Short Fiction – Page 6 – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

Perhaps

April 22, 2018May 7, 2019 Lisa Witz

Perhaps she would drop a few ice cubes into her glass of wine, staying for a bit after picking up her grandson, my son, from basketball practice. I’d stop whatever I was doing – prepping dinner, or helping my daughter with homework – and we’d chat for a moment, her Read more

Scar Tissue

April 16, 2018October 15, 2018 Cate Carlyle

I cringe every time Dad touches her. He compulsively straightens the Blue Jays pin my brother attached to her favorite blouse, the yellow one I bought her in the States last summer. He rearranges her crossed hands, over then under, then back over again. Her fingers are chalky and stiff Read more

Maybe It Wasn’t My Fault

April 12, 2018May 7, 2019 Reagan Brooks

Lacey could tell something was off. “What’s wrong, Mom?” “Nothing, Honey. But we need to talk – all of us.” Her mother meant all of “the girls” She looked at her three daughters warily. “Something’s happened, and I don’t know how to tell you.” “What happened? Are grandma and grandpa Read more

Blind Ambition

April 6, 2018August 29, 2021 Ruth Edgett

If Tina wasn’t so damn hard, I probably wouldn’t be doing this, but even a dog gets tired of being kicked after a while. In a year and a half, I’ll be eighteen anyway, so cutting out early’s no big whoop. Wonder if she even knows I’m gone. The manager Read more

When the Bomb Sounds

April 2, 2018October 15, 2018 Sara Dutilly

My uncle has been sending me letters. He’s been telling me about his time in Vietnam. How, even though it was just a tiny percentage of his life, it is a time he never forgets. He says he’s a tormented artist. He says he’s tried to write about it. He’s Read more

After Dinner

March 31, 2018October 15, 2018 Victoria Addesso

My twenty-year-old son, Billy, and his girlfriend, Alex, nineteen, cooked dinner for me tonight. Gemelli pasta in a cream sauce with mushrooms, zucchini, garlic and pecorino romano cheese. Delicious. It was late – 9pm. Billy had yelled up the stairs to his younger brother, Steven, when the food was ready, Read more

Old Timers’ Day – 2005

March 24, 2018October 15, 2018 Tom Lagasse

For CG The boys were in the backseat asleep with the youngest sandwiched between his two brothers, and he rested his head on the oldest brother’s shoulder. The steady highway motion on the Merritt and Hutchinson Parkways caused them to drift away. It was an image their mother will not Read more

In the Care of Things

March 21, 2018October 15, 2018 Melissa Ann Sweat

Scratch scratch. Scratch scratch. It is 6 a.m., and CeCe knows I am sleeping in the guestroom. Scratch, scratch, scratch. The room is grey in the predawn. It is too early even for birds. CeCe’s scratching is the only sound, and now me, rising at 6 a.m., already feeling sorry Read more