Short Fictions - Short Édition - page 11 - all works

Short Fiction

Suspense & Mystery Quirky Portrait 2 min Mature Audience

Trespassing—a Criminal Offense

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

Slice of Life 1 min

Paper and Ink

Mountain Nose

She didn't think herself a racist. She'd had black school friends, worked with black women at the restaurant, and watched Oprah daily.

But when her seven-year-old, white daughter brought home a ... [+]

Short Fiction

Sorrow Love & Loss 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

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

Humor 2 min Mature Audience

The Men in the Woods

Daniel Wallace

The men who live in the woods behind my house had been getting out of hand for some time. They were all in their mid-fifties, golfers formerly, and meat eaters -- jolly men in general -- but since ... [+]

Short Fiction

Humor Slice of Life 5 min Mature Audience

Holiday Fling

Nancy Coulter

I was licking salt from the rim of my glass when Asli told me that elderly pelicans are often blind. She claimed that the force generated from smacking the water during a dive (and the fact that ... [+]

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

Humor Quirky Absurd 4 min Mature Audience

Captured by the Dragon Cult

Laurence Raphael Brothers

Probably I shouldn't have looked in that NO ADMITTANCE HIGH VOLTAGE DANGER OF DEATH door. I was loitering on the ramp to the #7 subway train at Grand Central Station. I didn't want to go home to ... [+]

Short Fiction

Suspense & Mystery Sci-Fi & Fantasy 2 min Mature Audience

When No Cats are Gray

Deborah L. Davitt

Through the weeping household stalked a small black cat—just past kittenhood, and more gamine than gangly. She darted past the skirts of a grieving wife as the woman buried her face in a ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Suspense & Mystery 2 min

Man on the Doorstep

Georgia Morandi

There was a man on the doorstep, all leatherette shoes and easy iron trousers. When I say doorstep I mean the pavement between the threshold and the hazard lines of a busy junction.

His head, too ... [+]

Short Fiction

Sorrow Portrait 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

Sorrow Slice of Life 2 min Mature Audience

Always

Daniel Wallace

They went out for a coffee and then the next night went out for dinner and the next they didn't go anywhere but to her apartment where they had a massively wonderful night in bed. The sex was ... [+]

Short Fiction

Sorrow Portrait 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

Nostalgia Portrait 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 ... [+]

Short Fiction

Sorrow Historical 5 min

Long Shadows

J. Anthony Hartley

I sat staring deep into the flames, listening to voices stirring the wind around me. Soft footfalls pressed through the grass stalks, rustling gently. Though I couldn't see them, I knew they were ... [+]

Short Fiction

Nostalgia Sorrow Historical 3 min Mature Audience

Eggs

Andrew Stancek

Aunt Mila was the one collecting the eggs every morning but the chore is now mine. We have an extra daily egg since she has flown off and Grandma uses them to bake a cake every other day. Grandpa ... [+]

Short Fiction

Sorrow Romance 1 min Mature Audience

Just Enough for Jenny

Jennifer Shelby

While pulling lobster pots from the bay, Finn chanced upon the mermaid. His mind was on Jenny, dark with worry, when the mermaid appeared alongside his boat. An old friend once told him of a legend ... [+]

Short Fiction

Sorrow Love & Loss 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

Modern Love Slice of Life 2 min

Human Song

Shannon McLeod

We pull off at the side of the highway in Somewhere, Maine looking to sing to the snails. There's a deep shoulder of gravel here, so we assume it to be a parking lot. The sky and the water and the ... [+]

Short Fiction

Nostalgia Magical Realism 2 min

Some Weather

Aliceanna Stopher

It was one of those thunderstorms came on sudden-like. Before a body could cover its head it had passed on someplace else. Here, in our holler, we were used to such storms. We liked the surprise of ... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Trespassing—a Criminal Offense

Paper and Ink

Bar Lines

The Newspaper Tunnel

The Men in the Woods

Holiday Fling

The Job You Want

Captured by the Dragon Cult

When No Cats are Gray

Man on the Doorstep

God is Greater

Always

Chaim's Golem

Vitis Californica

Long Shadows

Eggs

Just Enough for Jenny

Curious Facts About Octopuses (And You and I)

Human Song

Some Weather