Posts Tagged ‘Guest Contributor’
Oct
Queue For Killing Time
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Mow lawn with toenail clipper; count sand. Invite spiders to tea party; pretend you’re the Mad Hatter.
Adopt imaginary twins; cry when they say their first word (“quarantine”); ransack new recipes to quiet their insatiable hunger; crank open doors and windows; demonstrate how to run fingers over wild, overgrown grass; bike them to beach; build castles, mermaids, moats; inhale salty ocean air; watch fire-red sun sink into horizon.
Lift face to pale moon and marvel, “Isn’t it crazy that there are more stars in the sky than all the grains of sand on earth?”
Time killed, savor moment without end.
From Guest Contributor Michelle Wilson
Michelle’s words have appeared in 50-Word Stories, 101 Words, Literally Stories, The Miami Herald, and elsewhere. She lives in Miami Beach, Florida.
Oct
Ajar
by thegooddoctor in Uncategorized
“Time sure flies. Tomorrow is already his Big Truthful Day.”
“I’m glad we won’t have to lie to him anymore.”
“It wasn’t really lying – rather hiding the truth.”
“What shall we tell him first? About Santa or the Easter Bunny?”
“Wouldn’t you think he already knows this stuff? Probably a few of his classmates must have told.”
“Then we’ll tell him we’re not his real parents and that he’s hereditarily predestined to be offered to the gods.”
Both giggle inaudiblely.
“Ssssh… wait… did you hear that?”
“No. You are imagining things.”
“Perhaps. Are you sure you closed his bedroom door?”
From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys
Oct
Unspoken Memory
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Memories surfaced as the woman on the balcony leaned against the balustrade, her young daughter beside her.
She had been joyfully preparing to tell him the wonderful news. She cooked a special dinner and waited for his return from work. She opened the bedroom window, breathed in the fresh spring air, and watched the passersby. A group of people gathered near a stopped buggy. Tears rolled down her cheek. There had been no mistake. It was his still body.
She gently hugged her daughter and watched the young girl’s red hair blow in the breeze. The same color as his.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Oct
Beauty Of Life
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Walking through the park’s garden, the fresh scent of grass and flowers soothes me. The leaves are slowly blowing in the breeze and the chipmunks race around the path.
Children are laughing and playing baseball while their parents proudly watch, and it reminds me of my own childhood summers, playing catch with my friends while my father coached us on our throws.
I wish I could go back and be young again, but I can’t change time. I’m elderly, brittle and fortunate to be able to walk at my age.
This is why I’m thankful for the beauty of life.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Oct
Lightfall
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
It took millennia for the rays to alight atop the sky. As It saw them, It rejoiced. Its cold corpse rose from Its slumbering position. The light would not be long now. The radiance burnt the gray skies, who smoldered with violent violet rage, fading to baby blue embers. The trees near It unfurled their stalks, reaching lightwards towards the first sunbeams. Kaleidoscopic rays raked closer. It grinned giddily. So long to shadow and cold. The light finally, finally, finally touched the tops of the trees, which elongated upwards. And as It touched the sky’s embers It smiled, burning happily.
From Guest Contributor Kaleb Bjorkman
Kaleb is an aspiring poet, artist, and electrical engineer from Colorado Springs.
Oct
Apple Jenga
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Pyramids of fruit abound in the market’s produce section.
A man pokes and squeezes to find the perfect Gala. Five tiers down, he locates a winner, and the Jenga game begins.
He shapes his hand into a “C,” then moves in slowly to extract the prize, leaving a hole in the pyramid where the apple once was.
Standing a little taller, he raises his chin and puffs up his chest.
One aisle over, he sees a woman arch her back and hold her shoulders high. Next to her, three holes exist in the Golden Delicious pile.
He’s met his match.
From Guest Contributor Jennifer Lai
Oct
Hope
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Rachel’s hands icy cold and legs so frail she could hardly stand, she gagged from her own body odor. The babbling of the malnourished became constant and she tuned them out. Her skin was riddled with bug bites, her teeth loosed from lack of nourishment, and her lips craved water. Rachel’s crime was being Jewish, and the suffering had only begun. She didn’t know where the train was going, but knew it was bad.
In the last minutes of her life, when she and the others breathed in the noxious gas in the dark enclosed chamber, she adhered to hope.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Sep
Hubert And Sylvia
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
When Hubert met Sylvia in first grade, he didn’t like her. She called him names like Fatso and Freako and Huber-Boober. Hubert in turn called her Silly Sylvia or Chubby or just Stupid. But he couldn’t get away from her, since everyone was in alphabetical order, and Hubert Hindeldorf, belonged right behind Sylvia Hickson.
Sometimes Sylvia would put her head back so that her long hair was resting on his textbook. Sometimes she would drop her pencil and then poke him in the leg while she retrieved it.
By eighth grade they knew each other quite well. Eventually, they married.
From Guest Contributor Anita G. Gorman
Sep
The Short-Lived Joys Of Youth
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
When I married at eighteen,
a friend gave us The Joy of Cooking.
My husband, nineteen, turned every page,
looked at every recipe, writing, “Yes!” “Try!”
or (for his mother’s recipes) “No!”
Never thinking of actually cooking something himself.
I wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or flattered,
but the marriage lasted about a year.
When I married at fifty-one,
we compared copies of The Joy of Cooking.
My husband’s was in better repair,
so we gave mine to Goodwill.
He likes cooking, so he does it. I wash the dishes.
It’s been nine years now. We are still married.
From Guest Contributor Cheryl L. Caesar
Cheryl lived in Paris, Tuscany and Sligo for 25 years; she earned her doctorate in comparative literature at the Sorbonne and taught literature and phonetics. She now teaches writing at Michigan State University. Last year she published over a hundred poems in the U.S., Germany, India, Bangladesh, Yemen and Zimbabwe, and won third prize in the Singapore Poetry Contest for her poem on global warming. Her chapbook Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era is now available from Amazon and Goodreads.
Sep
Mask
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Jonathan burst into the office, waving a bunch of papers and screaming out loud: “It’s all a scam, it’s a hoax. I’ve got proof in my hands. It’s the government trying to control us and all of our movements” as he rips off his oxygen filter.
Just seconds later he starts gasping and drops dead almost immediately.
Proof was indeed given to be very careful with skepticism.
Little did they know he died of acute heart failure.
And that’s why till this date the inhabitants of Planet Ksam are being closely watched and are all wearing very uncomfortable oxygen filters.
From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys