Posts Tagged ‘Friends’
Apr
Threatened Birds Nesting
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
You’re eating lunch on a bench in the park, close to a roped-off area where a sign says threatened birds are nesting. It’s the first nice day in a week. You’re enjoying the spring-like weather when a man you’ve never seen before steps out from behind a tree. He points a .38 special at you, shouts, “I regard Henry Ford as an inspiration,” and fires. In just hours, friends have assembled a pop-up shrine at the spot, with flowers, teddy bears, messages of love and respect. Although not me. I’m reading true crime books in order to gather survival tips.
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.
Feb
Numbers
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Josh always watched the lottery alone, his door locked to keep out his roommates. He’d been playing the same number for ten years, and after writing down Saturday’s numbers, he checked his ticket against them ten times. He had thought if the moment ever came he’d scream, maybe dance. Now he sat holding his winning ticket, terrified.
$825,000,000.
What on earth would he do with that? And what about when his family and friends came for him? Could he trust anyone any more?
He quickly endorsed the back of the ticket and quietly checked the Internet for tickets to Australia.
From Guest Contributor Ran Walker
Ran is the author of 18 books. He teaches creative writing at Hampton University in Virginia. He can be reached via his website, www.ranwalker.com.
Dec
Dungeons Without Dragons
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Old castles and dungeons. Wizards and dragons. Evil Orcs and bewitching princesses. And he above all, The Mighty Knight, the warrior chosen to save the world from eternal doom.
One flash of lucid light and here he is again, imprisoned in his own dungeon, in his dusty boy’s room, remembering days playing tabletop fantasy games with friends and reading Tolkien, back in the time when he was just a teenager. Now he feels so old, lonely, and helpless. Not even a witch by his side, no magic spells to pay alimony, no more ideals worth fighting for.
Nothing but memories.
From Guest Contributor Ivan Ristic
Nov
Thanks For Asking
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
You ask me what my faces mean, if I trust people, what I think of you. You ask what I think about everything. You are amazed by what I see. How I can feel what’s invisible. Through miles and miles of walks, the no-destination drives, the not-so-torturous library hours, you keep listening to me, even when I’m quiet. I’m amazed that you can hear me over the sounds of our beautiful, loud friends, who think attention is inevitable. I trace my hand on paper: a habit. You copy on the other side: an unbalanced coin. Two sides of separate things.
From Guest Contributor Grace Coughlin
Grace is from Buffalo, New York. She is currently a Senior at St. John Fisher College, majoring in Psychology with minors in English and Visual and Performing Arts. She has 100-word stories forthcoming in Eunoia Review and Otoliths Review.
Sep
Haunting
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Molly opened the door to her new antique shop and breathed in the freshly painted room. She sold everything from refurbished wood furniture, candles and lotions among other products. Family and friends begged her not to buy the building that was a torture chamber in the early 1800s. Rumor had it that past owners heard screams and footsteps, but she didn’t believe it.
One year later, Molly foreclosed. Customers were too frightened of the rumors.
On her last day, Molly locked the door for the final time. When she turned for one last look, a figure waved from the window.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Sep
Return To The Primitive
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
A hunk of meat sizzled on the broken fireguard atop a rusty oil drum which served as a brazier-cum-barbeque.
Badger’s friends gathered round for warmth. He didn’t know why they called him that and, being relatively new to a sub-society which had welcomed him with open arms, he hadn’t pushed the issue.
The subway tunnel reeked of smoke, sweat, and human waste, but it was home to the evictees.
Tonight they shared their good fortune with any who followed the aroma, irrespective of rivalries.
Badger’s landlord had barged in, demanding the spare keys.
Long pig had never been so descriptive.
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Jul
Library Literate
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I was the kid who sparkled when they walked in the door. The bookish brat who would make her father chuckle while balancing a mountain of literature above her head.
There, I discovered the internet’s secrets. Every minute on their computer spent in obsession.
My friends and I chattered like hens between the book shelves. We scavenged through comics like vultures through the teenage fiction.
I read novellas under the summer sun. I ate my lunches before memorial statues.
Every trip was coming home and every inch towards the door was a step back in time.
Until it was gone.
From Guest Contributor Alexandra Sullivan
Jun
Her Greatest Love Affair
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
On her death bed, Jennifer’s thoughts don’t dwell on her husband, despite several decades of marriage and two children together.
It’s Mateo she remembers instead. Jennifer was only meant to spend three days in Barcelona, but she switched out her ticket and let her friends travel on to Italy without her.
She remembers Mateo’s laugh, and the way he mispronounced her name in the cutest way. She remembers the passion when they made love in his flat beneath the open window.
It was only two weeks, but that was enough time to know Mateo was the love of her life.
Jun
Driver’s Ed
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
If you slow down for a yellow light, the cops will write you a ticket. Of course, if you blow through the light, they’ll write you a ticket for that, too. Half the drivers resist but soon give up, half try to hide. I didn’t believe my friends when they first told me. Then people started collapsing due to the stress of the situation. I’d seen rockets explode on liftoff, coyotes violate dogs. Yet I didn’t expect this at all. Our lives are just daydreams in a dead landscape. It’s now a crime in Utah to harass cattle with drones.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie is on the pavement, thinking about the government.