Author Archives: susan

Word Count:  385 I didn’t think I would change my mind and I didn’t, even after the diagnosis that gave me three months at the most. Now that I’m closer to the end of it all I want more. I … Continue reading →

Word Count:  179 It was hard, oh so hard, to watch her children go to bed hungry. Every night, waiting, hoping that she could provide them with a meal that could fill their bellies for once. That they could sleep … Continue reading →

Word Count:  260 She woke up in another strange room, in a strange bed with a stranger. She was only sixteen. This wasn’t going so great after all. She took the cash off the dresser she’d insisted he pay up … Continue reading →

Word Count:  420 It was silly, of course. She couldn’t leave the top four clapboards unpainted simply because she was afraid to go up two more rungs. So she talked herself up the ladder and…froze. Paint can and brush in … Continue reading →

Word Count:  415 I’ve read about this, how your heart beats so loud and so fast it feels like it’ll burst out your neck. How the world can hear it because it bangs inside on the drums of your ears. … Continue reading →

Word Count:  318 There has been an explosion. I am afraid my children are dead. I’ve cried out for them and they would answer me if they could. And the baby, she would be crying, screaming from hunger alone. I … Continue reading →

Word Count:  362 In the woods only the cave was off-limits. So the cave was where the boys went. Two best friends since forever. Same block, same school, same church, and same set of problems: an older brother who did … Continue reading →

Word Count:  318 Gavin told his best friend Eddie  that he’d share half his last gummy worm, lie to cover to his mother, jump in and save him from a bear. Eddie said yeah, he would too. It happened that … Continue reading →

Word Count:  237 I don’t think she understood the lie of mirrors. That what she thought she saw in perfect clarity was in reverse. A benign half-smile to her was seen as smirking by the global eye. A wink she … Continue reading →

Word Count:  359 She escaped every night through the window high up in her room. Holding her breath as she swam through the pane, leaving small whorls in the glass. By day she would watch the birds flying, people emerge … Continue reading →