Posts Tagged ‘Guest Contributor’
Aug
Afternoon Tea Party
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“Eat this, Mom,” she said, handing me a plastic donut.
“Mmm,” I said, pretending it was delicious. I put it down and asked for more tea. Giggling, she poured air into a pink cup.
Someone pounded on the door.
The pot dropped to the table. I slid our pre-packed bag out from under the bed. She clung to me, like a baby monkey to its mother, and reached for her doll.
The door was giving in. Soon, it’d be off the hinges. I hoped we had enough time. I opened the window and my heart clenched.
The FBI waited below.
From Guest Contributor Bethany Cardwell
Aug
Permission Slips
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The night sky was red and the grass was a deep green. Kerrin and Jobe were walking.
“I just wish she would forgive me. I feel awful,” Jobe said.
“You guys have been divorced three years?” Kerrin asked.
“Yeah, I feel terrible when I see her. I shouldn’t have cheated.”
“She may never forgive you,” Kerrin said. She squeezed his hand.
“I know.”
“Do you need permission to forgive yourself?” Kerrin asked.
“I don’t, no.” Jobe smiled and took an old slip from his pocket and trashed it.
“People have trouble forgiving but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it.”
From Guest Contributor Steve Colori
Aug
Stalemate
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Zach’s eyes followed the dirt path as it blended into the trees. Three couples, the latest newlyweds, disappeared in the last month while strolling the serpentine lane. The townspeople wanted something done, and they expected Zach to do it. He was the sheriff, after all.
Zach glanced from side to side, saw faces—some showing fear, others glaring—waiting less patiently with every second that passed.
He rocked from side to side, his palms sweaty, hoping those standing with him would get bored or hungry and leave. The one thing he knew was he wouldn’t be the first to move.
From Guest Contributor Jim Harrington
Aug
The Red Cardinal
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Mark sat next to his motionless mother.
“How is she doing today,” Mark asked the nurse. A red cardinal perched
on the window sill chirped.
“The same. Quiet and still.”
Mark opened his journal and wrote the date. He spent his time writing
happy moments with his mother rather than spending time on a novel.
“Mom, look. There’s a red cardinal, your favorite bird.” Sophia’s mouth
sagged, expressionless.
He sighed. “Mom, I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Mark left the room with a blank space in his journal. Alzheimer’s took
his mother away and he didn’t know how to endure the emptiness.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Aug
The Benefit Of Integrity
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
He sat alone at lunch. The rest of the section gathered near the tea urn to create a susurration of disapproval, which reached for some sort of crescendo which might adequately protest his being promoted without due process.
The manager emerged from her office, paused at the door – interrupting her daily early escape – to absorb, glancing occasionally in his direction. Then she approached – a study in authority.
“Sean–”
A sudden gust whipped the vertical blinds inward, toppling a desk tidy perched atop an in-tray filled with unexamined client files. The clatter distracted.
“We’re public servants. They’re entitled. I told them.”
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Aug
Backroads
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
State troopers in the backwoods called in the wrong road. At 90 mph, the sign was a blur. So deputies set the spike strip in the wrong place.
As Bob fiddled with the radio, flipping through static and endless commercials, his pickup suddenly went airborne, tumbling through cornstalks.
Officers had Bob handcuffed at gunpoint in seconds. Cuffs cut off his circulation. An hour passed before they learned of the mix-up. Cordiality crept into their tones.
A deputy in shades took Bob aside.
“Look, we’re just out here trying to keep you safe.”
“Safe,” Bob muttered, his temple damp with blood.
From Guest Contributor Joseph S. Pete
Joseph is an award-winning journalist, an Iraq War veteran, an Indiana University graduate, a book reviewer, a photographer, and a frequent guest on Lakeshore Public Radio. His literary or photographic work has appeared in more than 100 journals, including The Evening Theatre, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Chicago Literati, Dogzplot, Proximity Magazine, Stoneboat, The High Window, and the Synesthesia Literary Journal.
Aug
Ripen And Split
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
We both said we meant it, your hands in my hair. In the end it didn’t matter, you looked out across the desert like you were already crossing it, a dehydrated camel hell bent on pushing yourself towards purple sunsets no matter how rough or dangerous the terrain. I sat in the barely shade near a towering saguaro and braided spines and blossoms intermittently, blood flowering on the waxy white petals. I watched you go until the heat rising from the sand turned you into a wavy haze. I sighed when both hands dropped the struggle to hold you near.
From Guest Contributor Sarah Reddick
Sarah is a writer, editor, and a writing professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her work has previously appeared in The Local Voice, The Mid-Rivers Review, and Salt Journal.
Aug
The Pit And The Stone
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
A mere glimmer of light reflected off the patches of clammy wall not occupied by greasy lichen and water-laden moss as he hung awkwardly upside-down, blood rushing to his head.
The darkness was dank and oppressive, and he began to wonder exactly what bacteria or even viruses he might pick up fulfilling this bucket list item. Well, he could blame no-one but himself.
He twisted a little and stretched, bracing himself against the other wall, slipping a little on the slimy algae.
A furious voice drifted down from above “If he doesn’t kiss the damn Blarney soon, I’m letting go!”
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Jul
The Party
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The smell of quality cheese and the clinking of wine glasses told Mark he was at the right party. He was feeling good. That is, until they came in.
The divorce destroyed him, and there they were. At the same party. With him.
It took two years of therapy for Mark to recover, to heal, to become whole. They were supposed to be out of town. But here they were.
They walked up to him.
“Hello, Mark. Good to see you.”
She was holding Nanette. One look at the poodle and Mark knew two years of therapy was not enough.
From Guest Contributor NT Franklin
NT has been published in Entropy, Page and Spine, Fiction on the Web, 101 Words, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts, 404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Alsina Publishing, and Fifty-word stories, among others.
Jul
Conversation RIP (Killer)
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
There was furious silence in the booth from the women, mixed with a gauged suspension of opinion from the men.
Ginny, being invested, had expressed her dissatisfaction with the quality of man available to the unwed mother.
Kurt had provided a brutally frank answer. It hung in the air above the table like a phantasm.
To me, he’d drawled, a man willing to bring up another’s child born of selfish gratification – or conversely accept someone who’d aborted – wouldn’t think much of himself. Where’s the quality in that?
I wished the now red-faced Frank had given a brutally curt answer instead.
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid