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Latest Stories

July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Days Of Future Dreams

the days of future dreams the flames once rose high thinking our lives would end up supreme thinking our future seemed a far of dream but in the end nothing is what it seems many times the winds of changed has blown this way one minute we`re lapping the cream…
July 03, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

Bad Girl

Part 1I lost the entire manuscript when I assassinated my laptop with sauvignon blanc as I rubbed the lower back of a woman who dozed drunk on my bed, sweating. She was crazed, somewhere between screaming and lying about the orgasm. Bree was a miracle to me,…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Nelly Shulman

Black Is Our Colour

“I swear she could have been you. Look! This girl is your long-lost twin.” Fi nudged me, and I smiled. “Never had or wanted one.” I stood up. “Let’s go, or the bargain hunters will clear the shelves before us.” We dived into the vintage emporium across the…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Transformation

"I need a brake" words that twisted my heart- shattering the dream that we would never part. I asked myself 'what ever did I do wrong? sad, gloominess could`ve easily been my song. I wouldn't let the anger and misery grow or cultivate- uprising feelings I…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Jae

It was Jae’s birthday today. She turned eight. What a beautiful sunny girl! Hyo planned a surprise or two; Li, his wife, did too. Birthday cake, a puppy and … Don’t forget, they grinned just before he drove off. Traffic was intense. A long call came from…
July 03, 2025
General Stories Matias Travieso-Diaz

Fear

Leandro stood outside the Kroger, leaning forward as he shivered in the early March dawn. He hated this moment: the cold, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness, the anticipation of another day ahead at his degrading job picking collard leaves under the…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Mihko Askiweno

Found You

Panic gripped her as she staggered up the steep, rocky incline, breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. Sweat streamed down her face in torrents, her hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks in disheveled clumps. Her legs trembled with exhaustion, molten fire…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Lost On The Path

But alas; sometimes I think we've lost our way- too many strayed opinions...one too many a survey. Walking on the road ahead, just following the herd of sheep- with a hypnotised mind, wide awake yet very fast asleep. While yelling...join the team of the…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

The Brothers

Juan and Pascal were shipped to distant relatives on Delvina’s periodic hospitalisations. For smoking and breathing difficulties. She had been warned but could not stop. They did not understand the illness or the connection. Pascal stayed with cousins who…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Dylan James Harper

The Bylaws Of The Revolutionary Council

A loud clang rang through the bunker as the door slammed shut. “I really think we have a chance to win this thing!” Greg’s voice echoed throughout the cold walls. The three other inhabitants of the bunker, Jeff, Ben, and Malcolm, all sat around a table…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Resurrection

The man lay there in extremis, no longer thinking of cool abstracts like ‘catching the last train for the coast.’ He gulped great rasping breaths – holding them impossibly long – before finally exhaling in a shuttering burst of putrid air. He had been…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Time Warp

Nothing was in order, nothing optimal. Germany was awash with refugees and adventurers. Only Angie could hold it together; but then she opened the gates! Who knows why? Other politicians were dinosaurs in the museum. Integration was the solution, was it? That…

Benjamin was the butt of everyone’s jokes. It wasn’t that he was dumb. Just livin’ on some other planet. The town council was embarrassed to have a 26-year-old sittin’ on a bench all day in front of the court house, so they gave him a job polishin’ cannonballs piled beside the Civil War 10-pounder there. But a week later, Benjamin announced he was quittin’. “I found my own cannonball and I’m goin’ into business for myself,” he told the mayor.

 

They hooted at that.

It got quiet for awhile and people noticed he had his nose in a book he’d taken from Ralph’s Barber Shop. It was that old H.G. Wells' thing about time travel. Well, hell, no one minded long as he was out of people’s hair.

I personally liked Benjamin. Encouraged him to go to the library and read and help carry boxes around. “That Wells was an interestin’ writer,” I said. “Nowadays there’s lots of what they call science fiction, but Mr. Wells probably invented time travel and space travel.”

“Did he invent it because he was unhappy where he was? Cause people laughed at him?”

“Naw,” I said, “probably just cause it was more excitin’ than what was goin’ on around there.”

“Whyn’t more people do that? Solve their problem by goin’ somewheres else?”

I laughed at that. “Good idea, Benjamin. Maybe you could give that some thought. Just look what President Kennedy just did, gettin’ us to the moon.”

I didn’t know what I’d done by sayin’ that. Benjamin stopped hangin’ out at the town square, and when I finally did see him he seemed terribly distracted.

“Can’t talk,” he said when I stopped him. “Too busy.” Then he ran off down the street.

On my route deliverin’ mail out of town a week later I happened across a great pile of stuff where the state road makes a turn by Amos Bradford’s place. There was corrugated metal sheets, two-by-fours, a whole mess of what might’ve been tractor parts. And on top of the pile was the outhouse I surmised came from Bradford’s old house.

“Hey,” I shouted, when I seen the outhouse door closing behind Benjamin. “That you, Benjamin?”

“Can’t talk now. Busy.”

“Well, you’re not goin’ to hurt yourself are you?”

“I discovered the newest form of gettin’ around. Time travel. I’m on my way, but I may come back.”

“Why would you want to leave Bellows Falls?”

“Cause everyone thinks I’m dumb as dirt! I’ll show them I ain’t!”

He absolutely shouted through the door.

I got back in my truck and thought it best to leave well enough be. But it was maybe a few days later I asked around if anyone had seen Benjamin. Nobody had.

Now, what the hell had I said to make him do some damfool thing? I guessed it was the H.G. Wells comment. A few more days passed and the sheriff got to askin’ around. Benjamin didn’t have no mother or father, and never had family so that was the end of it.

We figured he’d cut out for other parts of the world.

I guess it was long about the 1990s when I had to go to Burlington. Saw the newspaper in the hotel someone had left and there was Benjamin’s picture. He didn’t appear to be any older than when he disappeared in ’66 or ’67, but he was smilin’. There was a woman at his side and a baby in his arms. The little caption said, “Here today and gone tomorrow. Benjamin Salt visited Burlington with his family last week. He said he was planning on investing in local businesses because the area promises to have a great future.”

That Benjamin always was somethin’. I tucked the paper under my arm, intendin’ to take it back home. Then I bet the fellows in Bellows Falls will be sorry they tore his contraption apart.

# # #

Bio: Walt bounces between writing genres, from mystery to humor, spec fic to romance. His work has appeared in print and online in over a score of publication, including Short-Story.MeTwo volumes of short stories, Cruising the Green of Second Avenue, are available at Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers. He’s also bounced from Fortune 500 firms to university posts, and from homes in eight states and a couple of Asian countries.

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