Posts Tagged ‘Guest Contributor’
Oct
News From Abroad
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Dearest Melanie,
It pains me to report that my attempt to traverse the Andes has been an immeasurable failure. My guide, John Trapp, and I were scaling a particularly dubious crag when I felt the compulsion to belt out Tennyson’s “Come Into the Garden, Maud.” Distracted by my ill-timed warbling, Trapp lost his foothold and fell 2600 feet to his death. As I watched him descend, I made a game for myself in which I attempted to finish the song before John’s head exploded on the rubble below. Sadly, I came 72 bars short.
My love to the girls.
Elliot
From Guest Contributor Amiel Rossin
Oct
Arm In Arm
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Her spindly hand with purple veins protruding forms a tight grasp around the rigid arm. She had a history with this arm, often leaning against it to maintain her balance. It had been a steady companion over the last several years, which was more than she could say about her children. They never approved of their mother’s new company. A cigarette always hung from her overly wrinkled lips when the two were together, and the last thing she needed was another vice. It’s their loss, she shrugged and gave a tug on that trusty metal arm, waiting for three sevens.
From Guest Contributor Nicholas Froumis
Nicholas practices optometry in the Bay Area. His writing has appeared in Gravel, Right Hand Pointing, Dime Show Review, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing, Ground Fresh Thursday, Balloons Lit Journal, and Short Tale 100. He lives in San Jose, CA with his wife, novelist Stacy Froumis, and their daughter.
Oct
I’ll Stay
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I’ll stay.
I never did see their faces when they grabbed, raped, and beat me. Nor when they left me for dead in the canal not far from home.
A delusional hermit fished me out – tended to me in his old gardening shed they used to give coal miners. He called me daughter. His tenderness and doting seemed true.
It’s been two years – he is my Dad. And I his Isabella. A cozy shed-home for two.
But now shades of my past have begun flickering through the fog. I had been Anne. An orphaned young prostitute. Alone.
Isabella was lucky.
From Guest Contributor Nicolle Browne-Jamet
Oct
Locked
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Depression lives with me. Locks my mind in a formidable place. It allows limited interactions with the outside world. Pushes aside the people who love me.
When I feel ready to emerge, it tempts me to abandon the thought. I’d peer out of windows opened to the world and sniff the air. Then, recoil. Preferring the comfort of what I know to something new.
Today, its hold is difficult to resist. A backpack filled with textbooks stays put in my bedroom. The bed becomes my refuge. The pillow, a sponge for tears.
The lock on my school locker remains locked.
From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs
Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published at: Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, 100 word story, 101 Words, Boston Literary Magazine, From the Depths (Haunted Waters Press), ShortbreadStories, SixWordMemoirs, and Espresso Stories.
Oct
Running Man
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I stroll around the park, mulling over my next 100-word story.
A scrawny bald man hurtles towards me.
“Ian?”
“Bill?”
He stops.
“10K training, 8 laps of the park – my 99th half-marathon’s on Sunday.”
“Wow!”
“But no full marathons now after my knee surgeries.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, impact injuries.”
Divorced, kids grown up, running has been the constant in his life.
“Still running, Ian?”
“Just jogging and some yoga.”
“Get back into it!” he says fervently.
Telling me his Facebook address he sprints off.
Leaving the park, I watch him running around in circles, the perfect subject for my story.
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 Schlock! Webzine, 1947 A Literary Journal, Dead Snakes, Short-story.me, Anotherealm, Under the Bed, A Story In 100 Words, Poems and Poetry, Friday Flash Fiction, and in various anthologies.
Oct
Priorities
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Lillith’s earliest memory is of her nail poking at her father’s love handle. As if her finger was able to inject happiness, and heal the month-to-month worries that emerged as dollar signs in his eyes, just around his pupils.
In high school, Lillith filled out a career questionnaire while watching her mother dust her two-thousand-square-foot ball and chain. What did she want to be? She simply wrote: free.
On her thirtieth birthday, Lillith’s parents pulled up to her one-hundred-and-forty-four-square-foot tiny home. As Lillith washed the sand off her feet, her mother whispered to her father, “When’s she gonna grow up?”
From Guest Contributor Susan Shiney
Susan is a writer, painter, and teacher originally from Southern California. She is now living in Lille, France.
Sep
What Should Have Been
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
She was my first kiss at seven, she had a crush on me. She moved away a year later and was forgotten until high school when she found me on social media. I was busy, having parties and ignored her texts. In university, she found me again, through a friend, but I had no time, as I needed to study. Years later, by fortune, we bumped on the street. We talked for a few minutes, but that was all. Once more we met, this time at a funeral. Here I realized my folly, as I said goodbye to my soulmate.
From Guest Contributor Jordan Altman
Sep
Preserved
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
It floated in a four-foot cube glass case with runes etched into the gold frame and tiger’s eye gems set into all eight corners.
Connor found his gaze drawn to their chatoyant lustre and wondered if the sphere was only an optical illusion.
“It must be,” he verbalized. “There’s no such thing–”
“Ah, ah…unnatural,” the mage corrected. “You were never going to get this from nature.”
The image of Claudia moved inside the time-bubble. Connor watched his daughter smile: a welcome change from the burial mask.
“I’ll take it,” he said, smearing tears with the back of his hand.
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Sep
Verbal Therapy
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“Hello, sir!” she exclaimed as she and two friends got out of their old car.
“Hi,” I replied as I bent over to remove my gas cap.
After fourteen hours of steady driving, my seventy-year-old back hurt, but in two more hours I would be home. Our vacation would then be over.
While pacing behind my car, waiting for my wife and enjoying the warm summer evening, the three teenagers returned to their car parked at the gasoline pump ahead of me.
“Good-bye, sir!” she shouted as she closed her car door before pulling away.
My back no longer hurt.
From Guest Contributor Gerald E. Greene
Sep
Old Mrs. Meyer
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Johan returns with the potatoes for lunch. Mrs. Meyer, who lives opposite, opens her door. Though he’s eleven, the kind old lady still gives him candy.
However, seeing the two Gestapo officers with her, Johan hides.
“My father was German,” she says.
“The Reich is grateful,” they reply.
Soldiers arrive. Knocking down their front door, they drag out his parents and the family in the attic.
“Jew-loving Dutch swine!” says a soldier, spitting at his father.
Johan never sees them again.
His eyes meet Mrs. Meyer’s, peering out from between her curtains.
He never forgets her look of triumphant malice.
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 Schlock! Webzine, 1947 A Literary Journal, Dead Snakes, Short-story.me, Anotherealm, Under the Bed, A Story In 100 Words, Poems and Poetry, Friday Flash Fiction, and in various anthologies.