― John Berger, Keeping a Rendezvous
Mrigakshi Mazumder’s short story: Where the Violets Bloom
It was one of the coldest November mornings in Helmand. The stars of the night sky started to disappear in almost no time as the orange light radiated from the horizon. On this chilly, cold winter morning, the town of Grishk seemed to be tucked inside a thin blanket of snow. This time snowing started…
Keep readingCharmila M Sankar’s short story: The Pink Envelope
“Uhm, she goes back to work today da. So that’s why I decided to arrive two days early,” I said as I switched the phone to speaker so that I could whisk the eggs. “So you've decided to babysit while she’s working towards her promotion, huh? Great work, da. Wish you all the best.” He sniggered…
Keep readingGary Beck’s one act play: The Chess Match
Scene: A chess club. A man enters. Man: (to Proprietor)I'd like to play a strong player Prop: Nobody here right now. Man: (gesturing to the audience) What about them? Prop: You said you wanted a strong player. Man: Yeah. I'm an expert. Prop: Well, you could hang out till someone comes in, or you could…
Keep readingNarelle Noppert’s short story: The Secret of School House Paddock
Julia stood ram-rod straight, eyes fiery as if facing an enemy. She ignored the slight wobble of her walking stick and pulled herself up to her full height; that is the height any frail elderly lady could muster. Julia had asked her daughter to bring her here; a place she hadn’t returned to since she…
Keep readingNarelle Noppert’s short story: Song of the Sisters
Anzac Day is dawning. Brian, an ageing Vietnam veteran lies unsettled in a hospital bed. His mind is tormented by memories, foreign songs from a lifetime ago; from another county and a city with two names, Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City. In Australia, from 1965 and the next seven years, many 20 year old…
Keep readingPeace Nkeiruka Maduako’s short story: The Distant Call
The tires screeched as Yerima drove into the garage of his home in the quiet neighbourhood. He rolled down the drivers window before he turned off the car radio and turned off the engine. He stayed in the car a bit looking through the magazine he had bought on his way home. After sitting in…
Keep readingMitalee Sagar Gathe’s short story: Dear Young Tara
I was rushing with my pen and diary to the shores. Sara, wear your sandals and go and come soon. Paa, you know I don’t like to wear my sandals on the shore. Let the sand deliver my arrival to the mightywaves of the ocean. I ran out of the house laughing at the reaction…
Keep readingDeclan Geraghty’s short story: The Wet House
The man has six cans of Clink in an old stinking haversack, he finally sits down by the plant pot after stumbling around drunkenly, dropping his contents on the cracked coffee table. A purple bag inflated and deflated beside him. And behind the bag was a head. Bobbing with the shakes, green fingernail ends gripping…
Keep readingJulian Gallo’s short story: Night Game
Although Victor is a dyed-in-the wool Mets fan, his father doesn’t want to hoof it all the way into Flushing to Shea Stadium, so he has to settle for his team’s rival. It is to be the first baseball game he will ever see in person, and at the very end of the season no less. He…
Keep readingIan C Smith’s short story: Times
Pernickety about symmetry he even balanced pictures, photographs, in others’ homes when they weren’t looking. His kitchen clock hung from a framed calendar, a double dose of days disappearing. Unable to resist, he corrected horizontality once too often instead of plunging guilty hands into pockets. His repair job was pathetic for a fussy man, off-centre,…
Keep readingIan C Smith’s short story: Minimalist
The last time he sees his guilty mother she goads him into snarling back, calls him mad, meaning insane, focusing him on the gene pool. At his married daughter’s house he sees her mother years after they separated, not recognising her, thinks, initially nervous, of a neighbour woman with grey hair quietly knitting, imagines a…
Keep readingEric Lande’s short story: Venus aka Adonis
Venus Every spring José and I say the same to one another, “I think we should try for more hens.” And every spring we try … and more often than not, we end up with more roosters. It’s not that we dislike roosters. Actually, one of our favourites — hen or rooster — was Tucker.…
Keep readingCathy LaForge Tonkin’s short story: Killing Them Softly
Michael O’Rourke was a well-respected doctor back in the late 1800s. Little did anyone know where his career would take him. He came to the U.S. in 1890 from Ireland and eventually settled in Saginaw, Michigan. The following year, Michael had a patient who was 84 years old and suffering from a bad case of…
Keep readingIshana Roy’s short story: Amelia’s Friend
Amelia, a young girl from a wealthy family, had everything she wanted – a large house beside a lush, green forest, complete with every luxury. However, she was an orphan who lived with her guardian uncle and she longed for her parents and the warmth of a close-knit family. Amelia needed a friend who would…
Keep readingGary Beck’s short play: Date Rape
Scene 1 (Sunday morning. The living room of the Bennett family. Enter Jennifer. Distraught. Megan enters.) Megan “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been walking around this morning like death warmed over. Are you sick?” Jennifer “I’m not sick.” Megan “Then what is it?” Jennifer (She looks around to be sure no one can hear her)…
Keep readingKris Green’s short story: Tulip Hill
Lightning illuminated the clouds, still in soft glow from the sun that had just pulled the horizon above its head like a blanket. Though the thunder could not be heard, anyone in the small town who saw it, knew it was coming. Distant on the horizon, the storm as inevitable in the summertime as the…
Keep readingRadhika Lata Murthy’s short story: The Terrible Three
As a child, Saira only ran everywhere; never walked. She ran to school, ran errands, ran to her friends' houses, ran to dance class and once, ran away from home too. Saira was a perpetual blur against the green trees that lined their lane. The only time she could be seen in clear focus was…
Keep readingNick Romeo’s short story: The Drink
He walks into the living room wearing a bright orange button-down shirt with a matching tie emblazoned with a vast array of colors arranged in a fractal pattern. He holds two small glass vessels of drink. His green eyes gleam, meeting hers as she returns the look of appreciation. “An elixir for your cupid's bow…
Keep readingMeenakshi Gogoi’s short story: Memories of a River
On a fine spring morning, Priyoma entered her college and saw her friend Payal clicking selfies, carefully covering the majestic college building at the backdrop. The beautiful heritage college building looked radiant under the bright morning sunshine. Payal took selfies with Priyoma amidst the blossoming spring flowers. While walking towards their lecture hall, Payal excitedly…
Keep readingThomas M. McDade’s short story: Freshman English at Joyce’s
I figured and feared English 100 Instructor; Miss Hogan would visit Joyce’s Supermarket sooner or later and sooner won. She wore hiking boots, jeans, and a red and black flannel shirt. Her hair was topped by a Greek fisherman’s cap. I sacked her groceries, wild rice, avocados, Quaker Oats and trail mix fixings. We made…
Keep readingDeclan Geraghty’s short story: Mother
Mother died this morning. And now I sit in a cafe. So strange the world. This dreary cafe. The spoons look the same as last week, I expected the spoons to look different for some reason. Probably because mother died. And the waitress keeps tapping on her phone, tip tapping. Her nails are different colours…
Keep readingMichael Chin’s short story: Sense of Direction
While they set up camp in the morning, Mike tried to tell Uncle Jerry he had no sense of direction. He meant to explain how often he got lost in unfamiliar places, thinking his uncle might take precautions. Uncle Jerry misunderstood. “How old are you again?” It was the summer of 1996 and he was…
Keep readingAnannya Dasgupta‘s short story: The Point-of-View that Makes Everyone Chubby
“Hi Renuka hope u r well. Really gr8 that u write po8ry 😄 My daughter is in the 11th grade at SPS, like v were, nd aslo writes. Will u tke a luk at it?” The FB inbox message ping brought my already distracted mind to the pop-up box that had opened up on the side of…
Keep readingDeclan Geraghty‘s short story: Purple Pandas Club
You had to feel for her, if you didn’t you were most likely a bastard. And it was harder to be a bastard when you got older, at least it was for me, me own family didn’t bring me up like that, not to have empathy, even though a lot of them are bastards as…
Keep readingJean Ellin‘s experimental fiction: The walking angel
Author’s Note: Author describes this piece as an orphan child falling between short fiction and poetic prose. It explores identity and purpose while avoiding gender identification of the angel. Their appearance is also unusual which is not the standard Blonde perfection. This angel is of colour and lacking a wing hence they walk! The author would hope that this piece…
Keep readingMahvash Mohtadullah‘s short story: Immaculate Sensations
He was done. Her father rolled off her thin gaunt body and without a word went to the lavatory outside. She got up as she always did mechanically, putting on her shalwar. She would have to wait for him to finish with his ablutions before she could wash herself. That interminable period before she gained…
Keep readingDevika N Menon‘s short story: A Happy Story
“Tell me a happy story, Abu kaka”, demanded little Tahira as the phone rang unexpectedly. Set atop an ornate table, the old-fashioned phone and the faded interior of the house looked like relics from the past. “Tell me a happy…”, Tahira’s voice drowned the faint ring tone of the phone. Her eyes were lit up,…
Keep readingGary Beck‘s one act play: Funeral Strains
Scene 1 (Pre-show. Offstage. Blaring sounds of anti-gay, anti-military protest, by a radical church group, attempting to disrupt the burial service of a gay Marine, Tom Richardson, killed in combat in Afghanistan. 'God hates fags'. 'Thank God for dead soldiers'. 'America is doomed'. 'Thank God for IED's'. 'God hates you'. 'Mourn for your sins'. 'Fags…
Keep readingPawel Markiewicz‘s short story: The Druid
In a Druid´s soul is kept the gold of rainbow. A druid wanted to go into a forest and pick some fungi, to cook later a magic super decoction from them. In the Druid´s soul there was as well the Golden Fleece. He gathered some mushrooms such as the red-capped scaber stalks-fungi, a boletus rufus and…
Keep readingEllis Shuman‘s short story: Tales of the Tel Aviv Ticket Inspector
"Tickets! Tickets for inspection!" The grey-haired woman in the third row squirms in her seat, fumbles with her purse, and finally extracts her green Rav Kav bus card. Avshalom senses she's hiding something. His suspicions are confirmed when he presses her card to his handheld reader. "You didn't pay," he tells her. "What?" she asks…
Keep readingDeclan Geraghty‘s short story: Face Changer
Steam rose from the water around here, that’s how polluted it got the closer you went to the city. It saw me before I saw it, I know that much. It was robotic, but had something terrifyingly human about it. It scanned me from way back, I could tell by the way it walked, with…
Keep readingGary Beck‘s one act play: Culture Clash
Scene: The outdoor dining area of an East Village, New York City restaurant. Enter three men in their late 20's. They sit at a table. Characters: Greg – White, Reggie – Black Edgardo – Hispanic Jennifer – White Nina – Hispanic Greg: I don't mind losing. I just can't stand the way they knock me…
Keep readingOrchi Saha‘s short story: A visitor at night
Rita woke up to a miniature plastic hand to her face and a soft chime of laughter. A low groan escaped her lips as she blindly reached for her phone and pried an eye open. ‘It’s too early to be up’, her body told her and the bright letters reading 3:27 A.M., agreed. She’d had…
Keep readingNilambara Banerjee‘s anthology of shortstories.
A little girl was sitting with her mother on the terrace under a starry sky which looked like the blue velvet lining of her mother’s jewellery box on which were scattered numerous starry shiny trinkets. The girl looked at the sky with awe-filled eyes. She pointed to the shiniest star and asked her mother as…
Keep readingDibyasree Nandy‘s short story: Subaru
11:15p.m. user@bagpipes: Did you know? The Professor who teaches the Renaissance Period special paper to the 3rd years died last night. On my way to class this morning, I overheard some students from the History department whispering about it. user@apple_pie: He didn’t just die. He was murdered. I’ve got a friend who attended his class. user@je_crois_en_moi: But I…
Keep readingMurali Kamma‘s short story: The Exchange
I’ve never belonged to a book club, but when a friend in town proposed a story club—perhaps because few of us were going anywhere that summer—I was hooked. For the wrong reason, it turned out. We were group texting, and the problem with that sometimes is my impulsive use of emojis, as if I’m letting…
Keep readingKeith Hoerner‘s short story: Swimming Back to Shore—With No Sign of Your Footsteps in the Sand or Sight of You on the Horizon
I. Foam sloshes ’round my scuffed black leather wingtips, laps up the ankles of my rumpled dress slacks, turns khaki to the colour of murky brown. Onlookers furrow their brows, incredulous I do not see I am in danger of drowning, that if I don’t make a move for it, the water will continue to…
Keep readingAndrew Paul Grell‘s short story: Blow
“Good morning, chuckleheads. Welcome to the fourth class, Practical Mathematics. Everybody ready to get their GEDs?” “Yo, perfesser, GED sand for Goddamned erectile dysfunction?” “Rod, stay up all night thinking that one up? Think up an answer for this. Lay-Z comes over, wants three spoons of coke. You had a 40-gram brick, took out five for yourself and stepped on the rest. How much blow is Lay-Z going to…
Keep readingGary Beck‘s one act play: Breaking Point
Scene 1 (The kitchen of the Rawlins, a blue-collar family struggling to make ends meet in the economic downturn. The apartment is low-income. Enter Fred, carrying laptop, logged onto a site. He starts to take out breakfast bowls, but is drawn back to the computer. He sits and continues to participate in a chat room.…
Keep readingLohran Jay‘s short story: I Know Her
Hundred of phone calls I never answered. Half of a thousand text messages I never replied. Nine events I never attended for at least 822 hours. The reason? I’m just being busy listening to the rhythmic sound of silence and staring at the glittering light of darkness. Summer have passed for several days but warmth…
Keep readingDeclan Geraghty‘s short story: The Stopover
The photos in picture frames on the walls made me feel sad, they made me feel like I missed out on something. The old man in the kitchen talked about old times, times that I’d have been too young too remember. Times that seemed too good to be true, and he kept pouring that drink…
Keep readingJohn Mueter‘s short story: The Mountain
The drive up the ghat road took nearly two and a half hours. From the verdant plains, now lush and gleaming after the monsoon, the winding road rose steadily over 7,000 feet to the top of the Nilgiri Hills. Edward had not been up this road or back to South India in over twenty years,…
Keep readingPawel Markiewicz‘s short story: About The Danube and Dreameries
One day, in the dreamy Middle Ages, three young friends lived in Moravia: a thinker, a poet and a dreamer. They loved every dawn. They have decided to visit Vienna, to buy jewellery there. They liked furthermore a gold of a starlit heaven. They passed the Danube River and a miracle happened. The miracles came…
Keep readingTodd Embry‘s short story: The April Fool and the Angel of Mercy
April 1 2035 As muffled sounds slowly became a fuzzy semi-consciousness, I could see lighting strips overhead, out of focus and passing quickly by. I was moving down a starkly white hallway. The last thing I remember was playing rook at the clubhouse… When suddenly an Angel of Mercy appeared, her face shrouded in white. …
Keep readingLeon Taylor‘s short story: The Reluctant Traitor
They had their usual fare for breakfast—kasha and complaints. “I don’t see why you have to fly to Earth so soon,” Amelia said to her husband, ladling out his Russian oatmeal while he avoided her gaze. She was wearing her favourite sloppy sweater and jeans; Victor, a silk suit imported from the angry blue planet. “We…
Keep readingChidiebere Enyia‘s short story: Slay Queen
It is a cool Monday morning in Owerri, Imo-State. Stephnora sits on a soft settee, cross-legged, in a tight air conditioned hotel situated in the State capital. She has been invited by Chief Omego to collect the sum of one hundred and fifty-thousand Naira for winning the beauty-queen pageantry, organised by Chief Omego’s foundation in…
Keep readingBhumika R‘s short story: Shaheen’s Nightmare
Shaheen woke up coughing and gasping for breath. It was only two-thirty a.m as per the clock on her smartphone which meant that she could sleep for another three hours before the alarm would ring and wake her up. ‘It must probably be an acid reflux caused due to the cauliflower curry I had for…
Keep readingDibyasree Nandy‘s short story: Cupcakes
A misty haze rose above the wet, damp ground with puddles of grey as the relentless downpour refused to cease its assault upon the sea of hued umbrellas. The tinkling of a little bell was heard as the glass door of Eve’s Bakery was pushed open. Folding her umbrella, a young woman entered, the rich…
Keep readingDC Diamondopolous‘s short story: 1970
Drunk and stoned, Scott staggered out the door of the Whisky a Go Go and into the night. A blurred neon sign from the Sunset Strip flickered and shuddered through the ebb-and-flow haze that hovered from his high. The notice to appear before the local draft board was crumpled deep in the pocket of his…
Keep readingDuhita Banerjee‘s short story: Sins
“Pour another,” she said excitedly, while both the friends took another look at their favourite episode of their weekly favourite binge. It was a tough week for both of them, reminiscing the pain. The month of December is not only sombre due to winter’s grasp, but of the suffocating memory of losing a dear one.…
Keep readingZai Apte‘s short story: The bridge
There is a beautiful bridge near my house. I walk there while getting home from work everyday. I compulsively pause there each day and watch the ducks. I have made a couple of important decisions on that bridge and regretted some others too…. I have halted under the Tipuana tree that arches over the bridge.…
Keep readingAnanda Dasgupta‘s short story: Laptop
1. “Oh, this Shiladi …. she’s just too much” Sujata muttered under her breath as she slammed the laptop shut. Just three days to go to the program, and now she wants to change three of the songs that they had chosen? Of course, Sujata had to admit, Shiladi did have a knack when it…
Keep readingJibendu Narayan Mazumder‘s short story: The meek shall inherit the earth
[Loosely based on the attack on a Hindu temple in Bhong city of Rahim Yar Khan district, Pakistan in reaction to alleged defilement of a Madrasa by an eight-year-old Hindu boy] The relentless sun was beating down heavily on the parched land drawing out every drop of moisture in it. Roopchand gazed through the rusted grilles…
Keep readingDuhita Banerjee‘s short story: Help
“Move it aside, this is not how it is done!” squirmed Dinesh while trying to put the woods aside that are not yet burnt in the fire that companies him most of his nights to his brother who was leaving for the night. He pauses for a while and unloads the cigarettes for Amena who…
Keep readingPathik Mitra‘s short story: Good, Bad and the Grey
The worst thing I came across in the Covid times was the face mask. It not only makes me feel claustrophobic but creates a weird anxiety in me that culminates in a breathing trouble. So often my colleagues complained me of not wearing a mask. But honestly I am not good with masks. On the…
Keep readingArka Chattopadhyay‘s short story: The Fixator and the Ants
Monday. It’s evening and not yet evening. It’s taking a turn toward the evening, let us say. Three friends are sitting in a circle with drinks. In a long time, they have got something going there. After a sudden and helpless rain for two minutes, the last light of the day is glowing in the…
Keep readingNdaba Sibanda‘s short story: There is a method in her madness
“Does this bring food to my little table? How many times should I tell villagers here that I no longer want to hear about that name? Do you want my granddaughters and sons who are sweating it out in foreign lands to starve me after getting wind that I am attending useless meetings arranged by…
Keep readingDinesh Mohan‘s short story: Toothless Fairy
It was a rainy afternoon and the clouds were about to burst into tears. Logan Pereira looked for shelter around and ran towards the entrance of an old building. The building had an old-world charm and seemed to have been constructed in the late 19th century. He saw a flight of stairs ahead of him…
Keep readingDavid Mellor‘s short story: Disgruntled
They all looked so new. If this had been paper, it would have turned yellow, be covered in beer, wine, cigarette ash, over illegible hand writing. But here on the computer the document of my poetry looked as if it was written yesterday, all clear and shiny. I had enough to wrap around the Eiffel…
Keep readingSubhasree Mitra‘s short story: Friend
This Saturday is bank’s half yearly closing and will be closed for public. So, the day before is very crowded and all the employees are very busy to manage the hustle. HDFC Bandra branch is well known for its huge public transaction and a long queue as well. Indeevar calls, “Token number 78?” An old…
Keep readingYaaminey Mubai’s short story: Pulkanjari
Land. Turf, Country. Ideas created from dust, marked on the ground through imagined boundaries branded on people’s minds by the force of politics and history. Crisscrossing lines, overlapping both in mind and on the ground. New ones claiming greater validity in strident voices. Older ones dimmed with age and disuse, left behind, obscured by the…
Keep readingYaaminey Mubayi‘s short story: Night train to Gujranwala
Bells jingling, the black horse pulling the tonga trotted through the gates of Lahore railway station and came to a stop at the platform entrance. Shankar sprang lightly to the ground, briefcase in hand. Dropping two annas into the driver’s outstretched palm, he hefted his holdall in his other hand and strode purposefully towards the…
Keep readingNbada Sibanda‘s short story: Friendly wars
Ever since his appointment to the lofty position of defence minister, he seemed to be gripped by some phobia. Some residents claimed the irrational fear stemmed from the possibility that he did not know what he was expected to do. Others thought that he was a lucky coward who found himself having to oversee a…
Keep readingNbada Sibanda’s short story: That Day`s general knowledge lesson
It was early morning, but already her ship was shaky and unhappy. If anything the first two lessons were a complete mess and nightmare for the science teacher who had just got married to another teacher in another nearby school. The man kept coming for her in spite of her humblest and loudest pleas and…
Keep readingNiles Reddick‘s short story: Security Guard
Dillon got word he had the above minimum wage security guard job from his cousin a few hours before he had to report to the subdivision entrance. Typically, Northwoods didn’t have a security guard at the guard shack at the entrance because residents didn’t pay their homeowners dues on time, or in some cases at…
Keep readingOrchi Saha‘s short story: The nightmare house
The house was derelict, the porch scattered with leaves and pieces of broken glass from the windows. Weeds and plants covered the walls of the house, naked bricks peeping from the parts where the plaster had peeled. Bracketed on either side with houses decked in colourful lights in the spirit of the festivities, the dwelling…
Keep readingDavid R Mellor’s short story: The 1786 Russian invasion of Blackpool
Of course, the Russians didn’t invade Blackpool in 1786, but nowadays everything is possible. In fact, if you Google the title, you will find that the Russians did plan to land on the pleasure beach during the Cold War. Nothing is out of bounds now, or impossible, think it and it has happened. It is…
Keep readingBenjamin Wylde‘s short story: An unquiet grave
I never had but one true love, In cold grave he was lain, I’ll do as much for my true love As any a young girl may; I’ll sit and mourn at his grave, For twelve month and a day I have heard that song since I was lain in my cradle. Still it follows…
Keep readingOrchi Saha‘s short story: A lonely night
Kavya finished typing the last sentence and checked the time. The white numbers at the corner of her screen informed her that midnight had come and gone without her notice. She shut down her laptop after saving her work and stood up, stretching her muscles as she went and let out a relieved sigh as…
Keep readingNemo Gupto‘s short story: A crushing fight
— while one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated… Maya Angelou The light A photograph hung, three quarters of the height, on the west-wall, scrimmed with a mosaic of arbitrary patterns of damp-spots. The window in the south-wall, the most coveted in Kolkata, brings in the morning and evening Azaan every day.…
Keep readingZai Apte‘s short story: A beautiful day (the day I watched my first porn film in India)
Editor’s note: This is not a work of fiction but the narrative had acute semblance to that of a short story and hence although this piece was submitted as a personal essay, it is published in the fiction section. My story takes place in the mid 2000s of India when mobile phones could only call people and…
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