Love & Loss - page 2 - all works

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Nostalgia Magical Realism 4 min Mature Audience

While We're Yet Remembered

It was the splatter of liquid on my face that woke me. Shitty-quality beer, with a taste of loam. Awareness returned as it puddled beneath me, where the tree roots grew against my back. Feet on the ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Portrait 2 min

Masks

Hugh J. O'Donnell

The day after the election, he carved a mask.
The day after that, he carved another.
It had never been more than a hobby; a craft passed down to him by his grandfather, who carved and painted all ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Slice of Life Modern Love 3 min Mature Audience

Moondust

Lysander Champion

The night before Jen touched down on Earth, I was holed up in Rachel's bedroom in Houston. We had both made a valiant, fruitless effort to sleep; now it was three in the morning. Sometime around one ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Portrait Nostalgia 5 min

A Bunch of Early Mimosas

Emil Draitser

"So, you're happy, huh?" he says in disbelief.

He asks me this question several times during our two-hour get-together, trying to understand how I could feel so much happier about my life than he ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Slice of Life 3 min

Brick Room

David Evan Krebs

Sarah feels bricked up, even though she's riding her bike. She feels caged, because of where she's riding her bike: to a coffee shop to meet an ex she's not sure she wants to meet. He called her to ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Sorrow 4 min Mature Audience

Knitting for Leo

Alex Grehy

My mother taught me to knit.

Back then, knitting was a necessity, not some artisan craft like it is today. She would get patterns from women's magazines and cheap wool from the market. She ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Slice of Life Sorrow 5 min

The Girl Who Liked Cats

Dave Cuzzolina

Harold Gates slowed the snow-topped yellow taxi and edged it along the slushy curb to a stop where she stood, shivering in a tattered wool coat in a January blizzard on the steps of her unlit ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Slice of Life 1 min Mature Audience

Broken Nights, Shattered Glass

Bob Thurber

Straight out of high school Mick's uncle landed Mick and me second-shift jobs at a textile factory. I asked Mick what the company manufactured. Gigantic rolls of something, he said. From three until ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Modern Love 4 min Mature Audience

She Squared

Kathy Anderson

She sleeps like a dead weight now beside me, lowered into the night, the ropes of the day swaying around her. We know nothing about each other really. She does not know how often my ex-lover visits me ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Modern Love Portrait 5 min Mature Audience

How I Learned to Stay Alive

Jules Hogan

This story contains adult themes and is not appropriate for young or sensitive readers.

I met Sarkas at a club called Pose. Rolling on molly, eager to swallow the world, dancing with our hips ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Slice of Life Portrait 5 min

Super Troopers

Thomas Wharton

On the days I visited the care center, I'd walk past this used bookshop on a quiet sidestreet. There were these four books in the shop window that always caught my eye. Other books would come and go ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Portrait 2 min Mature Audience

Shiny, Pretty, Bright

Diane D. Gillette

Not long after she moved – ties cut, no looking back, he'd never find her on that side of town anyway, if he bothered to look – she found a string of Christmas lights at the thrift store when she ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Nostalgia Modern Love 4 min

Bargaining

Lyle Enright

I remember when my world divided into male and female, when the girls screamed "Shaun has cooties!" across the playground and flushed with what I thought was anger. I remember being in a closet with ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss 5 min Mature Audience

Maggie and Mary

L N Hunter

First thing every day, I count out the same colorful cocktail of medications into Mother's four containers: morning, midday, evening meal and nighttime. Two pink pills shortly after waking up, and ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Sorrow 5 min

Bar Lines

Kris Loughlin

The first time it really hits me, I'm staring at the peeling paint on the doorknob.
I long ago memorized the feeling of coming home – the click of my key in the door, the scent of Mom's stir fry on ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Portrait 4 min

The Job You Want

James Ross

Mr. MacInnes had decided it was time to talk to Brian about his appearance. He didn't want to, lord knows he wasn't a stickler for such things, but lately it had all gotten a bit out of hand. It ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Sorrow 1 min Mature Audience

Curious Facts About Octopuses (And You and I)

Avra Margariti

1. Octopuses have nine brains.
Me? I wouldn't want so many organs with which to overthink and fly into hysterics. You always ran from those—took the car and left me alone for hours, sometimes ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Sorrow 4 min Mature Audience

Munchkin

Kenneth Margolin

When did my heart harden? How did empathy slip away? Dr. Lindelson pondered these questions in the spacious office where she had practiced psychotherapy for forty years, since she completed he ... [+]

Short Fiction

Love & Loss Slice of Life 3 min

Two Old Men on a Bench

Ernest Fourachault

There were two old men sitting on a bench. They looked as if they were waiting for a bus, but when the bus went past, they were still there.
The one on the left was holding a bunch of flowers. The ... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

While We're Yet Remembered

Masks

Moondust

A Bunch of Early Mimosas

Brick Room

Knitting for Leo

The Girl Who Liked Cats

Broken Nights, Shattered Glass

She Squared

How I Learned to Stay Alive

Super Troopers

Shiny, Pretty, Bright

Bargaining

Maggie and Mary

Bar Lines

The Job You Want

Curious Facts About Octopuses (And You and I)

Munchkin

Two Old Men on a Bench