Microfiction Monday – 210th Edition
Thomas
It was never about doubt. Not really. Died and resurrected? Well, that’s some trick. But, I suppose, it’s got to count for something.
We could quibble about those miracles. Or dismiss it all as nonsense. Healing the sick? Feeding the hungry? Slumming with outcasts? Who does that?
And walking on water? Wow. That sounds risky. No thanks.
But put your hand here, Thomas. Where the blood is oozing. And know it is not about being saved. Or about heaven. No. It’s about the wounded.
Now what are you going to do?
Running with Wolves
by Azure Arther
No crackle of bones or screaming, no slow-sprouting fur or growling. It happened instantaneously, a terrifying rip, like a bandage, quick, if bandage meant skin, muscle, bone. Agony was too small a description, excruciating too complex. His body seized, frozen in pain. This moment, why the change was private, vulnerable, concerning. Why they hid: in wildernesses, behind closed doors, cages, basements. Besides exhilaration and freedom, the full moon meant foreboding, an underlying sense of dread. One solitary second, where silver bullets could tear flesh, and other wolves could set in. But they didn’t. In the next moment, he was gone.
Late
by Renee S. Jolivette
It’s late. No sign of life on my newsfeed despite my latest prompt: One night stands vs. friends w/benefits. Opinions?
Nobody ever posts after ten p.m.
The nurse has gone home. I’m left with the remote, my tablet and the morphine drip.
Nothing on TV. I scroll through friends. Study the women. Some haven’t aged well. At least they’re aging.
Theresa looks great, walking the beach with her scrawny husband.
“You’re incapable of love,” she’d said.
I’ve never fallen out of love. Not with any of ‘em.
I want to tell them. But what kind of asshole would do that?
Coworkers
by Val Maloof
I’ve seen you puke at the Christmas party, we disagree about spreadsheets, I eat cake on your birthday, I forget where you’re from, we go on coffee walks, I gave you a low performance rating, you are the only person I talk on the phone to, I have told you I’m thinking about quitting, we both have so much dirt on each other, so much power and yet no power at all, we hate it here, I really like talking to you every day, I really like talking to anyone every day, you could leave at any time, at will.
Both Sides Now
The long wall behind the breakfast table is a mirror. Mesmerized by this other me, Mom teases I’m as vain as she is. Each of us smoothing wisps and pinching cheeks until they hurt pink.
A window display of bikinis superimposes over my swollen belly and breasts in a circus side-show illusion of my pregnant body. I try to suck in, but the baby takes up too much space.
Black water kisses my toes dangling over the edge of the dock. Wrapping wrinkled hands around a steaming cup of chai, I stop looking at my reflection and close my eyes.
Microfiction Monday – 188th Edition
Small Electric Blueberry Lemonade
I blink. “It costs how much?” I still take the cup. The cashier chews a nail.
Overpriced and unsanitary. I harrumph. Tapping my card, I turn on my heel and trip.
Refreshment cascades in a shimmering arc onto the gentleman behind me, bathing him in icy slush.
He freezes. His white button-up turns translucent. Looking at me, he wipes off his chest and slowly licks the stickiness from his fingers flashing a Rolex.
Rich and dirty? Holy hell.
When he smiles, his eyes crinkle.
I swallow and turn back to the till. “We’ll take two small electric blueberry lemonades, please.”
We’ve Just Met, and I Adore You
I marvel at your face. You! My new baby. The operating room sterility, spinal block anesthetic effects and clanking of surgical tools mark the frigid ticking of time. Suspended within the white pale blue coldness of our glaring bright operating theatre, your face glows warm, tiny, cherubic. Miniature bow mouth, your five-pound human perfection stops time. Wispy lashes over closed lids I can’t brush. My arms strapped to the table. Instead, my laughter bubbles up through the smell of antiseptic and iodine, to reach you. “Hello, I love you.” Salty tears pool in my ears while I jiggle with joy.
Placing the Man
by G.J. Williams
The one they call Glebe, Mr Glebe, he of the muffler and the sorrowful moustache, he’s the one to ask, he’ll know who was who what was what. Treat him to some bottled god he’ll remember everything like it was yesterday. No enquiry too trivial. He’s been here forever, or close enough. Murders, wonders, scandals. You’ll see him about. He’ll be glad of the opportunity. Some liquid sunshine and he’s the world’s. He’ll set you right. He’s a graveyard full of friends. He’ll know the man you’re looking for and how he ended his days in a place like this.
Escaping the Memory
by Alyce Wood
I found you in the woods, sky still ravaged in ash and amber light.
Two squirrels waited with you. I always joked your hair was a squirrel’s tail—like that one in our yard, grey with the red streak down its back.
They can sense one of their own in trouble—and you were.
I sank to my knees, the smell of wet earth up my nose.
We were told not to search.
(“Could still be out there,” they’d said).
I crossed your arms over your chest, pressed your eyelids gently closed and asked you to please come home soon.
Mia Visits
by Rachel Miller
In a reversal of our usual roles, I drive. As the rain becomes ever more insistent, electricity arcs between us. We talk about anything and everything, stirring up a warmth that condenses on the windshield. When our voices tire, my mind views us from above: just a speeding metal lozenge, wending its way toward the thundering Pacific.
Thick, cold sea foam runs through the folds of my brain, gently fizzing over each sharp-edged thought. As Mia buckles under jet lag in the passenger seat, it occurs to me that giving in to the waves might not be so bad.
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