Posts Tagged ‘City’

3
Jan

Platero And I: Old Skool Bloodbrothers

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

No doubt you have been wondering, dear Platero, why Stefano keeps spitting on the ground each time we pass his house and I greet him with a slight nod.

We grew up in the same neighborhood and became good friends. Later we went to college in the same city, where we got drunk together and whispered similar sweet words in girls ears. We were convinced the world was at our feet and nothing would ever change that.

But then…the civil war broke out and blood brothers became sworn enemies.

Time heals many wounds, Platero, but clearly not all.

From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted.

24
Jul

Standish

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Tyler unfolded from the blue compact. His knees hurt. He had suffered this torture for one reason: to keep Standish quiet…forever.

Ten years as a bartender at the Capital Club, the city’s most prominent private club, provided Standish with enough knowledge to end important careers, marriages, and lives. That knowledge became an opportunity. It needed to be stopped.

Tyler walked in, silenced gun in his coat pocket. Standish was behind the bar. A shot rang out. Tyler crumpled to the floor.

“Thanks, Joe,” Standish said, smiling. A man at the end of the bar nodded, finishing his bourbon.

“Anytime.”

From Guest Contributor Gary M. Zeiss

1
Dec

Sightseeing In The Subway

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

There are names scratched onto the walls of New York City subway cars. Monday it was Mark. Tuesday, Dylan. Wednesday, Fatima. Thursday, Kat, and Friday, Lucy. The poorly carved letters, engraved with care, resemble the jagged handwriting of a preschooler; It’s something inexplicably human. Though the scratches will fade, and the steel of the cars will corrode, I like to think otherwise; the remnants of these people will linger long after time forgets who they are. Every name I spot, a wave of tranquility washes over me as I stand in a mess of busy people in a busy city.

From Guest Contributor Eshal Yazdani

17
Nov

Amusement Parked

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

One day city visit. While parents shopped around, brother and I went to an amusement park.

We knew what we wanted to ride. Had to first go past bumping cars, carousels and the like in the kiddie section. When I spotted the roller coaster in the distance, we ran for it.

One of the biggest, a newscaster once said. The TV screen showed riders gripped with terror, rolling down in lightning speed, screaming all the way. Adrenaline rush for sure.

“Sorry, kiddos,” an attendant hollered. “Closed down for maintenance. Should be running in a day or two.”

We weren’t amused.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction regardless of the season, although she prefers spring.

21
Jul

Preparing For Landing

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Do we have to visit them?” the eight-year-old asked. “Grandma is weird and…”

“Grandpa is mean,” added her older brother.

Elsa observed the linear perfection of farmland below, largely ignoring her children.

At their age, she rode a tractor alongside her grandfather. They made rows into which other tractors dropped seed potatoes and covered them with soil.

By summer, when Elsa returned from the city, those fields were lush green having absorbed spring rainfalls.

As the plane prepared for landing, she knew her children would experience a different summer vacation.

The farm was no longer a property her family owned.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction regardless of the season, although she prefers spring.

9
Jul

The Edge

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

It’s steep over The Edge, one slip, anyone could fall. The Edge overlooks the city, and many people come here to think, make out, and party. Driving to The Edge is easy, it’s leaving that is hard. There are stories about this place; no one is ever invited. The Edge pulls you in, a tense grip leaving you struggling for air. No one really knows how they get here, there are no directions to The Edge, you just appear. I’ve been to The Edge once, it’s scary there. Dark and gloomy, even when there are no clouds in the sky.

From Guest Contributor Montana Huston

Montana is a student of journalism at Pikes Peak Community College.

14
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.

17
Jun

The Fourth Of July

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

Pig, of brick house fame, smelled something burning. Was it a weasel? Then he heard cursing coming from next door. Witch again! After countless warnings from the city, she’d refused to clean up the candy bits and cake that littered her yard, refused to cease and desist in the eating of children. But what if she was on fire? What about the Good Samaritan Law? A law that he and his two brothers scoffed at years before, when they thought taunting a wolf caught in a trap was amusing, almost as enjoyable as the fireworks on the Fourth of July.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

4
Dec

Kesaran-Pasaran

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

When I walked into the village, white fur balls kept falling from the sky.

“What are they?” I asked a villager.

“They’re kesaran-pasaran.”

They floated through the air like dandelion spores. On sunny days, they fell and covered the ground. On rainy days they spread and multiplied. The dead ones fueled the city. Their spirits harvested crops and generated electricity.

“What do we know? Our livelihood totally depends on them,” the villager said, laughing.

One day I left the village. When I turned back, the village was gone. Instead, white fluff balls spread as far as the eye could see.

From Guest Contributor Yukari Kousaka

Translated by Toshiya Kamei

Born in Osaka in 2001, Yukari Kousaka is a Japanese poet, fiction writer, and essayist. Translated by Toshiya Kamei, her short fiction has appeared in New World Writing.

24
Nov

Autumn’s Menace

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

A plainclothes policeman, using a pair of handcuffs as brass knuckles, cut the face of a boy who was wandering the city in a hospital gown. The sirens got louder. Windows rattled and the pictures on the walls shook. Sometimes I think it’s not true that teaching a child to not step on a caterpillar will make you a better person. Sometimes I think the plainclothesman is going to walk through the door, so I just keep waiting. The city streets are deserted – no St. Patrick’s Day parade, no people. In these slow days of unease, everyone is a biohazard.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie’s latest poetry collections are The Death Row Shuffle (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and The Trouble with Being Born (Ethel Micro-Press, 2020).