Posts Tagged ‘Burn’
Mar
Seasons
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I face the storm as hail pelts my already-weathered brow, reminding me of the life I once lived, traveling at a hundred miles an hour with my soul on fire. My eyes closed in anticipation of the impending crash.
As spring approaches, the mourning of winter’s end has begun. In summer, I stand alone naked, allowing the burn to continue unabated.
Spotting my image in the water, washed in its divine glow, my eyes meet my reflection, and we both take a step backward.
The epitome of life and death, or a reminder of the most graceful and majestic journey?
From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster
Aug
Loner
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Worst thing about having a drunken Da who pissed people off was that Malachy tended to suffer from ‘trickle-down’ syndrome: friendships nurtured in his own child-like manner evaporating as parents infected would-be playmates with their contempt for his father.
He crouched over the little burn on farmland close to his suburban home watching the tadpoles emerge from frogspawn, eager to claim a hopper for his very own.
There was a sizeable puddle in his backyard courtesy of poor drainage.
The leprous ache inside expanded to form tundra.
Still, it was quiet, and the symphony of wind and wildlife was wonderful.
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Feb
Milk
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
In the beginning, I cried for it. Yet each night after dark, I threw up that sour formula, that fake milk warmed in glass bottles my mother tested on her wrists, so I wouldn’t burn my mouth.
Still, my mouth burned. I was a difficult baby, thin and colicky. I hungered but could not accept nourishment.
That’s how I began: Born at just five pounds, brought home in a receiving blanket, placed in a crib where I protested and screamed, the vein in my neck throbbing.
Years later, I’m still protesting, still screaming.
It scares me to close my mouth.
From Guest Contributor Cinthia Ritchie
Cinthia is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee who writes and runs mountains in Anchorage, Alaska. Find her work at Water-Stone Review, Evening Street Press, Third Wednesday, Best American Sports Writing 2013, Sports Literate, The Boiler Journal, Cactus Heart Press, Mary: A Journal of New Writing, damselfly press, Memoir, Sugar Mule, Foliate Oak Literary Journal and other small presses. Her first novel, Dolls Behaving Badly, released from Hachette Press/Grand Central Publishing