about the miscarriage.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Mar
D.S.T.
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Our test of CesiumApp (Sync Your Devices to The Nanosecond!) launched at 2am, the end of Daylight Savings Time.
But somehow when the clocks fell back, so did we, snapped to wherever we’d been one hour before. We showed up again in the conference room, greedy with foreknowledge. Kyler sold airline stocks short, profiting from a plane explosion. I bet Australian rugby winners.
We waited anxiously for next 2am when an explosion blew the doors open. A hideous half-human encrusted with growths like lichen gasped “butterflies” in a familiar croak, leveling a rusted revolver.
I’d always been handy with guns.
From Guest Contributor Clay Waters
Mar
Myth Match
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The day is cold even by New England standards. Girls dump menstrual blood on icy sidewalks in some kind of protest. Myth is dead. Our high school biology textbook compared the body to a furnace. Mr. C, our very nice teacher, was killed that spring with his wife and baby daughter in a car wreck. There’s no point in speaking ironically to people who can’t understand irony. You’ll just end up having to publicly apologize. Freud said dreams are the day’s residue. It has to linger for a while, as if to warn we’re a danger to self and others.
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.