There are no sensory nerves in your brain; you cannot see, feel, smell, hear, or taste anything that goes on there. By the time you first became aware of the Story, it had already insinuated its tentacles throughout your brain and it was far too late for …

"You're so hard to get a hold of!"

"I've been busy. But I haven't forgotten you."

"When you keep changing your hours at work, people have to adjust their times to call you. I swear your phone was busy for hours! I bet you were swamped with calls once th…

The wind flowed around the street seeking a place safe from the elements, not realizing it was one.

It didn't want to disturb life on the Nepali street in which it currently existed.

It had seen so many things in its vast life. It had existed as long as…

It had been fourteen days five months and one year since her last Ficlatté. She'd nearly forgotten how to write one. Most pieces she had been writing were Tweet length, capturing and enrapturing a new audience. Then there was the collection of short stori…

I wonder if butterflies ever miss their former self

The sturdy roundness of their skin

Their steady progress towards fullfillment

-

I wonder if they mourn that their colorful wings can't be stroked

Or regret the danger of flying

-

I wonder if the progress…

The place you used to occupy remains. Whether the light shines upon it or the darkness obscures it, the place sits empty.

I spend endless hours staring at it as if I could rewind time. I can still see your figure there, the outline, the form, but my memo…

It was only a two-man tent but it was plenty big enough for the girl, her sleeping bag, flashlight, pillow, storybook, and favorite doll. The doll had seen better days, her dress was now off-white, her hair sprouted wildly from the sides of her head leavi…

I don't understand. I must be going crazy. My heart is pounding so hard, I'm sure everyone in the restaurant can hear it. I have a million questions running through my head.

"How?" is all I can get out.

She smiles at me. A smile that has brightened my l…

I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turn around. I am completely unprepared.

She stands there, wrapped in a bath towel that, with her 5'-nothing frame, covers her armpits to knees. Her hair is wrapped in another towel. She smiles, and I quickly …

I stood on the back deck, looking into the trees. In the silence, the outdoor world was alive with bird twitterings, squirrels frolicking, and busy ants when you looked close enough.

"Oh, here you are!" called Everett. "What are you doing out here? The p…

Piles of sparkly litter are all that remain of the gifts that are never good enough

The bittersweet scents of home saturate overdone hair and deliberately ugly sweaters

Sugar substitutes for joy as we cheat and plan to widen our waistlines

-

Clenched tee…

No amount of wishing would give us the time we wanted: we turned, at last, onto an avenue that was as familiar as my favourite book. I could have closed my eyes and counted the paces to her apartment block, even in the soft patter of rain.

She paused at …

I stretched out, hand reaching languidly for the sun. I wanted to pluck the bright golden ball from the sea of blue and cup it in my hands. Having just woken up, for a moment I was a child again. And in that in-between of dream and wakefulness, reality s…

Let me be clear

I understand very little

Least of all the people closest to me

But as I babble about my day

Their fleeting feelings interrupt my stories

The curl of a lip when my joke fall flat

The glazing of their eyes when my tale runs on

Are crashing c…

She sighed. Exhausted. Exasperated. Emotionally drained. More than a little demoralized.

And yet. All this and yet she was alive. She was both physically and mentally here. Not absent. Not somewhere else.

She was capable of listening. Of feeling.

Or at…

Story is marked as mature

Annette whirled on Mike. "Get out of my shop!" she yelled.

Mike took a step back, raising his hands. "Woah, woah! I'm here to apologize."

"Apologize?" She almost laughed. "Apologize for which time, exactly?

"Well..." he started.

"For sleeping with my …

Jennifer waited expectantly for an answer while staring at her phone. Her mum had warned her about talking to strangers on the internet but it was 2018 and the world was far more connected than ever before. Besides it wasn't like she had given her number …

I stood squinting up at the main mast. It was clear sailing and I saw Lookout Lenny in the galley. That meant the crow's nest was empty. I checked over my shoulders and gripped the shroud. I always wanted to do this. The crew did it all the time.

I eased…

Astarlane emerged into her safeguarded mental space instantly, watching in third person as Tenever caught her body in physical space and lowered her to the floor with what she thought was unnecessary gentleness.

She barely avoided jumping when there was …

Sad, I picture myself cutting the sugary crust with my stainless steel fork. When it cracked apart there'd be a sharp sound of metal against porcelain. The crust, dark brown seeping to deep red, is softer, gooey, nearby.

There is a ring of pineapple again…

The floor leveled out and opened up into a cavernous space. We held our lanterns aloft, as high above our heads as we could manage, but even so there was not enough light to chase away the inky blackness. In the shadows around us we could hear things movi…

We spotted dozens of other traps as we progressed, avoiding each with ease. They were not well hidden, seeming to be laid more as an annoyance than as to be any genuine threat. And yet we took no chances. We treated each one as potentially lethal, until f…

I think it was the protractor that first caught my attention. Not many of my team of friends in the Roleplayers' Club are that engrossed in nostalgia for where they come from, as it's so much better here. And those who do keep souvenirs with them usuall…

There are experiences and ideas that we have as children that are vivid and real. Some stick with us for a while before we shed them like dead skin cells. Others live within us dormant; lurking. In my neighborhood, every kid's parents warned us not to go …