Basantby Maryanne KhanSticky-fingered with flour-and-water paste, Imran worked feverishly to secure the cheap white paper to the sticks he had lashed together to sketch out the framework of his kite. It would be as broad as the wingspan of a vulture soaring over the roof of his house, and swift as a peregrine falcon and just as predatory. Deadly predatory. His mother sat by the fire, furiously pummeling chappati dough, her mouth full of complaints that the roots of the morrow’s Basant festival lay in poisoned Hindu soil, blasphemous and alien to the purity of Islam.
Category: Short story
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Rank: 54
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Rank: 53 Mid-Life Crisisby Dawn WhiteJanet placed her back against the front door and allowed relief to wash over her. She had just waved her husband off to work. She didn’t know why, but these days she couldn’t wait to get rid of him. She was left in the silence of her home with only the ghost of the past for company. Now the kids had gone she couldn’t stay in the house on her own for long – it was too quiet. She could feel the silence, like an invisible blanket, moving in to smother her. After no more than a moment’s hesitation she plunged into the lounge, picked up her mobile and called Colin. He said he could be there within an hour so she rushed upstairs in a fit of giddy school girl excitement, opened the box containing her secret stash of lingerie, and proceeded to pick out her favourite items. All thoughts of her husband had gone – he just didn’t excite her anymore - not like Colin did!
Category: Short story
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Rank: 57
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Rank: 56 In Rehearsalby jack coeyHe sighed when he saw the note: Gone to rehearsal. He didn’t know what to do. Jill was distant. He thought about the girl that came through his line: red hair, freckles, and blue eyes. Jill was drifting away from him; he could feel it. In the distance of Jill, he thought about the girl in his line. Jill didn’t care about anything except the play. He remembered telling Jill to take a chance – to get out of her funk. And she did. She saw the audition notice and got the part. He spent several nights helping her memorize her lines. She talked about the young professor from the community college who played opposite her with an enthusiasm that made him anxious. He had gone to one year of voc-tech school before dropping out, and got a job as a cashier in a store. He was not handsome, but was comical in attitude and appearance. His ears stuck out from underneath curly red hair, and a dopey grin. He made women laugh; he was charming. He met Jill at the beach one day, and told her stories of his escapades in the laundromat.
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Rank: 133
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Rank: 133 Shhh! Don't You Know?by Holly JahangiriRoger coughed. It was a deep, phlegmy cough that burbled up from the bottom of his lungs and threatened to crack a rib. They’d thrown him in the Hole, again. Roger closed his eyes and savored the silence, the very thing the others feared most about the Hole. He inhaled deeply, though every breath was painful. Tasting the musty staleness of the air, Roger imagined that he was back in the stacks, tending the ancient library he loved, caressing the flecked leather bindings of the rare books he prized beyond all other things. Roger never understood the small-mindedness of the academics who pretended to love his books, promised to care for them as he did (as if they could!), and tossed them aside when they had wrung the last drop of fine-print footnote usefulness from their worn, cracked, fragile pages. Roger snatched up the precious books, discarded upon sturdy oak study tables whose well-worn wood gleamed with the incessant polish of scholarly elbows.
Category: Short story
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Cumulative Earnings:
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Rank: 35
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Month's Earnings:
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Rank: 31
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