In Export there is something heroic about earning foreign currency for my country. It makes up for jet lag, family absences, and living out of a suitcase.

My mind floods with stories told by fellow exporters, their helpless acute vulnerability, when their wives ran off with another man or woman.

From Guest Contributor Barry O’Farrell

Other stories by Barry can be found at Cyclamens and Swords, 50 Word Stories and here at A Story In 100 Words.

My new swim trunks were still crispy and smelled of a fresh paint. I plunged into the warm Hawaiian water, ready for my long-postponed vacation. And then I saw Her.

Luckily, my swim trunks remained completely intact: Sharky did not like their taste.

From Guest Contributor, Olga Klezovitch

Olga is a scientist who lives in Seattle. Her previous work has appeared in 50-Word Stories, Necon E-Books, and A Story in 100 Words

“Have you been scammed? Call now!” the billboard said. A man in a suit crossed his arms in defiance. She wondered if he could see her somehow. When she got home, she followed him online, looked at photos of his family. She explored the website of his alma mater and pictured him walking through the imposing, wooden doors of the library. She found his address, learned the square footage of his home.

At their first appointment, he stood up from his desk chair to greet her. “Nice to meet you,” he said. She stifled a giggle. How could he forget?

Sarah Vernetti is a freelance writer. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.

When Jackie found the caterpillar crawling in her front lawn, it precipitated a world war. The war began with nuclear warheads dropped on several strategic locations, including Jackie’s house. She and her parents were killed instantly, without understanding her role in the sudden collapse of human civilization.

That did not stop the world for cursing Jackie as it slipped into oblivion.

Bill and Greg had worked as gravediggers for the New Horizons Cemetery for more than twenty years, but their feelings about the job couldn’t have been more different.

“Well, it beats digging ditches.”

Buzan was an idiot-savant. His memory was prodigious, but he could not make use of the information he could recall. His parents discovered that he was an extraordinary pianist. He would play a piece through, having only heard it once on the family phonograph. He often “composed” pieces on the spot, some derived from the tones generated by the appliances in his mother’s kitchen, or his father’s shop. Most of his day was spent in the corner of the front porch playing rock, paper, scissors, by himself. The hours would fly by, and Buzan would nap on the porch swing.

From Guest Contributor, Thomas Pitre

Ralph saw the boat waiting for him and wanted to cry. He was walking away from the only home he had ever known in his life.

The townspeople had just voted Ralph off the island. He expected that his family at least would have come with him, but they decided to stay. They were unwilling to give up their membership at the country club.

In the manner of all bloated bureaucracies, responsibility for the mistake was passed from desk to desk like a 12-year-old orphan moves through foster homes. Everyone knew it was a fireable offense and so the smart tactic was to duck under the nearest mound of paperwork whenever the department head glanced over. Eventually some new crisis would strike a floor or two above, and they’d all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Of course that left Brenda on the hook again. As PR manager, it was her job to explain how a toaster oven had murdered a family of five.

He used to be a loving husband and father, a fact so known it was written on his tombstone. His wife knew every night as he was loving her. Once, he loved her so hard she hurt and asked him to love a little less.

Stephanie stopped his loving heart forever.

From Guest Contributor Emily Aledort

Caspar would hear the whispers as soon as he closed his eyes. At first they seemed related to his dreams, but gradually they became detached, having nothing to do with his REM cycles.

You see, God was whispering to the jurors as well.