Short Stories
The River by Rick Hartwell Raymond knew he would eventually stumble on the river. He had heard the increasing crescendo of noise for about the past hour. He guessed it had been about an hour judging by the sun. His watch was still stopped at 3:17, Wednesday. It was now Friday. Of that he was…
Old Orange Shirt contorts his corpulent body and reaches for his wallet. This time he withdraws a fifty and tosses it onto the bar. Brown Eyes, who’s been watching, springs into action. “What’s a girl have to do to get a gentleman to buy her a drink?”
On the patio the afternoon rain had begun to fall. You could hear the drops hitting the corrugated tin roof, a pitter patter at first like cat feet but then suddenly bigger, a crashing of sound
Flirtatious sport, at best. A mere distraction. But one exciting and flattering as all hell. So what if she was married? He was married too. They were both consenting adults; both knew where the other stood.
My thoughts are confused, the world is pitch-black, voices from another room are an incoherent chatter.
She was a girl then. She’d gone to Carlito’s Traveling Show with her mother, a woman who died young. Glossy red with white stars, the box rested on a carpenter’s table. Carlito climbed in.
It’s bloody freezing. Margaret reached out a thin, leather-gloved finger to activate the handicapped access. She pressed hard before replacing her hand underneath the blanket draped across her lap.
he fortune teller pushed the cloth curtains out of her way and stepped into the room, adjusting the oversized turban on her head.
Steve shoved his hands into his pockets and stood at the crossing inhaling faint ethanol, human sweat and Thai takeout. Emotions raced through his mind forming axon networks that blurted dejection
Arriving like a crepe-soled creeper, Edgar tapped gently on the door and she, with a fake whiskey voice pretending to be Rochelle Simonette the french actress, would
Gas. You need it. So into the station you steer your ten year old car. It has bad tires and multiple internal problems. You inch up to the pump. Cut the engine. It shudders and dies. Open the door.
My chores were piling up and I was behind on my school reports so I kneeled next to my bed as I’d seen kids do on TV and I prayed. “Please help me, God,”
The Doctor’s foot rested on the shovel. The Wellingtons were heavy and clogged. They laboured their way to the car boot. Now he was wrestling with the huge bundle. Cursing his mistake
Marijke writes a monthly story for us. She write our segment Stories in Africa, and her stories will some day become a novel. For now please enjoy them, we are honored to have her work on our site. You can find more of her work here.
The Man With The Universe In His Chest by J.D. Lee It’s cold. The sky is gray. The trees flash by the windows of my Dodge. Even pressed on the wheel, my hands shake. My heart pounds. My blood races. I know what I’ve done and I can’t shake the thought, I am the…