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Latest Stories

January 28, 2025
General Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

Old Addictions In New Bottles – A Modern Retelling Of Rip Van Winkle

Mental gymnastics is no fun fair, and Rip Van Winkle had lost his mind. Certainly, It would help here to elucidate on the events that led to his losing his mind. Rip Van Winkle, after some wild tantrums from his wife, had left his home into the rocky fields…
January 28, 2025
Horror Stories Cecilia Kennedy

Photo Album For A Ghost

Wild owls hit my window at night. I have a floodlight on, outside, because someone has followed me home, and between the owls and the nightly invasions, I can’t sleep. A door, slamming shut in my dream, wakes me up because it’s real. I steady myself, breathe…
January 28, 2025
Crime Stories Jason Smith

Cinnamon Pine Cones

“I guess they found him.” Liam thought. He'd been expecting it ever since Ben had died. The city’s finest had turned out in force, the flickering lights lit up his living room. He'd seen the first police car arrive. The police officer had repeatedly knocked…
January 28, 2025
Horror Stories Alejandro Casas

Death

It had long weighed on the child’s consciousness that the illness and malaise of his early years had transformed his parents’ faces. His close brushes with death, both physical and metaphysical, had often reinvigorated his desire to live. Yet constraint,…
January 28, 2025
Flash Fiction Ben Macnair

Crossword

The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across the vibrant autumn leaves that crunched underfoot. In the heart of Maplewood Park, where the air was tangy with the scent of fallen leaves and the laughter of children echoed in the distance, a solitary…
January 28, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Incapacity

Chapter One A sharp rap on the door has awakened me abruptly from a troubled sleep. I automatically swing my legs over the side of the bed and reach for my robe. As I stagger from the bedroom, I have no immediate recall of the events of the previous evening,…
January 13, 2025
Flash Fiction Ben Macnair

Everything’s Funny Until Everyone Stops Laughing

The neon lights flickered like a thousand laughter-filled memories. Charlie Chuckles stood backstage at the Laughing Lotus, an iconic comedy club, nervously fidgeting with his signature red bowtie. It had been months since he had last performed, and the…
January 13, 2025
Romance Stories Caroline Bickovskii

Jack And His Country Romance

The delicate red flowers were brighter than usual. Their petals reminded humanity they were part of a wider, more beautiful world. Few people stopped to admire the sheer beauty around them as they rushed from one place to the next. Jake was one of those rare…
January 13, 2025
General Stories Yuan Changming

Retreating

He is already tired out, but what on earth is really good about living? What’s the meaning of life, if any at all? He doesn’t know since then, but he has been haunted by a strange or ineffable lethargy that renders him apathetic about everything and…
January 13, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Sanuk

Synopsis Spoil the children. Mai put her head down and started to cry. Everything was going wrong. Her university tutor told her she would fail, unless her work improved greatly. But creative writing was her strength, wasn’t it? How can this be? The concierge…
January 09, 2025
Poetry Emanuel Diaz

Across The Abyssal River

Beneath a sky of ebon flame,Where trembling stars whisper her name,Two hearts did yearn, a bond profane,Bound by sorrow, love, and pain. On one side stood a maiden pale,Her raven hair a mournful veil,Eyes like dusk, where shadows weep,Guarding dreams that…
January 09, 2025
General Stories Jim Harrington

What If

What If. . . Jolene and I rode into unknown territory uncertain of what to do. The top was down on my Dad’s Pontiac. Music from Star Wars blasted into the chilled air. Weathered faces standing in parched fields turned our way as we drove through tribal lands.…

It was supposed to just be a joke.  Really…

Josh, Pat and Casey drove over to the house of Rachel Vessing with the intent of play a bit of a joke on her 17th birthday.  The “mooning” of the attractive redhead while singing “happy birthday” was intended to in fun.   They were sure that Rachel won’t be offended and would take the gesture in the manner intended.

Hey, it was just a joke, right?  But unbeknownst to the boys, Rachel’s father, the Reverend Josiah Vessing, was at home that night and not at bible study as was usually the case for a Wednesday evening in the fall.  The widower was protective of his only daughter so what happened was not totally unexpected.  So the boys were surprised when both Rachel and Reverend Vessing opened the door.  Turned around and bent over, the boys thought that just Rachel was there when she gasped “oh my god” at the sight of their bare buttocks.  But they quickly realized their mistake when they heard a male voice boom out “what the hell??”

Fleeing off the porch while simultaneously trying to buckle their pants, boys might have been a bit too distracted to hear the reverend’s final comment to them as they ran off his property.

 

“That is not what I was talking about last week when I said that we all need to turn the other cheek…”

 

 

The End

 

Author’s Bio:   Tom Schmidt is a Chemical Engineer working in medical diagnostics in upstate New York.  He enjoys creative writing and has been published on www.short-story.me as well as on www.fartherstars.com and in www.overmydeadbody.com in the past.  He is currently working on the “Paul Garigan Crime Mysteries”, a collection of short stories centered around a Malibu based police detective which he hopes to publish in the future.  Tom can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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