Short Circuit - Short Circuit #04

Short Fiction

Portrait Sorrow 4 min

Comfort

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

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 ... [+]

Poetry

Humor 1 min

Seashells

Vrishni Maharaj

She sells
Seashells
On the seashore
Sure, she sells these
Seashells
But does she see the ... [+]

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 ... [+]

Poetry

Romance 1 min

Ice Age

Irene Wright

It started with your betrayal
your pleas for my forgiveness.
You expected hell fire
but you ... [+]

Short Fiction

Modern Love Portrait Love & Loss 5 min

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 ... [+]

Children's

Adventure Friendship & Family 4 min

Pirate Creek

Lou Piccolo

Lake Tahoe, July 1st, 2018

Hello Benjamin,

I'm Erin. You don't know me, but I know a little bit about you. I found your library card in my bedroom in this cabin. Here's what I know about ... [+]

Children's

Tale Humor 3 min

The Queen's Riddle

Kathryn England

Queen Riddles was a fun-loving monarch who liked riddles and jokes. She had spent most of her life working out answers to riddles, so there were few who could trick her. All it took was a little ... [+]

Children's

Friendship & Family Humor Slice of life 2 min

A Hippo in the Kitchen

Edward Mack

There was a hippo in the kitchen. No one knew how it got there, or when, but there was undeniably an enormous, sloppy, disheveled hippo in the kitchen.
"And," I said, examining the lunch my mothe ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

The Quarrel

Jacqueline Seewald

Sun came out after rain.
Thought I'd never see the sun smile again.
Should have known
it wasn't ... [+]

Children's

Slice of life Humor 1 min

The Bear Under the Bed

Rolli .

Sometimes I can't sleep. That's because of the bear under the bed.

One night, the bear was breathing hard.

When he breathed in, the bed lifted up off the floor.

When he breathed out, the ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

Something

David Rogers

There's something in the woods
the same thing that hides
in the closet
under the bed
in ... [+]

Poetry

Melancholy 1 min

Flipside

Hannah Rousselot

If you find my sorrow
keep it. It has been too long

festering and coagulating
and ... [+]

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

Suspense & Mystery Portrait 4 min

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 2 min

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 ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

When you needed the work

Sean Mahoney

When you needed the work
But turned it down, had to,
So as to qualify for that SSI
That savings ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Modern Love 1 min

The Sword Swallower Cuts Their Tongue While Saying Goodbye

Jesse Bradley

The weather was good today, you answer whenever I ask how are you, how was your day. I don't know when we stopped talking about what mattered the most because you won't tell me. I ask are you ... [+]

Poetry

Melancholy Contemporary 1 min

Eclipse

Daniel Mark Patterson

I often cling too longingly
during hugs,
hold that hand one awkward
(beat)
too ... [+]

Short Fiction

Quirky Humor 5 min

The Night Library

E. E. King

I heard it before I saw it, a jingling of bells like the soundtrack to a corny Christmas movie. Then out of the mist rolled a small carriage, round and bright as a converted pumpkin. Florescent ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

There’s a body in the blueberries

Stephen Hundley

There's a body in the blueberries.
Inside the hedge
from where the bees emerge
and ... [+]

Short Fiction

Sci-Fi & Fantasy Suspense & Mystery 3 min

Bespoke

Shawn Bailey

In the movies, it's always an invasion. Us against them. And they've got tech that far surpasses ours. We fight in the streets and a ragtag group finds a weak spot that the advanced beings have ... [+]

Short Fiction

Modern Love Slice of Life 5 min

Dallas Fireflies

Zoe Marie Bel

It began at a sports bar, the kind of place the realtor would call "happy-go-lucky." In other words, if your barstool wasn't sticky, assume it had just been swabbed clean by CSI. There was graffiti ... [+]

Short Fiction

Suspense & Mystery Sci-Fi & Fantasy 5 min

Castrapitheca - City of the Ape

Peter Hankins

To call this elegant metropolis "The City of the Ape" does it a considerable disservice, but it is impossible to avoid. Every time we speak of something being as old as the Ape, we reaffirm the ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 2 min

To My Students

Melinda Brasher

You come to my class at night
Thirsty
You want to learn English
Pass the GED
Find a bette ... [+]

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 ... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Comfort

There Is No One Backstage

Seashells

Stone Maidens

Ice Age

How I Learned to Stay Alive

Laura's Reflection

Pirate Creek

The Queen's Riddle

A Hippo in the Kitchen

The Quarrel

The Bear Under the Bed

Something

Flipside

Super Troopers

Butterflies

Shiny, Pretty, Bright

When you needed the work

The Sword Swallower Cuts Their Tongue While Saying Goodbye

Eclipse

The Night Library

There’s a body in the blueberries

Bespoke

Dallas Fireflies

Castrapitheca - City of the Ape

To My Students

Man on the Doorstep