End Of The Line

Grace ran her finger over the word.

TERMINATED

She over-pronounced each syllable. The word crashed off her computer’s screen. The “t” chipped the floor with its hook. The “e” cracked the tile, and the rest of the letters tumbled into the void.

“Didn’t tell me in person.” The night beacon, bedroom clock blinked 11:15.

In her unkempt kitchen, she knelt beside the sink. Ants crawled, a living chain of perfect order. They bypassed her bait. Scouts explored on. Workers followed trails through the cracks. But in the hive, the queen risked nothing.

Life balanced on the pinhole of a hilltop.

From Guest Contributor Embe Charpentier

Budget Costs

The detective leaned back in the seat, stretched expansively and roared. “Lazy fucking bastards!”

There was a sudden flurry of papers being shuffled, phones being lifted, and desk drawers being opened and closed.

“Aggghhh, not you useless lot,” he growled. “Not this time anyway.”

“Who’s offended the mighty Sergeant Prick, this time?” an attractive female police officer drawled.

“That’s Pryck … like dyke.” She’d rebuffed his many advances.

She merely generated a smug smile...pausing it for greater effect.

“Hrrmph, thought I’d a break on the Couples Killer...but the council couldn’t be bothered cleaning the CCTV lenses.”

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Adam's Apple

“Where did you hear that? She asked, blonde hair peek-a-boo covering her naked breasts.

“An emergency meeting of Seraphim and Cherubim. I was passing by and overheard,” he responded. “You’ve passed that tree a hundred times. The one with the single piece of fruit at the very top. It looks like an apple. ”

“And it’s supposed to have magical powers?”

“The fruit. That’s what He said.”

“Nobody can climb that tree,” she insisted.

“The snake could. He could slither up. You could persuade him,” he winked.

“As soon as I finish hemming these fig leaves,” she winked back.

From Guest Contributor Reynold Junker

Never

She kept the Nevers in a shoebox. Most came from her mother, from childhood, but even now, she could sense her mother preparing more for Christmas. Her step-father gave her a few in the early years, but they faded to nothing as their relationship thickened to indifference.

The one from her father appeared the day after he died. Everyone thought she was too young to remember his return from the war, the nightmares, the gun shot, the funeral. Perhaps she had been, but she still kept the Never, like a scar.

She often wondered why he’d left her only one.

From Guest Contributor EM Eastick

Her Private Video Archive

I had first come across her archive of personal video footage, when she left the house to me for a few months, on her trip to Japan.

She had a considerable collection of 8mm tapes, DVDs, and CDs filled with amateur video footage.

I remember clearly that, I spent a whole month locked in the house, watching her film the mundane and the eventful. When she did not return from the trip to Japan, I auctioned it to an art gallery for a considerable sum of money.

Her 'Sans Soleil' though was never seen, like her footage of the riots.

From Guest Contributor Debarun Sarkar

Debarun sleeps, eats, reads, smokes, drinks, labors and occasionally writes stories and submits them. Recent works have appeared or are forthcoming in Off the Coast, The Opiate, Aainanagar, Rat's Ass Review, Cerebration, and here at A Story in 100 Words. He can be reached at debarunsarkar.wordpress.com

Absent Samaritan

He used the lamppost to drag himself to his feet, having groped for the muddy spectacles.

“Help,” he thought he called, clamping the damaged frame to his face to supplement the remaining arm. “I’ve been mugged.”

But he couldn’t have made a noise. Surely the trio who passed would have stopped if he had?

He steadied himself against pain and dizziness and tried to focus his remaining energy into a shout for aid.

He watched through smeared lenses as they faded into the rain: ghosts into oblivion.

He couldn’t be sure they’d heard.

The blood seemed the only irrefutable fact.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Shades Of White

He had spent the morning prepping: moving furniture, taking down curtains, removing pictures from the walls, spreading drop cloths, and taping: lots and lots of taping.

Finally, the paint was open and stirred. Before dipping the brush in the can, Paul looked longingly through the picture window at the gorgeous spring day. He sighed, knowing his friends were probably just finishing their round at the country club.

“Honestly,” he thought, “who can tell the difference between Yucca White and Painter’s Canvas. I just did this room two months ago.”

He hated painting, but when his wife said paint, he painted.

From Guest Contributor Simon Hole

Simon lives in rural Rhode Island where he taught fourth grade for 35 years, publishing essays and co-authoring a book focused on life in the classroom. Since retirement he has been playing poker, gardening, and writing short fiction. Some of his work can be found on-line at 101Words, The Zodiac Review, 200cc’s, and Bewildering Stories.

English Ivy

Flamboyant scarlet blossoms arched twisting, winding heirloom English ivy. An

unexpected downpour ignored by the water-soaked guests. Whitewashed mason jars

splashed crimson pallets of rustic rural splendor. The music began, he stood nervously

waiting, looking down at his rented black shoes. She grasped her father's arm. Fervent

desire charged fiery passion. Sugary words melted sultry shadows. Fireflies and fairy

dust lit moonless nights. Silence invited the darkness. Substance replaced by distance;

whiskey preferred to a kiss. Emotions frost bit in autumn's showy splendor she'd climb

grasping, experiencing struggle with the fortitude of English ivy. She knew he watched

her sleep.

From Guest Contributor Christy Schuld

Wanderlust

At age eleven I begged to travel to Venice, to see those water streets.

“My desert baby has wanderlust,” Mama laughed.

On weekends, if we had money for gas, she’d tell me, “Pick a direction.”

We stopped at roadside attractions to buy those tiny spoons. We ate questionable tamales. We took pictures with four different Paul Bunyan statues.

For my sixteenth birthday, we followed highway signs promising The Thing. Surprise! It was a fake mummy. Stomach dropping, I realized people like us never saw the Grand Canal.

“We’re lucky,” Mama whispered. “Italians don’t even dream about seeing something like this.”

From Guest Contributor L.L. Madrid

Somewhere Along The Line

I used to believe that villains didn’t exist. That wrongdoers were victims of their circumstances, victims of their upbringing, or victims of their own tortured brains. I thought that ‘bad guys’ were just the people who didn’t get to frame the narrative; that ‘inner demons’ was code for the same primal and chemical conflicts that we refer to as depravity when found in those who fail to conceal them. I thought of the dichotomy of good and evil as merely a crutch for those who wish decisions were easy.

I never believed in villains. Until I realized I’d become one.

From Guest Contributor E.F. Boehm