Posts Tagged ‘Guest Contributor’
Apr
Lady Macbeth
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:
Life had become so boring, so beige boring. Every day it was hound the maids, light the candles, greet the guests. Then along came prophecy! What’s not to believe about a witch, let alone three? Once again, my world oozed with possibility.
What came to pass? Life in red, gushing red. There was blood in the soup, blood in the stew, blood on the hands of my husband. I thought about the plagues in Egypt, the Pharaoh who knew about miracles turned against him. I thought about science. That what flows, surely ebbs? While the old king’s blood ran blue.
From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe
Linda Lowe’s poems and stories have appeared in Gone Lawn, Crack the Spine, What Rough Beast, New Verse News, Tiny Molecules and others.
Apr
East Meets West
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:
On 10 November 1989, Hans shuffled nervously across the debris littered street, clutching a package close to his chest.
He apprehensively approached the building, straightened his lapels then entered the revolving door.
On reaching the counter, he removed the book from the bag, sliding it across to the stern looking assistant. She opened the book’s cover and said “this is date stamped 13.08.1961. I do hope you have a good excuse.”
Hans anxiously responded “I’d have returned it sooner if it wasn’t for that damned Berlin Wall being built.” Their eyes briefly met before they erupted into gales of laughter.
From Guest Contributor Dougie Shepherd.
Apr
God Bless America
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:
He was met by his family at the Orlando airport after 12 long months of active duty.
Captain Steven Hooks was a free man. Now that the Army didn’t need him anymore, he could get back to being a husband and a father and re-open his dental practice.
Gloria, his wife, suggested a movie for his first night home. They gave the kids baths, dressed them in cozy pajamas, and loaded them into the station wagon.
Upon arriving at the booth he handed the cashier the money but she wouldn’t take it.
“Sorry, but this drive-in is for whites only.”
From Guest Contributor E. Barnes
E. has works published at Entropy, Spillwords, The Purple Pen, The Haven, and several works are in the anthology, “NanoNightmares.”
Apr
Easter Sunday
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Through the window, the sun beams against my face. It’s Easter Sunday and the family will be arriving this evening. I haven’t seen my cousins since the Covid-19 quarantine and we’re all nervous. Do we need to wear masks to avoid breathing on each other, I wonder? We didn’t discuss it, so my husband and I will take our chances.
The food is prepared and cooking on the stove. The lamb and spices fill the room with a delectable aroma and I’m leaning against the counter sipping wine.
I drop my glass when the doorbell rings. I can’t do it.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Apr
April Come She Will
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Men on the street would call my girlfriend lindo. “Get used to it,” she said. I decided the best thing for me to do was nothing. April had been designated Artichoke Month. I remember we saw a movie about astronauts on a mind-bending journey to the cosmic womb. It was confusing and a little scary. She got really into the singer-songwriter who had committed suicide by stabbing himself in the chest. There were long lines outside liquor stores and gun shops. One day we found a hand-lettered cardboard sign lying abandoned on the sidewalk: Hungry & Cold / Anything Helps.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.
Apr
Burning Uncertainty
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:
My elder sister Tanya and I burn portraits of Nicholas, watching his solemn eyes melting. Melting, melting. Flames envelop his beard, rising into the night sky.
“To the Revolution,” she proclaims. “We’ll be happy again.”
“To happiness,” I proclaim. I hug Tanya. She smells of sweat and oil and victory.
I wonder what will come next. We’ve lost homes and positions, slaved in Siberia. She was a teacher and I, a writer. Those positions are in the past, though.
Will we be of use? Or will the Revolution brand us too bourgeois?
I wish the picture wouldn’t burn so fast.
From Guest Contributor Yash Seyedbagheri
Yash is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA program in fiction. Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, 50 Word Stories, (mac)ro (mic), and Ariel Chart.
Apr
Ignis Fatuus
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:
The three sisters couldn’t spend their summer at home because of smallpox in the town. Their parents acquired the old farmhouse close to the boarding school and their favorite teacher agreed to spend her vacation taking care of them. She told them why the house was empty, of the little girl, who drowned in the cow pond. In time, the spirit came to each: in a dream; as a light over the field at dusk; and to the third sister, as the woman she spent the rest of her life with, from the age of twenty-eight, in a Boston marriage.
From Guest Contributor Jon Fain
Thus far in 2020, Jon’s fiction has appeared in 50-Word Stories, Fleas on the Dog, City. River. Tree., and Blue Lake Review.
Apr
Like Mommy and Daddy
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“Mommy, you and daddy look funny.” said five-year-old Julia.
“We’re OK. We are flying high!” Julia’s mommy replied as she chewed a weed-laced cookie.
“These cookies! Flyin’ like a bird,” Julia’s daddy sang.
He took another cookie off the plate on the kitchen table.
“Let’s go upstairs, sweetheart. A little lovin’ ……Julia, watch TV.”
Julia watched as her parents climbed the stairs. She grabbed a cookie, then ran upstairs to her bedroom and ate it.
When her beautiful wings fluttered, she floated to the open window.
She pushed out the screen and thought, “I wanna fly like mommy and daddy.”
From Guest Contributor Deborah Shrimplin
Apr
Until Further Notice
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Thanks to social distancing, my co-worker Connor and I are finally alone. Only two employees at a time are permitted in the break room to clean out their lockers.
“Did you know Amazon Prime ships steel caskets in two days?” Connor looks at me, and my gut drops.
“What?”
“According to CNN, death rates are rising. We need to plan.”
Even when he says crazy things, he’s irresistibly cute.
“Look, it’s okay,” I say, “At least we weren’t fired.”
“I guess,” Connor sighs, “But how long will we work from home?”
I shrug. “So kiss me now before you can’t.”
From Guest Contributor Tammy Smith
Tammy is a social worker from New Jersey. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in The Esthetic Apostle, Ailment: Chronicles of Illness Narratives, The Dewdrop, io Literary Journal, and Ariel Chart.
Apr
Old Fire Station – Berlin – March 20, 1939
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
HISTORICAL FICTION ENTRY:
Removing his peaked cap, Gerhard runs his hand thru his fair, slicked-back hair. He is only a soldier: molded by the Nazi party. He isn’t a person just something to enforce Chancellor Hitler’s government. This time though, the instructions come from Joseph Goebbel. Anything marked with an X gets no mercy.
Gerhard stares into the inferno that devours the art dubbed degenerate. The canvases feeds the blaze, bubbles, and burns: turning into searing embers that fade to ash. He never understood art. The only thing he knows is everything burns. No matter the color, vibrancy, culture, religion.
We’ll all burn!
From Guest Contributor McKenzie A. Frey