'Eleven word story' by Davena O'Neill

 

Lines pinch lips, unsoftened by remembered kisses. Her mouth is closed.

'Primrose Path' by Molly Lanzarotta

 You asked directions.

“Come here,” I said.

 I’m sorry.

'An Interim' by Cath Humphris

 

 The event horizon shimmers in the blackness, sucking time. We steer a course parallel to where Jeff was last seen, his feet sinking into the quagmire of infinity. His arms, that had been reported as waving but fixed, are now absent.

 I suggest getting closer and dropping in a line. He can’t be far from the edge. It would be risky, and I like risks, nearly as much as Jeff.

 When the others outvote me I pretend not to be relieved, and mourn Jeff. Will he have vanished yet, separated out into the atoms that composed him?

I’d like to look over the rim.

 If I hang a cup into that quagmire, might I gather up some of his essence? Or will I anchor us all on the cusp, never able to pull away, only to ossify in the airlocked cabin that marks the point where I still could recognise the man?

'Esperanza' by Birgit K. Gaiser

Klaxons rang through Esperanza’s empty control centre and on through deserted corridors. Fans whirred, cooling the processors running hundreds of analyses and forecasts. 

The reactor had degraded prematurely. Its output had fallen below tolerance levels.

Esperanza calculated scenario after scenario. Within seconds, it reached its conclusions. Unless it redirected power to the drive, there was a 56.63% ± 11.37% chance of failing to reach its destination. In contrast, the redirection would carry a 34.70% ± 8.80% likelihood of killing the humans in stasis. The decision was straightforward.

While Esperanza's precious cargo floated obliviously in their tanks, the ship redirected power.

'How I Finally Fit In' by Sumitra Singam

First I removed my language. Not so hard, being a coconut (white on the inside). Then I removed my inconvenient smelling cooking (sandwiches are far less messy). Then I removed my saris (too cold really). Then I removed my name (too hard to pronounce). And we lived happily ever after. 

'Tunneling' by Jared Povanda

She imagines tucking her daughter into bed before grabbing the knife. She imagines kissing her head, smelling her shampoo, saying a prayer. She wishes her daughter could be healthy, happy, safe, strong, alive. But her daughter isn’t those things, and the truth is sharp. Still, she prays, and then she slices open the night sky. Like coins from a purse, several bright stars fall around her. She will leave these at Josie’s grave—wishes scavenged through sacrifice. Next, she cuts through tight dirt, ages of rock, time itself. Deep below, twisting rivers of turgid grief create a vast map. At home here, she follows one branch, remembering Josie’s bright twinkle. Walking, remembering Josie’s everything, she begins to carve her own river.

'Spit and Crackle' by Marie Little

Crackle

Jo peers through broken glass into a bare room. She is eleven again. Mum has piled the fire high. Jo chucks sweet wrappers onto it; Mum tells her off each time. Dad’s slippers are empty, under his chair. A newspaper is folded, unread, on the seat. Mum wears a half-pinny, and streaked mascara. Jo in pyjamas, her head full of questions; their shapes linger on her lips but don’t break free. Something from a lost year plays on the radio. Far too upbeat, flippant. The fire crackles and spits. A sob escapes.

Spit 

Mum is chucking sweet wrappers onto the fire; it crackles and spits each time. A glass breaks. Jo, eleven, in pyjamas, her head full of something playing on the radio. Free and upbeat. Her lips are wearing flippant shapes. Mum tells Jo off, “Don’t!”. A folded half-question escapes from Dad: their broken years have piled high. Slippers on, under the chair. His newspaper unread on the seat again. Mum peers into her empty pinny through streaked mascara. She is lost. A room, but far too bare. A fire. A sob. Jo lingers.

'The Beginning's End' by Lorraine Murphy

Once we're both there, it will be perfect. That's what she said as we argued, again, over the guest list. She wanted close friends and family. I desired the world. 

In seventeen hours, following a three year engagement, and two reschedules, we say "I do". Without Mom, Dad or Uncle Ray but with three of the string quartet. Research shows the smaller the wedding the greater the chance of success. Lucky, considering my phone still beeps with incoming apologies. But we're keeping positive. As long as our antigen tests stay negative. Once we're both there, it will be perfect.

'Draw A Human Figure Without Lifting Your Pencil' by Laurie Marshall

This body is shaped by the children it bore. By the struggle of keeping them alive and alive and alive. This body is a wound. A carving. A bloodletting. A scar since womb-darkened eyes first focused on its breasts. A talisman. This body stretches and twists around the world’s gaze. Rejecting judgement from every quarter, it thrives. This body is shaped by gravity and loss of intimacy. Wisdom blurs the outline.

'Odd one out' by Louise Hurrell

 

Elva was the youngest of eleven sisters: Charlene, Colleen, Eileen, Francine, Irene, Janine, Kathleen, Maxine, Pauline and Nadine. She loved them (obviously), but why did she have to be born last? By the time she came around, their parents weren’t interested in buying an eleventh set of clothes, toys, books. Meaning Elva had to do with her sisters’ hand-me-downs; she chafed against the well-worn fabric that had long gone out of fashion and didn’t even fit her properly. She saw the popular girls, the cool girls, with the latest gear and her heart ached as she hid the fraying edges of her sleeve. She hated school, hated sitting alone at lunch.

Not that being at home was much better. 

‘Time to start thinking about college – you’re in the eleventh grade now,’ Mom had announced, as though Elva wasn’t already aware of this fact, ‘You can’t stay at that 7/11 forever’.

But Elva liked the 7/11, liked the night shift she worked with Pauline and Nadine; she enjoyed meeting up and hearing their latest gossip. In those few hours she felt accepted, felt like everyone else. She was closer to her sisters there, under the fluorescent lights, than she had ever been. However, when the chat turned to college she quietened, despondency flooding her.   

The truth was, she didn’t know what to study. Everyone else had gone on to great things: medicine, law, teaching. Colleen had her own business, Irene gained a PHD. But Elva…she wasn’t good at anything. At all.

She locked herself in the staff toilet and began to cry. The sadness, the worry was all too much, too too much… she didn’t know what to do. Someone banged on the door.

‘Elva, you OK? What’s wrong?’

Everything, she thought, took a deep breath and called:

‘Nothing, I’m fine’.