All posts tagged with short story

August 22, 2023

“The Jam,” A Short Story by Joshua Britton

Posted by Mike Rochester in Featured Posts, Writing

A black Nissan hatchback with its lights off rolls down the street. Troy is at the wheel, and he and Brandon listen through the open windows for community unrest. But it’s dark and quiet. The lights go off at 11:00, inside and out, whether you’re ready or not. Utopic villages like this one have sprouted up all over the country, segregation as a result of a rigorous application process. Troy had tried to be admitted just hard enough to know it was futile. These communities were designed to keep out gimps like Troy and minorities like Brandon. If discovered, how they’d snuck in would cause a panic among the residents. Aided by light from the moon without the hindrance of light pollution, Troy slowly navigates the hatchback toward the main gate through the flat neighborhood…

Continue reading →

August 15, 2023

“Featherweight,” A Short Story by Avi Setiawan

Posted by Mike Rochester in Featured Posts, Writing

On a warm day in May, when only a few clouds tripped across the sky like lambs, Gertrude Stocking began to float away. It was a clear day, with a sky so blue that it made Gertrude Stocking want to cry. She didn’t cry, though; she felt as if she was stewing in a huge pot of soup. It was that kind of day. Gertrude Stocking didn’t notice that she was floating at first, thinking that she was particularly light on her feet on this particular May day. But as she traveled up the street, Gertrude Stocking realized that her feet were no longer touching the ground. She stopped and looked down at her brown patent leather shoes. There was a good half-inch between her soles and the pavement. “Well,” said Gertrude Stocking. “Perhaps if…

Continue reading →

July 24, 2023

“Vector Control,” A Short Story by Micah Thorp

Posted by Mike Rochester in Featured Posts, Writing

Laughter and revelry permeated the ceremony.  At least until the explosion. Red balloons, firecrackers, a brass band and the entirety of the Mayoral staff were in attendance as the coffin was marched from the back of a flatbed truck into the midst of Portland’s South Waterfront Square. The coffin was an ostentatious thing, painted in red and gold, with the lid cracked open just enough to expose large Papier-Mache ears and giant snout, complete with whiskers and buck teeth.  The laughter was misplaced, though the participants at the City’s mock funeral celebrating the beginning of “Vector Control Week” could not have foreseen the devastation about to befall the event.  After all, when is frivolity at a mock funeral interrupted by domestic terrorism? Particularly unaware were two young men who would eventually “claim” responsibility for the explosion.  Not…

Continue reading →

July 19, 2023

“Wind Fall,” by Ian Carass

Posted by Mike Rochester in Featured Posts, Writing

Lila stood at the window as what passed for daybreak began to light her room. Her bed was unmade and would stay unmade until she returned to it. A twitch of the coverlet and a brief smoothing of the sheets was all she would do to make it ready for sleep. The bed bore the indentation of her body. No longer did she turn the mattress, as her mother had taught her. Sheets were washed irregularly. The mould of her form and the residue of her own body odour were comforting when she retired each night. She slept alone. Lila’s husband had left many months before, seeking work up at the Confluence. He had heard that labouring was well paid there and living was cheap, that the air was more consistently purified, that grass grew…

Continue reading →

June 30, 2023

“New Tricks,” by Fiona Sinclair

Posted by Mike Rochester in Featured Posts, Writing

Lugging shopping up the path, she leaned against the back door to open. Dumped bulging bags on the kitchen floor, exhaled with relief; the food shopping, top of her weekly chore list, was completed. “You shouldn’t have left me alone,” her husband grinned as Olivia entered the sitting room. A grumpy “Oh” as she plonked herself down on the sofa and regarded him with a frown. She wondered when they had tacitly agreed to this division of chores. Whilst she tackled the weekly shop, her husband checked his emails and pottered about the internet. Oblivious to her body language he turned the laptop to face her. “What do you think of this?” On the screen, a motor bike, retro in shape, glossy black with chrome trim. “It’s pretty,” she replied, wondering where he was going…

Continue reading →

May 25, 2023

“The Worrymajig,” by Rhea Thomas

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

When Amy tripped on her way out of the office parking garage and ended up sprawled on the sidewalk, a noise came from her mouth that was a cross between a gasp, a screech and a squawking chicken. In addition to skinning her knees, she broke the heel on one of her new, cute winter boots. Luckily, she had some back-up tennis shoes in her desk due to some client freebies and no one would have noticed her cute boots anyway, because she would be stuck at her desk all day with the mountain of work she needed to complete. Despite this being only a few weeks into January, Amy wasn’t feeling very hopeful this year would be any different from the last. Everyone was so excited about “the new year, the new you,” and…

Continue reading →

May 23, 2023

“Can We Ever Atone?” by Thom Wainwright

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

It’s a memory so dark and shameful that words almost fail me. It’s been hidden away for some five decades now. The details of the incident now present as both hallucinogenic and mundane. At times, it banishes me to that terrible place where no one would ever dare to come find me. We were on a dusty red road just outside of Cu Chi. Stevens and I were setting up a broadcasting post on this well-traveled section of Highway 13, which links the City of Tunnels with the capital city of Saigon. It was well known that the Viet Cong frequented this stretch, usually under cover of darkness, to brazenly plant land mines in the clay and stone of the road bed. Mamma-san and baby-san would be posted along the roadway during daylight hours, purportedly…

Continue reading →

May 17, 2023

“Burial,” A Short Story by Peter Dellolio

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Leaves and twigs scattered suddenly, as if the last, hurried pat of her seven-year-old palm, hitting the flattened surface of moist earth that moments ago revealed a fourth hole, was somehow acknowledged by the secret watchfulness of nature, and the little whisking breezes, surrounding her finished labors, had somehow bestowed their blessing upon her task. She had left the house as surreptitiously as her tiny form and sincere energy would allow, running down the old boards, almost jumping across the eighteenth-century backdoor steps of the farmhouse, charging into the woods like an infantryman rushing into battle, head held high with quiet dignity and deadly purpose, without even an atom of fear, soul impervious to danger, defying threats to life and limb, lying just ahead in the enemy’s midst. She felt that if the subjects of her…

Continue reading →

May 11, 2023

“The Greatest of These,” by Kathie Giorgio

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Faith wished she could pray, and then wondered if, by wishing, she was already praying. What was the difference between lighting birthday cake candles and lighting a votive in a church? With one, she closed her eyes and wished. With the other, she closed her eyes and prayed. Faith thought of all the years she tried to earn a wish by blowing out her birthday candles with one big gust, and all the Sundays she knelt in her space in the pew, she at the end, her parents at the aisle, and her siblings in between. They folded their hands in prayer. It was all about asking for something, Faith decided, and then believing she was going to get it. With one, she asked God; with the other, she asked the universe or the air…

Continue reading →

May 9, 2023

Col. Jon D. Marsh — Poetry and Prose

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

“Pagan” THEY made this so. It was so even before the Others came. Too many moons ago to consider. Even before the Fathers of the Father’s Fathers, it was so. But that does not matter. Before the Others came They called Us Mana-Hoka. The Others called Us Machu Grande, and They were forced to use the Other’s words. The Others are gone now. They gave the Others to their Gods to appease them. Now We are Mana-Hoka once more. But that does not matter, either. At those times when They became of many, the Gods would often grow angry and send a curse of hunger or sickness, so They learned to appease the Gods, as They would on a night when a complete moon fills the jungle with soft light. Just as They had many…

Continue reading →