Category: Short Stories

  • Snapshot – Short Story by L. Breen

    Snapshot – Short Story by L. Breen

    All of her family photos are amateur in the purest, most endearing sense, characterized by eyes squinted shut and flies shamelessly unzipped, and although the background may change – the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the Lincoln Memorial — the photos come in only two standard compositions: her standing beside her mother and her standing beside…

  • Skim Milk and Doorknobs – Short Story by L. Breen

    Skim Milk and Doorknobs – Short Story by L. Breen

    Writer’s Note: An accomplished and eloquent teacher told me that if something is worth writing, it is worth writing until you perfect it, until you believe the story as you believe your own memories. Stories, she said, are where the energy lives inside of us, and our job as writers is to find where that…

  • Styrofoam – Short Story by L. Breen

    Styrofoam – Short Story by L. Breen

    She prefers paper cups to Styrofoam. Styrofoam is too kind on the hands. She always thinks that to hold a Styrofoam cup feels safe, and therefore the liquid inside is at perfect drinking temperature. Only after the initial sip and burnt tongue does she ever find out otherwise. She had done that very thing just…

  • Autobiography, A Concerto in Three Parts – By L. Breen

    Autobiography, A Concerto in Three Parts – By L. Breen

    I: Rubbernecking To be read with much distrust, as lyrics translated from a dead language. A scene pulled from the depths of a child’s memory. We were packed in the car, driving to somewhere or away from something.  Nausea was just setting in or only beginning to wane. The sky was slate gray, indicating some…

  • Day 21 – Short Story by L. Breen

    Day 21 – Short Story by L. Breen

    He had been slamming his body against the glass pane for nearly an hour before someone came to the window — a boy in search of the afternoon breeze. The fly flew in, seeking a home in which he could spend the final day of his short life expectancy, Day 21. The fly had heard…

  • Not A Big Deal (Excerpt 2) – Short Story by P Chatelain

    Not A Big Deal (Excerpt 2) – Short Story by P Chatelain

    (For excerpt 1 click here.) Not A Big Deal by Phillipe Chatelain Author’s note: Not a Big Deal tells the story of a tragic situation that serves as a catalyst to connect very different people. New friendships are formed and old friendships are questioned, but at what cost? — “Holly!” I could hear my name from outside…