Short Story Posts

sunlight creeps through venetian blinds into a dark room

Unseen

By Anikah Burge It started out like any typical day would for me. As Mama made lunch in the next room, I watched the world through the only window I was allowed to look through. I never grew tired of the view. We lived next to and across from many…

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A paper origami bird hanging from a string

Tender

by Elizabeth Christopher Sylvie’s done with worry. She clicks off the ten o’clock news, thinking what a relief it is to be done with it, like a cool current rolling under the skin. Their kids are grown and gone. Their youngest didn’t turn out to be soft in the head….

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Sugar cane being processed for juice

Sita, Govinda and Me

by Peter Breyer Who loved me more, Sita or Govinda? The thought consumed me as I exited the Pan Am Clipper in Bombay. The air was so thick that it smelled. I walked into the terminal with large, swirling fans hanging from the dirty ceiling above. Counters were piled high…

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Sliced loaf of bread

After Auschwitz

by Kaitlyn Badger-Turner It was fall of 1944 in Auschwitz Birkenau when Joseph’s will to live was almost completely snuffed from him. He collapsed face first in the thick mud, barely registering people shuffling around his crumpled figure. A young woman with shaved hair and sunken cheeks eventually turned him…

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Remote cabin in the woods

That’s the Puzzle

by Regina Thomas We’d needed a trip to get away. From what, I’m not sure. But Geneve said we needed to get away, so we got away. The first night I was the one who made the mistake of discovery. I’d been looking around for any possible entertainment after determining…

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Poppy flowers under the sunshine

The Good, Bad and Definitely Ugly

by Livingston (This story contains drug use and overdose) There wasn’t any sign that Jordan had been crying alone on the rooftop when Isaac called out to her. No Swift or Sheeran playing at max volume. Just her and the fog and the red glow from the bridge lights on…

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Cigarette burning and smoke rising

When the Heart Closes

by Jennifer Page My dad was fascinated by quantum physics. “The physics that explains how everything works: the best description we have of the nature of the particles that make up matter and the forces with which they interact.” (New Scientist) My favorite time of day when I was five was when…

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Coffee in a white mug

Late Morning Coffee

by Ralph Souders The last cars of a slow moving, westbound freight train clamored noisily through the empty, Riverside station as Jack Archer prepared to brew some more coffee. The rush hour had long since passed and he had sold about eighty cups of his hearty, hot beverages that morning. Soon…

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Paintbrush dipping into paint on palette

The Nameless Lady

by Christian Sexton She looks like a common painting, so common that I can’t decide which one. And she’s plain. She’s the person between girl and womanhood that’s not stunning and not ugly. You walk by her every day and forget her seconds afterward. “I am not from here,” she…

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A barbershop pole with a light above it

Belzoni’s Calling

by Eric Sommer Belzoni stood in the doorway, squinting into the dark interior. On the back wall, a large sign said Barbershop; it had a large, old-style peppermint-stick barber pole sign out front, too, which drew him in from the street. The interior, as best he could tell, had all…

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