Short Fictions - Short Édition - page 9 - all works

Short Fiction

Portrait Romance 5 min

Lucia and Salvatore

There was no sunlight that day, and flowers with banners naming the giver had no aroma. The Godfather theme music played in Maria's head while a cast of characters, like sepia photos in her mother's ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Historical Sorrow 4 min Mature Audience

My Friend Matty

FC Pierce

My friend Matty believed he could fly. "I have the cape and everything," he told me one afternoon. We were playing knights and dragons in his backyard when he pointed to the roof.

"You want to ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait 4 min

She Danced

Rachel Carrington

She danced naked in the rain, her palms upward to accept the droplets of moisture. Captivated by her own imagination, lost in a world of her own creation, a world where outsiders weren't welcome ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Modern Love Portrait 2 min

Off-Sale

Hassan Melehy

Across a wood-grain bar in southern Minnesota on the way to Buddy Holly roller coaster in slower Iowa, I lay a few dollars on the bar for the sixpack of Blatz (cheapest they got and straight from ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Sorrow Love & Loss 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

Slice of Life Historical 1 min

East is Left, West is Right

J. Scott Miller

Near midnight she pedals her rented bike past Checkpoint Charlie. Vacant, but suitably restored, the off-white, utilitarian guard box occupies the middle of the street, protected from a barrage of ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Modern Love 3 min Mature Audience

Bayshore Piano Movers

Anna Ziegelhof

This job is a grand. We're supposed to deliver the piano from a suburban chateau into a self-storage facility. Why doesn't matter. Pick-up address, how many floors down; delivery address, how many ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Modern Love 3 min Mature Audience

A Box of Things

Nathan Alling Long

"She's a difficult pleasure," I said of my ex-wife. I was standing at the front door of her house, talking to her new partner, Sammy, a woman. My ex-wife, Lily, was not there.

We both took in ... [+]

Short Fiction

Suspense & Mystery Portrait 5 min Mature Audience

Tomorrow

Joshua Shepherd

"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

Quirky Humor Absurd 3 min

Solomon's Lines

Jesse Richmond

Fred tiptoed into his room and slid into his desk chair, casting a worried glance over his shoulder as he opened his laptop. Typing as quietly as he could, he logged onto Artium Obscurorum and ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Love & Loss 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

Slice of Life Modern Love 4 min

Seamless Transition

Daniel Freeman

In front of him, for nearly every minute he was awake, there was a screen.

He tried to recall a time when it wasn't this way. He couldn't, so he watched old movies to try to remember.

"Yeah ... [+]

Short Fiction

Modern Love Love & Loss 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

Portrait Sorrow 4 min

Comfort

Zachary Kellian

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

Modern Love Portrait 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

Suspense & Mystery Portrait 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

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 ... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Lucia and Salvatore

My Friend Matty

She Danced

Off-Sale

The Girl Who Liked Cats

East is Left, West is Right

Bayshore Piano Movers

A Box of Things

Tomorrow

Solomon's Lines

Broken Nights, Shattered Glass

Seamless Transition

She Squared

Comfort

There Is No One Backstage

Stone Maidens

How I Learned to Stay Alive

Laura's Reflection

Butterflies

Super Troopers