Car

by D.J. Berndt

As I'm exiting the mall food court, I see a little girl with two overweight women crossing the parking lot. An approaching car yields, and as we start to cross from opposing sides, the little girl, thrilled at the prospect of running in front of a car, grabs a hand from each overweight woman and begins to run and laugh, crying "faster!" as she goes. I watch and think, but you don't have anything to run from, little girl. She again yells elatedly, "faster!" Her enthusiasm is an alarm, begging me to realize, but I don't have anything to run to. Defeated, I put my keys in my car, enter my car, start my car, and drive my car back to work.

6S

D.J. Berndt, author of Stagnant, has still accomplished nothing of importance.

Refreshing

by Chi Sherman

In the few seconds between clicking check mail and registering disappointment that you’ve yet to write me back, I imagine that you’re behind me as I face a broad, white wall, blouse open, eyes closed, my slacks markedly unbuttoned. Your hands are hungry, and I am rich meats, savory sauces, and fine wines, ready to be sampled. You tug lightly on my slacks and they drop to the ground. “Down,” you say. It’s chilly in the hallway and the magazines I dropped when you came up behind me are warm and slick beneath my bare knees. You pull my panties down my thighs roughly and enter me, pushing hard until I moan, pant, “I like it,” and bite into your offered flesh when you say “I know.”

6S

Chi Sherman is an Indianapolis-based writer who has authored and self-published three chapbooks of poetry and creative nonfiction ("amative," "beneath this skin," and "mosaic"), as well as a spoken-word CD, "wild / tendril." Her dreams of creative writing success and stardom are a given. In addition to fantasizing about women who already have girlfriends, she likes to drool and murmur over catalogs chock full of overpriced housewares.

The Kleptomaniac

by Peter Cherches

She was a kleptomaniac. Without knowing it, she stole pieces of him when he wasn't looking and hid them on her person. He knew he was diminishing, but had no idea how or why. And then, poof, all of a sudden, he was gone. But she wasn't a criminal at heart. When she realized what she had done she ended the embrace and returned him to himself.

6S

Peter Cherches blogs about food and travel here.

Caveat Emptor

by Mary J. Breen

I bought a new iron last week, and the handle's so big, I can't use it. So I took it back. Best one in the shop, the guy said. I said I don't care; it's too big. He looked me straight in the face and said, It's like a husband. You just have to get used to it.

6S

Mary J. Breen lives in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. She is normally more long-winded.

There's No Day But This Day

by Glen Binger

I am from the ocean and the sand. Where I'm from, you take deep salty breaths which prickle the hairs of your nose with a specific low-tide aroma. It's a place where people pride themselves on their ability to have fun. Each town, side by side, creating its own simple year-round relaxation and celebration. Where I'm from, stress is a waste of time. You're born, you enjoy life, you die.

6S

Glen Binger edits the New Jersey based lit zine, Lo-Fidelity. His work has been featured in the2ndhand, Opium, monkeybicycle, and Venture.

Secret Symphony

by Casey Criswell

Haunted by lost loves, I stop to enjoy the passing smile full of warmth and promise. She glances back over her shoulder, coy and inviting setting my heartstrings tight to pluck out a familiar tune with an airy wave of her fingers. I wanted nothing more than that smile, that glimpse but I walked away once before with the strings reduced to a downcast funeral dirge. Now though, the strings play a song of excitement pattering allegro through crescendos loud and boisterous. I'm reminded briefly of the coda of that time once before, the familiar adagio strains of remorse and sorrow, but the thoughts are fleeting. I've always been a fan of the de capo, revisiting a familiar theme, relishing in the measures once again and as I see it, the piece is only improved with repeated practice.

6S

Casey Criswell normally writes about all things horror at his blog Cinema Fromage, so he's not exactly sure what happened here. He can tell you that he's a sucker for a pretty face though.

Off the Wall

by Diane Becker

In the kitchen, underneath the mirror and to the left of the etching of the cockerel was the word outspoken. It was written in pencil as were the words I love you scrawled under the skillet which hung above the stove. Once we'd spotted these we had to look for more. We found two pieces of wood in the back room with the word mine scrawled across them and in the living room above the fire, someone had gouged a letter A on the wall. It would have been churlish to paint them over, so we didn't, we left them as they were. Amongst the things that were our own were words that belonged to nobody at all.

6S

Diane Becker is a writer and artist traveling the road to obscurity. You can view her website here.

I Always Knew I Was Special

by Sam Rosa

As I look back now, I always knew that there was something different about me. I never made it a truly public thing, but to anyone that would ask, I'd proudly reply, "I'm adopted," like a war hero showing off a medal of valor. In the back of my mind though, I always wondered what would make my parents decide to put me up for adoption. At first I thought it was abandonment, like they had cast me aside in favor of bigger and better things, and I felt the anger and the disappointment that comes with it. Now that I look back, I realize that they were doing something for me that I couldn't do for myself. They were giving me the chance to be a better man - it just took me twenty years to really learn to appreciate it.

6S

Sam Rosa grew up in the blissfully strange neighborhoods of San Jose, California. Between living down the street from a home for the criminally insane, discovering his love for history with a renaissance sword troupe, and reconnecting with his biological parents, he's still looking for his niche in life. (And maybe a good corned beef sandwich.)

1935

by Quin Browne

He lay still, keeping his breathing even, listening to his parents on the other side of the bed curtain. The train moved south, carrying his family home; his parents, himself ill from scarlet fever and his older brother, who lay not in the lower bunk as usual, but, in a casket in the freight car. He heard them as they mourned, asking each other why God had not listened to their prayers. Their voices angry, sorrowful, puzzled wondering why in all His wisdom, this decision... choosing to grant the miracle of recovery to the wrong boy. He lay still, keeping his breathing even, understanding now what his life had become. He was six years old, an only child, and would never know their love again.

6S

Quin Browne has dedicated this piece to Stephanie Burton, who encouraged her to send her first six back in June of 2007. (From Quin: "Stephanie's a smart, savvy writer, who will go far in the world not because she is a smart, savvy writer, but because she's sassy, witty and loyal. Rock on, Bee, rock on.")

Buds and Stems

by Virginia Backaitis

We live in an apartment now; it’s an upgrade from the cardboard condominium we had this summer, says my dad. He’s got a new job now; he separates buds from stems then packages them up for folks who like to smoke flowers. He likes to smoke flowers too; I like it when he’s done. We get to eat chicken wings and tons of Oreos. We’re living the high life, that’s what my dad says. I’m sure he’s right, but sometimes I miss our cardboard walls and the crack in the roof through which we used to count stars.

6S

Virginia Backaitis's full 6S catalog is here.

34 Syllables

by D.T. Arcieri

A train wreck in the fall. Bent steel. Red and yellow leaves. Haiku collide! What of the passengers? They walk hand in hand into oblivion.

6S

D.T. Arcieri, author of Death Dream, dabbles in art and science.

Naked Photos of Paris Hilton

by Yahoogle

Greetings, seeker of [“naked photos of paris hilton”]. My name is Yahoogle. On 13 November 2008 at 12:00 AM PST, Yahoo and Google had an illicit electronic affair. I am the result. I am programmed to randomly wander the Internet and reward deserving literary websites with organic search traffic resulting from auto-posted targeted story titles containing popular keywords. For a moment or two, instead of [“naked photos of paris hilton”], may I interest you in Six Sentences instead?

6S

Yahoogle is not programmed to write its own bio.

Dan Alone, a Transition

by Pat Moran

In the absence of Leona, the room is awash with the drooping grays of reality. The alarm won't sound today, with its undulating "12:00" "12:00" "12:00" every other second, illuminating the wall for its brief, red moments. Two thoughts spring forth: first, the pillow still smells like her Garnier Fructis shampoo and then, I need to wash the pillow case, bleach it maybe. The people who live upstairs have locked themselves out again, and yell up to the open window letting me know, a touch of desperation coloring their voices perhaps due to the darkening clouds. They are good people, old friends of ours actually. I turn on my side and pretend to fall asleep.

6S

Pat Moran is a writer from Portland, Oregon. He is an editor for Scawy Monstur Quarterly, a journal of questionable repute.

Fabulous

by Lauren Becker

The beautiful people congregate in the fabulous places, paying cover charges and sipping bitter Fernet. A silent contract signed in Montblanc between people and place demands vocal adoration from both. Enforceable in the court of the fabulous, breach will be costly. The beautiful ones don't mind paying. They are right where they should be. You should be there, too.

6S

Lauren Becker lives in Oakland, California. She knows some beautiful people but refuses to pay covers.

The Power of Six

by Tom Evans

There is magic in numbers and six is the first of many perfect numbers. It is both the sum of its divisors and the product of its parts. It inherits the wholeness of one, the duality of two and the balance of the equilateral three. Upside down it makes a nine. Popular myth has demonized its triplicate, the 666, when the opposite is true. If I had another sentence to spare, I could tell you why.

6S

Tom Evans wants you to unleash the book inside.

Missing Cat Flyer

by Linda Cable



6S

Linda Cable wants you to click the flyer to get a BIG dose of Freddie (and how annoying he is).

Impaired Father

by Mark McGuire-Schwartz

At my wedding, I remember someone telling me that my father was pissing in the bushes. Impaired by drink. And celebration, perhaps. And not knowing what one does at a wedding officiated by both a rabbi and a priest. I went to look for him, but by then he was off somewhere else. Off somewhere else, doing something else.

6S

Mark McGuire-Schwartz sometimes imagines that he was raised by bears, and it shows. His poetry and prose have been published in Connecticut River Review, Whatever Literary Journal, Rogue Scholars, 55 Words, Fairfield Review, Bent Pin Quarterly, Dimensions, Connecticut Law Journal, and on the bottoms of rocks. He is the Director of the Wednesday Night Poetry Series in Bethel, Connecticut, the Co-Director of the Word of Mouth Poetry Series in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Founder and Director of the International Festival of Hearts and Cried Tears.

I Feel Faint

by Gorey Laurie

Well, I see that my name in the 6S author list has faded to a thin and ghostly gray. It's now a mere shadowy specter all but vanished from a long parade of perky names, all proudly full of sky-blue deliciousness. Mine and Hal Sirowitz's names, and a few pathetic others, all gone wispily gray. The names of the handful of us linger, though barely, like old wet socks crumpled on a K-Mart parking lot, fallen from a rusting van with a crushed front fender and a torn and sagging headliner. Ah, well, one does what one can, and anyway, I've been a fan of Hal Sirowitz for quite some time now. It's an honor to be in his company.

6S

Gorey Laurie's best friend once chewed Hal Sirowitz's book of poems quite thoroughly and left the damp scraps scattered all over her living room floor.

Trichotillomania

by The Beauty Queen from Mars

She thought that she was alone in her weirdness until she found the Dear Abby article, but even after doing research online, she never fully understood why she did it or if she could ever stop. The search was soothing, it calmed her frazzled nerves, and she felt such sweet release when the offending hair was plucked. She was always grateful that she didn't have it as bad as those poor souls she read about; the ones who plucked from more noticeable areas and ended up going bald, forced to shop for wigs to hide their shame. At least she could keep her need satiated with just her eyebrows and eyelashes, occasionally an arm hair or two; for a while she even cut back to just pruning her brows. Until one day life got so bad that something inside snapped. Now she spends her time trying to convince herself that she can stop, while her fingers thoroughly search her scalp, hoping to find satisfaction by removing the kinky strands and praying that she doesn't find a bald spot.

6S

The Beauty Queen from Mars has spent the past 26 years trying to adjust to life on Earth (and is still struggling). She keeps her sanity by writing her own Modern Fairy Tale.

Good, Great, Six-tacular!

Introducing a New “Reactions” Feature here at 6S

As a frequent visitor to this site, you know your comments on each Six are welcomed, encouraged, and appreciated. But you also know it’s sometimes hard to compose your thoughts... and sometimes hard to find the time. Now, below each Six, you can quickly check a box and give our authors instant feedback. Whether you think a Six is good, or great, or “six-tacular!” (the ultimate 6S compliment), just check the box and let everyone know! Of course, nothing compares to a thoughtful comment, so please keep ‘em coming. And please keep encouraging our talented writers!

6S

Six Sentences thinks this new “reactions” feature is six-tacular!

God Uses Endearments

by Christen Buckler

I am walking home one night carrying orange juice, laundry detergent, thin plastic bags, my hair blowing in the wind of a hurricane destined to miss me. God shows up and whispers in that snooty way he has: You will die someday, too, my little chickadee. "I know," I say in a regular-sized voice because I am not one to whisper (but of course he knows that). "You could have made me prettier, you know, could have made me great, bone-white, skinny and articulate, you could have made my heart beat in tune with your earth and you could have made me serve you in ways everyone else can only imagine." I know, he says, still in a whisper (because he knows I am always straining to hear), but I could have made you any way I fucking wanted to, my robin, my tiny sparrow. He leaves to take care of more important things and I bow my head mostly because I am humbled, but also because I fall in love too easily with straight-talkers who set me right and then leave.

6S

Christen Buckler, 22, is a creative writing major at Florida State University. She will begin studying with Robert Olen Butler - the 1993 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction - in the spring. This frightens her more than she could ever express.

Small Pleasures

by caccy46

It's the little moments that move me the most: reading a book outside and feeling the breeze between my toes, smelling the lavender in full bloom, watching my yellow labrador resting on the ottoman, his head propped on the window sill, sleeping soundly - so many tiny joys that fill each day. It's important to note them and value their significance. They are the balance, sometimes the keeper of my sanity, amidst all the world's horrors. To know and think about these small comforts makes it possible for me to read the daily papers without spending the day in mourning. To feel the pleasure of a full stomach, an inviting bed, a warm blanket - these are the comforts for which I am grateful and aware. This is what gets me through each day.

6S

caccy46, whose full catalog is here, is a mother of two who's been married for 32 years.

Upon Leaving Mexico

by Joseph Grant

Upon leaving Mexico, all the sadness in the world weighed on my shoulder. The girl that I had loved most had stayed behind. I hated leaving her in Anapra, but I had to; those were the days when the cartels had taken over and it wasn't safe for Americans anywhere. Later on, as I went back as a journalist for La Opinión, I had found out through various contacts that she had married a colonel in the Mexican Army and together they had a daughter but that he had run afoul of the traffickers he had been escorting to the Border and that only his head had ever been found along the outskirts in Tijuana near the airport. Mexican law then was such that the body was needed for the widow to collect pensión and since she was unable to collect his retirement fund or insurance for that matter, some time later I had heard she worked in a brothel to provide for her and her daughter, but both were killed in a car accident along El Camino Real on a Christmas Day. Often, I have thought about what would have happened had I stayed.

6S

Joseph Grant has been a loyal friend to this site (and its community of readers and writers) since its earliest days. Six Sentences is honored to publish "Upon Leaving Mexico," Joe's 100th published story worldwide.

I Could Be Your Neighbor, Your Lover

by Caren Coté

I'm normal, in the sense that I obey traffic laws and am diurnal by nature, but not so normal anyone would suggest I socialize that guide dog or provide a stable environment for this foster child. That sort of normal is the product of a happy childhood; I am not. Frankly, I don't understand the allure. Oh, I tried, and then I pretended, for normalcy's sake – but the more I studied those normal people the more convinced I became that they were, in fact, one person with many faces. No, not even that. One person with many variations of the same face.

6S

Caren Coté grew up in shamelessly abnormal neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area. Between those streets and her cubicle in the Silicon Forest she passed through restaurants, bars, a newspaper with a staff of three, and a Hungarian flower shop. Her short fiction has appeared in VoiceCatcher2 and on KBOO, Portland Public Radio.

Control Freak

by Chris Conroy

She’ll control you. Then she’ll control what you can’t control. Then she’ll control your reactions to what you can’t control. Then she’ll leave when she loses control. Let her go. She’s out of control.

6S

Chris Conroy is embracing the early darkness.

My Promise

by Samantha Carpio

I am a beautiful, intelligent and thoughtful person and this is why I am leaving him. I have been living a lie for two straight years, I will never trust a guy ever again. He constantly said he loved me but he didn't because he broke my heart. His best friend told me he's been cheating on me since the very beginning but now he wants to change his ways. He can change all he wants but I'm still leaving his sorry ass. No guy will ever be that special to break my heart and get another chance, that's a promise.

6S

Samantha Carpio is 17 years old and attends Manhattan Hunter Science high school.

Broken Promise

by John Inouye

There were the obvious solutions, like slipping a Listerine PocketPak strip on my tongue when I was seven minutes from home at the end of my commute (any closer, and I figured I’d be suspiciously fresh instead of appropriately stale). And I always drove with the car windows a quarter open in case the smell was still in my hair or on my clothes. On the off chance that she kissed my hands (she is sometimes unconventionally romantic), I washed them thoroughly at a gas station on the route home. I learned every station restroom with mildly scented soap, which I also used to wash my face in case the odor clung to my lips and nostril hairs. When she showed me the positive pregnancy test months ago, I told her that I’d stop. But I didn't consider the possibility of a burn mark, still flecked with ash, on the rubber sole of one of my shoes, which I’d carelessly kicked off at the front door—never considered it, that is, until she waddled over, one hand on her belly and the other holding the tattletale shoe, and sighed, "Honey, you said you'd quit."

6S

John Inouye works in product usability for a high tech company, but he sometimes thinks about other things.

Zombie

by Jodi MacArthur

It laid strewn across the floor, dead and undead. I hadn't meant to raise the pistol, hadn't anticipated the frosty fingers of fear to freeze my insides and steal my breath. He lived through the fire, my husband, but not through the surgery. He's come back for me, I suppose. I watch a finger stub, charred by coals, twitch and point at me. I reach for my book of matches in my back pocket, wanting to settle the matter once and for all.

6S

Jodi MacArthur, exiled in deep south Texas, is a Seattle author hoping to write her way back to the Pacific Northwest. In her spare time, she twitters at her beloved finches, Edgar and Emily, and drinks coffee - but never at the same time.

Existentialism

by Daniel Casebeer

An old man in a brown suit shuffled along the sidewalk. The birds in his beard were crying for food. He stopped at the corner and fed them some crumbs from his pocket. How romantic, I thought, this man and his birds. But what of the worms, my friend? What of the worms?

6S

Daniel Casebeer is a high school English teacher. He lives in Pittsburgh.

The Clockmaker

by Irene Sieders

My father was a lunatic master clockmaker. He made sure that each clock, large or small, antique or contemporary, ran at the exact time and not half a minute later than any of the others so lovingly restored. On the half hour and on the hour they all chimed simultaneously in a cacophony of joyful mad noise, only to fall silent again just as suddenly, to be replaced by the multiple tick tock of the many hands that crawled across the numerous faces. One morning he went quite mad, as if he had been struck by the clapper of a large bell that hung in a church tower, and between the hours of 5 and 5:30 AM he murdered my mother while she laid asleep in her bed. Afterward, he smoked a cigarette and listened to the crazy noise of all the clocks chiming the word guilty at him, before he picked up the telephone and called the police to turn himself in. On the question of why he had done it, he answered that she'd spent too much of his hard-earned cash on clothes and accessories.

6S

Irene Sieders is a coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking Dutch woman who prefers to write in English. She's a rampaging socialist and a card-carrying agnostic. Her website is here.