Six Sentences

Windemere Road

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:19:10 PDT

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.

Final Answer

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:18:09 PDT

by Andrew David King

There was only one way to solve this, and he knew it. The metal of the gun's barrel is so cold against his skin, it shocks his mind back into a fierce reality. He shoves open the double-doors to the street as if he's pushing his way through a crowd, brow furrowed, ice-blue eyes set dead-ahead. The night air greets him like a long-forgotten friend, like a memory buried beneath sixth feet of earth. This is it, he thinks, as the streetlight casts his shadow against pale orange. This is where the line gets drawn, the deciding time.

6S

Andrew David King, author of Lost and Found, is a writer from Fremont, California. He has been published in numerous in-print and online publications, as well as alongside authors Ursula K. Le Guin, Luis J. Rodriguez, and others.

Kablammo

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:48:27 PDT

by Ronald Muncie

Well I suppose it's time I write the memo. I've been meaning to write a memo to everyone about not talking so loudly in the office, and switching smart phones to vibrate so we're not all subjected to all those fucking obnoxious ring tones or whatever the hell you call them. But I can't. I just don't feel like writing the memo. I just don't feel like spending my time composing something sure to be ridiculed, or at best, ignored. So... I'm thinking about buying an assault weapon and doing that thing everyone seems to be doing lately.

6S

Ronald Muncie enjoys reading and writing fiction.

Infatuation

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:08:20 PDT

by L.R. Cooper

He silently thought to himself that she was the most gorgeous woman that he had ever seen. She seemed to glide by as if she were a wisp of smoke. The deep auburn of her long flowing hair had to be the real thing, he just knew that they couldn't capture that richness in a dye. As she passed by, glancing his way, he caught a glimpse of the clearest and lightest green eyes that he had ever seen, then with a cunning and all knowing smile she turned the corner. After what seemed an eternity but was actually mere seconds, he rose and followed a light spicy scent that reminded him of his trips to China and the vibrant fragrance filled flowers they sell in the markets there. He turned the same corner and was shocked but very thrilled to see that she was there and seemed to be waiting for him.

6S

L.R. Cooper is a middle aged frustrated writer trying to get the creative juices back after having raised her kids to adulthood. (Six Sentences is a start with hopefully much more to come.)

Extremely Lame Business Hours

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:41:44 PDT

by Peter Farmer

Monday: 11:30am – 12noon. Tuesday: 11:30am – 11:59am. Wednesday: 3pm – 3:15pm. Thursday: 1:56am – 1:59am. Friday: Midnight – Three Seconds Past Midnight. Saturday & Sunday: CLOSED.

6S

Peter Farmer taught us The Makeeto Lesson.

Four Walls

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 05:57:52 PDT

by Fiona Campbell

I climb them every second of every hour. The chipped green paint beneath my dirty bare feet. They don't understand, in here, that every second drips Chinese torture water on my crazy brain. Three years and counting, drip by torturous drip. I run across the ceiling, hide in corners, play the game. They see what they want to see in here, to them I am just a mad old woman - they don't see my bare feet race around these walls when their backs are turned.

6S

Fiona Campbell writes in spite of herself.

My Side of the Bed

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 17:09:12 PDT

by Bob Jacobs

Come to think of it, I don't think I'd ever seen a ginger hair close up before. This one was on the pillow on my side of the bed when I got back from a business trip. The hair screamed at me and made me jump. I can't ask her yet. I lie awake at night worrying, and in the silence and the darkness the memory of the hair is like a monster that hides under the bed. When I fall asleep I dream that I'm outside in the rain, looking in through the window, and she's squealing with delight beneath a giant orangutan that's wearing my socks.

6S

Bob Jacobs, author of C*** and C*****, lives in the south-east of England with his wife and kids and Sony Vaio. In his spare time he likes to lie motionless on his back, whistling and staring at clouds.

Gymnastics After School

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 06:31:06 PDT

by Leigh Robshaw

I'm wearing my tight royal blue sports pants and a tiny pink singlet. My breasts have only just begun to develop and I don't have any hair down there yet. When I asked for an ice cream he made me bend over so he could playfully spank me first – I let him 'cause I really wanted that ice cream. Now he's making me practice handstands with my hands on his shoulders while he's lying on his back on the gym mat (to help with my balance) and I keep falling on top of him and onto that warm hard bulge. He says I need extra help with my gymnastics routine so I'm ready to perform it at the school fete. A priest should know better.

6S

Leigh Robshaw is an Australian writer who hallucinates regularly. She imagines she has hair down to her bum and is a highly acclaimed author. She is not on drugs.

How I'll Meet My Wife

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:24:38 PDT

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).

Horse

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:24:51 PDT

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.)

Sometimes

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:25:03 PDT

by Ivy Dale

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. Sometimes I enjoy licking a Q-Tip, inserting it into my ear canal to the point where it brushes my ear drum, and spinning it rapidly. Sometimes I don't do a thing at work. I pretend to be busy all day, but I don't actually accomplish anything. Sometimes.

6S

Ivy Dale sometimes writes fiction, sometimes nonfiction.

Foolishness

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:35:32 PDT

by R.J. Lassiter

The biggest fools in the world got together to make a plan. Their goal? To make the Stupidest Plan Ever. So they worked on it for days and days until - in their estimation - it was perfectly stupid. And it certainly was - in their estimation - perfectly stupid. But the plan was ingenious, because it was the Stupidest Plan Ever in the opinions of the biggest fools in the world.

6S

R.J. Lassiter wishes you a Happy April Fools Day.

I'm Just Sayin'

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 03:00:07 PDT

by Darla Bennington

The Easter Bunny is the worst fictional holiday character of them all. And they're all pretty bad, when you think about it. But the Bunny is especially bad, and not because rabbits are dumb, because no animal has survived over millions of years of evolution by being stupid. The Bunny is especially bad because its hands aren't dexterous. How can it make all those baskets and color all those eggs? Whatevs - Happy Easter.

6S

Darla Bennington is a high school freshman currently trying to enjoy Spring Break.

A Cure for the Common Cold

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 03:00:02 PDT

by Sally Salmon

If I can have a just a few moments of your time, I'd like to tell you a story about how my sister and I discovered a cure for the common cold, wrote it down on a piece of paper, but then lost that piece of paper and totally forgot the cure. We were in Wilmington, Delaware, which is a great place to figure out a cure for the common cold because very little goes on to distract your attention, and my sister said something about popcorn, and I said, "THAT'S IT!" We were so excited! Two humble girls from Vancouver, British Columbia, visiting Delaware, and WE - without help, no less - discover a cure for the common cold! Sigh. I just hope whoever finds our lost piece of paper mistakes it for Orville Redenbacher's secret recipe or something.

6S

Sally Salmon, along with her sister, really did find a cure for the common cold, and really did lose it.

Exegesis

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 03:00:10 PDT

by Keith Smith

It's true, we were monkeys. But the evolutionary process was less gradual than commonly believed. At one point, BAM, out of nowhere, two modernish people - one man, one woman - simply appeared somewhere in what is now Olive Branch, Mississippi. They had sex and started the current human race. The man was an asshole and the woman was a bitch. So that explains everything.

6S

Keith Smith works as a grocer in New Jersey.

The Oversight Committee

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 06:36:08 PDT

by Rob Delaney

Do you unintentionally fail to notice important details? Do you leave the water boiling? Do you forget to zip up your fly nice and high and tight? If you answered YES to any of these questions, you may be just the person we're looking for. The Oversight Committee offers decent pay, some medical benefits, and something else I can't remember. Apply today.

6S

Rob Delaney has the same name as Rob Delaney, a professional comedian.

Off-Key

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 03:00:07 PDT

by Collin Danger

Lucy has a splendid ass. But that's not all. Lucy can sing, off-key, yes, but it's still singing, and she knows how to change the oil in her car. She can cook pretty well and dresses crisply and always smells like juicy citrus fruits. I love Lucy but I'll never tell her because she's not my wife. I'm mature enough to know that I wouldn't love her if she were mine.

6S

Collin Danger lives in Montreal.

Groundwork

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:07:12 PDT

by Abha Iyengar

When it's a choice between getting down on each other or getting down to business, business is where it's at. Money is what matters. Love and sex one can survive without, he says, but the hunger of the stomach is what will not let you be. So let's discuss the rupee and the paisa, and then get on to other things. I stop the thumping of my heart, command the wetness of my thighs to dry, and comply. Business as usual.

6S

Abha Iyengar is a writer, poet, script writer and amateur photographer. Her writing has been published in several Chicken Soup series, Gowanus Books, Insolent Rudder, Arabesques Review, Kritya, Citizen 32, Breakaway Books, Dead Drunk Dublin, Nothing But Red, and other literary journals. Her website is here.

Selective Blindness

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:08:44 PDT

by J.S. Reynolds

It came at him like a banshee screaming from the darkness, but because he was deaf and blind, he never saw it coming. His inability to see and hear, to render things invisible and inert when he chose to, centered primarily on his wife, Judy. Since the second year of their 15-year marriage, she had increasingly become the focus of his inattention. Up to now he had found it an advantage to be able to turn a blind eye or deaf ear to those aspects of their marriage with which he preferred not to deal. Now, for the first time, he discovered the downside of his carefully crafted talent. With the last of his lifeblood soaking into the living room carpet, the thought occurred to him: If only I had paid more attention to her, I might have seen it coming.

6S

J.S. Reynolds, a technical documentation writer for over 20 years, enjoys writing short stories in his spare time. His preferred genres are sci-fi, horror, mystery, and tales of wonder.

Better Get Going

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:07:35 PDT

by Tom Evans

He'd say that every morning as he left behind nothing more than a light peck on my cheek. Each evening as he logged off at 18:23pm precisely, he'd say to himself, Better get going I suppose. He was always the last to leave. I was constantly telling him to slow down but would he listen? The irony brought a smile to my face, quelling my tears, as his coffin was lowered into the ground. On his headstone, I'd had engraved, "He decided he'd better get going."

6S

Tom Evans wants you to unleash the book inside.

Therapy is for Journals

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:32:38 PDT

by Kristen Tsetsi

I certainly don't like the stories about the critically ill, no - not in the New Yorker, not in the web magazines you find on the Internet, not in Reader's Digest. Trite, the descriptions of tubes and programmable beds and all the words never said still locked in the lungs of visitors standing bedside, or stuck in the sputum sliming a trach balloon. I don't care what anyone learns or doesn't learn, who is sad or who isn't and why, what the needle sores look like on the arm that was once flesh-healthy. At the first mention of "feeding tube" or "bright, sterile hospital," I flip or scroll or click forward - those stories tire me. They always have, yes, as have the Diseased Children and Cancer Women movies on Lifetime. Even now, I won't read one of those hospital stories, because even now, I'd be insufferably bored, but I do, now, understand the compulsion to write about it - just don't expect me to want you to read it.

6S

Kristen Tsetsi is the author of Homefront.

Learning to Be Happy

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:33:44 PDT

by Trevor Mcpherson

The three schizophrenic men were, to my juvenile eyes, nothing more or less than nicotine stained Muppets. Slouching, wrinkled, giggling, and talking to themselves as much as amongst themselves, they were more interesting than TV. Growing up in a small town, the need to amuse oneself was a necessity, and these three were my early role models. As per my unfortunately unbalanced mentors, all one required was a comfortable chair, coffee, cigarettes, and a rumpled sport coat. Lacking a mental illness I've had to rely on imagination. It has been considerably more difficult, but no less rewarding.

6S

Trevor Mcpherson thinks Six Sentences is the perfect outlet for people with short attention spa- Hey look! An ice cream truck! Further ramblings are available here, and drastically abbreviated fiction is available via his 3S Stories Twitter account. (Oh, and check out his "so fresh you'll want to slap it" 6S Social Network page.)

Too Shy

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:34:38 PDT

by Miz Yin

She never understood it; he had said repeatedly that he loved her; he even spoke of possibly tattooing her initials on his knuckles someday, and yet he had never kissed her; not in six months of knowing her, not in three-and-a-half months of tentatively dating her. Their one date was nothing to sneeze at; that lunch at Jack in the Box had been, well, magical. It had been her first date ever; no matter where it had been it would have been splendid. She had kissed him three times; the first time she had missed, the other two she had hit the target: his cheek; she, too, was shy — and she was getting frustrated with the immense amount of shyness in their relationship. She couldn’t think of someone she wanted to be kissed by more — it was adorable that he was so much of a gentleman, but dammit, she wanted to be kissed! But she was just going to have to wait or do it herself — after all, shy only gets you so far.

6S

Miz Yin is a 19 year old college student hoping to one day become a freelance translator with some noveling on the side.

A Pattern of Love

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:35:26 PDT

by Laura Isaacman

I woke up early on Melanie’s thirty-seventh birthday. I hadn’t planned it, but once I was up with nothing else to do, I cut up fresh strawberries and placed them neatly on top of hot pancakes. When I came into the bedroom, balancing a tray, she shuffled slightly. Her body was sprawled across the bed, and her mouth hung open in a way that had never before made me nauseous until this very moment, on her birthday. I placed the tray on its legs over her torso, and said her name softly. She stirred violently, knocking the hot coffee onto the thin sheet that covered her thigh, and screamed, but I hadn’t meant for her to get hurt; I thought this could be one of our nicer days.

6S

Laura Isaacman's work has been featured in Metazen and decomP. She is the editor of fourpaperletters.

Wishing I Was There

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:36:21 PDT

by Barry Pomeroy

Yours is not a real country; it belongs to the US, which is to say it belongs to us. Your people are small and dirty, and covered in flies. I send them money on late night ads, which they use to fornicate in glass jars full of marbles. Monkeys spit in your parliament and your laws are made by dicing; your traffic lights work by the stars. You have no civilization, only rocks and champagne, and lizards in the desert that no one will admit are there. Once I get the money for a ticket, I'll come as soon as I can.

6S

Barry Pomeroy authored the novel Naked in the Road, and his shorter work has appeared in Treeline, Freefall, Cosmetica, Bards and Sages, Insolent Rudder, Tart, The Tiny Globule, Willows Wept Review, Writing Shift, Ulterior, Oddville Press, and Word Catalyst.