Paper People
by Jenny Morelli
I wake to itches I can’t scratch, to air tickling my skin, to the reality that I’m drowning in papyrus. Only my face protrudes. I can’t see. Can’t breathe. Can’t speak or scream.
Skin’s brittle. Wrinkled. Ready to tear. So dry. So parchment.
Words skitter across my face like ants into the holes where my eyes should be, latching onto my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams.
Words swirl into those holes, form pupils to let me see what I’m hearing. A rip-rip-tear frees a paper person from the page, then another, then another. Paper people surround me, bound silent by words, tethered to the page with trains of sentences trailing behind them in long shadows like capes, like answers to questions we cannot ask.
We’re stuck to the page, pop-up palimpsests of all the stories we’ve ever read, of all the characters we’ve ever met, of all the selves we’ve longed to be.
Here we remain. Faceless. Mouthless. Silent paper people itchy with letters and words and ideas scampering endlessly over us and under, around us and through. We’re half formed and fully sentient, imprisoned on this page, praying to the paper gods a candle won’t tip and singe our crinkled cheeks, praying to the paper gods that hot tea won’t spill, that someone will notice us, will read us and won’t cry fat tears that dissolve us entirely after learning our fate.
I used to dream of climbing into the stories I read to escape my grim reality by dancing with wild things and velveteen rabbits and golden geese, but now that I’m here, I can only hope my imagination can help me arrange these words into an exit, an end, a way out of this nightmare, or else I must succumb to the grim reality that I’m just another avid reader who fell victim to a dream she desperately wanted fulfilled.
Jenny Morelli is a NJ high school English teacher who lives with her husband, cat, and myriad yard pets. She seeks inspiration in everything around her. She’s published in several literary magazines including Red Rose Thorns, Spillwords, Scars tv, and Bottlecap Press for four poetry chapbooks. Check out her website for more: JennyMorelliWrites.com
Another Senior Moment
By David Sydney
“I'm not eating in this place again, Edna.”
“What'd you mean? I enjoyed my shrimp with lobster sauce.”
“Maybe. But my chicken Parmesan was no good.”
“You had General Tso's chicken. We're at the Pagoda Palace, not Tony's Italian Villa, Ed.”
It was another senior moment. Here he'd been looking forward to a cannoli for dessert. He dejectedly set down his chopsticks.
Now came the fortune cookies.
Edna cracked one open. “How about that, Ed. It says, ‘Your next meal will be at an Italian restaurant.’”
“Really?”
She lied. It read, "The love of your life is right before you."
David Sydney is a physician who writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).
Turtle Dee Turtle Dum
by Brenda K
On the morning of Dee's turn for show-and-tell, she finds herself walking to school with a turtle held against her thumping heart. The turtle's head and legs are retracted into its shell and she insists it's because he's resting up for the big day ahead. Her siblings scold her—he's scared, he's not yours, Mom and Dad will be angry, you're stealing, what if you lose him, what if you drop him, you're gonna get the belt from Dad!
"I'm only borrowing himmmmm! I'll put him back when I get home!" she says.
Dee is embarrassed she owns nothing fun to share. No Mr. Potato Head, no Bugs Bunny talking alarm clock, no Barbie in a pink designer gown, no Lite Brite, no Battleship. Nothing like what the other kids have brought. The most interesting thing Dee owns are day-of-the-week underwear.
Up in front of her kindergarten class, Dee's hands tremble against the turtle's shell. What's his name, they ask. What does he eat, they ask. Does he sleep with you, they ask. Does he bite, they ask, then ooooooo when she tells them he bit her finger once and she's pretty sure it's because he thought it was a french fry.
Dee's cheeks burn with joy as she rocks side to side, each foot taking its turn to tap the inside of the opposite foot. The turtle is even more popular than Bert and Ernie dolls!
At snack time, the kids gather in the sandbox with apples, grapes, and carrots. Dee is royalty at this feast, and her turtle is the guest of honor—a guest she leaves behind at pick-up time because she cannot return it to its home. Daddy will know. He will be mad.
Dee runs to the car and jumps in, out of breath like an alternate-fable hare who's finally won the race. Except. She hasn't.
Mrs. Scott dashes out to their car, waving wildly with one hand, the turtle in the other.
"Dee, wait!! You forgot your turtle!" She reaches through the car window and sets the turtle on Dee's lap.
Daddy's voice is cold thunder. "That's not ours."
Mrs. Scott's smile becomes the letter O.
Dee fixates on the side-view mirror as Daddy drives away and Mrs. Scott, hands on hips, gets tinier and tinier. The turtle's claws scratch against Dee's thighs—she does not dare say "ouch" out loud. Daddy's teeth throttle a toothpick. He says nothing.
At home, Daddy stands at the edge of the neighbor's driveway, scowling, while Dee slinks up to the garden by the porch. She kneels and cradles the turtle, envying its hard, protective shell. Her siblings' voices sneak into her head on sing-songy repeat…dum dee dum dee dum dee dum, told ya you'd get the belt on your bum.
She puts the turtle back into the bushes where she'd found him that morning, wishing she could crawl in next to him and play hide-and-seek without being found; wishing she'd brought her day-of-the-week underwear for show-and-tell instead.
As a child, Brenda used photos/keywords in TV Guide and her mom’s magazines to write micro-stories in the margins of those publications. She'd then bestow her masterpieces to her family. She now seeks a larger audience than that of her childhood. Brenda lives in SoCal with her husband and teenage daughter.
Rebel Yell
by Lori Cramer
August 1985. Another Friday night at the Diamonds & Hearts Club. I’m in my standard gear: fluorescent-pink minidress, neon-yellow tights, purple boots. I come here every weekend, searching for someone to rebel with.
The place is packed with guys. Guys wearing Frankie Says Relax T’s. Guys in studded leather. Guys with multicolored mohawks.
Same old crowd. Boring. Why do I even bother? I check my Swatch. Time to move on.
I’m almost to the exit when I spot him: the most rebellious of them all.
A guy in khakis and a polo shirt.
Lori Cramer’s short prose has appeared in Fictive Dream, Flash Boulevard, The Mersey Review, Scaffold, Splonk, and elsewhere. Her work has been longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for Best Microfiction and Best of the Net. Links to her writing can be found at https://loricramerfiction.wordpress.com. Bluesky: @loricramerwriter.bsky.social.
Interview
by R.K. West
“Why do you want to work here?”
I’ve been warned about this, the stupidest, trickiest interview question. Don’t say you, like all job seekers, need a paycheck to pay the rent. They don’t want reality, they want flattery. But don’t get personal. Don’t say it’s because the interviewer is charming. It must be something you like about the company, and it must be believable.
Easy! I give her the real reason I’m attracted to this place. The building is right next to a bus stop, so I won’t have to walk far in bad weather.
I don’t get the job.
R.K. West is a Canadian-American writer specializing in extremely short stories. Credit: This piece originally appeared online at 100 Words.
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