Posts Tagged ‘Guest Contributor’
Feb
Lariateer
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
When he finally finishes his regular morning exercise, he considers going back through his earliest journals and numbering the pages but—smart as he is—he knows he can’t count that high. He thinks about all the pens he’s ever used, tries to calculate how many oceans of ink he’s expended; imagines uncurling his cursive and deconstructing his print, laying out all of his pen strokes end-to-end and seeing just how many times the line would circle the globe, or if maybe it would form a lifeline out into space to lasso the moon or play jump rope with Mars.
From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette
Ron.’s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press), is now available at all standard outlets. Many of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO.
Feb
Anyway JJ Cale Blows
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The old man and me were travellin’ light.
“I can’t live here,” he said. Guess I lose, because this girl of mine, is livin’ here too.
“We’ll be leaving in the morning.” But I wanted to stay around, so I asked to call the doctor.
“It’s hard to tell, but I really do think: you got something,” he said. He must have been the sensitive kind when he saw my crying eyes.
“So, can we stay around? Everything will be alright.”
I wish I had not said that, because at this moment we are ridin’ home, to the artificial paradise.
From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys
Hervé Suys (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted
Feb
Night Thoughts
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I can’t bring myself to read the news anymore or even watch it on TV. There are just so many unidentified dead men with my face, just so many couples in their late thirties having trouble making a baby. Meanwhile, a small band of starving deer stagger out of the snowbound woods in search of help, but help has been repealed. Like the Oxford comma or the use of voiceover in film, the whole thing is controversial. And although it’s day, night thoughts are stuck in my head, and the only immediate alternative may be to cut my head off.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie Good is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication in summer 2022.
Feb
Not Today
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Sam’s touched up face, slicked brown hair and embalmed body, reminded me that he really was gone.
I sat in the front row as family and friends approached, the same words spoken repeatedly.
“We’re so sorry for your loss, Janny.”
The room filled with flowers, from bleeding hearts to white lilies gave an aroma of a florist rather than a wake.
The priest began to speak, and the room quieted, except for my weeping.
Cancer took my husband too early. He’ll never see his daughter graduate college.
Now I must break the news of my Parkinson’s disease. But not today.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Feb
On The Sweet Path
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Ice cream? Al declined. It hurt his teeth.
“Good of him to do so,” acknowledged his school’s principal.
There were other reports of the afternoon sightings. About the SUV parked in front of their school. The dark sunglasses leaning out on a balding head. Words offering a sweet treat.
It happened two days in a row. Possibly three. No one paid close attention until bits of news dribbled out, spreading across the community.
Plans were drawn to nab the culprit.
He must’ve known for no longer was he seen.
Another school needed to heed to the call for ice cream.
From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs
Krystyna writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction regardless of the season. Although she prefers spring.
Feb
The Giver
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
It started with gummies. Her mother placed a bag inside her lunch box every day. She gave them all away, hoping the other kids would like her.
In high school, she had a crush on a cute boy. She gave him the best seat, and then she couldn’t see.
Away at university, she baked lemon cakes. She gave all the slices to students who studied in the lounge late at night.
One day after work, she paused at a window and stared. People on the sidewalk bustled behind her.
She stepped into the bakery, bought lemon cake, and ate it.
From Guest Contributor Faye Rapoport DesPres
Faye is the author of the memoir-in-essays Message From a Blue Jay and the Stray Cat Stories children’s book series. She lives and writes in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Feb
Centurion Saturday
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
He’s feeling less than complete this morning. Some parts have vanished; most just haven’t woken up yet; a couple are only pretending to be there. But for the most part, for one inexplicable reason or another, he’s feeling incomplete.
Maybe it’s just because it’s Saturday morning. And early. Very early. Too early for even a gigantic apple fritter to convince him that it’s really there and that he’s actually eating it. Too early altogether for small-talk local television chat fests, and certainly way too early for the National or World News Countdown-To-Oblivion Update.
All he needs is seven magic words.
From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette
Ron.’s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press) is now available at all standard outlets. Many of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO.
Feb
The Daisy
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I feel warmth from looking at the hydrated light glistening on the soft petals of the daisy. I also feel cold from observing the water droplets slowly slipping off of those same petals as they struggle to keep their grip. The daisy, once a seed, now a flower. She contains just as much life as she did hidden in the soil. I know the daisy will not be here forever. I know I will not be here forever. I know you will not be here forever. One day the daisy will be pushed; dead. As every other daisy before it.
From Guest Contributor Winter Daisy
Winter is an author that has a deep desire to make a difference. To read more from them go to https://linktr.ee/winterdaisy.
Feb
Unsolved Mysteries #2
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The unbalanced hostage-taker suddenly meekly surrendered to his Jewish hostages. A delegation of angels in a tree outside the synagogue hooted in derision and then rose into the sky and flapped away, leaving mysterious future gaps in the fossil record. In that instant, I became convinced of the essential stupidity of strictly adhering to any particular plan. And don’t think I didn’t know that, with my droopy face and drab old clothes, I looked like an unassimilable immigrant from a strange country – someplace dark and rainy and governed by contradiction, where there are no clues or, rather, only false ones.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication in summer 2022.
Feb
Worth
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
We knew that the Dragon was on the train, hired to guard the locked safe that held the payroll. Too many armed clerks had been lost. But in such a small space, the Dragon could not stretch his wings, could not swing his claws. If he used his fire, the wooden train car would burn. Yes, the safe would survive, but it might fall to the tracks and be subject to anyone with the block and tackle to retrieve it. No one knew it was the Dragon we were after. You would think they would have noticed the giant collar.
From Guest Contributor Ken Poyner