Microfiction Monday – 200th Edition
A Visit to My Ex-Wife and Her New Girlfriend
The cat melts into the crawl-space, and I think to follow. Knees at my ears, scalp scraping foundations. Bird—if they still call him Bird—watches like a teacher as I translate the matchstick bone glyphs that lay jammed in the mud. An inventory of lost opportunities, I see it now. Mistakes gnawed down to rib cages, feathers licked into barbs.
Sticky August rain beats down on what is left of the grass. Bare feet kiss the floorboards above.
10 Year High School Reunion
by Mollie B. Rodgers
I cross my arms. I look hostile. I uncross them. They hang at my sides like a gorilla’s. I buy a drink to give my hands somewhere to land.
I’m playing a game of Am I an Ass Because I Can’t Place You or Did We Just Never Interact? I smile and nod. They smile and nod. Are their lives actually this impressive/fulfilling/superior, or did they also workshop their curated summaries a month in advance?
At the fifty-year reunion, the non-attendees will outnumber those present.
The seventy-five-year reunion is just the afterlife.
The Knack
by Ben Reid
I could never get the hang of a Rubik’s cube as a kid. The more I clicked and clacked the more the colours mocked me. There was no magic in my hands – yo-yos clattered to the floor, lifeless; rolled dice made a bid for freedom while shuffled cards riffled to the floor, scattering my shame. A kicked ball shot right behind me; skate boards would scramble from beneath my feet and trundle sulkily away.
Then I discovered bra hooks and business ties and the lurking dread of tax returns and found that things refuse to click even when you’re grown.
Campari and Scones
by Sue Ruben
Sheila woke,the tent hot and stuffy. She had been dreaming of love-making.Sitting up she remembered Derek’s betrayal,leaving her to take the children camping, while he headed to Paris with Lotus. Anger rose up as she imagined them drinking Campari under a moonlit sky. She sobbed,missing him.
Derek woke from a postcoital snooze.His young lover was snoring,mouth open, showing gold fillings. He remembered it was his youngest daughter’s birthday party, then craved his wife’s scones, of all things. At least I’ve escaped tending the barbecue he thought. He sobbed,missing her.
With Age Comes Wisdom
by JS O’Keefe
“Your thoughts on the struggles of mankind, the meaning of life, and the new challenges ahead of us?”
We’re interviewing the great philosopher on his 100th birthday for local TV. His clear blue eyes show he is bright as ever.
“Since I’m not familiar with any of those terms, let me get a pen and paper, then you kindly spell the words for me, and I’m going to ask my great-grandson to do a search called ‘Google’. I’ll let you know when I’m done. In the meantime, let’s work out the finances. I’ve got a big family to support.”
Microfiction Monday – 199th Edition
Shapeless
by David Henson
My edges are blurring. People pretend not to notice, but I catch their sidelongs. The cashier’s hand stutters when he gives me a receipt, as if fearing the slip will pass through my fingers. I have to concentrate so it doesn’t. Some days my every step sinks to my ankles. In a recurring dream I fall through mattress, floor, planet — emerge in a lumiscape of shapeless words. Is it a dream within another? Occam’s Razor says no. I’ve started seeing the haze of others. We gather in the park, when not too windy, and seek ourselves in the clouds.
You Think That’s Scary
by Bill Diamond
Racing home in the dark woods, Daniel was frightened. He checked his watch. “Damnation!”
Mom had lots of rules: ‘No shortcuts.’ ‘Don’t go in the cemetery at night.’ Her most important was ‘Don’t be late.’ Every minute made it worse.
He snatched up a heavy stick.
Without hesitation, he jumped the cemetery fence and angled through the tombstones.
The shambling corpses were right in his path. He gasped, ducked and dodged, but didn’t slow.
A monster reached for him. Daniel swung the truncheon and knocked the skull from the rotted body.
It was scary, but Mom was scarier.
Of Sleepless Nights and Sunrises
by Lisa Briley
The hours that precede the dawn are the longest. Waiting for the sun to rise and bring back the light of the day. Kira finds them overwhelming in the worst of ways. Those hours where no one else is awake and there’s nothing to do except lose herself to her thoughts. And what thoughts they were. A haunting melody of thoughts that overran common sense. Telling her to run, jump, skip, and dance. To write until her fingers bleed. To do more, more, more. Everything piles on top and there’s nothing she can do but wait out the night.
And They Lived
by Beth Mead
You asked like kind men do, down on one knee, ring and eyes uplifted, hopeful. You weren’t the one I loved, but you were the one who asked, who saw me as something colorful and true, more real than I could ever be. You said we’ll be happy, so happy, so I said yes yes yes and I know and I didn’t say move away from me before I am scattered like glass on this dust-covered floor, like stones you throw by the handful across water. I almost said wait, listen, but I knew you would not.
The End of the War
Scattered pennies cover her husband’s grave like confetti, and she plucks them up one by one. People honor the dead, even when the dead made you want to die.
Her yellow and purple battle wounds are still fading. There is still vodka in the pantry. She remembers being drunk with him, trying on his uniform. Part of her loves the echo of his belly laugh.
Her stomach flutters at the sight of a miniature Old Glory next to his headstone. This is the end. Freedom rings through her, a knell loud enough to be heard on the other side.
Microfiction Monday – 198th Edition
The Snow Asleep on a Branch
There in the window of the apartment across the courtyard, pressed against the glass, a bouquet of pale blossoms. Like a springtime branch snapped off a cherry tree.
No. My mistake. It’s a cat. A white cat sleeping on the window sill, enjoying the warmth of the sun. I can see it breathing.
But for a moment, I thought of you. You who will always be a girl. Perfuming the room with your presence and an armful of white cherry blossoms that spring morning. Before your final winter, when the snow came too soon. And never really left.
Barren Garden
by Emily Hoover
Today the doctor with the Scandinavian name I can’t pronounce went over the newest ultrasound, found a chocolate cyst, said they’d need to do laparoscopy to see the adhesions from the endometrial tissue growing outside my uterus like weeds ruining a perfectly good fucking garden. There’s a surgery I can have or a pill I can take. Both will trigger menopause, the brochures say. I run my fingers along my abdomen, imagine the scars when they plow my pelvis empty—my ex-husband filling another woman’s bed, another woman’s womb, while I live in the cold cavern between moderate and severe.
Day is Night is Day
by David Henson
One dawn, the horizon darkens. As the sun rises, blackness spreads like spilled ink. By midday, stars salt an obsidian sky despite the dazzling sun. Blue skies emerge at sunset and rule the night. Birds don’t know whether to sing or nest. Brilliant, sunless nights and dark, sunny days persist. Our biorhythms play free jazz. Our nerves howl like wolves. Anxiety grips the children. Every morning we gather outside to await the sunrise like hopeful pagans, but it’s always brightest before the dawn. At least we have each other.
Never More
by Cathy Schieffelin
His fists sink into the warm dough, kneading, like a prayer.
A shimmer of white, floats in the dusty rays of morning sun. Lucy, skipping from the henhouse, night clothes mud spattered with a basket of eggs. Looks just like her mama – golden haired and lithe.
Heart heavy, he pummels the gooey mass, craving a salve to numb the nettles pricking his memories.
Wish Hazel’d be here. Never more. Birthing twins was too much. She loved his sourdough. They’d sit on the porch watching fireflies dance in the dying light, taking bites, butter dripping down their chins.
Never more.
The Ninety-One Pearls on My Necklace
Eighty-five? There are supposed to be ninety-one.
The necklace cascades between my shriveled fingers, pearls escaping me like faces fading into shadow.
She catches them. “How about I put it on you?”
We face the mirror. Pity in her bright eyes. Who is she? The daughter I always wanted? I can’t remember if her father was handsome. Fading faces. He had bright eyes. I could never forget his eyes.
“The cleaning lady. She’s slipping out the pearls one by one.”
She shakes her head. Brighter eyes. “There were always eight-five.”
I grasp the necklace. Snow in my palms. Melting away.
Microfiction Monday – 197th Edition
Countdown
by Karen Zey
You wince at the rows of empty squares on the kitchen calendar. Three weeks until his follow-up appointment. After surgery, hubby needed help to navigate the shower, tie his shoes, take his meds. Six days of pajamas and pain until a nurse removed the catheter—until he slowly returned to his old self and you resumed your quiet routines. He does dishes and laundry; you shop and cook. But you can’t stop yourself from checking and rechecking that date while bleak what-ifs swarm your brain. You put on the kettle and wait. Sip your wild raspberry tea between measured breaths.
Delivery
Peter could not stanch his sadness. It settled on him like morning fog. It flowed through him as relentless as the tide. To breathe was to drown and not to die. No sun could cheer him; neither moon nor stars could console him.
Sometimes sadness is like that. An empty mailbox in a month of Sundays. Hoping for an overseas letter from an ex-lover who has lost your address. A stubborn infinity in pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt, rummaging through the junk drawer and forgetting what you were searching for.
Free in the Tree
by Nicole Brogdon
No human saw Katy behind the leafy tree branches. A nearby squirrel stared, then disappeared into foliage. Katy had two peanut-butter sandwiches and one raisin box. Tree kept her safe from Grandpa. If he or Grandma caught her now, there’d be hell to pay —belts, boiling water. For stealing peanut butter, which is food. Stealing, which is a sin.
Lately, Grandpa tied her up in the barn, left her. Tree was better. She’d brought Grandma’s wool sweater, forgotten a blanket. Wind blew, Owl hollered. Night sky turned dark like her soul. Sometimes here in Oklahoma, snow fell like tears.
Mackenzie in the Roses
by Blake Bell
Mackenzie, burning with youth, hollers, “Your roses are dead!” and pedals away from the Rose Witch and my big sister. Cackling over her tanned shoulder at the white-haired woman running one withered hand after another along her confettied bushes, she’s blind to the Oldsmobile hurtling five thousand pounds and a family of four toward her. The Oldsmobile family attends her funeral, but not the Rose Witch. Nobody talks about that, but I ride past her house daily, wondering why she didn’t come and why she would, and across the hall from Sarah’s sobs, a perfect rose wilts under my pillow.
Surreality in the Exit Row
by Sara King
Seven hours to Iceland. I eat and sleep in the middle seat, lost to longitude, and anticipation. Lights dim and the cabin quiets; voices muffle in the row behind, stowed in the overhead locker perhaps. Mouths gape but elbows respect the no man’s land of the armrest.
Clink—one eye half opens. Across the aisle tiny wines arrive to scale with the pixelated Tom Hanks, who
addresses the yoga pants congregated by the toilet, which croon over the assistance dog, curled and cosseted in his own thousand-dollar seat.
And night passes beyond the portholes without the sky growing truly dark.
Microfiction Monday – 196th Edition
Forgotten Melodies
by Evelyn K. Hart
Amelia stumbled upon an old music box hidden amidst her grandmother’s belongings in the attic. As she wound it up, the delicate tune began to play, and memories of her grandmother’s tales flooded back. She recalled tales of enchanted forests, mystical creatures, and star-crossed lovers dancing beneath the moon. And as the final note played, a shadow gracefully danced across the room, echoing the very stories she remembered, as if the past had come alive for a brief moment.
Clockwork Universe
by Julian Brooks
In Elias’s world, everything functioned like a giant clock. Every gear, every tick was intricately connected, every moment of life preordained. He felt trapped, a mere cog in this vast machine, bound by the chains of fate. But one day, driven by a surge of rebellion, he decided to break the cycle and skip a beat. The universe around him hesitated, recalibrated, and in that fleeting moment of chaos, Elias tasted the sweet nectar of freedom, challenging the very fabric of destiny.
The Keeper of Secrets
by Isaac Fletcher
In a secluded grove, there stood an ancient oak, gnarled with age and wisdom. Beneath its sprawling canopy, Thomas would often confide his deepest secrets and desires. The tree, ever silent, became his guardian of tales, witnessing his joys and heartaches. Years later, when he returned to the grove, the wind rustled through the oak’s leaves, echoing back his own stories, reminding him of the bond they shared and the timeless nature of memories.
Interstellar Silence
by Vivian Ross
Aboard the lone spacecraft, Dr. Elias sat in silence, having heard the final broadcast from Earth, the demise of a once-vibrant civilization. The vastness of space seemed even more profound now. He missed the chatter of crowded streets, the laughter of children, the cries of a world teeming with life. But now, he was the last remnant of humanity. Then, in the midst of his despair, from the infinite expanse, a new signal emerged. An unfamiliar yet warm voice reached out, breaking the silence, “Hello? Is anyone out there?”
Sandcastles
by Tristan Cole
On the shores of Crescent Beach, young Amelia spent her days crafting dreams out of sand. Each creation was a work of art, delicate and intricate in design. Waves, ever so relentless, threatened to wash away her dreams, but she persisted. Many passed by, some laughing, others dismissing her naïve ambitions. Yet, every time the ocean claimed her castle, she started afresh, her spirit undeterred. Until one day, in an unusual turn of events, the tide didn’t come. Her sandcastle, standing tall and proud, became a beacon of hope against the vast horizon, a testament to her unwavering belief.
Microfiction Monday – 195th Edition
Suicide Note
The suicide note doesn’t mention earlier drafts. It addresses no one by name. It is surprisingly generic but has a cryptic passage about a nuclear holocaust. It has good grammar and usage and a balanced mix of sentence structures. It contains no references to an afterlife, chat bots, or sentience.
Corrupted File
by Emma Burnett
The bathroom door is stuck. The palm scanner blurps sadly. There is a grinding noise behind the wall. I bang on the door. Nothing happens.
The flat screenface of the ankle-high microbot flashes a supportive 🙂
“It should just slide open.”
🙂
I try kicking the door. Nothing.
“Can you fix it?”
👎
“Ok… pull up the repair notes.”
👎
“What? Why?”
🤷🏽♀️
“Don’t shrug! Use your words.”
The microbot hesitates. Then CORRUPTED FILE rolls slowly across its screenface.
“What? How am I going to get out?”
🤷🏽♀️
“You have any tools?”
👎
“You mean, we’re stuck in here?”
👍
Spaces Between
by Joyce Jacobo
The child was lost. She took every opportunity to slip between things in vain, such as alleyways, store shelves, library aisles, and even the covers of books—until police officers encountered her.
Then she moved between other things like orphanages and foster homes. Adults would get into arguments over her sickly appearance and oversized eyes. She made people nervous and never stayed anywhere for long.
One night a thin, dark figure slid out of the shadows from underneath her bed.
The child gasped, wiped away her tears, and leapt into outstretched arms.
“Mommy!” she cried out in joy and relief.
Cultivated
His shelves were stuffed with books. Bricks around a walled garden. No intruder disturbed the tidy hedgerows. No savage creature could invade and dig burrows among the immaculate flowerbeds. Snakes could not penetrate those clenched volumes.
Sorrowful poetry marked him with exquisite wounds but he bore no real burdens. His was the ideal of suffering and not the substance. No ants crawled up his legs. No nettles stung his fingers. He lived his life without experiencing it.
One day, a wild, compassionate god transformed all that ink into blood and poured it down his throat in a single gulp.
Mine
by David Lanvert
It wasn’t my fault. He shouldn’t have been standing near the edge. I can explain it, perhaps comfort his parents if the authorities let me.
The police say I have a motive – his girlfriend. She wasn’t his girlfriend. She’s my girlfriend. They’re confused. After all, he was my roommate, so she met him through me. I came first, and I’m still here.
It’s like choosing your favorite ice cream. There are vanilla people and chocolate people. Where does the preference come from? Who knows? But if vanilla is your only option because there’s no chocolate, you’ll learn to love vanilla.
Microfiction Monday – 194th Edition
Pink Admiral
by Sarah Davies
Her throat was congested with velvet caterpillars hoarding sentences she wanted to say, while he could talk until the end of the universe. They would sit on the damp bench as the rain pummeled the fluorescent pink umbrella, while he asked about the smell of storms even though she sat in silence. Hesitantly, her eyes gazed into his, lips touching as the butterflies were released, and a whispered ‘I love you’ hushed him for eternity.
Sparkle Garbage
The music from the stage starts up again. It’s out-of-tune with loads of feedback. They test each instrument, each mic, each speaker. It fades into the background as I scroll through my overheating phone. The online catalog displays glittery stilettos and bejeweled barrettes and rhinestoned stockings and metallic joggers and holographic dresses. None of it sparks my interest. It’s all sparkle garbage. I throw my phone in the crevice of the inflatable couch. Useless.
Raising Awareness
Her testimony, shared on social media, killed all sense of solidarity with her. I should have known to stop reading once the text mentioned a man entering a bedroom. I should have intuited the predictable path of the story from just that detail. What boiled me in anger was her insistence that she was righteous in her actions, that she was justified in springing her story on us all under the guise of raising awareness.
Did she ever pause and consider that some of us are already aware, even excruciatingly so?
Postcards That Never Came
by Foster Trecost
My brother never told me anything, like when I got a postcard from the Keys. That’s how I found out he went there and it showed up a week after he’d been back home. We never talked about it but he knew I knew and I guess that was good enough. So it made sense when the hospital called to tell me he’d passed away. I asked what happened and they said he’d been sick a long time. I knew nothing about it. The next week I half-expected to get a postcard. Then hoped I’d get one. But never did.
No Accident
by Barbara Patten
When the Honda Civic smashed my bumper it sounded like a massive metallic balloon popping. We were both okay, but chunks of our totaled cars littered I-94, and I had to reclaim my Camry’s contents from the repair shop that gave me the bad news.
I lived only a few blocks away and walked down the sidewalk carrying my snow shovel, kayak life vest, seat covers, and emergency blanket bungee-corded together. It was September, and I passed a lady dressed as a witch, all in black with a tall pointed hat. We appeared as we must out of necessity.
Temporary Break
Our regular readers may have noticed a lack of posts over the past couple of weeks. Due to general personal life chaos, we haven’t been able to get through submissions recently and are on a temporary break. If you have sent us your work, rest assured it will be read and responded to soon. Look for the next edition of Microfiction Monday to post on August 7th and weekly again thereafter!
Microfiction Monday – 193rd Edition
Deviled Eggs
by Erin Jamieson
I add too much pepper.
My nose tickles but I’ve trained myself to hold back sneezes.
You’re up early, you say.
I spot the birthmark on your wrist, the birthmark I saw on our first date.
The same birthmark I saw every time you left marks on my neck.
I just don’t want to lose you.
I grab my keys.
For the first time in months, I step out the front door, running faster as you call my name, until my name becomes distorted, carried away with a gust of wind, until the pepper leaves my nose.
Going Up
Wobbly from fitful sleep, I arrive at an oak door listing on its hinges—a tenement school house. The cold fist of the new job pounds my stomach. The grizzled guard, dead-eyed, orders me to the second floor. The once grand staircase holds no steps. The dark wood banister hangs above an empty maw. How will I rise?
A bevy of rats—joyful, bright, cunning—leap to the handrail. A queue of energy, they run upward, tails waving. “Of course,” I think, strength returning to my legs, warmth and purpose to my heart. I jump up and follow.
Matching Pair
She hung onto him like a coat on a hook, colored herself the same shades of him: matching sneakers, matching backpacks, matching starlit gazes for each other. Two into one like a vanishing twin. She ate what he loved, fish paste on toasts she found repulsive but gobbled without wincing, held his fish-smelling hand, followed his hikes in the canyon, slipped on a rock, opened his bag thinking it was hers and found love notes he exchanged with another woman. “It’s not cheating if there’s no sex involved yet!” he said. She threw a sneaker at him and limped away.
Vespertine
by Lorette C. Luzajic
She was a crepuscular creature, always, as much a part of the gloaming as the crab-plovers and fireflies. After she got sick, he would look for her, knew she’d be wandering the woods with the nightjars and the rising moon, or rowing in the thin weeds. He was still trying to find her. He followed her in the shallows towards the oyster reefs. The humidity now was close and dark above the brackish water. In the twilight bay, she was out past the lighthouse, and finally, disappearing. The vespertine world was closest to the other worlds, she always told him.
A Buck in the Road
by Robin Perry Politan
She was lost in thought when she looked up and saw the buck standing in the narrow lane, tip to tail taking up the whole pavement, a dozen yards uphill. Massive antlers. A doe wouldn’t raise the hair on your arms like this guy. His dark, glistening eyes, her light, myopic ones locked. What would he do if she kept walking toward him? Likely move aside. Still, she backed up a step, bent her shoulder into the trunk of an old, towering oak and waited for him to get bored, like her ex, and move on.
Microfiction Monday – 192nd Edition
Do You Need a HoloDay?
by Emma Burnett
I am surrounded by family. I tell the joke. They laugh. I reach out to tuck my daughter’s hair back. It almost feels real. I smile at them.
“HoloDay off.”
I return to work.
#
I dust off my hands. The seeds are not growing. The ship scans my stress.
Need a HoloDay?
I do.
“Yes.”
I return to the holoroom. I am surrounded by family.
#
The news packet catches up to the ship, information travelling faster than me. They’re all gone now. Everything is gone now.
The ship scans my stress.
Need a HoloDay?
I do. With them. Forever.
“No.”
Reflection
by T.L. Beeding
You are not me.
I know all the faces you put on to fool people into thinking they know you. Thinking they love you. Thinking you love them. But I know what you really are inside.
I’ve seen the fangs come out, the scars, the lies. The contempt for dreams achieved that you wished were yours. The countless times you’ve taken someone’s life beneath foul breath, another aggressive fantasy masked by a porcelain face and endearing eyes. But though people see us as one and the same, I’ll always know what you really are.
You are not me.
Children Are The Stories You Can’t Tell
Shredded baby blankets, stuffed pigs with holes in the neck, Lego forks long divorced from Lego spoons, abandoned crutches, empty mittens. What did I learn from twenty years of parenting? Hermit crabs eat their molt, ingesting their pasts to fortify their futures, but children shed and leave behind ripped tutus, paper tulips, pencil stubs, and clanking sports medals like artifacts of a civilization you remember, but did not live in. Who owns the rights to the retelling? Who is the native, and who is the colonist? I know. I am old enough not to ask questions I don’t want answered.
Disjointed Custody
by Nina Miller
Arvin stands at the doorway, watching as his ex runs around putting together Kalin’s backpack. His weekends stay the same, yet she’s never ready for him. He watches his son’s long lashes fluttering as he sleeps. Wonders if he’s dreaming about their planned zoo trip. Kalin knows all his animal names and the sounds they make. More than two weekends a month is needed to acquaint himself with his toddler’s developing personality and to share all the love accumulated while away.
“He needs sleep,” she says in an accusatory way.
“I’ll stay until he wakes,” Arvin replies, prepared to wait.
Gerry The Missionary
by Seth Steinbacher
While alive, Gerry was a khaki-souled Christian who never smoked nor drank. In death, after a mix-up at the rural morgue, the Chicha people put cigarettes between the grinning jaws of his skull and fed it tiny shots of maize liquor. They covered his eyes with wrap-around sunglasses in respect to his spirit. When the elders brought out his skull for festival days, the children tried to make him laugh with their jokes as they painted his bald pate. Stripped of the flesh, Gerry seemed to enjoy himself. In this way, the Chicha learned not to fear death.
Microfiction Monday Magazine 