The Steward

Rebecca and I drove up the long gravel way until it crested a small ridge and our new home came into view. She sucked in her breath, shocked by the magnificence of the old mansion.

"I haven't been here in thirty years. Nothing's changed."

She squeezed my hand, in excitement or perhaps disbelief. The estate belonged to my grandfather, then my uncle, and now me, a string of unfortunate deaths leaving me the only heir.

My anticipation ceased when I saw Bidwell waiting to greet us.

"What's wrong?"

"The steward. He died in the same accident that killed my uncle."

Stella

Stella longs for the unseen soul who one day will meander into her home to touch (perhaps envy) each of her precisely placed gatherings.

Thank you, dear God, above, for the patience it

has taken to assemble and position these

precious things.

Yet she feels clumsy. Sees herself as a whale in a thimble’s sea of mire.

Then comes the moment when that perfect stranger appears as her savior, but Stella is not here to celebrate the gentle man with sapphires where his blue eyes should be, pale cream velvet fingertips to tally all her particulars, then bind her estate.

From Guest Contributor The Poet Spiel

Compassion

George staggered into the hallway searching for Cecilia. He didn’t have much time and he needed her to make haste.

“There you are. I signed it.”

She sipped her tepid coffee. “Oh, George, can’t I even take a short break?”

“Just take it. You don’t need to read it.”

“I know, I’m your attorney. I read it already. Are you sure about this?”

George sighed and put the paper in front of her, pushing aside the glazed donut.

It was done.

His estate would go to Myra Ariello, the compassionate nurse who cared for him when no one else would.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Lisa has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published and The Importance of Being Short, in 2019. Her most recent book In A Flash, was published in the spring of 2022.

She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna.

Platero And I: The Hunt

You will be pleased to know, Platero, that the Earl has decided to no longer conduct or permit hunting parties on his estate.

You and all the other animals of the village will no longer be startled by loud blasts of old guns, nor will the smell of gunpowder hang over the fields for days like an autumn mist.

I will certainly miss that delightful and wonderfully spiced pie the Earl brings me every year.

Ramiro, the old poacher, chuckled as he confided in me: "That recent obligation to wear fluorescent vests while hunting was too much for the Earl."

From Guest Contributor Hervé Suys

Hervé Suys (°1968 – Ronse, Belgium) started writing short stories whilst recovering from a sports injury and he hasn’t stopped since. Generally he writes them hatless and barefooted.

Boss

The dog was known as Boss by the Belfast housing estate kids. They heard harsh scratching as he desperately tried to crawl away from his tormentor, his muzzle leaving a dark trail of blood from where the first round had hit him in the face. His life trickled away from him through the short grey hairs on his jaw; an occasional desperate snarl ripping apart the cold morning air before he began whimpering again like a child.

Lining up the rifle sight, his tormentor watched the heaving chest, pressed the trigger and the pavement was awash with blood and fur.

From Guest Contributor Bernie Hanvey

The Other Side Of Obsession

Nothing was as he remembered. Not the walk, with the chipped and uneven flagstones, nor the dusty, desiccated garden, nor the house itself. The two decades had ravaged the property and Stephen immediately regretted its purchase.

As a youth, his mother brought him here on Saturdays. He'd sit in the chamber to the rear of the kitchen reading library books, hoping the owner's children failed to notice his presence.

The Packards had long since moved on to a much more modern estate. It seemed he was still trying to catch up in a race only he knew they were running.

Tableau

The protracted screaming was unnerving. I thought a rat had been caught by one of the local dogs allowed loose around the estate. It was Creggan in the nineties, where all sorts of mixed breeds roamed freely.

I pushed aside the lace curtain and gaped.

Pinning a dunnock to the ground with its talons, a sparrowhawk majestically scanned for potential interruption, its ribbed breast an exotic cuirass.

I caught its eye, heart strained in macabre tug-of-war between awe and horror at the continuing shrieks.

The raptor blinked like its distant ancestor, stooped, and ripped the voice from the little hedge-sparrow.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Impressions

“Ugh, Dad you cannot send me to that school!” I squealed.

“Why Samantha? It looks lovely there.”

“It is on that terrible estate where children smoke drugs and lose their virginity at twelve years old.”

“You don’t even know the name of that estate, Sam,” my Dad challenged.

A wave of silence flooded the room. My Dad huffed, walked over to the bookshelf, picked up Hamlet and opened it to page twenty-six.

“Come here Sam and look at this page very closely, but don’t read the words. Read between the lines. What do you see?”

I hesitated. I saw nothing.

From Guest Contributor Joshua Wallis

Joshua is a home-school student from the United kingdom, who loathed reading literature until recently! He is looking forward to reading works of great novelists and insightful 100-word stories in the coming years.

The Black Dots, Part Four

By the time I got to Pine Hill, someone had warned Mr. Dowling of my impending arrival. An army of his goons were waiting for me outside. There was no way I was getting an audience.

I thought maybe they'd been warned about how I shot up the pharmaceuticals factory and they weren't going to let me do the same thing to Mr. Dowling's precious estate. Turns out I'd misread the situation.

I now had my own Black Dot on my forehead. It meant I had only a few hours to find a solution or I'd be the next victim.