Posts Tagged ‘Guest Contributor’
Sep
Giant Ship
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I listened to the sound of the waves smack against the giant ship, closed my eyes and pictured my wife’s face. Her radiant smile and long blond hair made my heart pulsate. Soon we’d be together once we docked in New York, and she’d be waiting for me with open arms and our son. I relished the thought.
I dropped the picture when the ship shuddered. I opened the door and panicked people filled the hallway.
“What happened?” I asked out loud.
“Titanic has hit an iceberg,” answered a fidgety man.
I went back into my cabin.
Titanic wouldn’t sink.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Sep
Only Beauty Survives
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The king delighted in varying which crowns he wore. One day he’d wear a crown of gold; the next, a crown of silver or of iron, or even a crown eccentrically fashioned from barbed wire. When he wore the latter, he was always surprised when blood ran in rivulets into his eyes. The queen, meanwhile, hated anyone who might be thought more beautiful than she was. She frequently sent assassins throughout the land to eliminate all possible rivals. That sound isn’t thunder, people would say, but an assassin rapping on the door of a cottage until his knuckles are raw.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie is the author of The Death Row Shuffle, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.
Sep
Forgotten
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
He doesn’t remember me. I used to be someone who was close to him. At least I thought I was close to him. He’d look at me as if I were a friend. He’d look at me as if I were a stranger but what exactly was in those eyes? In those sparkly eyes, was that affection, sympathy, or simply pity?
Seeing him walking down the street were the only happy moments of my life. Doesn’t he remember he saved me once and every day since then from all my misery. Well, the truth is I don’t remember him either.
From Guest Contributor Sergio Nicolas
Aug
Irony
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I’m very excited to announce the winner of our Hubris Flash Fiction Contest, from regular contributor Lisa Scuderi-Burkimsher. I hope that winning doesn’t go to her head!
Congratulations Lisa! And thank you to everyone who submitted to the contest. It was difficult picking just one.
Bill combed his hair, gave a thumbs up to his reflection in the mirror and then left.
He walked with a swagger and passing bystanders cussed him.
“It’s a pandemic, wear a mask, idiot,” yelled an irate man from across the street.
Bill flipped him the finger and continued.
When he arrived at his cousin’s barbecue, he was stopped at the back gate.
“You can’t come in here without a mask,” said his cousin, Mark.
“Come on, man, I never get sick.”
Mark slammed the gate in his face.
Bill stood for a moment before walking away and then sneezed.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Aug
Bare Ruined Choirs
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
An ex-beauty queen has been found in her bedroom decapitated, limbless, a chainsaw nearby. On the wall, a decorative wooden sign says, “Breathe deeply and calmly.” How do you do that? We need a plan, an intervention, something. In Hiroshima after the bomb, they piled the bodies in the swimming pool at the college and cremated them with scrap wood. Last night when my mother finally managed to fall asleep, she dreamed she was walking through a ruined city in a hospital gown left behind from her cancer surgery, while, in the distance, sirens screamed. Assume the monster is everywhere.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie is the author of The Death Row Shuffle, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.
Aug
Inkling Of Jackals
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
While you putter and sputter and wander room to room forgetting
there are jackals on the moon. They nip and shiver in a hidden corner of the Lake of Dreams, a secret pocket of atmosphere just big enough to make a den, a home, a scratching ground. Black eyes shine from once red-brown-white coats, now just ashen tufts of moondust, moondust, pale gray. The pups scramble up from their rough and tumble, fall silent, and sit still, narrowing their eyes and curling their ears at the little blue marble in the wet ink sky.
They are waiting for your Howl.
From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat
Brook Bhagat’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror Magazine, Harbinger Asylum, Little India, Rat’s Ass Review, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She and her husband Gaurav created Blue Planet Journal, which she edits and writes for. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, is an assistant professor of English at a community college, and is writing a novel. Her poetry collection, Only Flying, is due out Nov. 16, 2021 from Unsolicited Press.
Aug
The Botanist
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
HUBRIS CONTEST:
Settled at the picnic table, I was teaching my three-year old granddaughter, Natalie, the process of planting seeds. Surrounded by supplies: seeds, cardboard egg cartons, a bag of soil, a big spoon and a spray bottle filled with water, Natalie carefully filled each section of the egg carton with soil. All the while I explained to her how seeds grow into plants if they have sun, water and food. I believed that she thoroughly understood. She was seriously working.
Grandpa joined us and asked, “What are you doing?”
“We are growing eggs!” Natalie boasted.
I’d better wait till she’s four.
From Guest Contributor Patricia Gable
Aug
The Dollhouse
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
is custom made to look like my house, our house. My new wife’s idea—for Sarah. Same front elevation. Duplicate floorplan. But my step daughter’s attempt to match furniture placement is off. I nudge the miniature hutch to its true location. She frowns, pushes my hand away, makes me move to the front yard, so to speak. I look at her through the windows. She appears as if a Goliath child. My sling: empty after repeated attempts to penetrate the four walls of her heart. I lean low, peer inside the front door. “Knock, knock,” I say. She never answers.
Keith Hoerner lives and pushes words around in Southern Illinois.
Aug
Rags To Riches And Back
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
HUBRIS CONTEST:
Mr. X fell. How badly?
Initially, he didn’t know. He continued contriving grandiose schemes. To deceive and conquer. Gain at the loss of others.
Friends he once had dwindled to one. They witnessed him gloating. How he went from rags to riches, increasing net worth “like no one else.”
Until the world sank into monetary collapse.
His temper shot up. Those he benefited from abandoned positions of his corporate ladder. He maintained headstrong in his quest of greatness, overriding those needing assistance.
Indeed, Mr. X fell. Sad thing, he had no clue how to rise.
Nor do others marked ‘X.’
From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs
Aug
On Being A Man
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
HUBRIS CONTEST:
His backhand caused her body to pirouette grotesquely before landing face down on the coffee table.
Wincing, she rolled off the table, and sat up, mopping blood futilely from her mouth with the back of her right hand.
“Aren’t ya proud o’ me, workin’ all night?” he whined.
Unblinking, she nodded.
Then, the boy, who’d learned what a man was from his father, brought the cast iron pan onto the back of his father’s head with a sound like a loud wet kiss.
The man slid to the ground gracefully.
Beaming at her son, she said, “Now that’s a man!”
From Guest Contributor Jody Lehrer