Cezarija Abartis
"Beauty and the Beast"
The merchant looked in the pawnbroker’s window: a necklace of cheap beads dangled from a hook, a thousand-piece puzzle of a zoo was propped at the front and, beside it, a stuffed dog. The dog blinked. A real dog then. But no rose.
His youngest daughter had asked for a rose as a gift. But his trip took months longer than he expected, and it was winter, and there were no roses in this small winter town. Perhaps in the city he would stay at tomorrow night, he would find a garden store that imported flowers from the south.
Spring , a Girl by Jennifer Sky
The light ran along the lime colored grass. She lay waiting for him, spread out like the carpeting of clover under her thighs, facing the sky. The day was soft and warm over her bare legs. The white silk sheath dress she wore no longer covered all of her, curves high and center left exposed and the pink lace fringe of little girl like panties.
She knew he was coming. Sometime. She needed him to fill the hollows left from her past--love lost.
Magic Mirror by Nathan E.Tavaras
Almost closing time, the park's nearly empty. Parents amble by, spent from a day of screaming kids. I'm at my ride, the Magic Mirror, itching for a smoke, when a kid walks up. I can see he's disappointed. From the outside, the Magic Mirror looks like a beat-up roller coaster poking out from an old building of chipping blue paint.
“Just me," he says.
I nod, letting him walk past.
STORYLAND
Short Stories: Svehaug and Fitzpztrick
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No Such Thing As a Free Tea by Jennifer Stakes
YOU’D TAKEN THE JOB because your father had been on at you for weeks to get off yer arse and do summut and this had been the first vacancy sign you’d seen on the High Street. It’d only been for a couple of weeks, something to shut your dad up, but you were still there, five months later. You’d got used to the money, got used to being able to buy drinks for girls in pubs, got used to new trainers and takeaways from Himalayas, not Chick’n’Tasty, where you’d once seen a rat as big as next door’s terrier run out from under the counter.