Posts Tagged ‘Home’
Feb
Peaches
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I open the window with force to see what the commotion is. The street is filled with people standing and screaming. I see a glimpse of a shoeless foot, sock hanging. Long red hair catches my eyes, as does the smashed front windshield of a small car.
An ambulance approaches blaring its siren and the crowd shifts to the sidewalk.
Now I see the victim is my next-door neighbor and my heart palpitates.
Sitting on my lap is her kitten Peaches, who I pet sit.
I coddle the furry cat in my arms, and realize I’ll be his home now.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Jan
Happy New Year
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The wind is howling, and the snow is heavy. New Year’s Eve and Times Square are scarce with the host’s expression one of weariness.
No one is here to celebrate, the weather keeping them home and comfortable by the television, probably sipping hot coffee as I’m doing, or maybe drinking wine or champagne to ring in the coming year.
I have the fireplace lit, bringing more warmth to my cold apartment. My dog Gatsby sits beside me, and we’re snuggled under a blanket.
The countdown begins.
And as the host gets to one, the electricity goes out.
Happy New Year.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Jan
Stella
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Stella longs for the unseen soul who one day will meander into her home to touch (perhaps envy) each of her precisely placed gatherings.
Thank you, dear God, above, for the patience it
has taken to assemble and position these
precious things.
Yet she feels clumsy. Sees herself as a whale in a thimble’s sea of mire.
Then comes the moment when that perfect stranger appears as her savior, but Stella is not here to celebrate the gentle man with sapphires where his blue eyes should be, pale cream velvet fingertips to tally all her particulars, then bind her estate.
From Guest Contributor The Poet Spiel
Jan
A Second Chance At Life
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
There’s an owl outside the window. That’s a bad omen.
“Maybe we should stay home tonight.”
Amanda ignored his reluctance. “You got us into this mess. Let’s get this over with so we can get our lives back.”
He sighed, knowing what she said was true. But he’d been backed into a corner, with no good options left. He tried convincing Amanda everything he’d done was for her sake, but she still insisted she’d finally divorce him once they were free. If they could get free.
The thing about pacts with the devil is they are notoriously difficult to break.
Jan
Wandering Star
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
I killed the crew of the Wandering Star, humanity’s last hope.
A desperate mission to find a new home. The ship crashed into this lonesome planet of obsidian.
Maybe I’ve lost my mind. But I heard a voice calling me here. A soft whisper in the dark. They called me insane, said I’d gone AWOL. Tried to lock me up.
I wandered the surface, guided by the whisper, until I stood in its shadow, a great five-pointed upside-down black star floating high above.
I wept when I realized why I’d been led here. The leviathan declaring the end of humanity.
From Guest Contributor Rick Ansell Pearson
Rick lives and works in central Mexico. His fiction can be found forthcoming in Year Five: Dark Moments and Patreons, published by Black Hare Press.
Jan
The Miqui Smart Home Device
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
When Blake brought Miqui home that first evening, he spent hours translating the instructions into a form of English he could understand. Miqui had evolved a language much more sophisticated than his own outdated vernacular.
By the next Tuesday, Miqui was finally in working order. It immediately diagnosed him with cancer. His was a milder variety. Six months to live.
Miqui is Blake’s only company these days, other than the nurses. He remembers when fish still weren’t able to talk. The fish said it was worthwhile he could still recall the good old days. Nostalgia is a uniquely human trait.
Dec
The Rotary Phone
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The butter-yellow rotary phone was sitting on the carpet in the living room of the empty apartment. It’s cord and wires were disconnected and curled around its body.
David walked into the room. His eyes began to water as grief overcame him. He had not made it home for his grandmother’s funeral. He was not there for the disposition of the contents of her home, the home that was his refuge growing up. Now it was too late to say goodbye.
“I love you, gramma,” he whispered.
David bent over, picked up the phone, and quietly walked out the door.
From Guest Contributor Janice Siderius
Dec
The Taco Truck
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
My Tata sat in the front row crying. A photograph of his beloved 1977 taco truck stood next to Mita’s casket. Very first taco truck on the east coast, he always said. Mita bought a taco from the truck at closing. She was a stunner and captured his eye. Always the gentleman, he would not let her walk home in the dark. He drew a crowd as he rolled up to her family home in the taco truck. Her parents came out and wanted to evaluate his cooking. Today will be the first day they will be apart since then.
From Guest Contributor NT Franklin
NT Franklin has been published in Page and Spine, Fiction on the Web, 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, CafeLit, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts, 404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Entropy, Alsina Publishing, Fifty-word stories, Dime Show Review, among others.
Dec
Sofa Of Cycles
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The sagging couch cushions are a trophy–evidence attesting to her self-discipline to stay situated.
She’s a chameleon in her contradictory custom office. An extension cord slithers around wooden legs, dressed with a black and blocky laptop vitalizer. The coffee table has been repurposed into a feet-book-pen desk, crowded with sacred guides to creation and the honing of creative crafts. No clocks tick, as time gives no counsel. Silence rears its head to the ears of the beholder, mouth perpetually packed by scribbles and click-clacks.
She forges life and death. A prolific puppet master.
Stay at home God of worlds.
From Guest Contributor Madeline van Batum
Madeline lives in Colorado with her cat and hopes that one day she can go back to her home country of the Netherlands to finally meet the Flying Dutchman.
Nov
Live
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The Fuhrer took everything. My husband, two sons, and our home that had been in the family for years. I’m all that’s left. The war is over, but who and what do I have to go back to. I lived through the filth and disease when everyone else was dying and there had been nothing I could do.
When the Americans arrived and liberated the camps, I fell to my knees and wept. I couldn’t believe it was over.
It’s tragic and my heart aches every-day, but I will continue to live, if not for myself then for my family.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Lisa has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book, Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published, and The Importance of Being Short in 2019. Her most recent book In A Flash, was published in the spring of 2022.
She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna.