Six Sentences

I Will Fill Your Mouth with Cotton

2012-02-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Caro Harvey Cooper

She was breathing through her mouth again. It still amazed Anna that such a delicate mouth could make such a grating sound when left untended. It turned from beautiful lipsticked source of wisdom and witty remarks to cavernous wind tunnel – the same way a garden could be so peaceful when the sun shone but as soon as the light disappeared only rapists and rabid beasts could be found crunching over the dead and dying leaves. Her mouth became a tool of the devil; it kept Anna awake and was destroying their love. Anna had always wondered what it would be like to slide down a giant cheese grater, how much it would hurt – she believed this was the aural equivalent. She scrunched her fist and punched the pillow right next to the snoring head, half hoping to make contact with her lover's skull.

6S

Caro Harvey Cooper has a second thumb on her left hand, so she's perfectly suited to write (and count) six sentences.

Just Sixteen

2012-02-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Katya Zhukova

Her quivering hand stretched out for the cigarette and gently grasped it, while the three sneering boys looked mischievously at one another. "You'll like it, I promise," said one. She deeply inhaled, coughing ferociously, tears swelling up in her clear, curious eyes. She coughs now too: she pants and fights for her last gulps of that all-too-clean, hospital air. Her hands still shake, not from the cold, but because of her fragile, aged body. All alone, weak and powerless, trying to remember: why had she ever done it in the first place?

6S

Katya Zhukova dreams of being an eminent artist, even though she has trouble drawing stick-figures.

Night Life

2012-02-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Matt Brokaw

Suddenly everything was perfect. I achieved some sort of tangible harmony with the world around me. Who am I, and how did I get here? Can I stay for awhile? “For as long as you wish,” the wind chime offered. Contentment is a dish best served over and over again, and by dish I mean pint glass.

6S

Matt Brokaw is a supermodel. He spends his time away from the catwalk as a stuntman for Rob Pattinson and body double for Taylor Lautner in the "Twilight" movies. Matt's passions include (but are not limited to) deep-sea fly fishing and HDTV. He prefers the missionary position and his dream is to one day run a drug rehabilitation center for the elderly.

Late Bloomer

2012-01-31T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Hannah Ann

I don’t know if the stars are aligned or if it’s just my pheromones at work, but for some reason, I want her. My nature is betraying my nurture, and despite how much I want to, I can’t stop it. I thought I was done with puberty, but no I’m having my first crush all over again. The rush, the excitement, the mystery, is no different than any other firsts. So why do I feel as if my body is betraying me? I don’t know much about biology or psychology, all I know is this is no choice.

6S

Hannah Ann is a writer in North Carolina.

Transparent

2012-01-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Janet Dale

As his hand hovers in the air just in front of her face, she notices the size of his fingers and the glass they are wrapped around becomes transparent. She is now that glass, obvious and suspended; her cheeks flush and he pauses. “What’s the matter?” The words linger and her eyes close imagining his fingers in her hair, her mouth, everywhere except where they are currently. A drop of condensation slides down and lands on her skin, he clears his throat bringing her back into the present. “Nothing, but this will be my last drink tonight.”

6S

Janet Dale's current stresses include figuring out how to move all of her books and which bottle of wine to try next.

So Liberating

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Thomas Sullivan

I exit the bus, leaving behind a Bluetooth guy who is laughing about his restraining order. At the 7-11 I encounter a guy on a cellular, who is pacing back and forth, angrily grinding a sneaker on the ground. He breathes in hard and then barks, “He never answers his goddamn phone!” I stroll past in a disconnected peace, thinking gee, I wonder why that is. These things really are liberating. Especially for the embittered people you used to be able to easily avoid.

6S

Thomas Sullivan's writing has appeared in Word Riot and 3AM Magazine, among others. His memoir of teaching drivers education (titled Life In The Slow Lane) is forthcoming from Uncial Press in February, 2010. To read more of Thomas’ writing please visit editred.

Lot

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Donald Jett

I came to on the floor of the parking booth, a bloated beer can sweating in front of my face like a one-night stand. Not my type. I sat up and pressed at the knot on my temple until the pain became familiar. Then I grabbed the beer, held it to my head between drinks. When I was done, I tossed the can back into the night... bang bang. The owner of this lot is not liable for any damages.

6S

Donald Jett is looking for a new job.

Wires

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Carrie Lorig

I needed to make a patch, so I threaded my needle with some strands of longitude and latitude. I had no idea using them would pull the wires out from under the birds. On several farms, barbed wires unclotted and went smooth enough to step over. I heard lanterns collapsing and popping outside. Only then did I realize what I'd done and the herding that would be required to fix it. I thought of the orthodontists I would need to catch floating teeth, and of the equator writhing loose in a street far north where no one speaks his language.

6S

Carrie Lorig is living and teaching in Seoul until the first day of Fall. She blogs, but not well, here.

The Photo of Four Navajo Girls

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

by N.P. Tarpey

In the late-morning sun, we parked the pickup by the side of the road, lowered the tailgate, and put down a bowl filled with water for our two dogs to drink. Four young curious Navajo girls noticed the dogs, and without hesitation or fear, they climbed up onto the tailgate and took turns petting the tail-wagging canines. The girl in a pink long-sleeved shirt giggled when the old beagle licked her dusty face, but the girl in the white shirt was disappointed because the fox terrier was more interested in staying alert and watching the desert, than in chewing the squeaky hotdog toy. I knew to request permission before photographing Navajo people, so I asked the two women selling silver and turquoise jewelry at the nearby table, “Can I take a shot of your girls with our dogs?” The women smiled, and the older one said, “Yes, it looks like our girls have already made themselves at home in your truck.” Eight years later, the photo of the four Navajo girls makes me smile, even though the beagle is dead and the terrier is old, yet I sometimes wonder if the girl in pink laughs a lot and if the girl in white still has unmet expectations?

6S

N.P. Tarpey, after working 19 years as an alcohol, drug and family counselor, is in his third year as a sportswriter for the Times-Standard in California.

Crossed Wires

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Paul McQuade

He won't tell me he loves me on the phone. Something about the way the wires tangle, the way they vibrate too audibly. Every night I say the words into the receiver and after a while the dial tone screams. I listen to it so long that I think I can hear him speaking in the static. I am always just about to understand what he is saying when I fall asleep. When I dream about his girlfriend lying next to him I feel like I am suffocating.

6S

Paul McQuade is a Scottish-born writer living in Tokyo. His work is forthcoming on the National Gallery of Scotland Anthology and Fractured West. He has a tattoo of a teacup on his left arm and a penchant for Hendrick's gin.

The Fast

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Alex Buckey

Gluttony was still a grave and vaguely goofy sin. She had the Young Adult Bible Study dinner to thank for that lesson. Alternate Tuesday evenings were spent at the Olive Garden, where she had to remind herself to keep her lust for free breadsticks in check. Last time she had gotten some smirks and raised eyebrows when she went for her third, even though it had been clear no one else was going to eat it. This brazen act had been made still more shameful and ridiculous by the strand of oily fettuccine alfredo that had snaked its way down her blouse. This time, she let the still-laden bread basket pass away without comment, and left a chaste, dignified amount of ravioli to push around her plate.

6S

Alex Buckey is a college student in Houston.

An Itch Scratched

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Simon Hood

Breathless and shameless, skin against skin against leather, the cabbie's cocky glances spurred us on. We fell out of the taxi and into your bed, fell in love, fell to planning a life together. You'd write and I'd paint in our red brick loft, we'd retire to a seaside shack where our kids' kids would skip in the surf. "You're on my side of the bed," you said: happy anniversary. I wasn't aware we had sides; we must have developed them while I slept. How can it be that the couple that fucked without shame in the back of a cab now works up a sweat squabbling over who gets to keep the slow cooker?

6S

Simon Hood cycles and writes his way around England and calls it work.

A Quiet Place to Sit

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Gregory Pleshaw

A quiet place to sit. That's what New York City seems to lack in abundance. Even L.A. and S.F. have quiet cafes and quiet laid-back bars where you can sit with an open notebook and feel alone. Anonymity is NYC's stock-in-trade, but aloneness is hard to find. Everything here is a frenzy, a crush of humanity and noise, a place where everything, including an introduction, is a kind of sale. There are so many places to feel lost here, but almost nowhere to be by yourself.

6S

Gregory Pleshaw is Living and Working in Thailand.

The Other Side

2012-01-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Chantal M. Shelstad

When the doorbell rang at 5:30am, Kaylee knew something was wrong. Her first thought when she opened her eyes was the baby in the next room, hoping she was still fast asleep. As she wrapped a robe around her sleepy body and descended the stairs, her next thought was of her husband half a world away. Her stomach wrenched when she reached the foyer. Ignoring the peephole for the first time in months, Kaylee opened the heavy wood door. They didn’t have to say anything, though, because she already knew why they were there.

6S

Chantal M. Shelstad is an Army wife living in Hawaii and an aspiring writer editing her first novel. She spends most of her time watching trashy TV, taking care of her puppy, Dexter, and writing. (Check out her blog and website.)

Take On Another One

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

by M. Courteau

I recently went on a date. Apparently I was funny because she told me I should be a stand up comedian. I went deadpan. Something about the comment. I stood up, fished out my half of the dinner, walked out, lit a cigarette and strolled home alone on a pleasant fall evening. A few days later she called to apologize, for what, she did not know.

6S

M. Courteau can be reached here.

The Psychology of Labor

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Karyn Eisler

The weight of depression descends on his head. It happens on Mondays. Predictably, he asks himself, Is this my life from now 'til the end? It's his work - not the job itself, but the need to earn a check. It's something he resents. The cast iron burden lifts on the weekends, when he empties trash, scrubs floors, and cleans a week's worth of dishes at home, without getting paid a cent.

6S

Karyn Eisler has recently appeared in The Battered Suitcase, PicFic, and BluePrintReview. She holds a PhD in sociology, teaches at Langara College, and lives in Vancouver, B.C.

Crooked Collective

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Karen Vejar

Incidentally, hearts and beer bellies swelled together in perfect unison. Everyone went on with what they did best, what they did worse, what they did. Of course time wouldn't be so rude as to leave them empty handed, no sir, he granted them each with their very own sense of detachment. Detached from taste, feeling, satisfaction, from each other. The blow from a stinging cold shoulder softened through recurrence. A bellow of anger passed swiftly by a mutter of indifference with ease; had they been people walking past each other on a boulevard, no friendly grin or even a tip of a hat would have been exchanged.

6S

Karen Vejar writes from a small block of apartments alongside the West Coast.

Binge Painter

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Gloria Garfunkel

One week until the exhibition and only half the paintings were done. This is how Axel worked best, with a gun to his head. He existed on coffee, only the darkest beans for inspiration, listening to his favorite jazz round the clock, sweeping those brushes and colors and his body in rhythm like a dancer leaving traces of his grace on the canvases so that, by the day of the exhibit, with the paint still drying, the paintings were done. All the paintings sold. A genius! Then he went home and crawled into bed and didn't lift a brush for another six months.

6S

Gloria Garfunkel is a published writer and psychologist.

Name That Flaw

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Sue Ann Connaughton

A tradition to pose as calendar girl proved lethal to the ingénue’s career. The agent who marketed her never pinpointed his error. “Remove the mole on her cheek,” he ordered. “Bleach her hair platinum.” However, it was her name that stubbed her career. The public didn’t want a pinup girl named Frances.

6S

Sue Ann Connaughton writes fiction and poetry from a drafty old house in New England.

Improving with Age

2012-01-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Eddie Walsh

He could view the object of his desire through the antique shop window. Impossible to value but definitely desirable. He entered and the owner smiled at him. He smiled back at her. Although now a fading beauty, she had once been stunning. And he knew she was beyond his reach.

6S

Eddie Walsh is an Irishman now living in Nottingham, England. He runs flash fiction competitions via his website.

Greenville, 1989

2012-01-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Patty Scull

On tired Spring afternoons, my mother would pull up to the Trinity United Methodist Church playground my brother and I would occupy after school; it rained a lot in those days. On the way home we would lean our heads against the cold, smooth windows that enclosed us in the back of my mother’s silver Honda Civic. We’d pretend the raindrops were racing, and we’d trace them with our fingertips and take bets as they stalled suddenly in their rain-made tracks. Then, just as fervently they would slide downward on a diagonal until we could no longer see them in the pane of our apocryphal race track. We’d trade sidelong glances, and my brother’s feet would dangle above the carpeted floor, his favorite green and white striped shirt crumpled under a mass of long blonde hair. We’d close our eyes and only when the car’s shaking and slowing reminded us of the worn gravel of our house’s driveway would we open them and all of a sudden, we were home.

6S

Patty Scull is a New York City based writer. Her work has recently been published in The Scarlet Sound, and she has an essay slated to appear in an upcoming issue of The Other Herald.

Murderous Eggs

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Rod Drake

Aldous was frightened of eggs; not allergic to them, but frightened of them, with their smooth, opaque eggshells sitting in uniform rows, never alone, gleaming up at him behind an invisible veil of refrigeration in grocery and convenience stores everywhere. Fiendish, terrifying; he knew that eggs were out to get him. So it was with great trepidation that he stayed over at Marcie’s, his new girlfriend, apartment, when she asked him to one night (since sex overwhelmed, but did not erase, the fear of eggs in her refrigerator). After Marcie was in bed and waiting for him, he took a couple of minutes and using some masking tape he found, Aldous securely latched the refrigerator door—let those thin-shelled demons try to escape now, he thought smugly. Early the next morning, Aldous quietly got up and headed into the kitchen for a drink, only to discovered that the tape was ripped loose from the refrigerator door; had Marcie done it in the night, he wondered, or... He walked through the dark apartment to the bathroom, suddenly feeling the crack of several eggs under his feet, which caused him to slip on the wet yolks smearing the tile, losing his balance, and careen forward to bash his head fatally on the tub—Aldous’ last thought was hearing the silent telepathic laughter of eggs everywhere.

6S

Rod Drake is the Official 6S Author for Friday the 13th and Halloween.

First Date

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Andrew Morgan

Her luck might be changing. True, he hadn't said too much all night, and yes, he basically looked like all her old, dead weights. Granted. And to make matters worse, he was a little too hung up on the church for her liking but she supposed concessions had to be made, because in this day and age, it was becoming impossible to find that special someone. Her up-do squirmed uncomfortably, restless and unnerved by this evening's awkward small talk. She smiled nervously while tucking a stray cobra behind her ear and secretly wondered if this gargoyle even had a car.

6S

Andrew Morgan - who lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario - loves being a makeup artist, though secretly wishes he could trade his Diorshow mascara for a publication credit.

The Ring

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Shannon Peil

He was six foot three and crying and my hand was on his knee and her face was turned away. She had tears running down to her chin and couldn't stop saying she was sorry, but I felt nothing. He put the ring back into his pocket and her eyes sunk to the floor and she put her hand in mine as he got up to leave. He didn't even slam the door. We didn't see him again and I remember thinking it was interesting how fast a friendship could dissolve but I forgot all about it soon, lost in her lips and fingers and hips and thighs. Later that night she told me she had cried over how she had made him feel, not that she had made the wrong choice - and I fell asleep in her arms and felt no shame.

6S

Shannon Peil gets published sometimes, rejected others, and thinks that's fine. He edits for people who actually know what they're doing here.

Calling All Extras

2012-01-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Eva Gurfein

Her beauty is like her happiness – stunningly conventional. She likes to imagine her world in black and white. She is Greta’s Grand Hotel when she wants to be alone and Marlena’s Montecarlo after striking gold. The script has been written, exits and entrances preset. Play your part well and your minor character may develop past the first act. Most likely, however, it will not – only one name appears on the marquee.

6S

Eva Gurfein is a student from Los Angeles, currently living in Baltimore. She writes those things her mother taught her were impolite to say aloud.

Youth Group

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Elise Ventura

It’s a silver-plated siren call, the words of the youth pastor’s wife: God is real, demons are real, the battle is real, and we are fighting for your life. To a teen girl who lives in her books, it’s everything she’s ever wanted to hear. You’re beautiful, you’re special, you’re strong, and we need you is what they say, though in more words than that. The lies are hidden behind pristine smiles and fervent prayer, and ever so slowly, the message changes. You’re tainted, you’re a sinner, give up your worldly ways and submit. They’re only right about one thing: demons are real.

6S

Elise Ventura is a writer living in Minnesota.

Aunt Gwen's Lopsidedness

2012-01-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Kenneth Pobo

You can say what you want about her — and people say plenty. Several planets took root in her spine. This makes her wobble, but not terribly. Gwen’s laugh causes sunspots. Satellites quiver when she hears a joke she likes, usually one about the rich. Not rich herself, except in planets, she can never unload a single one at Baby Jane’s Pawn Shop.

6S

Kenneth Pobo’s poetry chapbook, Trina and the Sky, won the 2009 Main Street Rag poetry chapbook contest. His fiction appears in: Galleon, Verbsap, Word Riot, Tonopah Review, Fiction at Work, and elsewhere.

When Going Up or Down

2012-01-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Rachel Kuhnle

Don’t let yourself fall asleep on the spiral stairs — the metal stairs that lead up to the ceiling, not seeming to go anywhere. You’ll wake up with rounded diamond shapes on your cheek and you’ll feel like you’d been punched in the jaw. At the time you’ll enjoy the way your body fits the curve of the stairs and the cool metal will feel nice on your skin. You’ll think, hey, it’s better than having my head on the floor, and the elevation from one step to the next will seem comforting. But trust me: you’ll wake with your body coiled like a snake and your muscles will feel heavy and cramped. And while it’s true your vomit will have filtered down to the floor, you’ll eventually be standing right in it.

6S

Rachel Kuhnle is an English/Theater student living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She can most often be found sitting alone in her dorm room, reading, and nursing the pangs of unrequited love (and a caffeine addiction).

Sangria

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Walter Campbell

Just because I’m Spanish, she thinks I can make authentic sangria, as though I’m born with sugary wine and liquor pumping through my arteries. Cut me, and I bleed delicious. Fine, whatever, here’s some brandy, sliced up oranges and lemons, about ten raspberries, a little sugar, and a bottle of chilled Rioja. Does it taste authentic: a little bit of Madrid, a small amount of Barcelona, and maybe some Valencia for good measure? Well, if it doesn’t, then we have two options: we can either add half a bottle of zinfandel and a lime or we can run a butcher knife along my thumb and let it bleed into the carafe for a few minutes. Your call.

6S

Walter Campbell lives and works in Philadelphia, went to school in New England, and grew up in L.A., but he'll write pretty much anywhere. Recently, his work has been published in Dog Oil Press.

Forecast

2012-01-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Danielle Smith

The world is still, motionless. I watch it with anticipation as the trees remain frozen and the wind holds its breath. There are no clouds, no sound. My heart hammers in my chest as I wait; the blood pounding in my ears. Then, like a picture suddenly come to life, a single drop of rain splashes against my nose. The air bursts with ferocious electricity and the wind abruptly lets loose - howling, rushing, pushing, alive and the world is no longer quiet; the storm is finally here.

6S

Danielle Smith is just an ordinary community college student with no money, and, let's face it: no life. She still lives with her family and is forced to eat Top Ramen daily. She believes writing on a whim is great, even if it never really gets anywhere.

All Shook Up

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Eleanor Radford

She didn’t look quite as beautiful upside down. I awoke, flat on my back, to the sight of her flipped visage looming. As she stood at my head, her eyes roamed and took in the bottles and ashes all around. “You never cease to disappoint me,” she said, before she slammed the door and started the engine in the icy street below. I slowly rose from the carpet and stood unsteadily upright. You disappoint me too: I believed you’d always be that beautiful, from any angle.

6S

Eleanor Radford is a writer living in Vancouver, BC.

The Sixth Sentence

2012-01-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Ed Rivers

The first sentence caught my eye. It seemed to be about me. It seemed to be written by somebody who knows me. It used some of my favorite words, like "aphonia” and “aposiopesis.” Although just six words it seemed to go on forever, racing through my brain and torso and arms and legs and across the sands under my feet and through the sands of Mars and across the seas of Venus and around Jupiter’s rainbow rings and over the black rocks on Pluto. Six, two, five, one, four, three––now, at last, I can hear the silence.

6S

Ed Rivers teaches English at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Hues of Quiet Beneath Stained Glass

2012-01-02T06:00:00.001-05:00

by Jody J. Sperling

Windows know nothing of transparency compared to my wife’s thoughts in this place. She sees that churches were built to make people look up. Their tile floors: unimpressive, beige, unkempt not unlike the ministers who serve there. The ministers who serve there: hidden in the shadows, contemplating their sins, pondering denial, Catholicism, a move to expiate with coins and empty confessions, pining to be one of the saints emblazoned on stain glassed windows. Those windows: reds and blues, greens, golds and silvers, are keepers of the illusion. Church is a quiet place today.

6S

Jody J. Sperling lives in Omaha, Nebraska with his lovely wife, and attends the University of Nebraska, Omaha in pursuit of a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts. His stories and poetry have appeared in Bartleby Snopes, The Linnet's Wings, Eunoia Review, and The Metropolitan.

Roadmap

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Tess Pfeifle

By the time I get there, I'll be fine. An optimistic smile and a taste for serendipity have lead me through life's grand maze with little sorrow and a lot to say. I know my lifestyle is unconventional at best. If my mother tells me one more time that my biological clock is ticking, I might reset hers. I don't have a choice when the west wind blows, tapping at my window, beckoning me to go. My goal is to make the whole world a place called home.

6S

Tess Pfeifle loves strawberry smoothies, long Bob Dylan songs and zombies. If you want to know more about her, or her publications, visit her website.

I'm Afraid of Bears

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Jonas Winslo

The airport in Anchorage has a large collection of stuffed animals, not gift shop stuffies, grotesque taxidermical nightmares. Every animal is rendered in full blood-thirsty attack mode. Lunging badgers, snarling wolves, elk impending impalement. The Bear stands twelve feet tall with a roaring world-record head and massive paws that could smash a bison’s skull (according to the plaque). I realize now that this factoid is a cold calculation of force and bone density. As a child, I assumed someone witnessed a frenzied buffalocide on the prairie.

6S

Jonas Winslo crafts in the Pacific Northwest. He is dexterous, almost uncomfortably tall and can recognize every breed of dog except some of those new poodle mixes.

Each Kiss

2011-12-30T06:00:00.002-05:00

by Jennifer Falkner

Each kiss is a capitulation. He is complicit in his own unhappiness. In the absence of a second youth, when he might have had the energy or wit for a different sort of life, there is only this - a migration from home to work to home, with his laundry predictably folded and dinners predictably made. He used to think of her as his first wife. Yet her lips are soft, her kisses never sloppy. It could be worse.

6S

Jennifer Falkner has fiction appearing in The First Line, Flashquake and various other places. She lives in Ottawa.

Because

2011-12-29T06:00:00.001-05:00

by Mel George

You think it's because of that girl you kissed at Dave's party. It isn't. It's because of that book I leant you; the one I told you changed my life; the one I claimed would help you truly understand me. You didn't get around to reading it for four months, and you finally handed it back to me slightly crumpled. I asked you what you thought, and you said, 'It was all right.' I know it shouldn't be, but it's because of that.

6S

Mel George reads and writes (but doesn't do arithmetic) in Oxford. She edits The Pygmy Giant.

Windemere Road

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Heidi Marshall

Yesterday I lost my footing on ice that looked like the bubbled sheet candy I made in the 7th grade. It was a side-long, graceful ballet move. At least that's what I'd like to think. Ribs hit first and then my head smacked icy ground. The impact brought a sudden awareness to the design and density of my skull and how it insulates a river of memories. The smooth clear ones that like to flow over slate-colored pebbles and the muddy ones that slide beneath the tease of dark branches.

6S

Heidi Marshall teaches literature and creative writing at North Central Michigan College. She also scripts documentaries and paints landscapes and the figure.

I'm Not Going to Be a Comedian

2011-12-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Clara Morris

One nice thing about New York is that you get to watch your dreams shatter right before your eyes. And a year long lease paralyzes you so that you have to keep your eyes open and uncovered, always watching. You're unable to shield your face as the shards of your dreams ricochet toward you. The shards don't just scratch the surface or break the skin. They leave scars. Shards of broken dreams leave scars.

6S

Clara Morris graduated from the University of Maryland in 2008. She moved to Brooklyn to become a comedian. Her blog is here.

Rocky Flats

2011-12-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Shannon Peil

The dust covering this old, forgotten dictionary could have choked me if I hadn't been wearing my respirator. I looked around and everyone was wandering away, making scraping noises with their plastic covered boots against the tiles. Opening this dictionary, flipping to a random page, I closed my eyes and ran my index finger to a random word. I exhaled deeply and the sweat dripped from my eyes, breath fogging up the inside of my plastic face-cage. 'Asbestosis,' it said, deliberately, coldly. At this moment, standing alone in a closed-down nuclear weapons facility, holding my dictionary, wearing my respirator, I believed in God for just a second.

6S

Shannon Peil runs amphibi.us for kicks and hopes the DoE isn't mad about this one.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Moose?

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Michelle Davis

"Mama, Mama, you know what?" my four year old always starts every conversation the same way. "This girl at my daycare, she is a girl, and she says reindeer are mooses, but I know they are reindeer because I know about this stuff: Santa can’t fly with mooses, Mama." His tone was so certain, but his eyes belied the question behind them. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus... that was all I could think of as I stared at those big blue eyes. I didn’t answer right away because how do you answer that (?), but he must have found the answer in my own eyes because he said, "Yeah, I know this stuff, because Rudolph is a reindeer and he helps Santa drive the sleigh, and he is NOT a moose." Dispute settled, end of story, and all is well in the world tonight... I love it when I’m right!

6S

Michelle Davis (formerly Duvall) finds the spirit of Christmas not in the jingles in the air... but in the minds of all of her boys... five to be exact!

So Many Things Happened Last Night

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Matthew Mahaney

I started to forget the idea I had about the plastic city. A city made entirely of plastic. I forgot what I was going to call it, which meant that I also forgot what the people living there would be called. I couldn’t remember whether it would be land-locked or on the ocean. I even forgot the things I hadn’t decided on yet, like how many people it would hold. Whether the animals would stay away, and if not, where they would sleep.

6S

Matthew Mahaney is currently in the MFA program at The University of Alabama, and editor of the online magazine Double Shiny.

iPorn

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Melissa Grant

I’m a bit of a whore if you really think about it, but howwe move isn’t conventional. First you insert your jack into me, and then press your thumb to my button before gently moving around in a circle. You brush your thumb right and press down, and then brush your thumb left and press again. You’ve picked the right place to stop, and I get excited as a beat pulses through your ears and you start to move with it. Up and down your head goes,your hips wiggling with the tune. Sometimes I scream in your ear and sometimes it’s sweet, like love, but either way I’m yours, and we work together.

6S

Melissa Grant is a sophomore at Montclair State University, who tries to pretend she's exciting by going to shows and concerts at least once a month.

When the Earth Disappears

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Richard Ford

Nothing in the world is as hopeful as knowing a woman you like is somewhere thinking about only you. Conversely, there is no badness anywhere as acute as the badness of no woman out in the world thinking about you. Or worse. That one has quit because of some bone-headedness on your part. It is like looking out an airplane window and finding the earth has disappeared. No loneliness can compete with that.

6S

Richard Ford won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his 1995 novel Independence Day.

Crossed Wires

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Horse

2011-12-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Paul McIntyre

Bits of that night keep coming back to me. It was the usual pattern: beer, beer, shot; beer, beer, shot. After that it gets hazy. We staggered home through the field - the one with the grey horse in it. I don’t remember: was it your idea or mine to lead it across the motorway? The newspapers wanted answers too.

6S

Paul McIntyre lives in Manchester, and blogs about scriptwriting here. (He's 28, but not yet worried about 30.)

Sidelines

2011-12-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Lauren McCombe

Life is puddles, and the failed application of umbrellas to rainy situations - we’re all just as beautiful in the downpour. I remember asking you to dance with me then, to let yourself admit the fragility of my being. Your toes were dry within pristine leather, while my own were soaked in the beauty of my breakdown. We’re such different people, you and I. Now that I think of it, I’m glad that you watched from a distance. It’s a small comfort (but a comfort nonetheless) that you were there to dry me in sensibility when the great freedom of it all became too cold to dance in.

6S

Lauren McCombe has been falling over pretty much constantly for the past six years, and has mourned the loss of over four umbrellas.

Bird's Eye View

2011-12-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Will Scott

I kind of knew that it was happening. I tried to laugh as you climbed up there, but I had an inkling. Those hungry little feelings, whiffs of redundancy, of the future, they were never insistent enough that I hadn't been able to ignore your repeated attempts, at least while bruises and a scraped ego were the only outward signs of what was to be. But recently something had caught my attention – maybe it was your musculature, a certain downiness, maybe your eyes. Whatever it was, I was rapt, engrossed, as you stepped out and did not fall. And with an instant, crushing acuity, I recognized evolution, and you were gone.

6S

Will Scott is a visual creative giving writing a whirl to see how the other half lives.

Money Plot

2011-12-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Zoe Storey

If anyone knew that she wrote this book in the living room, with her boyfriend on the sofa, Goldeneye on TV, it would crush her. She fancies herself as a bit literary, and often writes with a weird voice, for some imagined audience of high brow critics, who, let's face it, critique because they can't make it themselves. So here she is, finally writing something, she's not sure what it will be about but she'd better hurry because she's been implying it's something else for months. Changed her whole career on a whim, and even while writing this, she's grossly aware of the fact she can never write for herself. The girl of flounce, the Einzelkind, has all vanity necessary for a writer, but none of the profundity. So she continues, biding her time, waiting for the money plot, knowing she lost the agent on the first line.

6S

Zoe Storey lives in London, and, alongside a sensible occupation, is also trying to write.

Night Counting

2011-12-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Frank Tota

I am trying to figure out the sentence I use most frequently. If I were a traffic cop, it might be: Stop! Apu: Thank you, come again. My ex-wife: Barneys, Bendel and Bergdorf. I stayed up all night counting, and mine has to be: Maybe. If I could just change that, I could change everything.

6S

Frank Tota is a student in the MFA program at Florida International University. He lives in Miami and misses his dog Lucky.

Better to Be Safe

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Jessica Lafortune

If you turned on the microwave she’d run from the kitchen, shrieking, “Radiaaation!” Shoes on the table and she’d gasp, clutch her chest, crying, “Signore!” in her native Italian. Leftover bread tossed in the trash was temporarily resurrected and blessed with a kiss; “The Body of Christ,” she’d say, crossing herself before replacing the sacrilege in the bin. For years I sidestepped sidewalk cracks, held my breath passing cemeteries, dipped fingers in every available bowl of holy water, and threw salt over my shoulder in honor of her ritual self-preservation, ingrained in me as much as the Rosary and pasta on Sunday. She lived to be one hundred years old, too long to fear invisible rays, inadvertent curses, and the sin of unnecessary waste. I remain afraid of a world without her in it.

6S

Jessica Lafortune is a teacher, tutor, and freelance writer. She lives in Florida surrounded by humans and canines who (barely) tolerate her obsessive reading and writing habits.

Man She Used to Love

2011-12-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

by Devora Rogers

The dirty sultan, she has begun to call him. Still, she lets him lick her neck and make love to her. And between their moans he means it. But it is not the same. What she knows lingers. A phone ring could kill them both.

6S

Devora Rogers writes about new media for a living, blogs about Europe for fun and recently completed her first novel. She lives in Los Angeles.

The Drought of You and Me

2011-12-13T06:00:00.001-05:00

by Sandy Ackers

I reach out for you, but find myself grabbing empty handfuls of air. Your words, which used to flow around me like the comforting water of a familiar brook, have become drips from a leaky faucet. I can’t decide whether to keep banging on the tap, trying to force it open, or to fix the leak and silence it forever. My desire to drink deeply straight from your lips never ceases. But for now, I can only hold my parched tongue under the faucet. I carefully catch each and every unsatisfying drop as it falls.

6S

Sandy Ackers is a writer living in San Francisco. Her blog - Strangling My Muse: Struggling to Live a Creative Life in a Stressful World - can be found here.

Through the Door

2011-12-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Doug McIntire

I never expected to see her walk through that door. I hadn’t seen her in over twenty years, but I recognized her immediately. And I recognized the young woman who walked in behind her. She looked just like her mother did, back when we were still together. I didn’t even know she had a daughter. After an awkward hello, she said, "Nicole wanted to know who her father was."

6S

Doug McIntire has never had this happen to him. He hopes it never does.

In the Mirror

2011-12-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Kevin Jones

The two of them, unbeknownst to each other, had been sitting side by side, hitting hard on a bottle of something brown and for sure the call brand. When the bottle they had jointly polished off was removed, a portion of mirror was exposed that had not been exposed before. The faces they saw were not their own but each other’s. Within the hour, sperm had hit its mark, which is how fate sometimes works in collaboration with alcohol. And for this I am lucky, I guess, for it is how I came to exist. Or so I’ve been told.

6S

Kevin Jones is a writer living in the middle of Texas.

How I'll Meet My Wife

2011-12-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Kea Wilson

I don't think a roofie will quite do it. I need to slip you one of those Alice in Wonderland pills, cage you against the bar in my closed fist. I'll whisper to you on the taxi ride home, carry you across the threshold like it's our goddamned wedding night, slipped into my shirt pocket like a love letter. In the morning, you won't be ashamed or call the cops. You'll remember your body in the throat of a linen flower, my heartbeat like the inside of a sonic boom. You couldn't help but love me then.

6S

Kea Wilson is a kinda-writer who keeps a blog of tiny fictions here (and she'd adore you forever for checking it out). She is from Cleveland, OH (and also Interlochen, MI, but Annapolis, MD right now and Santa Fe and Barcelona before).

Spade

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Nathan Tyree

Had I known that you would be coming back, I would have done some things differently. Perhaps I would have been nicer to you. I guess that, in retrospect, I should have given you more of my time; more of my affection. None of that seems all that important now. Now I can see that there was only one thing that I really should have focused on. I should have buried you deeper.

6S

Nathan Tyree's work has appeared in Flesh and Blood, Doorknobs and Body Paint, The Flash, Bare Bone, Wretched and Violent, and The Empty Page: Stories Inspired by the Songs of Sonic Youth.

My Brother's Last Run for Swift

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Scott Beal

The sky's black mat flattens everything against the rush of road which undercuts him from the edge of his headlight beams. The cab seethes around him, panel and windshield buckling in with each gasp. The pavement's metronomic white dashes run him through — a seam, splitting. Five hundred miles away she sits his son in front of thawed nuggets and a cartoon sponge. Every minute at the wheel he rolls deeper into anesthetic panic, farther from nightlights and gladware. If he pulls off now for a mouthful of air, the cab will never let him back in.

6S

Scott Beal was 826michigan's Volunteer of the Month in November 2007.

Snowball

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Crispin Best

There was a snowball on the ground. I walked over and trod on the snowball. It squeaked. It was not a snowball. It was a piece of polystyrene. I thought about how I felt and decided I felt OK.

6S

Crispin Best is wearing an orange t-shirt and feels sad when he thinks about the moon.

Three Truths

2011-12-06T06:00:00.002-05:00

by Ellen Foley

ONE: Sometimes when someone’s talking to me (especially if what they’re saying isn’t particularly interesting), and there’s a mirror behind them, and the lighting’s flattering, I find myself fighting the urge to look at myself. I think, I look sultry when I listen. TWO: Licking a Q-Tip, inserting it into my ear canal to the point where it brushes my ear drum, spinning it rapidly – I enjoy this immensely. THREE: I love blasting farts. But I will never admit it. Ever.

6S

Ellen Foley is a pseudonym. She lives in Montreal.

Swing Me Close

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Natalie Jabbar

On bright, summer afternoons, I play outside while my mom works her magic in the kitchen. Sometimes my dad pushes me on the garden swing, pressing his palms against my bony back so that I can ascend higher than my knees can take me. He leaves me and goes to pick an orange from our tree, unpeeling it on his way back while I try to pump higher without him. As I feel myself losing momentum, he begins pushing me again with one, distracted hand. He eats the orange with the other hand, occasionally placing a slice into my laughing mouth as I descend from the sky. Even though he is pushing me away from him, this is the closest we will ever be.

6S

Natalie Jabbar is about to embark on her final undergraduate year of college and is flirting with dreams of a future in writing.

Nonrefundable

2011-12-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Ellie Garratt

Why do I stay with him? Love? No. Every day I spend with him is another 24 hours of justification, a marker of the nonrefundable price I pay for trying to make him see me as I truly am – the person who stayed. She had run away and left him for another man. I never would, no matter what the cost.

6S

Ellie Garratt is the author of Second Chances, which appears in the fundraising book 100 Stories for Haiti. She lives in the UK, and blogs here.

A Loner

2011-12-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

by M.E. Purfield

He stayed in his house. He didn’t talk to his neighbors. He worked from home. He never had visitors. No one was surprised when the police arrested him for murder. I was surprised I got away with it.

6S

M.E. Purfield has fiction on the web and in print. You can find him here.

Lady Luck

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Mike Revell

They call her Lady Luck, the girl with the golden hair, but only because they met her on a good day. They remember their promotions or proposals, or love at first sight, and they glow at the memory. But there are bad days. And on the bad days, days when the Lady is bored or tired or hungover; days when she is stung or depressed: you do not want to see her then. Because on those days, looking to all the world like rot, she is far less charitable. On those days, you may sooner find your tire punctured, or your wallet forgotten, than a penny glinting on the floor before you.

6S

Mike Revell is a Creative Writing graduate from the University of Essex. He likes to write about old things in a new way, when he can steal the time to do so.

Elevator

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Ryan Ridge

Two men waited in an elevator. One man had a shameful secret. The other had a disease but didn’t know it. They nodded at each other casually as the door shut. One man pushed the button while the other looked on. Both were going to the bottom.

6S

Ryan Ridge writes and teaches in Southern California. He maintains an archive of past work here.

Defiance

2011-11-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Heather Fain

Lauren picked up the heavy scissors, as she gazed into the mirror at the long blonde braid that represented everything she no longer desired for herself. The act of cutting it was simple enough but what it represented, and the statement it would make when she walked into the dining room to join her parents and brothers for dinner, was much greater. Apprehensively she held the length of it out to the side, but after a moment’s pause and reflection, quickly and decisively snipped it off. The vulnerable inner seeds of independence within her instantly quickened, the world grew light with possibility, and she felt a rebellion within that thrilled her. Transfixed by this new creature reflecting back at her, she ran a hand through her chin length tresses. This was an end, and a new beginning; this was life upside down.

6S

Heather Fain writes on the side of her day job (working in an office) and is currently attempting a chapbook.

Hindsight

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Michael Brooks

I wish I had known how to read her signals, how to interpret the hair touching and smiles from across the crowded party. I wish I had known she was waiting to pull me aside while everyone gathered their coats and prepared for the frosty night. I wish I had known she would grab me by the face and thrust her slippery soft tongue into my mouth, imparting the taste of cheap beer and adolescence. I wish I had known her hands would guide mine, under her shirt then beneath her bra, up the intoxicating roundness of her flesh to the pink and pointy apex. I wish I had known she had a boyfriend. And I wish I had known he was standing in the driveway, waiting to deliver the beating of my young life.

6S

Michael Brooks lives in Durham, North Carolina with his wife, dog and two cats, and owns a new, sealed copy of Mannequin on VHS. He has perfect vision yet considers getting black-rimmed glasses to improve his credibility as a writer. His blog is called Penis in a Rowboat.

Stars

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Jacob Allgeier

He wanted to be an astronaut. The stars in the vast galaxy were just beckoning his domination. “Shoot for the them,” his mother would say, for she knew he could hit them all. Every one has collapsed, for he has conquered the speckled plain, the veins of constellations in the sky. Floating through the air he sees them, those entrancing lights he always dreamed of becoming a part of, and feels on top of the world. He wishes to never come down from this high, this dream where he can do the impossible, living in infinite joy, and dying peacefully as a shining spark that will never dim.

6S

Jacob Allgeier is currently studying at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida for a B.A. in Creative Writing and a B.A. in Literature. You can follow him on his Tumblr.

Self Torture

2011-11-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

by caccy46

She was a master at ignoring warning signs. In fairness, she didn't ignore them - in fact, she obssessed about them; her days and nights controlled so she lived in near panic mode while awake. In order to sleep, she took tablets, and as such, felt her life was governed solely by external forces. She seemed merely a shell running on the machinations of a broken brain, at the mercy of a genetics she never chose and would prefer to end had she the courage. Every spot, every bump, every twinge was another signal of imminent demise. She was tortured by the prison of her own making with no knowledge of how to escape.

6S

caccy46's full 6S catalog is here.

The Third Set

2011-11-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Chad Redden

When a man dreams of losing teeth, it arises from a deeper fear of him losing his virility. The man could not decide the meaning of him losing a tooth while he was awake, for it to fall out as simple as a sneeze, drop out of his mouth and into his hand simple as coughing up a bad taste. The actual name of the tooth and its function in his mouth was unknown to the man, all the same, it laid there in his hand with a little bit of blood and spit pooled around it almost as if it were a symbol itself, a symbol of what the event meant, but he lost interest in thinking about symbols. Instead, the man wondered about the possibility of people growing three sets during their lifetime with teeth instead of two, that this tooth was pushed out, this was a thought of hope over the reality that somewhere in his years, the occasional evenings in which he fell asleep before flossing and proper brushing led to this point. The man then thought about the giant tooth and toothbrush the old dentist used to demonstrate the circular motions required while brushing, and then wondered if he put the tooth under his pillow the Tooth Fairy might come because he had questions he had wished he had asked back when the Tooth Fairy originally visited his room with clumsy feet that crunched tinker toys into bits and scattered cars under his bed where they would be lost for years, clumsy feet that then went into the living room and opened cans of beer until the television went to loud static, while the man, a boy then, laid the rest of the night, afraid to open his eyes because if he did, that quarter under his pillow might disappear. The man dropped the tooth into the sink, flushed it down the drain with water, and then hoped a third set of teeth wasn’t growing and pushing his current set of teeth out from his mouth, because every time another tooth fell out he’d be tempted to put it under his pillow and wait for a Tooth Fairy he was too afraid to ask questions of, or worse, would have questions for him, like why he had turned out exactly the same or why hadn’t he visited the cemetery.

6S

Chad Redden currently lives in Indianapolis where he majors in English at IUPUI. His work has been appeared in Fiore and Biannicle.

Boyfriend Disclaimer

2011-11-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Molly Williams

May inflict serious emotional pain on those whom he loves, thus causing general turmoil and tears when there is no need for it. May sabotage your first date by drinking more than he knows he should, and then getting on top of the bar and doing a sloppy rendition of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” Is almost ensured to say things that make him sound like a jerk when in the company of important people, e.g. minor celebrities, rich friends and your parents. Will definitely go through deep, intense “moody” phases that he consistently fails at explaining. Loves to pretend he’s Jay-Z in the shower — you will probably want to tear out your eardrums after the first few nights of this, but we’ll let you work that out. May also, under extreme conditions, bring love and happiness into your life — but this is a rare occurrence, and should be met with great alarm.

6S

Molly Williams. Freshman in high school. Loves green tea ice cream and photographing, writing about and laughing at life.

Small World

2011-11-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Daniel Romo

She typed furiously on her laptop, excessively straight-laced and homely. Her tan loafers firmly planted on the carpet indicated she never had sex. She captivated me nonetheless. I wondered what she was writing so hard, and thought maybe she was a poet too, and if so, would she rather dine with Rumi, or Bukowski, or maybe Plath? She paused for a moment holding her bangs between her fingers, and I thought Plath. Definitely Plath.

6S

Daniel Romo teaches high school creative writing, and lives in Long Beach, CA. He has been recently published in Monkeybicycle, 50 to 1, and The November 3rd Club. He is an MFA candidate at Antioch University, and thinks gray sky the utmost inspiration. More of his writing can be found here.

Music

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Matthew O'Shannessy

I know there is a tiny gremlin inside my ear (hello!). It has a wet hessian sack full of pins and needles that it pushes up and down my ear canal. It pisses putrid white liquid until I can't hear a thing. It transforms into electricity and makes the muscles in my neck twitch in pain. Have you ever thought about scooping your eardrums out with the wrong end of a silver spoon? I'm convinced that the deaf have better sex than those of us who can hear music.

6S

Matthew O'Shannessy writes copy for websites about organizational change and epoxy resin flooring, among other things.

Blankets

2011-11-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Steve Himmer

The sticky heat and muffled sound remind Martin of lying in bed when he was eight years old and living in one of many cramped apartments he shared with his mother. He listened to the adult voices growing louder in the next room as she fought with the man they were living with then - the one he remembers as only a walrus mustache - and Martin knew that in the morning they would move somewhere else the way they always did after that kind of fight. Despite the dead, city heat in his room, he pulled the bedclothes up over his head until the voices were almost drowned out. Soon he was dripping with sweat so he peeled off his sweaty pajamas and pushed them out of the bed, then pulled the rattling box fan from the window into the tent of his blankets and sheets. Naked and clammy in that mechanical breeze, he sang to himself through the blades of the fan and pretended he was a musical robot instead of a boy beneath a pile of blankets. Eventually he fell asleep, and when he woke up the fan was back in the window and his mother had already packed his few things.

6S

Steve Himmer's stories have appeared most recently at Pequin, Night Train, and 21 Stars Review. "Blankets" is excerpted from a novel called SCRATCH, which he will probably let you read if you ask. He is the author of Precis, and keeps a dull blog.

For Every Mother

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Monica Bustamante Wagner

My dear little baby. Please bite my chin with your toothless gums, pull my hair, and dribble on my shirt. Perch on my hip and squirm; I have muscles you can wear out. Pull my breasts at night; I want you close. Throw me your first kiss; I will never forget. My little baby, why do you have to grow up?

6S

Monica Bustamante Wagner has a Bachelor’s in business and a Master’s in HHRR. She loves to write and is currently finishing a YA novel (while nursing her newborn and helping her older boys finish their homework).

There's No Day But This Day

2011-11-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

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.

Street Dance

2011-11-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Cat Hughes

Oh, she wishes it had happened today. She doesn't even remember what he looked like: the average office suit she recalls, but her imagination has added a messy haircut and an unshaven face – some small protest to set him apart from his co-workers. It started with that awkward back-and-forth shuffle of two strangers trying to pass each other on the street; then he grabbed her right hand and put his arm around her waist, swirling her in a mini waltz in the middle of the lunchtime shoppers and angry passersby. He set her down on the pavement and smiled, walking away, stretching his hand behind him as he went. She would understand that moment if it happened now – two people sharing a delicate second in a day that hadn't gone to plan for either of them. But no, when it happened she was sixteen, so she just frowned, trudged away and hoped no one had noticed.

6S

Cat Hughes sneezes when she eats mints – no one has been able to explain this phenomenon.

Pick Me!

2011-11-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Bradley Alan

You can bet your last nickle I was startled when the nutty grey haired loon sitting across from me on the bus leaned over and wiped her scabby red booger on my shirt. She called me Leroy and told me I deserved it and then twisted her ankle as she hurried off the bus. I proudly wore that booger like a brooch for the rest of the afternoon. It dangled from my breast pocket like a war medal, signifying my ability to cultivate 'crazy' in the most common of conditions. My bus pass doesn’t expire till 2012. I should probably invest in some really good laundry detergent or at least carry a wet nap.

6S

Bradley Alan writes, paints, and otherwise creates beauty in Phoenix, Arizona. He does not play the harmonica or have an ironing board, but he does make amazing Ramen noodles. For a visit to his ridiculous mind, check him out on his blog.

The Physical Therapist

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Connor de Bruler

My friend Lolinda is an alcoholic. She's now in her final year of training as a physical therapist and she has a penchant for drunk and driving. She'll down a couple bottles of Newcastle or Busweiser as she swerves through four highway lanes on her way to some dark and secluded saloon on the edge of town. She does her internships for physical therapy at the local specialists office. Most of her patients are victims of car crashes. Every time she drives out past my window, I can almost see the sweet blood red irony that flows amidst the broken glass and twisted metal in her future.

6S

Connor de Bruler grew up in Greenville, South Carolina and has lived in Indianapolis and Nuremburg, Germany. His work has been published by Bending Spoons Literary Magazine and Fictional Publications.

The Table

2011-11-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Kim Soles

The table held the roasted bird with all of its tender fixings. Arms lifted, passing giant festive bowls stuffed with mashed potatoes and cranberries and overflowing woven baskets of fresh rolls, circled to the right and left without order. Chatter and clatter continued after Grandma Rose preached her Jesus-full extra thankful blessing. New York stories laced the air from the home-for-the-holidays daughter and sports lingo of the day ahead filtered in from the boys. Grandma Rose had her turn chitchatting about her dearest friend Jesus Christ, her see-thru, baby blues captivating her audience as she confessed concocting a drink of Clorox bleach with a mighty wish to abort her second daughter. Her daughter managed the potion, as Rose continued the confession, taking responsibility of her daughter’s inability to conceive children and asked for forgiveness at the table of giving.

6S

Kim Soles is a designer, nature photographer and writer who escaped from New York in 2001 and lives in Philadelphia, exactly one hundred miles from Brooklyn.

Daunted

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Lauren Risberg

She stood before him draped in an elegant marble dress, unmoving folds suspended from the child's frame mid-flutter, each pearly crease meticulously carved and polished. He tightened his sweaty grip on the artist's chisel, paralyzed in the gaze of her unshapely head. Maybe it was the skulls he heard rolling like glass marbles in his sculptor's toolbox, maybe it was the silent putrid corpse that lurked between unpainted canvases in his storage closet, maybe it was the scattered pallid gravel crunching like chalky bones beneath his shoes, but his hand felt like lead at the thought of disturbing her intricate marble coffin. The unfinished statue had no mouth, no face, no eyes, and she breathed so easily the same grit-dusted air that stung his lungs when he inhaled. He feared if he carved her face, she might bleed. He dropped his chisel and fled the studio, his hands immaculately clean.

6S

Lauren Risberg is left-handed and wishes her handwriting were better.

Three Cherries

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Emily Anne Epstein

I think of my boyfriend like my grandmother thinks of an Atlantic City slot machine. I've got a bloody mary in my left hand and a fistful of pennies in the other. I'm just sitting here so the woman in the aqua suit keeps bringing me the free drinks. Occasionally, I run out of pennies and think maybe... I should move to another machine. I don't. I know if I get up, someone else is gonna sit down and win the jackpot.

6S

Emily Anne Epstein is a journalist based in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she is known to practice photography, writing and poor Spanish. Visit her website here.

Dark Imagination

2011-11-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Rod Drake

She said she had lost her husband. She didn’t seem that upset by it. Maybe he was sick for a long time, so it wasn’t unexpected, almost a relief in a way. Or maybe she didn’t really love him, or had fallen out of love with him, and didn’t care all that much that he was gone now. Or... perhaps she had killed him. She could have made it look like an accident, people do it all the time, and the authorities wouldn’t investigate a common, ordinary death like this; it wasn’t a page one story (he was nobody famous or infamous), there was no great amount of money to be inherited and the death wasn’t bloody or extreme – just a seemingly normal passing that might hide a dark secret.

6S

Rod Drake is the Official 6S Author of Halloween and Friday the 13th. (Beware a black cat crossing your path today!)

Success

2011-11-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Thomas Sullivan

In 1908 Henry Ford mastered the assembly line and brought affordable cars to the masses. In 1940 Dick and Mac McDonald gave people the fast food restaurant. Heaped with praise, these three men were considered to be idols, wildly successful heroes. But the car is now killing the planet while fast food ravages our bodies. Today’s darlings of the business world include Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, with their accelerating computers and glittering iPhones, quickly replaced but difficult to discard. Staring at a heaping mound of toxic castoffs in India, I wonder what their success is doing to our bodies, our minds, and the planet?

6S

Thomas Sullivan's memoir of teaching Drivers Ed (Life in the Slow Lane) is forthcoming from Uncial Press in February 2010. More of Thomas’s writing can be found here.

The Man on the Cloud

2011-11-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Cat Hughes

Billions died on the journey. Some dragged themselves through mud until their legs were sturdy on firm ground. Some took to the sky, stumbling and tumbling like leaves in the breeze until they found their form. Some returned to the sea, tentative splashes turning into powerful dances. Some invented a man with a beard who lives on a cloud. Then they gave him the credit for all that hard work.

6S

Cat Hughes often regrets clicking "send" instead of "delete."

Good Friends

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Yvonne Eliot

They had lunch together a couple of months after the breakup. It went really well: they talked about work, mutual friends, maybe collaborating again on that writing project. For the most part, it was friendly, companionable, with only a couple of awkward moments where one or the other wasn't sure if the conversation had started to drift toward old roles, habitual intimacies which were no longer appropriate, but each time they dragged things back to safer ground, and the ambiance of casual friendship was preserved. Afterward, she gave him a quick hug, saying how glad she was they could still be friends, and that it meant a lot to her. He watched her walk away, that brief contact with her body burning through his clothes, against his skin, feeling the ghost of her mouth, her tongue, her scent, her laugh, her eyes, the way she always seemed to know what he meant even when he wasn't sure himself. Through the window of the restaurant, he saw her get into her car and start to drive off, and he finally allowed his mask to fall away, leaving nothing but his heart in his eyes.

6S

Yvonne Eliot loves creating watercolor lyricism and eating pumpkin pie with lots and lots of whipped cream.

Roll Play Isn't Just for Lovers

2011-11-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Tom Forrister

"I have to take a leak," my buddy whined five minutes after we passed the last rest stop for sixty miles. "Can't you hold it?" I sighed, and he shook his head, so I pulled over into a field where we ventured out into the darkest storm, just the two of us, all alone. Lightning flashes illuminated a gun in his grip that was pointed directly at me. I dropped my car keys and raised my hands in the air, Caesar's last words (Et tu, Brute?) repeatedly stabbing like a knife in my head. "Hold it, HOLD IT!" my betrayer screamed when he thought I would run, his sweaty fingers click-clacking against the trigger so tremulously I couldn't hold it anymore. It was in this moment that the clouds emptied, buckets of rain washing away my shame, and I started to cry when my friend threw his unloaded weapon at my feet and held me tight, wrestling my ever elusive vulnerability.

6S

Tom Forrister is an aspiring writer living in Salem, MA with his wife and 2.5 ball pythons. White picket fence to be added later.

Struggling

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Nathan Good

Today feels a little like the day I saw the dog with its head stuck in railings. Sometimes I think back to the way I stood there and watched it struggle. Its hind legs scrambled for grip, its back arched and straightened, its neck muscles spasmed and saliva dripped from its gaping mouth, passing panicked breaths. Now as you raise your head I see that same look in your eyes. "Please," you say, and hold out your hand hoping that I will cover it with mine and tell you it's all going to be ok. "Please," you say again, but I'm still thinking of the dog and how I should have helped him.

6S

Nathan Good lives in Derby. His friends do not call him "The Enigma," and he resents them for that.

Blood Bath in Strings

2011-11-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

by Anne Earney

Elizabeth had time to play the harp these days, for one could only spend so many hours roaming the castle alone. She experimented with finger placement and rhythm. It was difficult to coax the sounds she wanted from the harp, sounds she might have heard before, in the days of the servants, in the days before… She tried not to think about it, but the harp made ugly sounds, which were pretty sounds, but ugly to Elizabeth, for what she wanted to hear, what she yearned to recreate, was the fearful skittering of thin shoes across the tiles, the screech of bitten nails on the stone walls, the wails women make when… Elizabeth could almost hear those sounds, almost, as she tore her fingers across the strings. She thought it too bad there was no one left to enjoy her artistry.

6S

Anne Earney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. She works in a grocery store, making good use of the MFA she earned from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her fiction has been published in places such as Dossier Journal, Night Train, Versal and Big Ugly Review.

Six Small Meals

2011-11-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

Six Sixes by Peggy McFarland

6S

Peggy McFarland, a longtime friend and supporter of this site and community, is celebrating a birthday today.

Word

2011-11-05T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Felicia Gregory

Can you tell how intelligent someone is by how they write? If someone uses big and difficult words are they smart? If I call myself a writer am I gifted, insightful and cultured? No. What we read is not a test to be graded. The words we read, whether from a shopping list or a great novel are nothing more than a hand shake or a smile; they are merely another brush with humanity.

6S

Felicia Gregory completed 3 1/2 years of college. She works at a grocery store as a cashier with better people than she ever met at school.

Toward Landings

2011-11-04T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Jonna Beck

He never asks twice, but he always asks. I lie in this translucent state between awake and asleep wondering if he can tell that I want to fall asleep but can't and try to talk about the day before but instead I say, "The sheet is broken and all I could do was wrap it around my head." He rubs cream into my wounds, trying to heal the past, but the future rapidly infiltrates the interstitial space between here and there as Godamer the Cat climbs the curtains. Tomorrow, he'll take the car, and I'll walk, but today he walked. When I picked him up, the kitchen grease dripped from his shirt and all he said was, "You're late." We drove the five, long miles home in silence.

6S

Jonna Beck attends Texas State University.

The Stool

2011-11-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Luke Wilson

I buy a stool from a car boot sale; it has three legs, is upholstered in sweaty faux leather, and has a button in the middle of the seat. I get the seat home, sit on it, and yelp with pain as a sharp object breaks the skin of my behind. I run my fingers over the red seat of the stool, and I find that to one side of the button, a pin like object is embedded in the stuffing in such a way that it doesn't protrude through the leather unless pressure is applied. Gingerly, I investigate further, and find it to be a syringe which is half full of an unknown brown liquid. I take the syringe to the police, and they send off its contents to be analysed as a matter of urgency. When the results come back, they tell me that the syringe was contaminated with the HIV virus.

6S

Luke Wilson works as a software developer for a semantic web company, holds a degree in theoretical physics which he doesn't use, and spends some of his spare time trying to write.

Dear You, First Love

2011-11-02T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Carter Maddox

I'm writing this to tell you that last night K asked, "Where'd you get this, babe," about that picture thing you gave me when we were still seeing each other. I looked at it--the frame's a little out of date now--and bumbled on what to say. You know what I'm talking about: the picture thing with the stamps, the great films and great directors theme (mostly Jewish directors, might I add--did you know I have a Hebrew tattoo and every day I wear a ring with Hebrew on it, did you?); those were really your interests then films plays scripts writing being Jewish (?). And now I'm the--oh, god! (do you know how profoundly you've put your foot in my path, my life I love you)--I'm the writer...and so is K. And I think I could love him, and it's more than I loved you, and he scares me every day but I don't want to quit him not yet at all at all, and I understood that he understands me, that he asked about the picture thing because it's so me, that it's my kind of kitsch, that it looks like something I would have picked out for myself at Target on a whim some Saturday a few years ago when that type of picture frame was in style. And so to tell you both I loved you without saying it in those words in particular, I told him, my hand on his hipbones, that the picture thing was a gift.

6S

Carter Maddox's first play, Take!, is premiering in December at Texas State University - San Marcos. He's managing editor for his school's literacy journal Words Work, and his scriptwork has been published in GuyWriters magazine.

The Predictor

2011-11-01T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Cat Hughes

He's there everyday, this gap-toothed, grizzled old man standing outside the corner store. Sipping from a can of cider at all times, he wears a stained, mangy trench coat, whatever the weather. Sometimes he's arguing with bearded, long-haired, old drinking buddies; but mostly he's alone. I see him on my walk to work every morning and my heart takes a pause as I approach. Everyone who passes is greeted with either an enthusiastic thumbs up, or a high-pitched, possessed: "Fuck off, ye bastard!" He's become a very reliable predictor of how my day will turn out.

6S

Cat Hughes writes apologetically on a regular basis. She then deletes it.

Soft Earth

2011-10-31T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Rod Drake

I thought I had ended my relationship very clearly and very definitely with Lucy. Things had gone well between us for the first couple of months, and Lucy had her charms, don’t misunderstand me. No one is all bad, except perhaps me, and I am working on my own problems, but I think I can deal with difficult situations and personalities pretty effectively, Lucy being just another case in point. Lucy fought, of course, but she wasn’t the first girl that I had to end it with; that’s how breakups go usually, at least mine do. Then came that drizzly, rainy Tuesday, shrouding everything in a soggy haze. I believed Lucy was out of my life forever, so imagine my surprise when she appeared at my door, disheveled, dirty and bloody, when I was sure that I had killed and buried her a week ago.

6S

Rod Drake is the Official 6S Author for Friday the 13th and Halloween. Boo!

La Llorona

2011-10-30T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Joseph Grant

Eighty years ago, there lived a young factory worker named Pablo who fell in love from afar with the most beautiful Lucinda, youngest daughter of one of the wealthiest land owners in all of Sonora. Each day, Pablo would see her in the dusty and crowded marketplace on his way home for siesta and after a few weeks, he finally worked up the courage to speak to this raven-haired beauty with lovely and mysterious brown eyes that seemed to beckon him from a distance and then look right through him. At first, they met in secret by the lake, their rendezvous unbeknownst to her strict and steely father who upon learning of the young couple's trysts, forbade his daughter to see the young man ever again, so when Lucinda became pregnant by this nearly-indigent journeyman, her enraged father disowned her for bringing shame onto their house and as a result, threw her and his unborn bastard grandchild out on the street. Pablo and Lucinda lived on love and barely anything else and for a long time were very happy in the knowledge of two so in love, but when a second child was born, the two struggled to make ends meet with longer hours for him at the factory and her taking care of two young children and it left little in the way of time for the couple to be in the same room, let alone the same conversation, unless it was to exchange heated words of a couple growing quickly and coldly apart. With Pablo's new hours came many welcome diversions and one of them was a shapely 19 year-old named Marquetta who turned her womanly attentions towards the much-older 23 year-old and made him feel wanted again and when he started to work sometimes until the morning hours, Lucinda wasn't as naive as Pablo had hoped for and figured it out and as a tempestuous result, Pablo left her for a slightly younger woman, if only by a few months. The newspapers of the day would label it a 'crime of passion' when La Llarona, as they now called her, drowned her children and herself in the lake where she and Pablo once used to meet but for those who knew the couple, it was anything but, as the passion between the two had been worked to the bone for a long time and it was more of a crime of revenge they would say; so if sometime you're walking by the lake at midnight in Sonora and you think you see and hear the ghostly visage of beautiful young woman weeping, doomed to wander eternity in search of her lost children, maybe it's just the moonlight playing tricks on you and only the wind howling as the locals like to say so as not to disrupt tourism, but then again maybe, just maybe...it is what it is.

6S

Joseph Grant is one of 6S's favorite sons, and the hits just keep on coming.

Can I Take Your Order?

2011-10-29T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Tia Napolitano

No, Ma'am, it's not at all an odd request that I cut your obese eight year old son's $25 steak up into bite-sized pieces before serving it to him. Sure, Sir, I'll take a picture of you pretending to take a bite of your underage girlfriend's crotch with a fork and knife, and by the way, that's very creative and funny. Nope, I don't mind at all that you place your hands on my waist and push me to the side, ever so subtly grazing your hand over my ass as you pass by. Of course, folks, you can take a picture of me to show all your friends back in Texas "the tiniest waitress you've ever seen." Yes, I do this to pay my bills. No, this wasn't quite what I was planning on doing with my degree.

6S

Tia Napolitano wishes she could burn her apron in protest. She's currently open to suggestions - any suggestions at all - as to what else she could do to supplement her income.

All About Perspective

2011-10-28T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Janet Yung

The old lady was dying and her family could only watch and wait. They hovered around her hospital bed, hoping for any wisdom she’d impart to them as she drifted between this life and the next. Her eyes would occasionally flutter open, but close as suddenly, tight against the light and the foreign surroundings filled with tubes and machines monitoring the vital statistics of her progress. “What does it all mean?“ her son asked when she appeared for a moment to be conscious, having regained her cognitive skills, her lips moving. “It’s all about perspective,” she said. Then she was gone before she could elaborate.

6S

Janet Yung lives and writes in St. Louis. Her work has appeared in The Green Silk Journal, Muscadine Lines, Keep Going and qarrtsiluni.

Pearl and Vinegar

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

by Steven Wolfe

If only. He ran his thumb over the lip of the crystal wineglass. It vibrated, sang to his touch just like, and was the exact same shape as, the hips of his first lover. He glanced at his wife. “What’s that look, then?” she said. He twisted his ring out of the groove in his skin and dropped it into the glass.

6S

Steven Wolfe lives in Houston, Texas. His work has appeared recently in Exquisite Corpse, Southeast Review, Opium, NANOfiction, the Chattahoochee Review, and elsewhere.