Posts Tagged ‘Silence’
Feb
Ice Pond
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
When I stepped outside onto the cold snow-covered sidewalk, I remembered my childhood in Maine.
“Hurry, Artie!” My sister, Clara, bellowed from across the ice pond.
My friend Eric couldn’t keep up, and I quickly sped past him, my hands raised in victory. Eric sighed and skated away, having had enough.
Clara clapped and then glided toward me. Suddenly there was a crackling sound and a scream. Clara fell through the ice, hands flailing, eyes fearful. I tried to get to her, but people pulled me back and said I’d fall too. Then there was silence.
I never skated again.
From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher
Jul
Accompaniment
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Almost every morning
it’s the same old ambient toss-up:
Susumu Yokota or Lazybatusu.
Some days, neither flips his switch;
some days: nothing but nothing. Silence.
(He neither needs nor wants either one.)
Some days—especially days he’s up early—
he just sits and types, humming his own theme:
he calls it Lazysusubatsumu Yakotoma.
He hums and writes and writes again
until everything comes out right,
or his fingers start to bleed.
Even then, though,
intent on his mission
he encourages the hemorrhage.
He’s stumbled onto something good;
he’s just got to keep at it
until it sings on its own.
From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette
Ron.’s debut chapbook, Fallen Away (Finishing Line Press) is now available at all standard outlets. Many of his published works can be found at EGGS OVER TOKYO.
Jul
Raise Your Voice
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
raise it as if your life depends on it. Your future too.
Scream if needed. Scream even if your voice cracks.
Don’t wait for help, help yourself.
Learn to survive, and remember,
the young neighbor who cries every night,
a distant cousin with a broken arm, a young girl on the bus, with bruised marks.
Remember the scars, the burns, the pain, the losses too.
Read the silence, the untold stories behind every closed door.
Then write a new story, draw a new picture,
paint your toenails red, wear a bindi, go out and shout
Shout until you are heard.
From Guest Contributor Marzia Rahman
Marzia is a Bangladeshi fiction writer and translator. Her writings have appeared in several print and online journals. Her novella-in-flash If Dreams had wings and Houses were built on clouds was longlisted in the Bath Novella in Flash Award Competition in 2022.She is currently working on a novella. She is also a painter.
Jun
Waiting
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Everyone but Hampton looked down, eyes locked on tiny screens. Hampton’s expensive artisans of optimistic speculation could no longer sustain nervous conversation.
Hampton mindfully sipped tepid coffee. Ignoring his stomach breakdancing to the beat of butterflies, he savored a donut. He wanted to remember such simple pleasures.
Anticipation clung to them like static ready to spark and ignite…would it be fireworks or a bomb? A knock on the door shattered their reticent silence. A bailiff opened the door.
“The verdict is in. Court resumes in five minutes.”
Certain of nothing but his surreal limbo ending, Hampton stood, then vomited.
From Guest Contributor JD Clapp
Mar
Noise
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Walking down the street, he stops and listens. There’s so much going on around him that he has trouble making out any specific sound on its own. The cacophony of everything around him is almost deafening. People are talking on the phone. Cars are racing down the street, honking. There’s a poor musician playing for tips. He can’t stand any of it. The sound of people shuffling around him is the worst of it, he thinks. All his life, the only thing he’s wanted was silence. He hears a whistle, then a boom, and then after that he hears nothing.
From Guest Contributor Chris Ellsworth
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.
Jun
The Sweat Lodge
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
The second hour of the sweat lodge was conducted in total silence and reflection, as was the first.
An elder finally spoke. “The path you are walking leads to darkness.”
Moonchild nodded.
“What am I to do, Bearpaw?”
“There are many paths that don’t lead to darkness. Cleanse your thoughts and ask the Great Spirit for guidance.”
More stones were brought in and doused with water and healing herbs.
“My child died in school, Bearpaw. Those responsible must pay.”
“I lost a grandchild as well, but your path leads to darkness and solves nothing. Keep searching, the answer will come.”
From Guest Contributor N.T. 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.
Jun
A New Era
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
Robots Contest Entry:
One day everything stopped. I remember the terrible silence that followed the constant humming we were used to. Our beloved machines were made redundant, years of technological progress erased in an instant. We had become lazy and were set back decades. Over half the population couldn’t drive, (car accidents skyrocketed), people went hungry, (they had forgotten how to cook) and some left their homes for the first time in years. Then scientists said they found the cause, a virus, and soon the machines were back online. But the new hum sounded wrong, like a swarm of bees waiting to attack.
From Guest Contributor Paula Henry-Duru
Jan
Before The Words, There Were Echoes
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
There was silence in the universe. Words were nowhere to be found, as if all existence had stopped and all that was left was a void of utter disbelief and confusion. How can there be something, and yet it means nothing?
She had many words inside her, words that boiled into nothingness and brought about the vapor of insignificance. She remembered “in the beginning was the Word,” but instead of feeling any sense of security, she lost heart.
In that loss, she grasped the emptiness of whispers and asked the vast expanse:
“What is needed to be compassionate?”
“A soul.”
From Guest Contributor Aida Bode
Dec
For The Taking
by thegooddoctor in 100 Words
“Men line up for me gingerly,” I told my friend.
“Lucky you,” she remarked. “Hasn’t happened for me in months. Last one was a real flop.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I consoled, suddenly aware of my insensitivity. “When you’re ready, I can send one or two over to you.”
She was stunned, telling me how she lacked the courage to date again.
“What I have to offer…well, they’re good looking and appealing in other ways.”
Silence prevailed. Then she spoke. “Seriously?”
“Absolutely. I can deliver my gingerbread men to you, or you can pick them up at my place.”
From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs
Krystyna writes, poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction.