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A Different Love Story by
Lisa Fisk
(1,480
words) 
I remember the day I met my mistress clearly. It was love at first sight. When I
spotted her, I did everything I could to get her to look at me. I played it
cool, smiled and made eyes at her. Confidence works. She took one look at my
sleek, well muscled body, my brown eyes and long lashes, and she was hooked. We
went home together twenty minutes later. Neither of us ever looked back. We’ve
been committed to each other for six years.
Sure, I know what the others were saying, “Why him? What’s he got that we
haven’t got?” Nothing really. It was a matter of picking her out from the crowd
and focusing my powers to get her to cross the room and realize she was in love.
When Julie and I became partners for life, as I like to think of it, it was the
two of us against the world. Before you could say “Bob’s your uncle” we
established territory and routines. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why she
named me "Bob". She pays the bills and pampers me to the best of her ability; I do
all of the things she won’t do for herself.
Oh, you might think that I’ve got it easy and I don’t take my responsibilities
to her seriously. I do. Just because I’m a terrier-poodle mix doesn’t mean that
I don’t have responsibilities. For the last six years, I’ve protected her from
untold numbers of cats who wanted to use her flowers as a sandbox, numerous
newspapers that were in danger of being unopened and unread, and every delivery
person who has knocked on our door.
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Bad Memory by
J.J. Deur (4,738
words)
My wife speaks in a hushed
voice. I’m of a higher standard - a loud one! She cannot stand anybody’s loud
voice. In the presence of loud speakers, her hands, on their own, travel where
her ears are. She cups them there, and holds her head pretending to have a
headache.
I cannot stand her low voice. She asks me to lower my voice. I ask her to raise
hers. She fails, most of the time, to follow my suggestion of speaking up.
I forget to lower my voice because of the plain fact that I don’t hear myself
and, when I don’t hear myself speaking, how would others hear me, I tell her. Of
course, I pretend that my hearing is equal to a ninety year old person.
She keeps repeating her mantra that I am too loud and the neighbors hear
everything I say or argue about.
I offer her a linguistic compromise: Let us speak only in our native tongue and
no neighbor will understand. She tells me that English is comfortable enough for
her and, besides that, certain words from our mother tongue have disappeared in
time from her vocabulary, due to our living so many years abroad.
I egg her on; “Then read the newspapers from back home on-line.”
She says: “I would if you give me some computer time!”
I said:” I forget, why don’t you ask?”
“When I do, you don’t hear me! When you do hear me, you forget!”
One week ago, what sounded to me like a whisper and, to my wife, sounded as the
normal speaking tone of voice; supposedly she told me that the next Saturday
we'd be going to have two important events to tend to, in a probably short frame
of time. According to her, this is what she said that she had said, and I think
she whispered: “Don’t forget, we’ll have to go to Woodside to bring the cargo to
K&K Freight Forwarding Services there and, after that, we’ll have a wedding to
attend, in New Jersey.”
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Between the
Sheets by Kathyleen Rivera
(769 words)
And I love her. Despite the many rivals I have for her affection, I
completely love her. It is to me that she returns every night. It is my
arms that hold her tight.
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Bill
and Coo by B. A. Llewellyn (1,559 words)
Bill
and Coo were white, fan-tailed pigeons who taught my husband
and I to love them, as we also taught them how to fly.
They were supposed to be a Valentines gift, released on
that special day as a symbol of our love flying into the
heavens, safe with one another.
It was a lovely thought, but the pigeons had no idea
that they could be airborne.
They were startled by the possibility.
I think they thought we were being purposefully cruel,
throwing them up into the air … and not catching them.
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Chocoholic
by Debbie McCurry
(794 words)
Chocolate
lovers come in all shapes and sizes. Synce
certainly fits
this description. He
is a true blue bitser with various pedigrees
combined.
To look at him, some people would say he is cute in an
unusual sort of
way.
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Eye
of a Needle by
Daniel
Gbemi
Akinlolu
 (1,036
words)
...
Well, Kade was a good cook, a really very good one. So much that everyone marvelled, wondering if he was a woman in man’s skin. You know when a man can cook better than a woman, he could be an aspirant for the throne of a kitchen goddess. Anyway, Jade was worse than Kade, doing far more badly. I mean he was more stupid and lazy than a pig on a vacation.
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5
Hens and 1 Rooster
by B. A. Llewellyn
(2,388 words)
Our
first home came equipped with half a dozen baby chickens.
The previous owner had removed several adult chickens but
he’d met the “nice, young couple” buying his house and decided
we needed to start our life on the land properly - with these young
chicks. He even left us
their rat-infested cages.
We
didn’t want chickens. We
didn’t know what to do with chickens. Especially baby chickens!
And we certainly didn’t want rat-infested buildings
standing so close to our own abode.
Our new, and very old, home was already crawling in
cockroaches and red-back spiders … rats were not allowed onto that
list! Down came the
buildings … smashed, annihilated, taken to the dump. But one building must stay … because we have chickens.
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Forced
Writing by Jessica Edelman
(1,521 words)
Once upon a time there was a girl. And she was forced to write a story.
Well no one was forcing her as such. But she felt she had an obligation.
No one forces parents to love their kids.
But they kind of have to.
It’s a bit like that.
She wanted to be a writer, so she had to force herself to write.
That was that.
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Have
a Nice Day! by
Denise Marshall
(+laughter)
(487 words)
The funniest thing happened to me a few mornings ago, and
I mean
"funny" literally! I was racing 'round and 'round our diner's kitchen like
a mad woman trying frantically to prepare for, and beat, our breakfast
crowd.
J'ever ever have one of those days with no "right-ons" and all
"wrong turns?"
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Im
Felschen Fenster by Carl
Palmer
(553 words)
I was having a Martha Stewart moment. A large windowless wall on the front of our house was the perfect setting for a cottage window framed with country shutters and a flower box.
Judy had recently redone the front bathroom and had me replace the old door mirror with one more to her taste. Being that I throw away nothing, I found that I now had two of the Kmart door mirrors, one cracked, but still too good to toss. The perfect items for my window.
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Love
Potion by
Margaret
Dakin
(971 words)
When I was just a little girl I realised that my Grandmother was a witch.
I was heavily into stories about Snow White and Sleeping Beauty at the time so that may have been what tipped me off.
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Meeting
Julian by Nicole
West
(1,212
words)
Moving
had been harder then I expected.
You quickly forget the sweat, tiny cuts on your hands,
broken possessions and heavy grunting from the last time you
endured the task. However
my new “across the hall” neighbour, Julian, at least
provided entertainment ...
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Midnight Conspiracy by
Norma Jean Kawak
(354 words)
The long black bag had lain hidden in the garage for the past two days. Tonight, under cover of darkness, we would drag it out and dispose of its contents. If everything went according to plan we would be finished by midnight.
It had been more difficult to get away from the party then we had expected. We made the excuse that the children were tired and needed to get to bed. It was partly true. But tonight was a special night. After weeks of planning, our secret would finally be out.
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Missed by
J.J. Deur (847 words)
She lived up the block. I lived down the block. We both lived on the
Unknown Street of the well-known city, but – what it seemed – far
away from the Earth, we unknowingly thought. Supposedly, she knew
me, but I did not know her. Supposedly, she paid attention, I did
not.
One day she rang my door bell and asked me could she remind me of
something? She said that in a plastic manner of a person with the
artificial politeness. She didn’t want to be polite, but acted it
out, anyway.
I said that she was a stranger, and that we didn’t have a common
history. And that she didn’t have anything to remind me of.
She said that I was seriously wrong, and that my memory didn’t serve
me well.
I said, or I think I have said, that she was deadly wrong, and that
her memory was not wrong, but nonexistent!
She got very angry and kicked the door, appropriately, right at the
kick-plate, where people normally, and by accident kick the doors –
at the kick-plates! After that she left my front porch.
I looked after her, confused.
Gee, some annoying people live around here ...!
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My
Coquette's Suzettes by Denise Marshall
(387 words)
darn it, i said to myself, how'd i end up here, yet again!
banished from the a/c in the house to sit in the hot sun
back-tracking over what happened today, i mimic her voice
"get your butt out of my kitchen, jule; and do not walk, run!
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Mordecai's
Donkey by Daniel
Gbemi
Akinlolu (981 words)
Imagine you are me, and you had a friend, whose friend of his was called Mordecai. He was a poor man but had a donkey that was given to him as a special gift by his late father who had told him that the donkey would make him rich and change his status forever. It was a beautiful donkey and
it stayed in his bedroom because Mordecai always admired the donkey and he told everyone to come and visit him to check out the donkey that would make him rich forever.
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Poached
Egg by Carl
Palmer
(195 words)
Part of Larry’s 200 hours of community service was to help relocate the Henry County Museum. On his third trip he helped himself by relocating a fossilized egg from the dinosaur exhibit. He planned to sell the artifact at his brother Matt’s yard sale that weekend at the Kitty Ranch on Old Mill Road.
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The
Day My Husband Ran the Four Minute Mile by Norma
Jean Kawak
(603 words)
There I was in a foreign country alone aboard a crowded bus with no idea where I was going. I had no money and did not speak the language.
We had been married two years and had a son approaching his first birthday when my husband decided he wanted his family in Lebanon to meet his Australian wife and child.
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The Elevator Angel
by B. A. Llewellyn
(100 words)
She walked gracefully into
his world at the tenth floor.
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The
Entertainer by Jack Wodhams
(691
words)
“Anything
to declare?”
“Nothing in particular,” I told the Customs Man. “Just the usual couple bottles of spirits I’m allowed.
I don’t bother with the duty-free cigarettes.
I don’t smoke myself, and I don’t like to encourage it in
others.”
“What’s in the box you’re holding back there?”
“Box? Holding back?
I’m not holding back. It’s
just an extra small case I have, that’s all.”
“And what’s in it?”
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The
Gift of Freedom by B. A. Llewellyn
(578 words)
Many years ago I read about
the charming Asian custom of giving a
recently caged dove or pigeon as a special
birthday present.
Symbolically, the bird and the gift’s recipient are
spiritually joined to
one another, giving the bird’s ability to fly special
meaning and
potency.
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The
Great Dunny Disaster by
Margaret
Dakin
(932 words)
You know those days when things are just so
dull, and you’re trying to read a comic or do a puzzle, but everything is just too quiet and you can count on it that something dreadful has just got to happen? Well, this is about one of those days.
I had only two brothers then, and a little sister who was so soft-fingered and so powdery, milky smelling that she can have no place in this story. It is about my hard, warty-fingered, brown, dusty smelling brothers, covered in boy-germs and completely yucky. And it’s about me. I was a girl with short red pigtails then, and I was eleven. Warren was nine and Peter was seven.
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The
Opportunist by Carl
Palmer
(250 words)
Jason Amalynn was the leader in his field of TV and movie special effects. His invention was a special Prism laser projector using image reflection and light refraction to create a 3D hologram. The mirage could be created and shown most anywhere on most anything, not just as trick photography on film, but projected upon buildings, clouds and even a waterfall once. I was in total awe of Jason as his understudy, however felt completely betrayed when he vowed to take his technique public. That’s why I killed him.
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The
Three Roosters
by
Ronda Del Boccio
(726 words)
I learn a lot by watching animals. They have tales to tell and lessons to teach for any who have the openness to listen, watch, and learn. Here are some of my latest observations and musings that I hope will demonstrate what I mean.
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The
Tragic and Triumphant Tale of Dr Darryn by Fiona
Murray
(789 words)
It all started when he was three. The more mainstream children were happily scampering about playing with blocks and chasing each other around the cubby house. Meanwhile, Darryn was in the furthermost corner of the kindergarten grounds with a tub of glue sticking different objects together. His teachers would find him at the end of the day surrounded by leaves stuck onto twigs stuck onto insects stuck onto trees.
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Thrice
as Nice by Carl
Palmer (449 words)
Just before the school zone was an electronic speed board flashing me at 33mph. Instant reflex was to compare that speed with my speedometer, which was about right, but what caught my eye was the time on my radio, 3:33 — and the gas gauge below “E”. I pulled into the first gas station in sight. After waiting behind 3 cars, I noticed the price, $3.33 a gallon.
Annoyed at not catching this earlier and not wanting to search further on empty, I clicked in the
auto-fuel-cut-off lever and went inside for a pack of smokes.
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Too
Sweet the Wine by Tony Williams
(545 words)
The drowned fly bobbed in the wine, halfway down the bottle.
“Ten thousand to one,” Alisa said, holding the bottle up. “On second thoughts, look at the size of this restaurant. Make that a million to one.”
“I dunno,” I said. “I count only six other couples besides us. And look at this wine, a Venus flytrap if ever I saw one. Five hundred to one – tops!”
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2
Dogs, A Cat, 9 Fish
by Daniel
Gbemi
Akinlolu
(1,429 words)
... Fortified with his published novel, “2 Dogs, A Cat, 9 Fish”, and a letter for interview at a reputable publishing firm, Claude felt his dream was sure. That Monday morning he decides to wear a tie-less shirt, with double-breasted suit and a pair of loafers; clean-shaven and smelling of Dior cologne. He wasn’t a novice in the book industry.
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Vanessa by
Margaret
Dakin
(805 words)
I was living on the streets when he found me – dirty, scruffy, half-starved – eating out of dustbins – sleeping where I could find a warm corner.
I don’t know what he was doing in that poorly lit alley on that dark night, but it was to my advantage because he felt sorry for me and took me home with him.
Don’t get the wrong idea – he’s an honourable man. Didn’t expect anything from me except companionship, and not even that at first. He just wanted to look after me, feed me up and get me back on my feet.
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Walking on Air by Carl
Palmer
(219 words)
“You’re really getting good at photo
editing, Ann. This one looks like a little angel hovering over the
sidewalk down by the city park fountain.”
“Actually, she is an angel. That’s Faith, my grand daughter, but I
didn’t use Photo Shop on that one. This was “Exhibit A”, court
evidence at my husband’s trial.
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Yoga
with Fabio by Sarah
Lascelles
(617 words)
... Fabio,
our yoga master, had a face only a mother, or a blind
person, could love.
His body reminded me of “Stretch
Armstrong”, a
toy I had as a child that you could stretch from the armchair
all the
way into the kitchen … though I did live in a bed-sit.
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= music 
= Bright Light
