Short Stories

9 MINMrs. Paard picked the lonely flyer from her mailbox on her front porch and let the lid close with a satisfying clunk. She leaned on her cane and scanned the Senior Center Environmental Caucus mailer…

5 MIN“She wanted you to have it,” Randall says. He holds it out, between us. What can you say to that? I move my hip from blocking the doorway. “Come in,” I say. I let him…

6 MIN“I am not leaving without my bride,” the man spoke on his cell phone. Armed with a gun hanging by his shoulder, he was standing outside his parked car in a residential neighborhood in Rawalpindi,…

10 MINPaul and Miriam met the old-fashioned way. He was working in her father’s law firm. She didn’t work much. When the mood struck, she’d accept substitute teaching gigs at public schools on Chicago’s south side,…

6 MINRose is transfixed by the singer. He’s pale-faced, with glistening piercings and spiky hair, and rocks a goth vibe that’s a throwback to the previous century. She smiles. You can’t go wrong with all-black. The…

10 MINPeople were coming in droves, some to say thanks and some to ask for things. There were women wrapped in shawls and women wearing jeans, men with curled moustaches and men wearing the typical orange…

8 MINMiriam claims she’s annoyed, but when the server asks if we’d care for anything else, round two gets ordered before I have the chance to say we’re fine. Our server, Jade, smiles and says she’ll be…

9 MINInexplicable, my commanding officer called him. He dared not repeat the whispers echoed by his subordinates, as if speaking made the unkillable man into a reality. In a trench packed with soldiers counting their remaining…

6 MINLife is a lot like chess. Just when you think you have learnt all the rules and know how to play, life forks you. Soon you need to decide what to sacrifice, or you’ll end…

7 MINI am the second Mrs. Roberts. Lily, with her long blonde hair, bushy as dried wheat stalks, with her doe-eyes, indigo with black at the edges, with her way of crossing those long leaping legs…

7 MINThere was no other word for it. It was envy. Strolling through the dense forest surrounding Lutterworth Manor, Lady Alice contemplated its abundant life. Two hares scampered across her path; a dragonfly darted among the…

9 MINAndrew lives two doors down in a split-level, which is a house that only has half of a second floor. We play at my house, though, because he likes it better. He only moved here…