Joey The wind blowing off Lake Michigan gives me jitters. It’s rattling the trolley wires, and the street lights hanging off them …
“I miss Samantha. She was so athletic and good-looking. She used to bring home rats half her own size, being so petite …
8 Min Read
‘Loonies speak their own language, like educated people.’ The Tree of Man, Patrick White Let’s just walk, let’s just …
11 Min Read
Mihaela thought for a moment that she’d gone too far. “Hey! We’re all admiring your buns in those stretchy pants, Jen.” She’d …
2 Min Read
Helena stepped back from the edge a second time. Breakers thudded against the rocks below and the sea-breeze ruffled the folds of …
3 Min Read
The shade from the London plane trees does a good job of extracting the sting of the sun. Now winter is over …
2 Min Read
The bar heaved with the heat of drinkers, talkers and hangers-on. At the far end of the space, beyond shadowed dancing hordes, …
12 Min Read
“I’ll need you to drive,” said Dave when they arrived at his Audi. “I’ve got a couple of phone calls to make.” …
20 Min Read
The old man turned the skiff homeward. It had not been a successful day. The sea had misled him. His pots were …
4 Min Read
“Shona, why are you gripping the stern rail so tight? Are you seasick?” Oh Christ! It’s Veronica, the gym junkie. “Just enjoying …
3 Min Read
Sho Sushi was a traditional Japanese restaurant nestled in the main street of a small fishing village west of Japan. An elderly …
3 Min Read
It was my first time. The rifle was slippery in my fingers, and Jojo laughed when I nearly dropped it. I’d seen …
5 Min Read
The crisp air assailed them as they stepped outside. Dawn had not yet appeared, and the sky was glass clear, the moon …
15 Min Read
Back in his apartment, Geoffrey dialled the number of the only person he thought might understand his dilemma. “Dave, it’s Geoff.” “Geoffrey, …
12 Min Read
“Show me where the diamonds are, Lehmann!” Lehmann’s face reddened under the throttle hold of the thug who held him over the …
2 Min Read
“Shoes, sunshine, ships or shore Love me rich, love me poor.” It was a song her grandmother had taught her as a …
2 Min Read
‘It’s hurting,’ mumbled the old man. He shuffled in the seat, closed his eyes to the fluorescent light above him. The …
3 Min Read
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO JEREMY MANKIN? by DAVID SAFFORD Everyone in Whispering Harbor knew that Jeremy Mankin wasn’t fishing with the sharpest hook. …
5 Min Read
Annie sat at the bottom of the stairs looking at the back of the blue front door, the house still reverberating from …
12 Min Read
Ben sat uncomfortably on a lumpy chair in front of Mary, his company’s HR manager. “Ben, you need to tell your trainee …
3 Min Read
As I approached my death I came upon a man seated On the stoop of the Doorway To the End of Life. …
1 Min Read
Leo lay languidly under the acacia tree, picking at the morsels of meat caught between his molars. He thought about nothing in …
11 Min Read
The ringing phone was a premonition coming true. Jane had known to expect it when the storm began to lash the hills …
16 Min Read
Meredith and Toby sat in abject terror on the chaise longue where they had, until this moment, been enthusiastically making out, staring …
3 Min Read
The evening had begun its descent into a sepia haze as they drove the dirt track through low sparse scrub. A red …
25 Min Read
A million doubts flooded his mind. He had never really contemplated his own death before. Sure, he knew he was going to …
16 Min Read
The assembled gods declared, “The Mortals mock us! We must combine our eternal fluids and make a god so awesome they will …
3 Min Read
There is another test next week. Mel slumped over her desk feeling the dread. Then she remembered the rumours that had been …
5 Min Read
‘Mum, I’m bored. Can we go to the shops?’ Corey’s mum held up her hand to shoosh him and told the Zoomed …
16 Min Read
The stadium roars like a thunderbolt. So loud her chest vibrates. Are the heavens pulsating? Is it war out there, or just …
9 Min Read
Geoffrey walked along a narrow lane of boutique shops up to the main road. Two lanes of night time traffic swirled past, …
9 Min Read
Mum says being dead is like being asleep except you don’t wake up. Which is silly. I have a sleepover at Andy’s …
3 Min Read
It was a stormy Sunday night. When the lightning bolts lit up the sky, they revealed an eerie landscape shrouded by …
12 Min Read
Hotel 25 – affectionately known as The Two and Five by its regular guests – was a squat boutique hotel hidden in …
25 Min Read
Alex’s hands were steady as he unlocked the door to the empty house. Inside, he stood totally still, listening to the silence. …
16 Min Read
Andrea sat at the large formal reception desk staring at her blood red nails and scrutinizing her cuticles. With the stark fluorescent …
10 Min Read
The sound of the crash ripped apart the hubbub of the pub. Geoffrey and others at the bar paused momentarily to realise …
15 Min Read
The blue sky was striking. The fluffy white clouds resembled little bunnies waiting around for their mother. Tom was nine. He stopped …
9 Min Read
‘I’m telling you, garbagemen can deal with anything. The smell of corpses, shit, rotten eggs. The worst stink in the world, …
10 Min Read
Winter One winter’s day at sunset, four sulphur-crested cockatoos landed on my fence – one bird for each of the seasons. It …
6 Min Read
I was a slight kid, some say cheeky, but not one of the muscular kids. There was one kid, a couple of …
3 Min Read
There is that one dazzling slo-mo moment, when the kick goes up and the ball ascends towards the heavens, and with it, …
3 Min Read
The white flash, then the savage crack of thunder, the flash again and the rain attacked the night. The storm had come. …
3 Min Read
“Julianne, look what the cat dragged in. Over at Chanel,” said Suzanne, a coiffured blonde in charge of Lancôme. In front of …
3 Min Read
An estimated five thousand people amassed in the plaza that day, some said more. Jess was one, masked, arm in arm with …
8 Min Read
Geoffrey was floating, high and joyous amidst the whirring fans and rafters of the pub, slowly revolving in his private heaven. The …
20 Min Read
The brown squishy excrement slid down the bus window leaving a trail behind it, like a slug on a dewy morning. The …
7 Min Read
Ilse cowers; her body trembles. All because she knows, immediately, who she has collided with while rounding the blitzed corner. Despite …
5 Min Read
SCHOOL The funeral for her mother over the weekend gave Matilda a chance to see her cousin Susan again. They grew up …
11 Min Read
Elias’s cheeks were burning. He strode down the corridor, barely looking at his father walking beside him. The sound of the rain …
7 Min Read
The woman and the dog walked through the park. Viewed from afar, their various colours against the vibrant green of the spring …
9 Min Read
What to do. What a to do. First thing, get out of bed. This involves sitting upright on the edge, in the …
13 Min Read
TWO STORIES EACH AT 500 WORDS FOR EASY READING, by Rob Wilcher The Slave Five bedraggled slaves made their sorry way up …
5 Min Read
MAY’S COLLECTION OF 100 WORD STORIES BY THE MOVING PEN AUTHORS * * * * * * * * Century by Paul …
5 Min Read
Julie wrapped Ben’s uneaten dinner in tinfoil and placed it into the fridge with a sigh. She looked at last night’s dinner, …
5 Min Read
Mary sinks a ball into the hole on the practice green. There are 30 minutes before her tee time. She will be …
14 Min Read
You can’t bring her back you know. In the gloaming we queued, awaiting our deliverance from another week. The bus arrived just …
7 Min Read
Mike strained as he planked, trying to resist the pull of gravity on his belly as it pulled on his tensed abdomen. …
30 Min Read
Deedee’s been losing weight. She stands and watches herself in the mirror. Runs her hand down the sides of her nightie …
10 Min Read
APRIL’S COLLECTION OF 100 WORD STORIES BY THE MOVING PEN AUTHORS * * * * * * * * Meeting by Rob …
6 Min Read
Just a few days into the swimming program of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the world was astonished to see the …
13 Min Read
Days and days and days and days have passed – years really – and yet people still look at him strangely when …
8 Min Read
Ring Ring. Ring Ring. The phone shrieks. “Don’t pick up the phone.” Dad calls out. “Why?” I asked. “It’s grandma. She is …
8 Min Read
Howard Hodgson stopped at the entrance to a narrow lane off a strip of shops to check whether he had the correct …
20 Min Read
Aine scanned around the dimly lit hotel ballroom. The bejewelled curtain backdrop behind the empty top table sparkled under the glow of …
7 Min Read
The packed beer garden buzzed with the sound of Friday evening revellers. Office workers keen to shake the formality of the week …
4 Min Read
Fermanagh, Ireland, 1593. The deluge washed every extremity of Hugh’s body while fresh mud camouflaged his legs to the thigh with …
13 Min Read
Mike sat in the community hall and tossed up whether to tell the truth. It was shocking, he knew, that he was …
6 Min Read
Jett pressed play on the CD and You ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog rocked out across the empty rehearsal room. Normally …
8 Min Read
O, this one was a beauty. A brilliant brazen mane, an enormous head, my god the power in those jaws as he …
10 Min Read