Fairfield Scribes
  • ScribesMICRO
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Issue 51
    • Issue 50
    • Issue 49
    • Issue 48
    • Issue 47
    • Issues 37-46 (2024) >
      • Issue 46
      • Issue 45
      • Issue 44
      • Issue 43
      • Issue 42
      • Issue 41
      • Issue 40
      • Issue 39
      • Issue 38
      • Issue 37
    • Issues 25-36 (2023) >
      • Issue 25
      • Issue 26
      • Issue 27
      • Issue 28
      • Issue 29
      • Issue 30
      • Issue 31
      • Issue 32
      • Issue 33
      • Issue 34
      • Issue 35
      • Issue 36
    • Issues 13-24 (2022) >
      • Issue 13
      • Issue 14
      • Issue 15
      • Issue 16
      • Issue 17
      • Issue 18
      • Issue 19
      • Issue 20
      • Issue 21
      • Issue 22
      • Issue 23
      • Issue 24
    • Issues 1-12 (2021) >
      • Issue 1
      • Issue 2
      • Issue 3
      • Issue 4
      • Issue 5
      • Issue 6
      • Issue 7
      • Issue 8
      • Issue 9
      • Issue 10
      • Issue 11
      • Issue 12
    • Prologue Issue (2020)
    • Behind the Scenes
  • The Scribes Prize
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
  • Scriptorium
    • Books
    • Merch
    • Authors
    • Feature Story Contests >
      • Contest Winner 2019
      • Contest Winner 2018
    • Readings & Events
    • Privacy Policy
  • Writing Tips

ScribesMICRO  ​

​*  Managing Editor: Edward Ahern  *
*  
Associate Editor: Alison McBain   *
*   
Special Features Editor: Matthew P.S. Salinas   *
*   Poetry Editor: Mary Keating
  *
​

​Submission Editors:
* Sarah Anderson * P.C. Keeler * P.M. Ray * Ira Rosofsky *
* Felicia Strangeways * Amita Basu * ​Julie Cadman *​​
* 
Scott Bogart *​ Leslie Burton-Lopez *
​* 
Vincent Convertito * Benjamin Barouch *

Issue # 51

October 31, 2025
​
Featuring the short scribblings of:
*
Zaituni Amir * Susan A. Anthony * Kenny A. Chaffin *
* Chris Clemens * Holly Day * Tom Gadd *

* Gabriella Dolores Menezes * Kelly Sauvage Moyer *
* Kirsty Nottage * Alethea Paul * Bud Pharo *
​
* Crystal N. Ramos * Terry Reilly * Keith Robinson *
* Camden Rose * John Szamosi * Ellen Townsend *
​
* Chelsea Utecht * Kristina Warlen * M. K. Wessel *

​Book Review

​A Field Guide to Library Ghosts

​by Gabi Coatsworth
​

Reviewed by Alison McBain
​

Picture

​About the Author:

Gabi Coatsworth is an award-winning British-born author and blogger, who has spent half her life living in the United States. Her memoir, Love’s Journey Home, was published by Atmosphere Press in May 2022, and won first place in the CT Press Club Awards. Atmosphere also published her debut novel, A Beginner’s Guide to Starting Over, in April 2023. She’s been published in anthologies, trade publications, and literary journals, both in print and online, and runs several groups for writers in Connecticut. If she’s not writing or traveling, she’ll be in her flower garden, wondering whether to weed, or relaxing with a book.
Picture
Photo credit: Amy Dolego
When the weather turns chilly and the trees shake off their leaves, there’s nothing better than curling up with a good ghost story right before Halloween. Even better, a ghost story that has touches of mystery, romance, and humor. I was delighted to find all three of those elements in Gabi Coatsworth’s just-released novel A Field Guide to Library Ghosts.
 
Fiona Gordon’s had a rough go of it. She’s just returned home from a disaster at the museum where she works in Philadelphia. The problem wasn’t the fundraiser she organized, but her ex and his young, pregnant wife who ambushed her big event. As a result, Fiona's decided she’s had enough. She’s going to start over somewhere new, some place where she won’t be haunted by the ghosts of her past… or so she thinks.
 
She accepts a job as the director of a local library in the small town of Brentford, Connecticut. But before she can make the move, she starts to communicate with a painting she purchased a couple of years prior, which is the portrait of a man named George Manchester. He died a century ago in a tragic and accidental fall while out riding his horse. She’s always been drawn to the painting, but it’s a surprise when the painting starts to talk back, and she thinks that it must be her overactive imagination. Or maybe she’s losing her mind.
 
But even if she doesn’t believe in ghosts, George exists, and he has a purpose in communicating with her too. That’s to find his long-lost love Rose, who was his wife before he died. Since he’s been trapped in the painting, he’s been unable to track her down and discover what happened to his family. He’s determined that Fiona’s going to help him accomplish his mission. She’s the only one in the past hundred years who’s been able to hear him, and he’s not going to let that go without a fight.
 
So, Fiona packs up her things and moves to Connecticut, taking George’s portrait with her. But her new surroundings don’t come without problems of their own. While most of the people she meets are lovely, her boss, Channing, has a short fuse and a nonexistent sense of humor. And then there’s her neighbor who pretends she doesn’t exist, a man who walks his dog around the block as regular as clockwork but doesn’t respond when she gives him a friendly wave. On top of all that, she discovers after she’s started her job that her predecessor embezzled funds from the library and her boss failed to tell her this significant information prior to her move. As the new director of the library, she’s expected to find ways to make up the funding shortfall.
 
So, there are more than a few things to work out with her fresh start. Will Fiona be able to settle in and overcome these problems, or will she go running back to Philadelphia with her metaphorical tail between her legs?
The book is told in alternating viewpoints between Fiona and George, which makes for an interesting read. George’s voice is captured well, since he’s from an earlier era—he has antiquated viewpoints about women and the modern world, which clashes with the heroine of the tale. There’s a good amount of humor to the storyline too, and the style and voice of the writing is compelling and easy to devour. In fact, I read the whole book in one sitting and enjoyed it immensely.
 
I’d recommend this novel to readers who are looking for a storyline that’s not too heavy and spreads a positive message of love and redemption. If you’d like to escape the endless current news cycle of terrible happenings around the world, this is a wonderful change of pace that will keep you entertained from the first page to the last.

Announcement of the semi-finalists for

The Scribes Prize

Congratulations, authors!​

Jan Allen
Madeleine Armstrong
Sophia Baran
Lisa Bernard
Joanne Binns
Jennifer Chapman
Chris Clemens
Chris Cochran
Mel Fawcett
Jaime Gill
Ray Goodrich
Corrie Haldane
​
Christy Hartman
David Henson
J. Edwards Holt
Reginald John
T.J. Jourian
Elizabeth J. Kenny
Jon Krafchek
Mary Kuna
Bryony Lorimer
Angelle McDougall
Terri Mullholland
Catherine Oliver
​
Antony Püttschneider
Robert Runté
Bianca Sanchez
Andrew Savage
Alexandra Scordato
M.D. Smith IV
Exeter W. Stevens
David Sydney
Norman Thomson
Kathleen Wagner
Jennifer Weiss
Huina Zheng
​
Picture
Photo by Michael Leonard

Fiction
​

Picture
Photo by Norbert Pietsch

Anthropomorphology
​by Kenny A. Chaffin
​​
Of all the leptons and quarks in all the universes, you had to zip into mine. Perhaps it’s anthropomorphic of me to think so, since there are only a certain small number of fundamental constants. Constants that determine this and each existence. Only a certain number of which would lead you to me. You, with your jet-pack wings and vacuum annealing body, flying like Icarus between the suns. Dropping scorched feathers of belief, platitudes, and pustules of pre-amino deposits on promising planets. Who exactly do you think you are, some kind of God? Some sower of planets? Some sanctimonious seeker?

* * *
Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published work in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Microfiction Monday Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, Speculative 66, James Gunn’s Ad Astra, 101 Word Stories, Star*Line and others. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver where he works hard to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections and other work is available at Amazon.
​
​
Jane's Story
​by Ellen Townsend

​​​
“Confess,” Jane told her husband. No response, sunken eyes stared. An open-and-shut case; no alibi, his fingerprints on the knife. 
 
Hollow-cheeked, he slumped over a whiskey glass, a pile of cigarette butts. He wasn’t talking to her, or anyone. After years of his moods, this was no different, only now he’d committed murder.
 
It was satisfying when police cars screeched up and arrested him. Yet afterwards, his faded armchair remained slumped, curtains barely moved. Amplified, the clocks ticked. She checked the date and gasped. Darting out, she hurried, or she really would be late for her own funeral.

* * *
Ellen Townsend lives in the UK. Her stories have been published in Paragraph Planet, Friday Flash Fiction and played on BBC radio.
​​

Pen Pals
​by Bud Pharo

​​
Charlie grinned at his new cellmate. “What are you in for, kid?”
 
Henry scowled. “Ten months for syntax errors. I swear the editor set me up! I swear my doc was clean when I subbed it.”
 
“Fucking editors,” Charlie grumbled. “They’re a shifty bunch; they got me for dangling my participles once too often. But ten months seems harsh for a first-time grammatical offense.”
 
Henry exhaled. “Well... there was a little something else. Apparently, I did a little too much telling and not enough showing.”
 
“Whoa, kid, that’s ballsy!”
 
Henry slumped into his bunk. “And, stupid me, I thought ‘telling’ was the whole point of an autobiography.”

* * *
Bud Pharo is a disabled veteran who writes short stories and flash fiction. He typically writes humorous sci-fi and fantasy pieces because he thinks our world could use more levity but will, on occasion, write serious pieces. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, both online and in print.
​​
Picture

The Words that Bind
​by Kirsty Nottage

​​​
The silence of the grand library presses against your ears—a suffocating echo. The ticking of your watch provides an ominous countdown to your nightly ritual. 
 
You approach the shelf and draw the book that began this lifelong obsession.
 
Chilling and familiar, its words entice and disgust you. 
 
You try to look away, to stop reading, but the words tighten around you, binding you in their relentless embrace.
 
A tear rolls down your cheek. Regret claws at you.
 
You know you’ll return tomorrow. 
 
The Book of What Ifs has you now, its haunting promises a curse you can never outrun.

* * *
Kirsty Nottage is a UK-based writer who balances her day job with fiction writing whenever and wherever she can. She recently won an award from Elegant Literature for new writers and was a runner-up in a Globe Soup competition. Her work has been published in NUNUM, Curated Micro Fiction, and 101 Words. To read more of Kirsty’s writing, visit her website: kirstynottage.com.
​​

Loosely Tied
​by Chelsea Utecht

​​​​
He was a part-time parent to her: the every-other-weekend and frozen-pizza-on-Wednesdays sort of dad. He was her favorite and she was his when it was effortless, made of only sunny days and movie nights.
 
Now she’s grown. He still loves her even though he doesn’t know her.
 
“I was bragging about you.” He mentions a trip she’s never taken, a degree she doesn’t have, a hobby that she’s long left behind.
 
“That’s not right.”
 
“Oh. You sure?”
 
“Pretty sure.”
 
“Well, I’m proud of you either way.”
 
She’d be proud of this version of herself too.

* * *
Chelsea Utecht is an American living abroad in Tbilisi, Georgia with her husband, two sons, and former street dog/current princess. Her work has appeared in Shooter Literary Magazine, The Gravity of the Thing, Thirteen Bridges Review, and more.​
Picture

Noodles in Shinjuku
​by Keith Robinson

​​​​
Instead of wrangling our hungry, chaotic, six-adult, two-infant party, I fixated on the restaurant’s host. No polite greetings, just grunts, No hop-to-it-ness, just pointed to seats. I judged him instantly, partly admiring his refusal to play the game, but mostly thought him an ass. The only miserable server in Tokyo?
 
What attitude, what privilege.
 
Yup, that was it.
 
Then, bending to stash our bags, I saw his feet. One black sneaker. The other, swollen and bandaged, crammed into an oversized clog.
 
He wasn’t an ass.
 
He was in pain.

* * *
Keith Robinson is the author of the speculative memoir, The Buddha in Our Bellies. For decades he wrote works of nonfiction on wine education and value creation. Since 2023 his pen has turned to fiction, winning the May 2025 Alexandra Writer’s Centre Many Voices Contest, and working on a novel.​
Picture
Photo by Maciej Cieslak

Out to Eat with My Parents
​for the Tenth Time This Week
​by Camden Rose

​​​​
The fly in my drink climbs the ice cubes like an explorer. I can’t look away.
 
“I’ll have the steak,” Mom coughs.
 
I am a vegetarian. She is not.
 
“Beat salad for me,” Dad says, patting his stomach. “Gotta stay healthy.”
 
For Christmas, he bought me vegetables. Vegetables.
 
“What would you like?” The waitress tilts her eyebrow.
 
The fly swims across the watery terrain. “I’d like to be a fly, please,” I say.
 
The waitress nods and writes FLY down in her notebook. The fly buzzes.
 
I buzz too.
 
My parents scream as I fly away to find myself food.

* * *
Camden Rose is a queer author who loves seeking out magic beneath the everyday world. Her works have appeared with Inner Worlds and Heartlines Spec. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her spouse, black cats, and collection of books and board games. You can find her online at www.camdenscorner.com.​
Picture
Picture

The Day After
​by M. K. Wessel

​​​​
It smelt of chutney—that was the only tell. Just looking you’d think it was any old pub, but once the spice hit your nose, you knew. If you peeked into the kitchen, you’d see chefs stirring curries and sizzling lamb.
 
We found it on accident, Dad and I, on a restless weeknight. He ate everything. “Tell no one,” he said, shoveling food. “It’s our secret.”
 
Today brought only three customers. We sat, silent, looking at anything but ourselves. The food was awful, too salty, dry.
 
“Dad loved this place,” I said.
 
My brothers just stared, doleful, at their plates.
​
* * *
M. K. Wessel holds an MA in Theatre Directing from the University of East Anglia. Their writing has been featured in Empyrean Magazine, Open: Journal of Arts and Letters, Writer’s Playground, and The Raven Review.
​

Inventory
​by Kristina Warlen

​​​​​
He left the silence curled on the couch like a pet. It followed her to the kitchen, stretched into corners, nuzzled her ankles. It slipped between her teeth, filled her mouth when she tried to speak.
 
She took stock.
 
One toothbrush. Three unread messages. A half-drunk mug that whispered his name. A coat still holding the weight of his shoulders. The bed, his scent. The light bulbs flickered like his moods.
 
She wrote it all on sticky notes and pressed them to her skin. Then she named the feelings.
 
Guilt. Rage. Freedom. Ache.
 
She fed them to the fire.
 
She walked out before the silence could follow.
​
* * *
Kristina Warlen writes literary and speculative fiction shaped by impermanence, desire, and the quiet fractures of intimacy. Her recent and forthcoming work appears in 50-Word Stories, TWLOHA, Eunoia Review, Corporeal Lit Mag, and Engendered.
​​

Beside a Granite Cliff
​by Tom Gadd

​​​​​
When I was a boy, my father would take my family camping each summer in the Canadian wilderness. A tradition that ended when my brother died at sixteen while joyriding with friends. So, I knew something was wrong when, twenty years later, my father suggested we go again. We canoed into a series of interconnecting lakes and made camp beside a granite cliff my brother had jumped from when no one else would. We spent a few days there, remembering as much as we could of my brother, while my father never mentioned his cancer that would kill him within a year.

* * *
Tom Gadd lives in Kanata, Canada, where he writes tiny works of fiction and takes pictures of the Canadian landscape that can be viewed @tomgadd.bsky.social.​​
Picture

​Life in a Haunted House
​by Gabriella Dolores Menezes

​​​​
“I’m home!” I call as I step inside. 
 
The lights flicker in greeting. 

It took some getting used to, living here—but now I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

While cooking dinner, I hear a clatter from the DVD shelf and know the night’s viewing has been selected. The light flickers more, complimenting how the food smells, and I wish we could share.
 
Late at night, I’m trying to write a story, and hours slip away. Eventually, the screen distorts, then goes black. 
 
“Ugh, fine, I’ll get some sleep.”

It’s really not so bad, living in a haunted house.

* * *
Gabriella Dolores Menezes is an autistic, emerging writer from Washington state who writes speculative and surreal flash fiction​.
​​
Picture
Photo by Alex Park

A Shared Silence
​by Zaituni Amir

​​​
Every Sunday, we meet at the park. Grandma and I sit on the same bench, side by side, watching the world move around us. She never says much anymore, but it doesn’t matter.
 
I pull out my sketchbook and draw the trees, the birds, the quiet faces passing by. She watches, her hand resting gently on mine.
 
“Nice,” she whispers after a while, her voice soft as the breeze.
 
I smile. She’s always known how to make silence feel full—like a quiet conversation that needs no words.
 
For a moment, it’s enough.

* * *
Zaituni Amir is a passionate writer who transforms words into vivid, memorable stories that leave a lasting impression on readers. She finds inspiration in nature, art, and everyday moments that spark her creativity. When she’s not writing, she enjoys hiking and tending to her flower garden.
​

All's Fair
​by Kelly Sauvage Moyer

​​​
Her arthritic fingers are still nimble. Each stitch a blur beneath the old lady’s contented smile. She’s most at peace while crocheting, as she imagines the shroud forming within her lap wrapped neatly around Mildred’s corpse. It’ll be a simple burial, just out back, where she’s dug a right-sized hole amid the tomato plants. Sure, Mildred would gush over the depth of their friendship. Yet, when it came to the county fair, loyalty meant nothing. Ruthless bitch. The spoils, she chuckles now, banking on the seep of nutrients from her friend’s rotting flesh. Mildred kept an organic diet, after all.

* * *
Kelly Sauvage Moyer is an accomplished poet, photographer, fiber artist and filmmaker who pursues her muse through New Orleans’s French Quarter. The author of four books, including Hushpuppy and Mother Pomegranate and Other Fairytales for Grown-Ups (Nun Prophet Press), Kelly is currently working on a witchy novella and editing her recently launched journal of esotericism, Circle of Salt.
​​​

Shebeen
​​by Terry Reilly

​​​
Father Pat burst into the shebeen, looking around disapprovingly.
 
His eyes lit upon a poker school. Four married men of the parish, whiskey on the table.
 
“Anyone who wants to go to Heaven, up against that wall,” pointing.
 
Sheepishly, Sean, Michael, and Kevin folded their cards and stood with their backs to the
wall. Brian stayed seated, glaring defiantly.
 
“Don’t you want to go to Heaven?” challenged the priest.
 
“If you’re getting a group together to go right now, I’m not ready,” replied the reprobate. “My wife’s at her mother’s, my lover’s cooking supper, and I’ve got a straight flush.”

* * *
Terry Reilly. Retired psychiatrist. Writing children’s fiction since 2020. Recently discovered flash fiction. Intrigued by the discipline of the genre.
​​
Picture

The Only Game That Counts
​by Chris Clemens

​​​​
It started one morning: points awarded! On our screens! Points earned for a flawless cartwheel, for hugging seven strangers in a row. Mysterious criteria were rabidly discussed online, but everyone collected points—suddenly redeemable for rent, food, water.

Sara Kim pet a wild raccoon and hit a million points total; anonymous donors made her a yacht-class billionaire.

Now the world’s gone crazy because all the easy points are gone. A hundred days of setting schools on fire. Launching dogs out of catapults. Someone kidnapped Sara, thinking her score might transfer.

Nobody’s earned anything in weeks. What else can we do?



* * *
Chris Clemens lives and teaches in Toronto, surrounded by raccoons. Nominated for Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions, his writing appears in The Dribble Drabble Review, The Woolf, Acta Victoriana, JAKE, Dreams & Nightmares, and elsewhere.
​

Out of the Woods
​by Alethea Paul

​​​​
There’s an abandoned bodega over on Sixth, windows half boarded up, half broken. Plywood slanting like sick trees. You could slip inside, but the sunlight won’t.
 
Above, canopies of cobwebs. Below, glass crunching like dried leaves. You’d think it’s empty, but something sucks up the sound. Not even the rats cry. It’s as still as the woodlands shrinking from a predator.
 
Man’s fear of the forest was once well-founded. So, we cut them down; built cities. But there are things man can’t change.
 
It still stalks the same prey.
 
By the time you notice the shadow it’s too late.

* * *
Alethea Paul’s writing was forged in the chaotic depths of internet Role Play Forum Boards and Fan Fiction. Now she forges her own worlds, usually speculative and sometimes with a literary twist. Several of her works were published on Curated Micro Fiction. You can find her @aletheapaul.bsky.social.​
Picture

Forget Me Not
​by Susan A. Anthony

​​​​
Walk with me in the land of the living and enjoy all its fun pursuits. Appreciate why choking off this life of mine would be short-sighted. Choose symbiosis. Deselect parasitism. Gurgle down into my arteries, and wherever you choose to hide, make yourself comfy; none of us are in a rush to leave this place. And, when we’re ready, by all means, come for me with a vengeance, choke the last drop of life from me, quickly, ideally pain-free. I would welcome the opportunity a short-lived coma would afford. Forget me not, imprint on me. Let us agree, die together.

* * *
Susan A. Anthony lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; writes about sex to death, making you cry and laugh all at once. Susan was brought up in Manchester, England, her art, a continuing tribute to her late husband as she seeks to create beauty in the space he no longer occupies.​

His Stew
​by Crystal N. Ramos

​​​​​
I tasted the stew, savoring the mix of garlic, potatoes, carrots, and meat. I added salt and tried again. Perfect.
 
“How much longer?” he asked from the couch. Blood had started to seep through the bandages. I frowned.
 
“It’s pretty much done. How’s your pain?” I asked and filled two bowls.
 
“It’s starting to spike.”
 
“Do you want some morphine?”
 
He shook his head. “After. I want to be clear-headed for this.”
 
I handed him a bowl. “I don’t blame you. You taste amazing. I can’t wait to try your tenderloin.”
 
“Me either,” he said and started eating his stew.

​
* * *
Crystal N. Ramos lives with her husband and two children in Georgia, USA. She has won the Maggie Award for Excellence in Prepublished Romantic Fiction twice and has an MA in Professional Writing from Kennesaw State University. Some of her shorter work has appeared in Rescued Hearts: A Hidden Acres Anthology, Stygian Lepus Issue 5, and The Dr. T. J. Eckleburg Review. You can find her at www.facebook.com/crystalnramos.​​
Picture
Photo by Dipak Patel

BBQ
​by John Szamosi

​​​​​
“The best grilled pork I’ve ever tasted,” I told Tim.
 
“Glad you like it, Bill. Why don’t you take some home?”
 
I walked up to one of the BBQ guys, an athletic Hispanic, and asked him to wrap up a couple of chops and put them in my car. “Sure thing, boss,” he said. When he returned, I slipped a twenty-dollar bill in his pocket. “Muchas gracias, amigo.”
 
Next day I phoned Tim to thank him and his wife for the great party. He said they loved having us and also conveyed the deep appreciation of Dr. Carlos Gutierrez, chief surgeon at St. Camillus Hospital, for the generous tip.

​
* * *
John Szamosi is a wordsmith and peace activist who’s been publishing short stories, satires and poems since his freshman year in college.
​​

Poetry
​

Picture

The Funeral
​by Holly Day

​​​​
I think about them dying and wonder
how I can be expected
to hand their bodies over to strangers
to be buried in a grave
far from home, far from me
 
when all I really want is to be allowed to
carry bits of them with me
for the rest of my own life
the fingerbones of children in my pocket
or on a string around my neck,
twin rosaries of vertebra wrapped loose
around my wrists
 
so I can raise my hands
to my lips, in prayer, to speak
to a family
I will never let go

* * *
Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in Analog SF, Cardinal Sins, and New Plains Review, and her published books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently teaches classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, Hugo House in Washington, and The Muse Writers Center in Virginia.​
Picture

Editor's Corner
​


The Writer's Bodycount
​by Amita Basu

​​​​​
Cradling my black coffee mug,
I watch the officegoers
waiting for the bus dead-eyed,
or honking, stuck in traffic.
 
I picture them—ha!—sprinting through
the officegate: they’re racing
to sign in at the scanner.
 
Oh-nine-oh-oh-oh-oh,
and hold your face just so.
Bathrobe-clad, I shudder,
and sip, and thank my stars.
 
Ping! sings my phone.
Email from The Pacific.
 
I grit my teeth—well, never mind,
those editors don’t know shit.
 
But the mail says, “We’re delighted…”
 
I pinch myself, reread the words,
and baptise myself with my coffee.
 
Fingers atremble, I set to work.
The Pacific’s staff can wait.
Facebook must be first to hear
I’ve conquered Mount-My-Everest.

The Subtle Art of Persuasion
​by Matthew P.S. Salinas

​​​​​
“We could be more persuasive. If you just let me…” Vincent started before Dominic stopped him.
 
“No violence. You know the rule. We have to push or pull them in the right direction without directly getting involved. Let alone hurting someone.”
 
“Where’s the fun in that?” Vincent lamented.
 
“This is a job, Vincent. Whether or not it’s ‘fun’ to you is irrelevant to me and doesn’t matter in the slightest.” Dominic palmed his face. It was as if he spoke to a brick wall.
 
“I didn’t know being a guardian demon would be like this.”
 
“Your expectations don’t mean shit,” Dominic turned away. “Just do your goddamn job.”

Ole Lucky Nine Lives
​by Scott Bogart

​​​​​
As aging gunslingers go, he was appropriately named. He’d lived his years strongly convinced of a single premise: only the good die young. His longevity was bolstered by a cunning intellect, an extreme adherence to superstition, and a blisteringly fast gunhand. He’d dodged all but eight bullets, survived rattlesnake bites, been partially scalped, and had his throat slit by a whore. He’d cheated and lied, pillaged, bamboozled and robbed, and was struck by lightning—twice.

Now, standing condemned atop the gallows with the henchman’s noose cinched tightly around his neck, he reflected upon these things and couldn’t help but feel somewhat optimistic.

Picture

Pretty
​by Alison McBain

​​​​​
The woman’s vivid eyes caught his attention. Unafraid, unlike Akhito’s last girlfriend.
 
Akihito smiled. He could change that.
 
The woman approached and asked, “Am I pretty?”
 
Weird, but okay. “Very.”
 
She pulled down the scarf covering her mouth. A jagged scar split her face. “Am I pretty?” she repeated.
 
His smile froze. He’d been warned about Kuchisake-onna in this neighbourhood. If he said no, she’d cut him to pieces. “Yes?”
 
Sharp steel flashed and he screamed as her scissors ripped into his face. His cheeks dripped blood.
 
“Now you’re pretty too,” the demon taunted. “And women will know to beware.”


The Poets' Salon

Picture
​If you're looking for more poetry, including a place to read your work, receive critiques, and explore poetic forms, check out The Poets' Salon. Two editors of ScribesMICRO, Edward Ahern and Alison McBain, run this free poetry workshop, and our poetry editor Mary Keating often drops in too.

Meetings take place on the second Saturday of every month from 10 a.m. to noon EST via Zoom. More info, including how to sign up for the poetry workshop, can be found on The Poets' Salon website or via Meetup.

ScribesMICRO  ​

​
​"You can't try to do things; you simply must do them."
─Ray Bradbury


​© 2009-2023 The Fairfield Scribes

  • ScribesMICRO
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Issue 51
    • Issue 50
    • Issue 49
    • Issue 48
    • Issue 47
    • Issues 37-46 (2024) >
      • Issue 46
      • Issue 45
      • Issue 44
      • Issue 43
      • Issue 42
      • Issue 41
      • Issue 40
      • Issue 39
      • Issue 38
      • Issue 37
    • Issues 25-36 (2023) >
      • Issue 25
      • Issue 26
      • Issue 27
      • Issue 28
      • Issue 29
      • Issue 30
      • Issue 31
      • Issue 32
      • Issue 33
      • Issue 34
      • Issue 35
      • Issue 36
    • Issues 13-24 (2022) >
      • Issue 13
      • Issue 14
      • Issue 15
      • Issue 16
      • Issue 17
      • Issue 18
      • Issue 19
      • Issue 20
      • Issue 21
      • Issue 22
      • Issue 23
      • Issue 24
    • Issues 1-12 (2021) >
      • Issue 1
      • Issue 2
      • Issue 3
      • Issue 4
      • Issue 5
      • Issue 6
      • Issue 7
      • Issue 8
      • Issue 9
      • Issue 10
      • Issue 11
      • Issue 12
    • Prologue Issue (2020)
    • Behind the Scenes
  • The Scribes Prize
    • 2024 Winners
    • 2023 Winners
  • Scriptorium
    • Books
    • Merch
    • Authors
    • Feature Story Contests >
      • Contest Winner 2019
      • Contest Winner 2018
    • Readings & Events
    • Privacy Policy
  • Writing Tips