Posts Tagged ‘God’
Dec
Holocaust
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
One person in six hasn’t heard of the Holocaust, doesn’t know what it is, a planet of smoke and flames. Seventy year ago my relatives didn’t believe it was there, and then they walked through the gate and under the slogan, Arbeit Macht Frei, and found they suddenly had a dismal view of God’s back from inside the barbed wire. So I look around, and though the times are terrifying, try to act like a kind of thunderstorm blue, like I can see clouds in the shape of a woman’s mighty body and feel the rain that hasn’t fallen yet.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie’s latest collections are I’m Not a Robot from Tolsun Books and A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel from Analog Submissions Press.
Nov
The Course of True Love
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
here is my number call would you like to see thanks I had a really I think I am falling my love is like a shall I compare thee to my true love hath I will love you until to be my lawfully wedded from this day forward to cherish till death do us what God has joined how could you treat me how long have you been after all that I have I want to get a have filed a petition for citing irreconcilable differences irretrievably broken by this agreement decree nisi to voluntarily be duly executed and delivered
From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher
Aug
The Consortium
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
After five years on the job, the speculative nature of their work weighed on Debra. Bobby said it was a waste of time to worry over whether any of it mattered, that she just needed to concentrate on the task at hand. Little by little, the evidence would pile up, and they’d uncover the truth. The whole truth.
Debra stared at their conspiracy wall and she could not quell her doubts any longer. The tenuous connections among various suspects required a gargantuan leap of faith.
She thought back to Sunday School. There was a time she’d believed in God too.
Jul
The Golden Thread Part Two
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“What is that? I can’t see. Some sweet jungle flower. Are we getting close?”
“No, it is poetry, a copycat fragrance to lure butterflies. It is carnivorous. Stay back—”
“Those are my words on the vines! God, those electric blue letters! Let’s read—”
“Don’t—”
“Why? ‘Once upon a time I died. I crucified myself on a ladder made from the bones of birds, hollow, not yet cleaned by cannibals or the sun, yet flightworthy by nature.’ I wrote that.”
“The vines will strangle you, make you blind, make you forget why you are here. And then you drop the thread.”
From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat
Brook’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Empty Mirror Magazine, Little India, Dămfīno, Nowhere Poetry, Rat’s Ass Review, Peacock Journal, A Story in 100 Words, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies, and are forthcoming in MoonPark Review and Almagre. She has completed a full-length poetry manuscript, is writing a novel, and is editor-in-chief of Blue Planet Journal. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University and teaches creative writing at a community college. More at brook-bhagat.com
Dec
Last-Minute Shoppers
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“Wrapping paper! Ha, ha!”
Shoppers passed by clutching rolls of it.
“Fancy spending Christmas Eve wrapping presents!” Ian thought, reflecting on how he’d finished his yesterday.
“My God, they’re fighting over chocolates,” he sneered, observing a couple of housewives tugging the ends of a Milk Tray box in Howell’s Department Store.
He resolved to have a latte in Starbucks to fully savour the spectacle before the shops finally closed.
“Chocolates?!…Christ, I forgot the wife’s chocolates!”
Ian rushed out of the café.
“Where the hell can I find some now?” he thought, seeing the doors of Howell’s snap shut.
From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher
Nov
Nothing To Lose
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Tim pressed his foot to the accelerator.
“Hey, moron, you’re all over the road,” yelled the man in the next lane.
Tim screamed and threw his beer bottle at the car. He lost his job, his wife and just found out he had terminal cancer. He continued swerving, cars honking, until his eyes blurred and his head ached. Inebriated and driving recklessly, he crashed into a tree.
“Oh My God!” yelled a jogger passing on the dirt path. “Are you okay?”
Tim moaned before answering.
“I’ll never be okay again.” He backed up and drove away, leaving the woman dumbfounded.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Nov
Salt Of The Earth
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Ian sits supping his pint, jotting down some verses in his notebook, his Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems at his side.
A mother and two twenty-something daughters take the next table. The menfolk, the husband and the boyfriends, arrive with the drinks.
They notice him briefly and he senses the usual smirks and rolling eyes.
But he’s soon forgotten as they immerse themselves in their hearty little world.
The men have large practical hands. Eavesdropping, Ian learns that the daughters are in sales and retail, respectively.
‘Salt of the earth’ he thinks sardonically, thanking God for poets and tortured souls everywhere.
From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher
Aug
The Bottle Spins
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“Screw you!” I scream through bloody cracked lips.
He turns his head and looks at me curled up on the cold granite floor. He smiles. Ash from his cigarette drops onto his cheap suit. He carefully brushes it off, not once taking his eyes off me.
On the floor by his feet is an empty wine bottle lying on its side. Slowly, he bends down and spins it once more.
We all watch its slow revolution, desperately praying it won’t point in our direction.
God is not with me today. My silent prayer goes unanswered.
It was my turn again.
From Guest Contributor Mike Jackson
Mike lives in the UK and enjoys writing short tales, especially Drabbles. Many of his offerings can be found on his blog ‘Stories In Your Pocket.’
Aug
Skin
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
In the weeks after her mother died, Pamela had no skin. Everything was surface—every twitching nerve, every gush of bile. When Creepy Carl told her to smile as he dropped off his rent check, her lips peeled back to the bone.
At home, she told Ben: I know about the girl you’ve been fucking for the last four months. Your intern. In our God damn bed.
Come on, baby, he said, it wasn’t like that.
But it was. She wouldn’t have her raw insides sheathed in lies. She slept in the guest room, on top of the blankets, oozing resentment.
From Guest Contributor Carrie Cook
Carrie received her MA in Creative Writing from Kansas State University and is currently living in Colorado. Her work has appeared in The Columbia Review, Midwestern Gothic, Menacing Hedge, and Bartleby Snopes.
Mar
Plague
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
First little Amy was stricken, taking three days to die.
After collecting the body, the wardens painted the black cross on the door.
Then her husband and son Mark sickened. She could do nothing for their agonies.
A cart collected them to be buried in the pit.
Now the street is sealed off. No food arrives, and the water is almost gone.
She sneezes twice. She knows this is the end. But what is there to live for?
Thus the pauper Mary Wells died alone in London in 1665, with no priest to console her, no caring God above her.
From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher
Born and raised in Cardiff, Wales, Ian has an MA in English from Oxford University. He has had poems and short stories published in The Ekphrastic Review, Tuck Magazine, 1947 A Literary Journal, Dead Snakes, Schlock! Webzine, Short-story.me, Anotherealm, Under the Bed, A Story In 100 Words, Poems and Poetry, Friday Flash Fiction, and in various anthologies.