Posts Tagged ‘Home’
Aug
Future Perfect
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
It had taken some time to bring the fixer-upper to a standard he could happily call home.
He was in the company of all who cursed the pope amid the loyalist festivities.
He dusted and buffed his bowler unto that classy matt gleam. His sash shone with the pride of centuries.
“Why not be ‘triumphalist’?”
There was no response. None needed.
He wore long johns and fleece under the treasured regalia.
“A dry day,” he affirmed.
He practiced a few tunes on his fife and strode purposefully from his front door.
Alone he trod the permafrost-patterned ground of Devon Island.
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Aug
Skin
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
In the weeks after her mother died, Pamela had no skin. Everything was surface—every twitching nerve, every gush of bile. When Creepy Carl told her to smile as he dropped off his rent check, her lips peeled back to the bone.
At home, she told Ben: I know about the girl you’ve been fucking for the last four months. Your intern. In our God damn bed.
Come on, baby, he said, it wasn’t like that.
But it was. She wouldn’t have her raw insides sheathed in lies. She slept in the guest room, on top of the blankets, oozing resentment.
From Guest Contributor Carrie Cook
Carrie received her MA in Creative Writing from Kansas State University and is currently living in Colorado. Her work has appeared in The Columbia Review, Midwestern Gothic, Menacing Hedge, and Bartleby Snopes.
Aug
Loner
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Worst thing about having a drunken Da who pissed people off was that Malachy tended to suffer from ‘trickle-down’ syndrome: friendships nurtured in his own child-like manner evaporating as parents infected would-be playmates with their contempt for his father.
He crouched over the little burn on farmland close to his suburban home watching the tadpoles emerge from frogspawn, eager to claim a hopper for his very own.
There was a sizeable puddle in his backyard courtesy of poor drainage.
The leprous ache inside expanded to form tundra.
Still, it was quiet, and the symphony of wind and wildlife was wonderful.
From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid
Jun
Double Down
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Dave peered from his bunker across the smoldering horizon. He refused to cry.
That charred skeleton of masonry and rebar had once been home. People he knew had died in those streets, now nothing more than corpses and ruin.
After the initial wave of destruction came the pestilence and blight. The rotting skin and miracle pleas suggested a biblical retribution was at hand. The metaphor was on everyone’s lips, but Dave clamored against it. He blamed the whining snowflakes who refused to accept they had lost.
Dave remained certain. This outcome was still better than if she had been elected.
May
One Last Sunrise
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Carl awoke to the escalating chorus of songbirds echoing through the dense northeastern forest. He arose and went through his morning ritual in silence. Dress and redon boots. Rehydrate and consume breakfast, coffee. Breakdown camp. Load his backpack.
These same activities he had performed for countless summers, now at a slower more deliberate pace.
The sealed cardboard box was left out of his pack today. He would carry it the last few miles in his hands.
Arriving at their unnamed peak, he savored the sunrise view east. Opening the box, he sprinkled her remains. Finally, at peace. Finally, at home.
From Guest Contributor Todd Raubenolt
May
Unlucky Fate
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
After six months of recovery in the hospital from my car accident, I’m finally going home.
I walk outside into the fresh air, taking deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling. I can’t stand the musty air in hospitals. My cell rings distracting me from my happy moment and I answer it.
“Hey, Charlie, I heard you’re discharged today.”
“Yeah, I’m on my way home as we speak.”
As I’m crossing the street, I walk straight into an oncoming car. People gather around me as I’m on the ground unable to move.
I guess I won’t be enjoying my own bed tonight.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Apr
Grief Group
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“It’s only been eleven months,” said the other woman afterwards.
“This’ll probably surprise you.”
“You’re attracted to one of the guys in our group?”
“Ha! No, what I miss most is the comfortable, predictable ways Ben and I had. But real love? It disappeared years ago.”
“Real love? You don’t know how lucky you were!”
“Yeah. Part of me likes being on my own again. Still…”
“So you’ll go for the passion next time?”
“Next time? My libido’s semi-retired. So I think it’d be more like us both coming home from work, and just drinking wine together at day’s end.”
From Guest Contributor Gerald Kamens
Mar
Rain Day
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I stare out the window watching the torrents of rain pound the leaves on my maple tree and listen to the ferocious wind hit against the siding of my house. My dog Patty barks and scratches the windowpane. I pull her next to me on the couch and rub her stomach, the only thing that soothes her. Roads are closed due to flooding and I’m stuck at home.
I had an argument with my boss yesterday about not getting enough time off. Now I’m home and bored out of my mind watching the clock.
It’s funny how things turn out.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Nov
Next Time
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Every time that bastard comes home, he sweet talks me and tells me things will be different and like a complete fool I take him back and then I get pregnant and he takes off again for a year or two.
I swear to God the next time he shows his face around here I’m going to hit him upside the head with a frying pan, knock him out long enough to pack a bag and clear out for a couple of years myself, leave him to take care of three kids with no help, see how he likes it.
From Guest Contributor Simon Hole
Aug
There Hangs The Sword
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
There hangs the sword, the one handed down from father, to son, to me, the symbol of my family, the defender of our home, the weapon that has slain hundreds, that fought for our homeland in the long war, and struck fear into our enemies, the blade that was retired but never allowed to dull, that was laid to rest but never sheathed, that was put on display as a reminder to all future interlopers this house will forever be vigilant, there is the sword even now, still hanging there, as I slowly bleed out on the floor below it.