Short Story
The Intern
He wore my face in a clumsy expression, with eyes that lingered on the floor and an intern’s meager voice that echoed off the walls built on tradition and nepotism. Their wings clipped by the room’s noise of fashion degrees and wealthy parents, his words stumbled, then fell from his tongue in my familiar way and landed squarely on the meeting table. The table’s selection of tailor’s shears and fine fabrics became macabre instruments of a post-mortem examination on those words that died the moment they left his throat. They might have buried them on the spot, another intern’s corpse beneath the corporate floorboards, had the central London, Savile Row address not been too rich for his blood.
By Nathan Hutchins5 years ago in Fiction
Survival
The war was inevitable. Everyone saw it coming, yet nobody was able to figure out how to stop the missiles from screaming through the skies. Nobody could create peace to stop death. The only ones that still slept were the nuclear missiles. It seemed the only thing anyone could agree on was the fact that the planet needed to be livable for when the war was over.
By Patrick O'Connor5 years ago in Fiction
Ella's Heart
Ella awoke cold, hungry, and afraid like always. The eight-year-old pushed her dirty blonde hair away from her face. She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes hoping for a better world than the one she fell asleep in. It was not. She stood up in her mud-soaked dress gripping her dilapidated teddy bear determined to soldier on. Ella knew that she must keep walking, as she had been, for what seemed like days on end. Searching, praying, wishing she could find them.
By Sean Valinoti5 years ago in Fiction
Her
I had never seen such fire before. It was splattered all over her body; her fierce eyes and the way that they looked right through me. Her crooked smile that somehow compliments her straight teeth. Her restless hands and her tapping feet. The passion of her voice was infectious, and it always made me smile. I didn't care how loud she was, all I could think about was what her face would feel like in my hands. She could never know how much she truly meant to me.
By Grace Olson5 years ago in Fiction
The Telling Locket
It occurred to me while watching the television that we all liked something different. Krista liked the comedy; Stefan liked the drama and I preferred the documentary. We were required by the state to watch all 5 and then vote on Saturdays. Since the mandate, people had been disappearing. At first, it was something you just heard about, then, my former bunk mate, Natalie disappeared. The disappearances always occurred on Sundays and the government didn’t seem to mind that we had seen a correlation.
By Tracy Phillips5 years ago in Fiction
The Locket
The trifecta of misery hit hard in the summer of 2040 leaving the world’s population reeling from another pandemic, shortages in the food supply, and curfews implemented by the new world government. The new world government portrays itself as being for the people, the protection of the people. Sometimes, your protector is your oppressor.
By Cheryl Edwards5 years ago in Fiction
Heart-Shaped Breasts
Even before everybody started dying from the new flu, the number of medical professionals dwindled. It was the way of formerly lucrative careers with large buy-ins. By 17, so many kids had found their millionaire status niche online, replete with earbud and automatic car sponsorships. Pursuing anything else seemed frankly foolish. Profiting parents, easily placated by their children with the promise of no student loan debt, found futher schooling unnecessary. It was a win-win for everyone but the dying and diseased.
By Cali Loria5 years ago in Fiction
The End of the World or A New Beginning
Hello NASA, is anyone there? This is Apollo 20, returning from our extended stay on the moon. Is anyone there? Come in NASA… No response. What is going on Captain? It is more of our same experience from the moon, and we thought it had to be our communication devices. We made the decision to complete our required duties on the moon and then to return to earth as scheduled because we thought it was just our communication pieces. Now, it is more of the same, with the devices that are on the shuttle. The same no response, like it was on the moon. In the space shuttle, no response, and now it is time to worry. What happened to earth? To the people? No news. No communication now and it has probably been a couple months from our last message.
By Denise E Lindquist5 years ago in Fiction
The Reversal
Mary Lynfield held onto her cue cards tightly. There was a lump in her throat that wouldn’t go away. Even after being in this business for 12 years, she always got nervous before a show. Millions of viewers across the country had no idea that she actually hated what she did for a living. She was an introvert with a penchant for perfectionism and a bad tendency to self-deprecate. None of her staff knew that she’d rewatch old clips at home, just to focus on all the ways she could have done better.
By Mawia Khogali5 years ago in Fiction
