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by Pauline Creeden Survival means making hard choices. Just ask Jennie.
“Did you get it?” Mickey’s young voice echoed through the cold, empty grocery store. Jennie almost made a smart remark like: Does it look like I got it? But when she looked into her five-year-old brother’s sunken face as he hugged the other three cans to his chest, she couldn’t consider it. “I’ve got to go around to the other side to get it. Stay here.” by Christian A. Larsen And you thought ventriloquist dummies were dummies.
It was awful dark in there, that steamer trunk. Willie’d been locked inside for so long, he could almost smell the yellow coming off the crinkled newspaper wads that held him in place. If he could smell. But he couldn’t. Not really. Not when there wasn’t a drunk or a kid or someone’s cracked old grandmother to terrorize, because when they exhaled that fear, brother, it was like giving old Willie mouth-to-mouth, seeping from those rabbit-quick heartbeats into his body, all the way from the hand-carved cowlick of his painted-on hair to the cotton batting in his shoes. Willie loved that feeling. by Greg Rhodea A confession isn’t a confession unless one repents.
“Bless me, Father, for I have skinned.” Loren frowned and leaned closer to the mesh that separated confessor from penitent. He’d been at it for three extra hours now because Father Tim hadn’t shown up. Night had fallen, and the church outside the confessional was as gloomy as a closed mouth. This would be the last confession of the night, and Loren was tired and eager to get out of the ghetto and back home. He must have heard the man wrong. Yes, that’s it. “How long since your last confession?” A sound began on the other side of the booth, like someone snapping an empty nutcracker together. Click click click. It took a while for the man to answer, and when he did it came in a whisper. “Five hours.” by T. K. Kenyon Cats may have nine lives. Demon Lovers not so much.
I met my demon lover We danced and drank and sang old songs by Eric Ortlund Everyone has holes, but not everyone stares.
The day Christina talked to me in front of everyone, I was walking down the long driveway to our school with Jill, like I always did. We made sure not to look at anyone else and cracked quiet jokes with each other to get ready for the day. From far away, I could see a dirty pile of rags beneath the Hillsdale High School sign, but I didn’t think anything of it. When we walked by the Homecoming banner, I looked at my shoes, pacing one, two, one, two, took a deep breath, and asked, “So, you going to the football game tonight?” Jill snorted. “Right,” she said. Then she looked at me. “Wait, you weren’t going to.” by Barrie Darke Didn’t a wise person once say, “You know not what you ask?”
Mr. Maitland was looking at his reflection in a small hand mirror he kept in his desk drawer. It was his wife’s, he supposed, though how it came to be there he couldn’t remember now. He hadn’t taken it all the way out of the drawer, and was leaning over slightly to see, because he knew it was probably a misstep to be doing this. As for his reflection, it was what it was, as he heard some of the younger people around the place say. |
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