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.
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 – 191st Edition
Resigned
by Andy Millman
When my coworker blew out the candles on her birthday sheet cake, I made a wish to leave my job. An hour later I resigned with some made-up excuse. I didn’t say how invisible I felt. My boss asked me to finish out the week. On that final Friday there was no sheet cake. I wasn’t even sure people knew I was leaving. One of my supervisors handed me a thick file and asked when I could summarize the reports inside. I guess he hadn’t noticed the box on my desk. I told him to check with me next week.
Photograph
by Raven Pena
A photograph is all I know of you and all I have of you. You’re young in this photo, and I can tell by your smile that your mouth is trying to move. Since you’re no longer here, you’re trying to speak to me from that moment in Hawaii from across decades, dimensions, and the space between living and sleeping. You’re saying: “Look at me. Look at me, slender and long, hair thick, tied up in a knot, teeth white and strong. I’m beautiful, happy, brown eyes glistening.” You’re saying: “You’re my granddaughter and granddaughter – You’re just like me.”
Monday, Peter
by G.J. Williams
Of all the thoughtographs to have emerged from the mind of Peter Monday, perhaps the most illuminating, sadly, is that of himself hand in hand with his own double. The landscape around them is lush. Birds fill the trees. There appear to be two suns in the sky. And Peter Monday’s faces? One of them is smiling broadly, the other looks as if it could kill. In the foreground there’s a swan oozing cool, its significance quite lost. However, look closely, note the birds in the trees, how their eyes are reminiscent of Peter Monday’s; there’s no escaping him, truly.
Breaking Baking Bread
by CLS Sandoval
She was frying donuts at Winchell’s, just thinking about her next move when she realized she hadn’t had her period in a while. She kept frying donuts. Frying gave way to baking. She did the kindest thing she could; picked a mom and dad. Shortly after giving birth, she stopped frying. But she never stopped making confections. 23 years went by. She made cakes and crème brûlée. She invited me to dinner, smiled, and cried. Thanked me for coming. We started our meal with the latest from her kitchen. A crisp, piping hot, loaf of soft, buttered French bread.
On The Page
by Emma Burnett
He asks to read my stories.
I ask if he’s sure. Some of them are kind of dark.
He says yeah, sure. I want to support you.
I pull up three stories, some of my favourites. I wait while he reads, trying not to pick my nails, trying not to fidget, trying not to say: Well? Well? Did you like it?
He reads. Then he gets up and gives me a hug.
Are you ok? He asks. Do I need to check for self-harm marks?
I look at him, and consider.
No, I say. It’s all there on the page.
Microfiction Monday – 190th Edition
Stay
by Susan Eve Haar
“It’s okay.” That’s what I say, but it’s not. You don’t throw a chair at your mother. I see my daughter’s rage, her face flushed with blood, her skin pinked with a fury that radiated murderously. Only the two of us are in that room, in this house, in the world of now. Two women in a line of women, the eggs in her body, the future hidden in her ovaries.
I stand my ground like with an animal. I make eye contact. I don’t ask her to heel, sit, beg. I ask her to remember that I love her.
Picnic
When the police arrive, the children are already a little calmer. Parents clustering around their offspring like a mother hen. The body draped under a beach towel. No one had noticed the splash, only the tree-swing rocking erratically and empty. A grief-stricken mother, her head bobbing in her hands. The serene Monet setting forever altered.
The Gateway
After the white of the eye was punctured, and the liquid sac removed from its interior, the incision was supposed to seal itself. Instead, it split open—tearing the membrane between worlds that should never have been allowed contact.
I can understand why the surgeon dropped his scalpel into the widening hole, even why the nurse recoiled, leaving me bound to the operating table. It wasn’t that, or the inky blackness that emerged howling from the wound—not the blasphemous things it did to their bodies. It was what it left inside me…what I would have to live with.
Skyscraper
by Tygan Shelton
They called it a skyscraper. A new word, meant to convey its staggering height and needle-like peak. And perhaps its hubris.
They called it a skyscraper. At 40 stories and 500 feet, it was the first of its kind.
They called it a skyscraper. They didn’t expect it to actually scrape the sky open, as a knife opens a fish and spills the guts inside. They didn’t expect what fell out.
The Diluvians
by Zebulon Huset
Everyone knew that it would stop. It couldn’t rain forever. It never had before, at least. Not in anyone’s memory or family history. Houses were replaced with houseboats, dogs with dolphins. The children’s gills functioned ok, the next generation’s would be more efficient—they hoped.
“Time has a way of doing that”, they said.
“What?”
“Improving things.”
“Can you believe some people used to walk on land?” A common rejoinder.
But language, language had found itself to be of less use than before. Shouting across oceans was never their preference anyway, and berths were fewer and farther apart than children.
Microfiction Monday – 189th Edition
Hounded
You are dreaming of that stag again. The one with two heads, antlers twisted like a birdcage. Like a temple. The one you chase through the slumbering forest. Your drizzling jowls. Your flanks twitching. Your feeble yelps as if you are far away among mossy tree trunks.
But you are here, curled at the foot of my bed. I’ll sail no ships and you will never sniff the pebbles on the shores of Ithaca. Tomorrow morning we will fasten our leashes to our collars and let the old routine tug us past shopkeepers sweeping their yearnings to the curb.
Trapped
by Ata Zargarof
A clammy July night; stars like broken glass on a driveway. The bedroom fills with eggshells as I use the words “space” and “change.” Her eyes grow large with fright—a doe’s lit up by high-beams. She swats my hand away, hyperventilating. Half an hour of honeyed consolations slows her breathing again. Pulling her to shore drains me of all my strength; my vision narrows, like I’ve just given blood. Her first sober thought is to ask me not to tell my friends. I press my nose to her scalp. Her scent blankets my fears like snow.
My Obsessive-Compulsions, Chronicled
by Cameron Wooley
Age 6: Cockroaches would lay eggs in my brain. I wrapped my head in a pillowcase.
9: Diseases. I washed my hands until they bled. They got infected.
12: Roaches, again. I stuck butterfly stitches across my groin, this time, to keep them from burrowing.
22: Babies. The butterfly stitches return. And washing. My hands, my everything. It bleeds.
24: Losing my son. I wrap him tightly, monitor his heart, wash him, dry him. I seldom sleep.
27: Losing my son: I send him to my mother, so I don’t smother him, scour him.
Save The Bees
by Lucia H. Miller
I had a dream about The Bees. They were silent and flightless, crawling around my bare feet by the thousands. With broken wings, they climbed over one another in desperation. I stood in the middle of them all, gently lifting my feet and trying to navigate around the dead and dying. I was so afraid of stepping on them, imagining that these tiny, helpless creatures would attach their stingers to my skin in a collective attempt to kill me. They crawled through the spaces between my toes, inviting me to hurt them, daring me to squash them to sticky bits.
Microfiction Monday Magazine 