Thank you for coming. Please sit down. First I need to tell you that we are going to kill you today. Yes, I am quite serious. I’m sorry to have to tell you, but there is no question about how this day is going to end for you, and the quicker you get…

I was sitting in the canteen minding my own business. I had a coffee and a crossword. I swear I wasn’t earwigging, it was just that what she said was arresting. There were two women who were clearly pregnant — I estimated they were about six months …

PAINTING • by Michael Chapey – Every Day Fiction via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2nudne4

CHEETO DUST • by Paula Morton – Every Day Fiction via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2KESwxG

FAMILIAR OBJECTS • by Julie McNeely-Kirwan – Every Day Fiction via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Mcf91m

At last the little firefly broke the silence between him and the stranger on the branch. “Lovely night without a moon. Bulb’s still dead on the farmhouse porch to boot. Yes sir, nice and dark.” “Paradise indeed,” the bigger fly responded. via Pocket

The third year of drought left Birdie motherless and mute. For months she’d listened as her parents argued over water, whether small reserves should go to mama’s flower business or the horses. In the end, as hard as it would be to lose the greenhous…

Before I met you, Luke, I’d known nothing but flight — staying just long enough until the bills began to pile up. Not that that changed. When I arrived in Memphis, I didn’t even have a stroller for James, just carried his car seat until my arms burn…

The door swings open, and a big, too-likable face gazes down at me. “No,” I snap. Sort of. That angry word, charging from glottis to tongue, shrinks at the lip from years of Catholic absolution. After all, it’s not his fault I’m here for my wife. vi…

We scrabble over river rocks and gray pocked stones in the dry creek bed. I pick up a pine branch and throw it. Jessie races off, scoops it up and prances back. She pauses a yard from me, just out of reach. “Good girl. Bring it here,” I say. via Poc…

She kept coming back as a dog. Her eyes would open, her tail would wag, and she’d immediately think— She returned as big dogs, small ones, fancy and mutt-like ones. Each time, each incarnation, she came back like a boomerang with a furry tail. A boo…

I’ll readily admit that I was drunk the first time I saw my wife’s ghost. My friends had taken me to O’Shaughnessy’s after Karen’s funeral, and yes, I was planning on getting solid, blackout drunk. What I wasn’t planning on, however, was taking a st…

Didn’t want to be here but knew I had to be. Ovarian cancer. Stuart, who had been my doc forever, it seemed, convinced me to get the kind of care I needed by going to a big medical center. He spent quite a while on the phone making the referral. via…

Through my early years on West Taylor Avenue, I remember spending many lazy afternoons resting my elbows on the windowsill of my upstairs bedroom window and watching the comings and goings at Bernie’s Bar across the street, naming the pigeons and no…

Silas was the son of a watchmaker, but although he dutifully followed his father’s craft, he dreamed of becoming a musician instead. via Pocket

My younger sister, Julie, sits on my bed cross-legged, watching me pack. Even though it’s only April my ten-year-old sister wears beige shorts, a pink T-shirt over a one-piece bathing suit. The purple pansies on the bathing suit can be seen through …

We could see straight down to the bottom of the Guadalupe river that day. There were turtles, minnows, and rocks covered in algae. We walked along the banks, scoping out the perfect spot to sit and pretend we were carefree. Jeromy sauntered with his…

Mom always told me my blackberry pie tasted like hers. We’d both be bent at the waist, shoulders hunched, sturdily pushing rolling pins through flour-coated dough in the tiny kitchen. Heat would pool at the back of my neck and under my arms as the o…

Three young men were sitting a few seats away from me at the counter, sun-browned and neatly scrubbed in civvies. Newly assigned at the Coast Guard station out on the point. They weren’t difficult to spot. I could pick up a couple of the accents. vi…

She was a young thing, plump and pale as milk, with watery eyes that barely qualified as blue. As ordinary-looking as it was possible for a child to be without turning invisible, Aelin thought. The girl nodded. Her shoulders were visibly trembling. …

via Pocket

Lunchtime sucked when your best friend was at home sick. Sure, I could hang out with those I labeled ‘school friends,’ but then I’d be the kid who didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the group. via Pocket