An Apple a Day

by Trudy Jas

The greengrocer convinced Mother that the apples were the deal of the year.

“Just store them in a cool, dry place and you’ll enjoy them till spring, ma’am. I’ll even have my boy deliver them tonight.” He smiled.

That evening, every nook and cranny in the basement was filled with apples.

When school started, we were delighted to have a crisp apple in our lunch bag. And we loved the steady supply of apple butter and applesauce. Mother impressed us with the endless array of delicious side dishes and desserts, such as apple pie, apple cake, and apple strudel. Apple beignets, fried and grilled apples, and, of course, apple cookies. We didn’t mind when the Christmas turkey was stuffed with apples and raisins.

Though Mother steadfastly denied her mistake, the truth was evident by February when our lunch bags held two shriveled apples.

The final blow came when she warned us, “You better behave, or I’ll make you eat an apple.”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Trudy Jas is a 73-year-old retired occupational therapist, originally from the Netherlands, now living in Cincinnati, OH. Trudy has recently begun writing short stories.

 

The Suitcase

By Anike Wariebi

I was surely close to death. My lungs were about to burst, and my limbs were aching from being doubled up, but then suddenly, the suitcase where I had been held captive, was thrust open.

It had been a silly game we were playing, Funto and me. I don’t remember anything about the specifics of the game, up till the point he suggested that I get into the suitcase.

Our father had just returned from a business trip to somewhere in Europe, Paris maybe. As usual, his large, leather suitcase stood empty in the corridor, waiting to be taken up to the loft. It had been emptied of expensive gifts: a set of embroidered linens and place settings for my mother, and something called a ‘Walkman’ for Funto and me.

“You need to kind of fold yourself up,” Funto said, using his arms to motion how he thought I should lie. “Like this,” he demonstrated, curling his arms across his chest. “It’s called the fetal position; you know, like from Rosemary’s Baby.” Funto was always raiding our father’s top shelf of movies deemed inappropriate for our young, pre-teen minds, subjecting me to frightful tales of exorcism, terminators, and aliens. Three years his junior, I went along willingly with every escapade he conjured up for our mutual enjoyment.

I climbed into the suitcase and lay down on the plush lining, the fabric was the color of coal, matching the leather exterior, but fine and soft, like silk. It felt cool against my skin as I pulled my gangly legs up to my chest and crossed my arms as Funto instructed. I turned my head with some difficulty to face the side, and instantly, the black lining cushioned my head, molding to the contours of my face. The smell of the leather, was over-powering, filling my nostrils with the stink of hide.

“It’s so soft in here.” I said.

There was no reply from Funto, instead intense giggling and a sound of movement. Wondering what he was doing, I started to raise my head, but the lid of the suitcase jammed forcefully against my head, pushing me back down into the suitcase. I could hear Funto zipping the suitcase all round, laughing loudly – a maniacal belly-laugh, like an unhinged circus clown, punctuated by the metallic scraping of the zipper.

The blackness engulfed me.

“Funto?” I called out, “Can I come out now?”

The laughter was louder now, deranged peals of laughter that chilled me to the bone.

“OK, it’s not funny, please let me out” I said louder.

Over the laughter, I heard footsteps, loud at first and then gradually quieter till they faded away entirely. Funto had left me alone, locked in the suitcase.

My heart began to beat, slowly, then faster, till I could hear it pounding over the silence. Tears stung my eyes and choked the back of my throat. I began thrashing against the side of the suitcase with my head, knees, and elbows.

“LET ME OUT!” I screamed repeatedly gasping for breath.

Fear overwhelmed me as my teeth chattered and my body trembled uncontrollably. The moments that passed seemed prolonged, like I was paused in a nightmare.

“FUUNTTOOO!” I cried, “LET ME OUT, I CAN’T BREATHE!”

I mustered all my strength to bang against the side of the suitcase. I imagined that it must be shuddering with the force of my thrashes, a throbbing suitcase standing alone in an empty room.

When the suitcase opened, white light filled the space, blinding me, and air, cool against the warm sweat beads on my forehead, rushed into my lungs causing me to gag. I continued to thrash against the suitcase, unable to control the involuntary movements of my arms and legs or the howling coming from the depths of my stomach. I felt tormented, like a force had invaded my whole body.

“What’s all the fuss about?” Funto said, giggling. “It’s just a game.”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Anike Wariebi is a British-Nigerian writer. She received a master’s in creative writing from Oxford University and recently completed a memoir about her estranged father, who was the victim of a decades-long scam. She lives in London with her husband, two daughters and dog. You can learn more about her writing journey HERE and follow her on Instagram at @anikewriter.

 

The Near-Perfect Timeline

by T.A. Young

When Heinrich did not die at the apex of his actuarial bell curve, he felt intense relief; blessed. He loved his world as he never had; he felt the breeze as he sat on his deck overlooking the mountains; he squeezed the hand of his spouse for one sublime second.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
T.A. Young is an author and a poet who lives and writes in New York City. He likes nothing better than to be mistaken for one of his fictional characters. His books can be found HERE.

Credit: This story was first published in 50 Words Magazine in 2018.

 

Smoke on the Water

by Beth Sherman

When I get to the High School, I see all the girls look like me in 10th grade. Long, straight hair, parted in the middle. Bellbottoms and platform shoes. Jean jacket. Classes have just ended and I talk my way past the security guard and head down the hall to Mr. Eckhert’s room, the same one he’s used for 50 years. Today it’s decorated with balloons and streamers because he’s retiring. I read about it in our local paper.

He's standing in front of the Blackboard, erasing something. When he turns around, I notice his hair is greyer. He’s gained a little weight. Otherwise, he’s the same.

“Hello, Mr. E.”

He peers at me through wire-rimmed glasses. For a second, I think about pretending I’m there because my non-existent daughter has forgotten her phone. But that’s stupid, so I dive right in.

“I had you the first year you taught here. Susan Oakley?”

I can tell he doesn’t remember.

“We took a field trip to Twin Ponds.”

He’s smiling, trying to place me.

“To study the Ph level of the water,” I say.

“I’ve had so many visitors today. Children of children I taught, if you can believe it.”

He sounds the same. A DJ’s voice. The vowels smooth as a dirty martini.

“Twin Ponds,” he repeats. “The town turned it into a housing development, didn’t they?”

I remember everything about that day: the marsh grass, the rocks, the flowered blouse I had on, how young I was, how in love with him. He’d brought a boom box and Kiss You All Over was playing, scaring the fish. There were other kids around, but I thought he only had eyes for me. Like we were in a music video, only he didn’t know it.

“Susan did you say your name was?” he’s asking, looking around the room one last time, preparing to say goodbye.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Beth Sherman’s writing has been published in over 150 literary journals and appears in Best Microfiction 2024 and Best Small Fictions 2025. She’s also a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. She can be reached on X, Bluesky, or Instagram @bsherm36.

 

Shortcut

creative nonfiction
by Oleg Daugovish

“Shortcut!” Sofie yells from the backseat as I maneuver out of impatient traffic onto a side road. Our white minivan flies between the sharp-edged grey boxes of industrial buildings and the smooth emerald curves of an empty golf course. I see the red light in the distance.

“Maybe by the time we get there it will turn green.” I glue my foot to the accelerator with hope.

It does not. Sofie, the minivan and I screech to a stop by the intersection.

Seventeen minutes until her school starts, thirty-two until my work.

“It will be green in forty-five seconds.” Sofie starts the bet.

“Sixty!” I wager a chewing gum, pinching a package of Hubba Bubba between fingers for a display.

“One, two, three..” Sofie counts. This girl is serious about winning and so is her voice. Two minutes pass, the light is still red.

What the hell is wrong with it? Should I just ignore it and go?

“I think it’s broken.” Sofie reads my thoughts.

The place is eerily empty, no cars or people around. Automated sprinklers spit in circles on the grass. A rabbit jumps on the road and sits in front of the van, sniffing dust, his perked-up locators turn towards us.

He knows.

“Look, all the humans have been abducted by aliens, there is nobody left. This bunny is their leader!”

Sofie rolls her eyes, unimpressed with my plot.

She grew up so fast.

“Did you know that people spend a quarter of their life like this, sitting in traffic?” I exaggerate, hoping to salvage a “teaching moment” from this glitch in time.

“Bunny!” she screams through an open window.

The furry ball glances at her and hops away.

“In some cultures, people enjoy their time wherever they are.” I pretend to lose interest in the light, ignoring it like a teapot that fails to boil.

“Maybe this light is always red, some things in life are that way.” A wise observation from the eight-year-old catches me by surprise.

“Yes, I grew up in a place and time where pretty much everything was red. Someday, I’ll tell you. But now we have each other and we don’t have to worry about time.”

I look in the rearview mirror and see Sofie’s brown eyes opening wide, mouth too.

“It switched! It turned purple! What does that mean?!”

“Let’s find out!” I floor the gas pedal and the white minivan screams through the intersection.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
After completion of Ph.D. in 2001, Oleg Daugovish has been researching the delicate lives of California strawberries. He rushes to tell growers about his discoveries and documents them in peer-reviewed journals. Aside from writing about plants, Oleg completed a humorous 61,000-word memoir about growing up in Latvia during Soviet times and sixteen ten-minute stories of creative non-fiction he’d love to share.

 

Grief is a Steep Hill to Climb

creative nonfiction
by Tracie Adams

I was a voyeur watching with fascination like a child at a holiday parade, except I wasn’t watching the funeral procession for entertainment. I wanted to see their faces, contorted with grief at the loss of someone special. Maybe a grandfather who had lived a long and good life. But what if it was a brother or best friend who had lost his battle with cancer, leaving a wife and child alone in the world? I knew it wasn’t a child who had died because their shoulders were too straight for that. Their heads were not bowed enough, their steps too brisk toward the small brick church down the mountainside, clutching purses and white handkerchiefs.

I stepped out onto the front porch when I heard the church bells ringing. I thought about putting on my boots and walking down the hill to get a closer look.

I knew it wasn’t just a congregational meeting or a spaghetti supper because the men were putting on black suit jackets over crisp white dress shirts, getting out of their cars, parked at a forty-five-degree angle on the mountain roadside. The women adjusted and smoothed their white dresses and hats as they stepped out onto the sidewalk, balancing their bodies, heavy with loss, on tip toes, their high heels clicking cautiously toward the church doors.

I knew from experience that it was not uncommon for black women to wear white to funerals as a way of celebrating the departed’s life and their entry into Paradise. Like so many things I have learned, I found this out the hard way when I was the only white woman at the funeral for my elderly black neighbor. My single white body, clothed in black, a speck of pepper floating in the salty sea of dark bodies adorned in white.

In the past few years, I attended the funerals of my best friend, my nephew, my uncle, my cousin, and too many others. I learned to grieve the hard way, wailing when a song on the radio brought up memories, hiding in my bedroom when a photo on my phone pulled me under, or staring blankly at the walls to avoid feeling anything at all. And so, I studied the faces and the movement of these mourners on their grief journey, searching for secrets in pinched expressions and bloodshot eyes, hoping they might teach me how to do it the right way. There must be an easier way.

The church doors opened, releasing a wave of mourners under a green awning, returning to their cars one by one, followed by the solemn sound of an organ playing Amazing Grace. Their flashing lights lined the narrow street as they followed the police car in procession to the graveside.

Mourners don’t look like normal people in their cars. They don’t do normal car things like scrolling on social media at stoplights or chatting excitedly with their passengers. As SUV’s and sedans crawled slowly up the hill, a few of the bereaved drivers looked over at me, wrapped in an oversized grey blanket, the same dark color of sorrow. As they passed, I tried my best to comfort them through the compassion in my eyes.

Through fingerprint-smeared glass, their tear-stained faces spoke to me. There is nothing more to learn. There is no easier way.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Tracie Adams, author of Our Lives in Pieces, writes flash memoir and fiction from rural Virginia. Her work, widely published in literary journals, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. More HERE and X @1funnyfarmAdams.