Top Stories
New stories you’ll love, handpicked for you by our team and updated daily.
Gift Giving Must Be Mindful
Gifts are given to others for a myriad of reasons: to celebrate joy or a specific milestone. Gifts travel way beyond marked occasions like Christmas, Birthdays, and other commercially oriented days such as Valentines Day to name. Gifts are given when people are awarded promotions; they recover from surgery; and at weddings, baby showers and graduations to name.
By Justine Crowley4 months ago in Psyche
Taking a Different Approach on Birthdays
Hello November! It's my birthday month, meaning that I'm a Scorpio, if you're into that sort of thing. One of the best traits about my zodiac sign is that I'm competitive and want to succeed in life. I love celebrating my birthday, which happens to be on November 13. In case you're curious how old I'll be. I'll be turning 38 years old. If you look at my profile picture on here, you must be thinking that I don't look my age and you're right. I've been mistaken for a high school student and a college student. I'm fine with that and looking youthful works to my advantage. You've heard the saying, "Black don't crack." It's another way of saying that black people don't show any signs of aging. As I near 40, I've since outgrown birthday parties. The last time I had a birthday party was at home after school and 14. Nearly 25 years later, someone throwing me a party, while the gesture is admirable and with good intent, I don't feel the need to dress up and attend my own party thrown by someone else. I turned 18 in 2005 and my friend at the time took me out to miniature golf, then had my birthday dinner at Olive Garden. Besides, who doesn't love their endless breadsticks? The staff surprised me with a chocolate cake. After that, my friend and I went to Best Buy, and I chose my first country CD. That album was Toby Keith's Honkytonk University. I couldn't wait to go home and listen to it. I wore that CD out on a daily basis, because no songs from that album were skippable. It was so good and had since fallen in love with country music. Unfortunately, I ended my friendship with my long-time friend and classmate in 2021 after nearly two decades, due to his anti-gay views. I came out to him in the summer of 2012, several months after I came out of the closet. We're no longer friends, but that was one of the best birthday memories I've ever had.
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 4 months ago in Critique
It All Started Over a Cup of Tea
“That’s not how you do it.” Selina snatched the sugar bowl away from her sister, spilling a handful of lumpy granules across the pristine counter. “God, now look at what you’ve done.” She swept her long blonde locks away from her face, and glared down at Ruby, still holding the tiny teaspoon in her tiny hand. Empty mugs sat untouched beside a jar of jam tarts, waiting to be filled and taken upstairs as a sweet treat for their party. The kettle started whistling across the room, taking Selina’s attention.
By Maddy Haywood4 months ago in Fiction
Laid To Rest. Runner-Up in Through the Keyhole Challenge.
His blood pulsed in his ears. The treasure of a lifetime might have been right before him, right beyond this final barrier. In a vain attempt to steady his sweaty, shaking palms, he wiped them against his field khakis before making the tiniest of incisions in the door’s upper-left-hand corner with his small hand-drill. It was warm, so very warm, and things were so very delicate, more than he ever imagined possible. With a small match, he tested the incision for noxious gases before peering through the peephole.
By Matthew J. Fromm4 months ago in Fiction
The Key is Me
I, a simple sinner, looked through the key hole. Inside was a sight that locked me in my place. I was no longer outside of the room, but I wasn’t quite in it either. It was as if I was held in place between two worlds. My world, and this foreign one.
By Josh Ripperger4 months ago in Fiction
The Unwilling Resistance. Honorable Mention in Through the Keyhole Challenge.
I fell to my knees as if revisiting the pews from my Catholic childhood and closed my left eye in order to gaze through the ancient keyhole of a door that separated me from certain doom and uncertain, possible doom. Astigmatism be damned; I’d have rather risked losing an eye than spend another second in that god forsaken place. I had enough experience genuflecting in my youth to afford me kneecaps of steel—and for good reason too—because I couldn’t tell if I was perched on top of shrapnel or shards of bone. The warzone expanded westward and while none of us expected it, we also couldn’t hold a candle to any false promises that came from the militant leaders. And how could we? They sat cozy and confined in their well-lit fortresses and I—along with a few hundred poor bastards—sat without so much as a glimmer of light, or hope.
By Kaitlin Oster4 months ago in Fiction
The Rise and Fall of Six Flags America
The first time I went to Six Flags was when I was 13, me and my siblings we were in Summer Camp in 2009. We go to pools every Friday and field trips like for instance, Washington Mystics WNBA game which was our first field trip. It was the last field trip before the end of summer camp. We went to the Six Flags in Bowie and we had the most upmost fun going fun rides including the roller coasters (mind you it’s my first time riding roller coasters at the time) after we rode on the rides including the water parks. My favorite ride at Six Flags was the Drop Zone and the Hurricane Harbor where the sharp waves come up and down and it became my all time favorite.
By Gladys W. Muturi4 months ago in Wander
finifugal
My best friend told me things that were deeper than the breadth of my own experience. I fear that I have similar feelings, almost like I lived these things through his eyes. The discreet way I handled this discernment had me reeling in a strange sense of bewilderment. Sometimes, when he spoke, I felt a strange reflection stirring in me — as if his pain had found a home in my own chest before I even knew what it meant.
By Melissa Ingoldsby4 months ago in Fiction
A Discovery in a Bus Shelter
I met my first publisher at a bus stop. Yes, I am as busy with the challenges as any of you out there in Vocalland. I have also had more contracts added to my teaching schedule, papers marked and to come on the docket, and I think I may have beaten back a slight cold that set up shop at the back of my head and on my chest. I know that I should rest and restore myself to better shape so that I can keep tapping out these pieces. But I feel compelled to talk about a man who changed my plans for my literary career, especially since I did not think I had one.
By Kendall Defoe 4 months ago in Writers
