Portrait - page 3 - all works

Short Fiction

Portrait Suspense & Mystery 5 min Mature Audience

Tomorrow

"Want a ride down?" Jorge asked.
"I'm gonna walk, get some air."
"How do you think Eddie's gonna act?" Jorge asked.
"Won't be here to see."
"Don't you think it could be a bit..."
"Jorge ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow 4 min

The kitten-shaped egg timer on the corner of the mattress beeps and they switch positions. Now she is cradling him. His head rests on her slender left arm; her right arm she drapes around his waist ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait 3 min Mature Audience

There Is No One Backstage

Travis Wade Beaty

Henry Miller is waiting for his cue to go on stage. He is about to become Aiden Bennington, a condescending trust-fund brat. But before that, there is a moment in which he is neither himself, nor an ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Magical Realism 5 min

Stone Maidens

Susannah Rickards

Billy got in touch. We must meet and soon. I have a secret to reveal that only you can understand – a true exquis. As if we hadn't lost touch years ago.

The charge of his excitement ran through ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Modern Love Love & Loss 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

Portrait 4 min

Laura's Reflection

Simone Martel

Laura balanced on a stool beneath the skylight, the sun's warm pressure on her back. "Am I okay?" she asked her father.

"You'll do." He winked at her over the easel.

Downstairs, the front doo ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Suspense & Mystery 4 min Mature Audience

Butterflies

J.T. Hamilton

Seven-year-old Isabella Thompson pressed her hands into the cool, moist dirt of her grandfather's garden. She peeled away the surface like an old scab. Beneath, a reddish-brown earthworm squirmed – ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Love & Loss Slice of Life 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

Portrait Love & Loss 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

Portrait Slice of Life 5 min

Charlie

Tammy Emo

"Charlie...Charlie...are you daydreaming again? It's work time now, please get your pencil," asks Ms. Amy sweetly.
Charlie Madison is in the 3rd grade, at KB Woodward Elementary school. Generally ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Nostalgia Suspense & Mystery 5 min

Glacial Motion

Seymour Aab

August brought with it a new easy-swallow scheme by a new self-improvement mentor. Luna Rojas had measured out her life with the likes of them – detoxes, spiritual awakenings, fad diets. She craved ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow 3 min Mature Audience

Disappearing Acts

Erin Kirsh

When she left, Anita took Mom's valise, the round one with the wooden handle from Eaton's department store. Mom was furious. She'd had it on hold at the store for weeks while she earned enough to ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Humor Sorrow 2 min

Inheritance

Susannah Cate

Joan feels remorse for having hated her toes most of her life. She inherited them from her grandmother, who had hated them too. Her grandmother had cried at the swimming pool on Joan's 11th birthday ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Slice of Life Sorrow 3 min

Out of Reach

Julie Wilkerson

He was reaching for the top shelf then stopped. He moved his eyes to the next, lower shelf down and chose a jar. His hair was sheet white and his body frame resembled my father, tall and heavy set ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Suspense & Mystery Quirky Sorrow 2 min Mature Audience

Trespassing—a Criminal Offense

Mark Budman

The dryad who lives inside the oak tree has been terrorizing the condo building dwellers for generations. She throws acorns and pours sap and drops pollen on their cars, and causes severe allergies ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait 4 min Mature Audience

The Newspaper Tunnel

Helen O'Neill

The house seems incongruous on the immaculate street. There are weeds invading the spaces between the broken tiles that lead up to the flaking front door, and a plastic bag rustles, as it struggles ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Love & Loss 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

Portrait Sorrow 4 min Mature Audience

God is Greater

AJ Rocca

"In their search for ‘devil's gold,' as they call it, about 300 miners make a daily climb two miles up the mountain, then head downward more than 900 yards into the volcano, where the sulfu ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow 3 min Mature Audience

Chaim's Golem

Avra Margariti

I got the idea from one of your old stories. Building golems out of river mud and whatnot. Except I didn't want a golem. I just wanted you back by my side.

Peddling clayware in the sweltering ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Nostalgia 4 min

Vitis Californica

Simone Martel

Emma pads through the living room, over the thick, ivory carpet, and settles on the chaise longue with her wineglass. As she tastes the cold white wine, her gaze falls to the fields on the valley ... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Tomorrow

Comfort

There Is No One Backstage

Stone Maidens

How I Learned to Stay Alive

Laura's Reflection

Butterflies

Super Troopers

Shiny, Pretty, Bright

Charlie

Glacial Motion

Disappearing Acts

Inheritance

Out of Reach

Trespassing—a Criminal Offense

The Newspaper Tunnel

The Job You Want

God is Greater

Chaim's Golem

Vitis Californica