family

Waiting
It could have been the perfect summer day. The hot July sun warmed the water in the backyard pool just enough to be comfortable and refreshing. The laughter of the five little girls echoed against the splashing water as they chased each other in a classic game of Marco Polo. The game distracted them enough that they failed to notice the dipping sun nearing the horizon. Their fingers and toes had long ago turned wrinkly like raisins, but none wondered why they had been left to play so long today.
By A. J. Schoenfeldabout 5 hours ago in Fiction
City of plague:A New Yorker’s pandemic chronicle Pt 20.
A small farewell in New York that left a lasting sadness during the pandemic For nearly three months, COVID-19 swept through New York City like an unstoppable storm.
By Peterabout 8 hours ago in Fiction
City of plague:A New Yorker’s pandemic chronicle Pt 19.
In the Chinese lunar calendar, the first day of the fourth month is my birthday. Birthdays are strange things. They mark the beginning of a life, a moment that seems enormously important—yet none of us ever choose it. It simply arrives, quietly deciding the starting point of our existence.
By Peterabout 8 hours ago in Fiction
"I Can't Catch My Voice"
It did not begin with a clear diagnosis. It began with a sweet memory of her. Her mental illness arrived slowly enough that, at first, it seemed like ordinary aging. She misplaced things. She repeated a question she had asked only minutes before. We laughed sometimes with kind intent, the usual way families do when something petty goes obviously wrong. It was comfortable then to believe that nothing serious had begun.
By Lori Armstrongabout 9 hours ago in Fiction
A scintilla of hope
I felt the frigid shards sear into my flesh the second I opened the door. The cold was vicious, the wind bitter. Snow was still falling, its intensity somewhat abated since the morning's fall.
By Marie McGrathabout 12 hours ago in Fiction
Fear Controlled Me for Years — Until That Day. AI-Generated.
I didn’t know when fear first moved in. It didn’t arrive like a storm. There was no dramatic entrance, no single moment I could point to and say, that’s when it began. It came quietly—like a draft through a window you forgot to close.
By Peterabout 19 hours ago in Fiction
I Stopped Waiting for Opportunity — I Started Creating It. AI-Generated.
I used to believe in timing. Not in the mystical, poetic way people write about in books, but in the practical, almost superstitious way that keeps you still. I believed the right moment would come, like a train pulling into a station—predictable, inevitable, meant for me.
By Peterabout 19 hours ago in Fiction
Circles
She thumbed through the yearbook until she found his face. Circling it with a red sharpie, she remembered a time she’d do the same to her friends, her crushes. Harmless pre-summer fun.
By Matthew J. Frommabout 19 hours ago in Fiction
The House With One Lamp On
A literary fiction short story about estrangement, memory, and returning to the edge of a beginning without resolution. By the time Mara turned onto Bishop Road, the rain had thinned to a silver mist, the kind that did not so much fall as hover, as though the sky had forgotten whether it meant to finish what it started.
By Flower InBlooma day ago in Fiction
City of plague:A New Yorker’s pandemic chronicle Pt 18.
One evening, my phone rang unexpectedly. The caller ID showed the name Mr. Li, president of the Southern Hometown Association. I knew him well. He was a respected figure in the Chinese community—calm, thoughtful, and never someone who called without a reason.
By Petera day ago in Fiction
City of plague:A New Yorker’s pandemic chronicle Pt 17.
Directly across the street from the building where I worked stood an old commercial property that had quietly witnessed decades of Manhattan’s restless life.
By Petera day ago in Fiction
Something Borrowed
Hey, everybody! For those of you who don... ah, who are we kidding? Who here doesn’t know me? Geez, Mom! The stink eye already? I remember – short and sweet!
By Cristal S.a day ago in Fiction