The Birth Of Tragedy

I was nervous about interviewing for the job, but my confidence rose as soon as I walked into the anteroom. My only competition seemed to be ignoramuses with a fixed repertoire of inanities and washed-up ballplayers in the habit of spitting. Forty minutes later, my name was called. “I’ll lick stamps,” I told the gargoyle from HR. “I’ll lick whatever you want.” He looked at my wrinkled boots and patched coat and just shook his big ugly head. Some may be born with a tragic sense of life. Others are like me and acquire it by dint of long effort.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's most recent poetry collection is Gunmetal Sky, available from Thirty West Publishing.

Recovery

The healing came slow. A damaged psyche doesn’t show like a bruise. Her little boy needs her; she is everything to him and he is the world to her. But she needs to be whole for him.

More than a month of repair to start the recovery. Participation in daily activities was the first sign. A faint light at the end of the tunnel, but a light nonetheless. Her posture showed confidence. Then her gait picked up a bit. A twinkle returned to her eyes. Her journey would be long and arduous, but she was on her way to recovery.

From Guest Contributor NT Franklin

NT Franklin has been published in Page and Spine, Fiction on the Web, 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, CafeLit, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts, 404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Entropy, Alsina Publishing, Fifty-word stories, Dime Show Review, among others.

Mystery Hour

A 9-year-old girl trick-or-treating in a black-and-white Halloween costume got mistaken somehow for a skunk. The lead detective on the case is borderline Asperger’s. Covering an entire wall of her grubby office is one of those conspiracy theory maps, with all the pins connected by strings. “I’ll break anything in order to figure out how it works,” she’s famous around headquarters for saying. Her brisk confidence irks male colleagues. “Go away,” one shouts, “and take your shitty forest!” She can’t hear him. She’s out in a far corner of the city collecting evidence of the refulgence of pearls of blood.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author most recently of Spooky Action at a Distance from Analog Submission Press. He co-edits the journals Unbroken and UnLost.

The Billionaire's Mistress

The detective smoked on the cigar as he watched the new client walk in. The person was evidently from the lower rungs. Quite distinct from his general clientele. He wondered where did she get the reference, money, and the confidence to approach his office.

"I'm a mistress of the owner of Exotic Chemicals. His daughter has gone missing. I'm here to represent the owner."

As he put down the cigar on the ashtray, he recalled the magazine stories about the secretive billionaire. The conspiracy theories on film raced across his vision as the client opened her lips to speak again.

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 Visitant, Off the Coast, The Opiate, Aainanagar, Rat’s Ass Review, Tittynope, and here at A Story in 100 Words, among others. He can be reached at debarunsarkar.wordpress.com