Short Circuit - Short Circuit #08

Short Fiction

PrinceMatch

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who was stolen by a terrible necromancer. He and his rotting, clanking horde abducted her from the palace gardens and carried her away and away until ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary Romance 1 min

Polyamory in Theory

Koji A. Dae

we spent seven years
planning our route
thieved maps and charts
marked the dangerous spaces ... [+]

Children's

Adventure Friendship & Family Sci-Fi & Fantasy 4 min

Bronnie and the Great Green Two-Headed Plague Dragon

E J Delaney

Bronagh's mother watched her toying with her food.
"Sit up straight, Bronnie," she chided, "and finish your dinner. Your father's ready to read you a story."
"I don't want to."
"Well, if you'd ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait 4 min

All the Spiders

Floris M. Kleijne

Colonel Mathura beckons me forward, but the balcony is a maw with a balustrade of marble teeth. The crowd devours me with their cheers. I shuffle forward to be consumed by their support. The midday ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

A Man Alone

Stephen O'Donnell

Your widow came in to the bank today
Waving the certificate of your suicide around;

I go ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Portrait Society 5 min

Where Have You Gone, Chu Hua?

Kenneth Margolin

I met Mia for the first time at my tennis club. A small Chinese woman with dark brown eyes and short-cropped black hair, she greeted me with a heavy Chinese accent.
"Are you Ken?" she asked.
To my ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Nostalgia Love & Loss 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 ... [+]

Poetry

Nature Contemporary 1 min

Plum Island

Jagger Moore

The summers aren't so lonely on Plum Island.
It's me, the plum trees, the plum birds,
and the ... [+]

Children's

Poetry Adventure 1 min

Seasick Vick

Jenny Moore

Vicky was a Viking,
one as brave as brave could be.
On land she was a legend,
but she didn't like the sea.

Boats made Vicky queasy
and the waves made her feel yuck.
She'd rather not go ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Magical Realism 1 min

Tints and Hues

Dale Stromberg

Bellatrix Sakakino worked for a commercial bank, focusing on securities valuation and research, and nobody liked her. This was because of her tints and hues. The colors emanating from her person were ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

Beyond the Bridge

Robert Bulman

dreaming in San Francisco is like
dreaming inside a cloud
where the promises of our parents ... [+]

Creative Nonfiction

Reflection 1 min

Falling into New Year

Susan Lendroth

Autumn's here—Happy New Year!

Not for me, that pallid substitute in January with its noisemakers and forgotten resolutions. My calendar resets annually with the opening of classroom doors, no ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait 2 min

The Night My Father Danced Like Gene Kelly

E. E. King

Dapper in a topcoat and tails, feet moving fast and graceful as birds skimming still waters, he whirled and swooped, catching my mother, still young and slim, by the waist, bending her backward. She ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

Mid-American Back Roads

Mountain Nose

Flocks in flight,
Murmurations
Of rippling ribbons
Against rain-full skies
Above the ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Love & Loss 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 ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

My Aphasic Mother Rides the Rocky Mountaineer

Susan G. Duncan

window seat
facing forward
racing westward on rails;
every twist a next vista
the last ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Slice of Life 5 min

A Stranger’s Time

Drew Kolenik

I've never been less than an hour early for my train. I don't know if it comes from a sense of heightened preparedness or an ongoing current of anxiety that doesn't even let me sleep in on weekends ... [+]

Poetry

Contemporary 1 min

The Way Things Tend to Happen Sometimes

Jagger Moore

With a bit of whistling and a roll of the wrist
I slipped into some rusty overalls to go ... [+]

Short Fiction

Slice of Life Sorrow 4 min

Alight

Lisa Beebe

We bought the land to build a house, even though we knew it would be years before we could afford to build anything. We thought of it as an investment in our future. The land gave us something to look ... [+]

Short Fiction

Portrait Quirky Young Adult 4 min

The Girl in the Tree

Rolli .

Tracy Jo Freely climbed a tree one day. A plum tree. The big plum tree at the end of Miro Street.
"When are you coming back down?" her parents asked her an hour later.
"Never," said Tracy Jo.
He ... [+]

Short Fiction

Quirky Magical Realism 5 min

Separation

Chris Klassen

He couldn't say exactly when it fell off, was sometime during the night when he was asleep. But when he woke up in the morning, the ring finger of his left hand was off, tucked underneath the pillow ... [+]

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

PrinceMatch

Polyamory in Theory

Bronnie and the Great Green Two-Headed Plague Dragon

All the Spiders

A Man Alone

Where Have You Gone, Chu Hua?

A Bunch of Early Mimosas

Plum Island

Seasick Vick

Tints and Hues

Beyond the Bridge

Falling into New Year

The Night My Father Danced Like Gene Kelly

Mid-American Back Roads

Brick Room

My Aphasic Mother Rides the Rocky Mountaineer

A Stranger’s Time

The Way Things Tend to Happen Sometimes

Alight

The Girl in the Tree

Separation