Posts Tagged ‘Outside’
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
May
The Walking Dead
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Thinking about escaping across closed borders, I dug a hole outside. It was hard work. I pulled out bricks, barbed wire, glass bottles and jars, and old cans as I dug deeper. When my mind drifted too far into sadness, I stopped. Everything moves slowly now. I’m learning to be very stingy with supplies. On the table is a bunch of flowers I found in the trash. This may be a day for catching up on The Walking Dead, but I stand at a window that looks out on a yard. Somehow, just standing there feels like a hopeful gesture.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie Good is the author of What It Is and How to Use It (2019) from Grey Book Press, among other poetry collections.
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
Apr
Cannibal Snacks
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The only store open at that hour was out of the first-aid cream I needed. Security cameras recorded what happened next. I ran amok in the chips and candy aisle, as if a slave to junk food. It was scary how much I could pack in. By the time the cops showed up, I was outside again and a cat had become just a red smear in the road. Someone recently asked me how I would describe red to a blind person. I shrugged. No one wants your honest opinion, ever. They may say they do, but they really don’t.
From Guest Contributor Howie Good
Howie Good is the author of The Titanic Sails at Dawn (Alien Buddha Press, 2019)
Dec
The Subway
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Standing three feet tall Travis was wearing a Celtics hat, jersey, and green shoes on the subway with his Dad.
“Dad, why is that guy sleeping??”
“Shhh… you don’t want to wake him.”
“I’m awake, don’t mind me none.” Dressed in tattered clothing, he sipped a bottle from a paper bag.
“What are you drinking?” Travis asked.
“That’s not our business, Travis.”
“This is just what you drink when you’re lonely and life isn’t working out.”
“You can hang out with us if you want.”
With watery eyes he stared outside. “If only more people were like you.”
From Guest Contributor Steve Colori
Apr
The Way The World Ends
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
At first I thought it was a barrel of whiskey strapped to the back of the gangly old man, stooping him over to half in the parking lot. Snow swirled in orange light clouds. As he shuffled closer, I realized it was an egg, yellowish, enormous, bound with dirty ropes. There were scratches on it as long as my arm, and I wondered whether they came from the inside or the outside. I loaded the groceries into the car and pushed my cart at him.
“That’s not how it works,” he muttered, head down. “I have to carry it myself.”
From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat
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
Jan
Window Towards The Barn
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
She consoles the dust for being lonely. The rust for being needy. The rot for becoming unstitched by rain. It is easy to whisper these things on the day of rest. When even birds decline seeding and bees stay inside hives. There was little moving in the sparse outside, save a cat prowling between an empty peach bucket and a splintered fish pole leaned against fence rails, its frayed point vanishing in the tale’s middle.
She sits with tears on her cheek. Cheek on her hand. Pinkie finger tracing glass. Watching her three level acres all forlorn, infertile, sour, outworn.
From Guest Contributor Catherine Moore
Catherine is the author of three chapbooks including “Wetlands” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her fiction appears in Tahoma Literary Review, Illinois Wesleyan University Press, Tishman Review, Mid-American Review, and The Best Small Fictions of 2015 anthology.
Jun
The Chicken Farmer
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The chickens followed him from inside their coop, pacing back and forth. They never took their eyes off him.
He stopped going outside except when entirely necessary. He’d constantly peek through the curtains hoping they’d not notice. They always noticed. They were waiting for him to make a mistake.
Chickens were meant to eat pretty much anything. But his chickens had gotten a taste for grapes. They were sweet. They were also expensive.
He couldn’t afford to feed them nothing but grapes, so the chickens had gotten a taste for eyes. Now, they were determined to have his other one.
Sep
A Turquoise Fish
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
When the brown moths would gather on the ceiling, you would take them up in your hands and set them loose outside. Yes, I miss that. And you are right. It is true that I was vengeful. It is true that I was impossible to pin to the carpet. And I used rhetoric to slip out of body. But what you wouldn’t hear, what I tried to tell you, was that I felt like a fish on the shore, begging for water. Love me, please, hear me, please, see? You kept saying, “The sand is water, so swim in it.”
From Guest Contributor, Addy Evenson