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 – 146th Edition
Replacements
by Nicole Brogdon
“Honey, I swear, in the middle of the night, someone pulled our bodies out the bed by our feet. Then replaced us with two old people.”
Curtis stroked Annabelle’s thinning hair, yawning. “Is that so?”
“Look at yourself!” She removed the sheet, exposing grey chest hairs, soft belly, thin legs.
Curtis gasped.
“Seriously! And me!” She jiggled underarm waddles. “I used to plank pose forever, on strong slender arms. These breasts… so firm once, I coulda served cocktails off of them.”
Curtis pulled Annabelle close. “Go back to sleep, Old Lady.” He smelled like himself, like a pear. But spoiling.
Monroe’s Nose
by Brian Beatty
Crows as big around as footballs filled the yard out front of Hurley’s rented trailer home.
As if taunting the hippie junk dealer and his decrepit hound. As if daring them to take their chances by stepping outside.
Hurley chuckled. “Where are you nasty buggers at the first of the month when rent’s due? Sure not around here.”
He understood talking to those birds meant he was essentially talking to himself again.
Monroe’s nose was working like crazy on the safer side of the screen door. Hurley had zero intention of letting his old dog out after them.
Sweet Surrender
by Benny Biesek
His pastries took 1st. After the gala, he escaped to his bakery to think.
“What is it to become untouchable?”
Quite weary, he turned dough in his hands, then laughed.
He’d leave it all behind: renounce his riches.
In search of answers, he waits in line at the food pantry, quietly avoiding the dessert section.
I’m Not Creepy
by John Young
“I’m not creepy. I’m observant.”
That’s what I told Lulu looking through my binoculars across the street at the man who buttoned up his shirt every morning at 8:15.
“Observant means you notice details that others don’t see, not that they can’t see.”
The man stuffed his shirt in his pants, wrapped a tie around his neck, and grabbed a jacket hanging on the back of the chair.
“And just like that, he’s out the door.”
“What color shirt was he wearing?”
“What?” I said narrowing my binoculars on Lulu.
“His shirt. What color was it?”
…
“See? Creepy.”
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