March, 2022 Archives
Mar
Gravity
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
You are not bound by gravity, my son.
Midnight, finger tapping my shoulder.
Fortress under my blankets. Helpless tears slip down his cheeks.
“They hate me, Momma,” he whispers, voice cracking. What can I say to that?
You are not bound by gravity, my son.
“Why am I so weird?” His question is broken, tentative. Saying it aloud makes it more real than it was before.
“Some people are just born different, baby.”
“Are you different, Momma?” What an innocent question.
“Yes,” I say, voice sticking. So I repeat myself. “Yes, I am.”
But we are not bound by gravity.
From Guest Contributor Tirzah Blazis
Tirzah is a high school senior who takes dual enrollment classes at Pikes Peak Community College.
Mar
Call Of The Deep
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
It was his first and last voyage to sea. An escape ship. His duty; to scrub the decks. He watched as jellyfish gathered around the keel, unnoticed by the experienced sailors. A simple extra hand. Days passed, or months.
Brine burned his lips, rum quelled his pains.
The jellyfish still gathered.
In the moonlight glow their beauty morphed into that of a woman, her tail flowing along the starboard side.
She called to him, and the dragon uncoiled. Drunk with thirst and madness he dove into her arms, and the dragon swallowed him whole. Only the birds’ song remembered him.
From Guest Contributor Valkyrie Kerry
Mar
You Took The Sunshine When You Left
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
My world consisted of captivating sunshine, the kind that seeps into your skin and leaves your soul hopeful. Fresh mountain air, fresh rain on the pavement where my glory days still reign. The leaving hurt. The remnants of you mark my eyes with devastating longing. The sun went into hiding and the blue birds no longer flutter past my window. Leaving hurt. I no longer see the serenity of tomorrow in a golden haze, but dark. Destined for loneliness. The hope of loving you has become yet another long lost dream that the sandman refuses to leave at my door.
From Guest Contributor Courtney Alvarez
Courtney is a student at Pikes Peak Community College who loves writing, reading, and photography.
Mar
In The Shadow
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Nighttime, people strode past him in pursuit of merriment at the city’s main square.
In a high rise apartment across the street, flamenco pulsed from an open window. Singing and clapping erupted. Smells of warm foods being prepared at tapas bars flavored the humid, tepid air.
He pulled a quilt over his head when a nearby nightclub closed and rowdy customers zigzagged into the light of a new day.
There’d be coins dropping into the cup by him on a bankrupt store’s doorstep he called ‘home.’
Someone would throw him an empanada. He sometimes found one, after footsteps scurried away.
From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs
Krystyna writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction regardless of the season, although she prefers spring.
Mar
Looking For Mr. Goodbar Version 2022
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Mr. Goodbar was a respected man, but he was still single at fifty. The woman he picked wore no panties under her joggers. She said she liked having sex with two men. Mr. Goodbar was happy.
The woman got pregnant. He married her because he was a good man. She wanted him to change for their child. He did not. In work and now in marriage, he had to live a double life. Mr. Goodbar was exhausted and miserable.
The woman had deceived him. She was not like she had led him to believe when they had met.
She vanished.
From Guest Contributor Dominique Margolis
Mar
Soothing Sounds
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
As soon as I entered the apartment, I felt the heavy air of disappointment. Lauren hadn’t made the all-star team. She’d been practicing her foul shots and layups for months. She was curled into the recliner with a blanket tucked under her chin. I knew better than to speak to her.
On my way into the kitchen, it struck me that my father had discovered texting and Face Time on his cell phone. I shot him a text, turned the speaker on, and my father’s warmth came through my phone.
“Pop Pop” Lauren squealed, jumping and tossing the blanket aside.
From Guest Contributor Edith Gallagher Boyd
Mar
A Special Education
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Our daily newspaper when I was growing up would publish on Saturdays a page of commentaries, advice columns, comics, etc., by teenagers. Although I can’t remember the exact subject of my commentary – the unfortunate phrase “the rising tide of communism” sticks in my mind – I do remember my intense pride of authorship. For the first time, I felt avenged on all the adults who had ever undervalued me. I deliberately showed the clipping, with my name and age, 13, in boldface at the bottom, to Mr. Eakely, my eighth-grade English teacher. “What’s that?” he said, pointing at the number. “Your IQ?”
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie Good is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication in summer 2022.
Mar
Settled, Unsettled
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The atmosphere had been charged all day so when the storm started neither of them was surprised. The husband settled in to read; the wife paced the room unsettled.
“What if,” she said, then paused at the window, watching the rain lash against the panes.
“Hmmn?” He responded, bookmarking his place with a finger to listen.
“What if,” she continued, contemplating the unleashing storm, “we got a divorce?”
“Are you angry, disappointed, frustrated, sad, or joking?” he asked in reply.
She turned to then contemplate him. “Does it matter?”
“Whatever you want,” he said, and returned to reading his book.
Melissa Ridley Elmes
Melissa is a Virginia native currently living in Missouri in an apartment that delightfully approximates a hobbit-hole. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Reunion; The Dallas Review Online, Eye to the Telescope, Star*Line, Gyroscope, In Parentheses, and other print and web venues, and her first book of poetry, Arthurian Things: A Collection of Poems, was published by Dark Myth Publications in 2020. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @MRidleyElmes
Mar
Best Friend
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Candy crawled behind the battered settee, where nobody could find her, and held her knees tight to her chest. Sleepy raindrops smashed at the window, echoing like someone rapping at the door. Someone who cared.
“Rain will be my best friend now,” Candy resolved.
She didn’t need anyone else. People grumbled she had the shape of a baby elephant; people rolled their eyes and tsked tongues like she took too much space in their lives. Even her darling Beckie said she looked ludicrous.
She turned to the dotted window. “You don’t think so, do you?”
It tapped a little harder.
From Guest Contributor Malvina Perova
Malvina is a warrior writer, creator and illustrator from Ukraine, the amazon from https://goamazons.tumblr.com/ and an artist at https://www.instagram.com/goamazonsart/
Mar
Shadowfax Marie
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Just before he’s seventy, just before seven in the morning he finds Shadowfax Marie at the 6068 Spa, lets her drift him into his morning pages, levitate him, lets him forget everything, dismisses all of his desires–even his morning coffee, even his Beloved (still in bed, dreaming he’s still there, sleeping, beside her).
His wings, though, are only borrowed and insubstantial. Before he can float away, he remembers his flesh, recalls his agenda, and realizes that there’s a day ahead during which Shadowfax Marie will inevitably fade; a day filled with no sound worth hearing, no vision worth sharing.
From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette
Ron.’s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press) is now available at all standard outlets. Many of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO