Posts Tagged ‘Light’
Jul
Decision
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The witch stared into the candlelight. The darkness and tempest outside would strengthen her spell, To Make Him Love You More. He wasn’t home yet, now was her chance to cast it.
The thunderbolt’s light lit up the room, and a sparkle under the bed caught her eye. Squinting, she focused on it. A shattered mirror.
“Next time, it’ll be your head.”
Her eyes widened as his harsh words echoed in her ears, and her hand froze mid-air. Without thinking, she flipped to the following page of her open spell book, To Mend Your Broken Heart.
Decided, the witch chanted.
From Guest Contributor Soleah Kenna Sadge
Soleah is a fantasy writer. You can learn more about her and her writings by visiting https://linktr.ee/sksadge
Jun
Dust To Dust
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
NATURE SUBMISSION:
The dust swirls through the late evening sun, catching the light just so. Growing up, people used to say the dust was your dead skin. A few of my more morbid friends even said it was the skin of dead people. Dust to dust after all.
I wonder if that’s true. The poet in me wants to believe it is, that we’re surrounded by our ancestors at all times, that their spirits live for eternity on the winds.
The claims adjuster in me turns back to my computer screen. Perhaps if I concentrated a bit more I’d be home already.
From Guest Contributor Angie Thrush
Jun
Werewolf
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
NATURE SUBMISSION:
It is nighttime. Myriad dots of light litter the sky. We lie on our bed with our distinct commitments disinterested in rekindling a lost pulse. As a pack of wolves practice their choric song, my wife trembles, scratches her skin and flutters her limbs trying to repress an urge. She grinds her teeth as if she wants to sing like the baritone owls and soprano sparrows. I ask, “What’s wrong?” She doesn’t bother with an answer. Instead she escapes into the toilet. A high-pitched scream perks my ears. She returns with calm on her face and nuzzles into my neck.
From Guest Contributor Anindita Sarkar
Anindita is from India. She is a Research Scholar at Jadavpur University. Her works have recently appeared in Indolent Books, Ariel chart Magazine, and Flash Friday Fiction.
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
Three Seals
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
With muzzles lifted towards the sky, they gather on rocks long dry. The sun touches down where water no longer passes by. Sable tips wash to marbled tails that tell of a time in the distant past. As wind sifts the sand nearby, it slowly edges them away. A golden plague bears their memory with a single name and details of their cause. For now, they pause as a simple thread meant to knit its way into today. When clouds darken the light, rain falls and remembers the familiar trails. It brings with it a mending unearthed by the dawn.
From Guest Contributor Kristi Kerico
Kristi is a psychology major at Pikes Peak Community College. She is studying to become a horticultural therapist. She currently works at a bookstore and volunteers at a zoo and nature center. She began writing after enrolling in a creative writing course at PPCC. She enjoys poetry the most, considering it’s brief yet complex beauty. She also loves writing with a focus on nature.
Mar
Confessions
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Did she hear right?
The curtains are parted. It is naked black in the bedroom except for a slice of light exposing one hazel eye, the outline of his angular face. Clare knows how soft that eye-brow is to touch and how it is to be in the centre of that dark gaze.
Moving to the window, she peers outside: they will never be two names chiselled into a hill, hewn into rock. For months she wished she was that whisper of sunlight on his face. That and no more.
‘I’m married,’ Mike repeats.
‘I heard you. So am I.’
From Guest Contributor Louise Worthington
Feb
Wonder
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The Erie Canal in Spring is serene, she thought. Once again, first heat of May made the pink sugar bowl blossoms on magnolia trees shimmer with light. Townies were out walking, taking their time getting to the Lift Bridge on Main Street. Each wore a blue, or red, or yellow balloon fastened to their jackets. The balloons drifted & tugged in the wind, like her niggling thoughts about her neighbors. How they reminded her of sliced white bread. She doubted that they knew they lacked depth; yet, like setting clocks ahead, they came to watch water fill the canal’s bed.
From Guest Contributor M.J. Iuppa
M.J.’s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017). For the past 31 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.
Feb
Frozen Morning
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The bright light of the dawn greets him with a cheerful glow, sneaking lies between the buildings.
His breath forms thick clouds that mocks him with its resemblance to cigarette smoke. His fingers ache in his tattered gloves. His legs creak as he raises himself from his bed to face the whitewashed town, bleached clean of its sins.
Looking back towards his bed, the cardboard’s damp. Ragged sleeping bags and repurposed plastic have brought him into the frozen day.
Children laugh in the distance. The rumble of snowploughs begin, pushing the salt-weakened snow into heaps of black slush.
From Guest Contributor T.W. Garland
Feb
Parasitic Sea
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
A stillness descends on the empty beach. The children are asleep in cottages. How many of you stepped on shells and hurt yourselves? How many of you were stung by jellyfish?
A small light shines far away over the dark sea. It rushes faster than the waves, dashes across the beach, and dives deep into the scratched feet of the dreaming children. And it divides, multiplies, and devours.
The next morning, the children wake and run toward the sea. They leap into the waves and swim away.
It’s time to go home. Are your parents going to miss you, kids?
From Guest Contributor Natsumi Tanaka
Translated from Japanese by Toshiya Kamei
Natsumi Tanaka is a writer living in Kyoto, Japan. Her short stories have appeared in journals such as Anima Solaris, Kotori no kyuden, and Tanpen. She is the author of the short story collection Yumemiru ningyo no okoku (2017). Translations of her short fiction have appeared in Fanzine, Star 82 Review, and The William & Mary Review, among others.
Dec
Dungeons Without Dragons
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Old castles and dungeons. Wizards and dragons. Evil Orcs and bewitching princesses. And he above all, The Mighty Knight, the warrior chosen to save the world from eternal doom.
One flash of lucid light and here he is again, imprisoned in his own dungeon, in his dusty boy’s room, remembering days playing tabletop fantasy games with friends and reading Tolkien, back in the time when he was just a teenager. Now he feels so old, lonely, and helpless. Not even a witch by his side, no magic spells to pay alimony, no more ideals worth fighting for.
Nothing but memories.
From Guest Contributor Ivan Ristic