Microfiction Monday – 208th Edition
The Quick
by G.J. Williams
Being lifeless, Cyrus strove to sound the exuberant note in all that he said, and, having little to say, loudly doubling the number of words required to say it. Was what little he had to say worth hearing? Sadly it was not. Was Cyrus aware of this? Sadly he was. Did he succumb to the knowledge? By the sounds of it he did not. Yet who knows the 3 a.m. of anyone’s soul. Cyrus surely clocked his. What there was of it. Life as lip-service was still life, still service. Did Cyrus believe this? Sadly, he did.
Accident
by John Szamosi
He runs over a dog and doesn’t even flinch. When I ask him if we should go back, he shakes his head. “No worries, mate, let the sleeping dog lie.”
Driving back an hour later we find a crowd at the site. It can’t be good. Getting closer we see the villagers butchering the dog and distributing the meat among themselves. I reflexively cover my eyes. No use, I can tell I’m going to be sick.
He puts his hand on my shoulder. “No worries, mate, it’s a man-eat-dog world here. We’ll be like that, too, just question of time.”
Busy Week
On Monday Alicia arrived to leave me, bringing her mother and two sisters for moral support. They sneered and helped her gather clothes.
On Tuesday her attorney contacted me and suggested I hire my own.
On Thursday Alicia returned, this time only with her mother. They hauled away more. She said papers would arrive by day’s end.
On Friday she called and said she was sorry it had come to this. “Can I keep the television?” I asked. It was a 4K smart TV that I’d grabbed last year in a Black Friday sale.
“Oh, Andrew. Just sign the papers.”
Disco 2000
by Mileva Anastasiadou
If you were a fruit, you’d be the sourest lemon, the way you shake my hand, like we didn’t once share our deepest secrets, and if you were a notebook, you’d be a diary, you only have to pat my back and I spit it all out, and if you were a party, you’d be a cozy gathering, you listen carefully, you nod in sympathy, and if you were a song, you’d be Disco 2000 but for a friendship lost, and if you were anything at all, you wouldn’t have left, not then, not now, you’d stay and hold me
The Shed
Thunder rumbled distantly.
From our window, we saw Dad enter the shed near the corral.
Excited to check on our rescued bunnies, Roberta and I slunk into the kitchen, peering into their box, warmed by the stove’s pilot light.
A clap of thunder startled us, made the bunnies squeak, so Roberta peeked into our parents’ bedroom to make certain Mom was still asleep.
She motioned me over, pointing.
Next to Mom was Dad, snoring.
Roberta dragged me to our bedroom. We knelt beside the window, staring into the night.
“That wasn’t Dad we saw, was it?” she whispered.
Microfiction Monday – 207th Edition
A Cheater’s Justification
by Claudia Prevete
When I cheated on my college boyfriend, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I did, however, Google “Am I a sociopath?” a lot that week.
The guilt, shame, depression, and inability to eat or smile that came next reminded me that I’m not actually a sociopath. His next girlfriend and his next, next girlfriend’s Picasso-like versions of my visage and vibe were nice reminders that he deserved it.
When I cheated on my college boyfriend, I guess he didn’t think it was that big of a deal.
Permanent Absence
by Natalie Kulick
The ghost felt sticky in her palm and on the tips of her fingers. Its back leg stretched into an unflattering shape, like it had swallowed a triangle that got stuck in the upper thigh. The ghost slinked away when the sound of a cat vomiting won the girl’s attention. She, the girl, Remi, fell back asleep with her hands nestled against her cheek. In the morning the ghost climbed into bed and laid against her. At rest, it formed into a dew, and absentmindedly, peacefully, she woke and wiped it away as if it were drool.
Mama’s Choppers
My mother wore dentures. I was fascinated by how she changed when taking them out to soak overnight. Her face would shrivel and suddenly I was looking at a newborn’s gums, wet and pink and naked. She’d laugh and smack her lips then place her teeth in a cup of water with an effervescent tablet. I think of her when my retainers go into a glass for cleansing and the blue bubbles foam at the top. When I look in the mirror and see her face gazing back at me. An old woman’s face sinking at the jowls.
He’s the Bull, and She’s the China Shop
by David Henson
He bellows that her feelings are porcelain, his brute terrorizing a tea set. She demands change. He snorts and stomps, shoulder shattering a Sèvres vase. Her “get out” a rippling muleta, steam rises from his hide, and his wrath wreaks havoc on Delfts, Laliques, Lladrós … Vowing she hasn’t seen his last, he crashes through plate glass. Jaw clenched, she sweeps and discards, ignoring pain from a piercing shard. Despite the damage, the shop has good bones. She embraces a fresh start, considers his parting words, and decides. The world needs more lady butchers.
Two-Timing
My best friend opened her wedding speech with, “Welcome back, everybody” and it tore the house down. Three of my college friends almost choked, spitting cones of champagne spraying, and I heard actual guffaws from my father and my second stepmother. Everyone laughed except my new husband, who clutched my thigh under the table, livid at the ignominious reminder that he hadn’t gotten me first.
Microfiction Monday – 206th Edition
Ripples in the Water
by Adrian Wood
On his 40th birthday, Mark discovered a mysterious pond behind his childhood home. Each stone he skipped across its surface revealed flashes of alternate lives. Rockstar, astronaut, baker, sailor. Electrifying concerts, floating amidst stars, kneading dough, steering a ship through storms. When he finally paused, he found himself aged decades more, as if each alternative had actually been lived and added to the tally of his years. Now there was nothing left.
Echoes
by Clara Reid
Morning light streamed into a forgotten room, revealing remnants of joy – toys scattered among the layers of dust and age. The wooden floor held imprints of countless feet, memories of children long grown. In the corner, an old rocking chair sat, its wood worn by time. Suddenly, it began to creak, moving gently as if pushed by the hands of the past. The room, silent for so long, now hummed with the sounds of yesteryears. Among the relics, one could almost hear the giggles, feel the rush of life, and sense the presence of those who once filled it with warmth.
Time’s Gift
by Hannah Kim
Amelia’s world paused when she lost her love, marked by the silence of her once-ticking watch. Seasons changed, but her heart remained in that frozen moment. Then, a paper rustled under her door, bearing words that piqued her curiosity: “Turn back time, just once.” With hesitant fingers, she wound the watch. It stirred, its rhythmic beats echoing her quickened pulse. Following its gentle tug, Amelia found herself in a familiar café. A place where moments were trapped in amber, and where, amidst the soft glow of old lanterns, love was given a second chance.
Through the Mist
by Sam Ortiz
Sara’s morning jog took an eerie turn as the fog thickened around her. Suddenly, a quaint village materialized, one she’d never seen before. Villagers greeted her by name, and her old sneakers turned into worn leather boots. By the time the mist lifted, Sara was part of a century-old photograph in the local museum.
The Watcher’s Dilemma
by DJ O’Sullivan
Ethan found solace in the silent stories he’d weave from his apartment’s narrow window. From lovers meeting to briefcase exchanges, he painted rich tapestries of life below. One day, amidst the routine hustle, a woman paused, gazing intently upwards. Holding up a handwritten note, it read: “What story would you weave for me?” Instead of engaging, Ethan hesitated, then slowly drew the curtains shut.
Microfiction Monday – 205th Edition
Slow Decay
by Sandra Plourde
The curtains and walls have a yellow tint, the smell of cold smoke locked into soft furnishings.
My mother had not smoked in years.
The air is stale, I can taste dust on my tongue.
The cupboards are full of duplicate purchases, unopened.
In the bathroom many used and unused bottles of dry shampoo.
The mantel in the living room is a shrine of family photographs and letters.
The armrest of the sofa facing the TV shows a dark stain where her head rested.
The doctors say my mother died of cancer.
I know she died of loneliness.
The Worst That Could Happen
by Jennifer Lai
One drop per day, the instructions read; she’d applied twelve. What was the worst that could happen? Her lashes become too long? Too luscious? Pfft. Already, she could picture her date’s face, Hollywood handsome, when he commented on her beauty. Stop, she’d gush, waving him off. Had she read the fine print, she would’ve realized the telltale symptoms. Blurred vision. Light sensitivity. Unrelenting eyelid itchiness. Instead, she blamed allergies, the dry air. Before their meals arrived, he cupped her hands, told her how beautiful she looked—a smile on his face, no doubt. A shame she could barely see it.
Swan Song
by Linea Jantz
Shrunken jack-o-lanterns squatted on the porch steps, gaping smiles sinking into their gums. Joe stood awkwardly on the doorstep, hands unsure where to rest. He and Frank had known each other for decades, since marching band back in college. But he hadn’t spoken to Frank’s wife since the day the flutist made her choice…and it wasn’t Joe. He wanted to pay his respects after the death of his closest friend, but now he wondered if he should have just sent flowers. He shifted uncomfortably as he heard the lock flip open. How long do memories keep their teeth?
Retirement Day
by Karen Walker
On retirement day, the yellow gerbera daisy on Carole’s desk blooms.
Although the day has come years early, Carole tries to be as sunny.
The manager presents a cheque and a card. “Travel, indulge, enjoy, grow: retire!” The new hire—a little rosebud ideal for a company that’s downsizing—wows at her nearly twenty-three years.
On the bonus for retiring early, Carole will survive until winter. On the balcony, the daisy until winter.
Then, it’ll be 8 to 3 every day at a big box garden centre and, for Carole, every day in a dirty north-facing window.
Bryan Regan’s Oath
by JS O’Keefe
An avid hunter but not a violent man, Regan has sworn if he ever raises a gun on another person he’ll never touch a firearm again.
Still when he sees the other guy looking exactly like him, raising his Browning at him, Regan shoots back with his own Browning. He doesn’t feel the bullet slamming into his forehead – he is dead before hitting the ground.
The police find a large mirror at the other end of the clearing and figure out it’s some idiot’s stupid prank, but since Regan shot at his own image they declare it a suicide.
Microfiction Monday – 204th Edition
Phil in Academia
Phil was a Cub Scout. Then a Boy Scout. Track and Field. Debate Club.
He breezed through undergrad English. Masters thesis on Restoration Literature. PhD dissertation on Samuel Pepys.
As a professor, he bedded sophomores. When that was still a thing. Even married one. Divorced. She got both girls and the house.
Phil drank too much. Retired early. Never finished that novel. Seldom saw his kids.
Maybe things would have been different if he’d thought to talk with the fat girl who sat behind him in 7th Grade. Whose name he never knew.
Maybe he’d have learned something.
The Missiles
by River Davis
No one knows where they come from and how they choose their targets. “They’re just a fact of life,” the adults would say.
If a missile hits someone important, you’d hear about it on the news. Otherwise, it comes up in a church group or at a potluck. “What a shame,” people would murmur.
Every now and then, they come a little too close for comfort. A best friend’s dad. Your parent’s dog. An old coworker.
Then, silence. It could be years between missiles. Life is good, you are invincible.
Then one lands next door and shakes your whole world.
Domesticity
by Jasmine Beth
I was falling asleep on the bed with the baby in my lap when my husband walked in.
“Hey!” he said.
I jolted. So did the baby.
“She looks wide awake. You should take her for a walk.”
“You should come with us. It’s the weekend. I’ve hardly seen you all week. We should do something fun together.”
“All right. Let’s go now then. The sun’s going down.”
He walked out.
“Actually, there’s too much to do here,” he yelled from the lounge room. “I’m going to vacuum.”
I closed my eyes. The baby started to cry. The vacuum whirred.
Numbers
by Sandra Plourde
80 – “Good one! Keep it up, buddy! You are doing it right!”
195 – “You are doing this all wrong! You need to be on top of it. No dessert for you tonight.”
52 – “How are you feeling, Darling? Drink some more. You need to be careful. This can be dangerous. You could die!”
330 – “This is unacceptable. You cannot keep doing this. Think of the long-term repercussions. You will pay the price later in life. You could lose your toes, or worse. Try harder!”
Tom, eight years old, diabetic, stares at the floor, wishes he was someone else.
Microfiction Monday – 203rd Edition
Unexpected Divergences
by Becky Neher
After he left her for another woman, she stopped hiding her newly-emerging gray hair and deepening wrinkles. She went to bed early, grew pansies, ate things with fiber. She bought comfy underwear. She started reading a book.
“She’s much older than you,” he had said.
At first, she had laughed.
Comfortably Alone Together
by Alexander Gerasimenko
Wish this moment would never pass. Cruising through the sunset, windows down, and one hand on the steering wheel. Love of my life rides shotgun, knowing I’ll eventually ask her to marry me. Not knowing when keeps her sparkly. The air is warm and infused with flowers, fresh on the skin as we flow through it; floating without an engine. The radio is off and we don’t talk for a while. Comfortably alone together. Guess that in the end neither one of us wants eternity, we just want life.
The Wasabi Effect
by Swetha Amit
I remember when my mother took me to a Japanese restaurant. She taught me to hold the chopsticks like a pen, scoop the sushi and gently dip it in wasabi. She complained about her nose being on fire when she had too much. She gulped ice water and warned me never to touch wasabi again. I think of her loud bouts of laughter followed by silent sobbing. Red marks on her wrist, forlorn eyes, painful conversations, the stench of urine in the bathtub. I think of how she rocked me to sleep. While I watched her close her eyes forever.
Remembrances from the Deck Overlooking the Yard
by David Klotzkin
The chimes jangled in the wind, and she suddenly remembered the bear.
On an autumn afternoon like this, the bear toppled the fence and ambled in. She’d marveled at it through the railing.
“It came in there,” she said aloud.
“I remember,” said her brother. “Pepper chased it off.”
“No!” she said. “We yelled and yelled, but it wouldn’t go until the cops used air horns.”
“What? No.”
“We didn’t have a dog then.”
They stared at each other, baffled.
The winds blew, the chimes tinkled, the shadows danced; now a dragon, now a horse, now a field of poppies.
Shedding
by Cameron Bertron
There is a girl with a lizard living inside her chest. Every night she must peel back the rind of skin above her ribcage to let it out otherwise, being nocturnal, it will patter over her lungs all night and keep her awake. It is a small, green anole. She used to delight in watching it cling to her sleeve or run over her crayons. But she was just a child. Now, she keeps it in all day. Even though she feels its impatience and, sometimes, the fish-bone thin hook of a claw as it squeezes between organs.
Microfiction Monday – 202nd Edition
Matinee
by G.J. Williams
The film talked and the leading man died. The tinny note had been struck and there was no getting away from it. News came from all sides. The face was no longer enough. The narrowed gaze in close-up required a timbre of command. Our hero tried and tried, his voice a thin man’s question. He took up whisky: it didn’t help; and harsher brands of cigarette caused only coughing. Eyes, cheekbones, lips: what they’d always been. The mirror, like the camera, lied. He was face down, floor strewn with torn reel. There were no suspicious circumstances. There’d been no guests.
Optimal Delusions
At first he saw an octopus. A grey octopus slumbering under a white picket fence. But it turned out to be tree roots. Decades of secret squirming out of his neighbour’s backyard.
And those mottled whales breaching the surface of a sloping sea. Imperfections in the concrete retaining wall along the railway underpass.
Verdant islands of the South Pacific? Or clumps of moss in the rain drenched alley?
These little visual anomalies visited more frequently each day. Until the edges of certainty blurred and everything became like everything else. Just another possibility.
Downtown Park
by Tim Boiteau
He liked the square park downtown best.
A tree, a bench, yellow-smelling grass.
He liked to circle the cracked fountain where water used to shimmer in the sun. A retirement home placed across the street kept the bench restocked with an old man. A different one or the same one each day, he couldn’t say for sure, they looked so interchangeable to him: hoary-headed, bent, droop-skinned. Within each window a creamy-eyed and shrunken face glaucoma-gazed at his circumambulations.
At the square park downtown all eyes projected his spry, youthful ghost beside a spraying fountain that still shimmered in the sun.
Martha and George
Martha brings a martini to her lips to begin each day. A black wind howls past the tombstones inside George’s mouth when he speaks. Martha’s a woman who’d latch onto your crotch like a vise grip and tell you it’s a new way of gettin’ right with Jesus. You’d drop to your knees, beg to be saved. George pushes a grocery cart down an aisle of empty shelves to end each day. Broken eggshells in the dairy case. Martha likes to watch the rooster she keeps for a pet scratch for grubs in the dirt. The rooster’s also named George.
Treasures
by Matthew Shepherd
The shape of the face, the song-like quality of the voice, the calming scent. All had incrementally evaporated from Carter’s memory until only the small, unexpected trinkets of Sophie remained. The swirls on her silver heart earrings, the time an inappropriate laugh was stifled, the trio of freckles which blemished her forearm. Each became more precious with every passing day. Carter considered these traces to be the very essence of love: the unhealed scars left behind once happiness has gone. Treasures that even Sophie’s illness could not steal.
Microfiction Monday – 201st Edition
Emma and Dixon
by Liz Mayers
When our old pear tree blew down, the children stopped playing in the yard after school. They’d throw pears against our fence, thump each other with ‘em, and leave the cores behind. When I’d shoo the rascals away, they never listened. I only shooed ‘em ‘cause I thought they bugged Dixon. But I learned he counted on the ruckus to wake him from his afternoon nap. He misses the fooling around. And so do I. We wanna attract ‘em again, like the bees and the butterflies. But growing another pear tree takes too long and we don’t have much time.
The Artifice of Perfection
by Chris Cochran
An educational consultant with impeccable skin lectures our department via videoconference. Your students, she says, are already using artificial intelligence to cheat. This is a threat to your school’s academic integrity.
She shows us a website that can calculate the probability that a student plagiarized using chatbot text. Software created to fix a problem that software created.
I’m transfixed by her countenance—slim jawline, large blue eyes, unnaturally full lips. Her complexion is flawless, impossibly, and that’s what gives it away: She’s using a filter, presenting someone else’s version of beauty as her own.
Note to Self
by Jamy Bond
When your mother is dying, go to her bedside and take her hand. Do what you can to ease her suffering. What you’ll remember years from now, watching a sun-washed sky at dusk, your husband gone and your children grown, won’t be her neglect or rage or blame. It won’t be her attempts to sabotage your escape. It will be a moment when you were 17, standing at the front door, suitcase packed, car idling in the driveway, and she looked at you with eyes that said, I’m afraid of losing the things I love; I’m afraid of being alone.
Waiting Room
by Melissa Ren
I stared at the wall clock. The second hand moved at a snail’s pace, defying the concept of time. The people in my periphery stared at the same clock. Waiting had this room beat.
With the office embedded deep underground, Wi-Fi didn’t reach the likes of us. I came unprepared. No book, no music, not even water. I thought I’d be in and out.
I hadn’t consumed liquids in over three hours, and yet, I’d been holding in my piss the entire time.
“Number 93!”
I jumped from my seat and handed in my papers.
“You’re in the wrong room.”
Three Universes Created
by JS O’Keefe
Driving home after dove hunting I almost ran over a rabbit.
”No doves,” I told my wife, “but I saw a bear cub on 228.”
“Good thing you were in your car. Mother bears are never far.”
Later my neighbor dropped by, “Heard you had a rendezvous with a black bear yesterday. How big was he?”
“About five hundred pounds. I am out in the woods and suddenly this monster bear turns up from nowhere, stares at me for a few seconds and slowly walks away.
“Good thing, because he could’ve dispatched you with a single swat.”
Good thing, indeed.
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 Magazine 