Love
Just One Night
“Just one night. Just one night…” Jack muttered to himself. He was sitting on a bail of hay and staring into the feedbag he was given with ten dollars in crumpled one dollar bills. Ninety dollars more would follow if he could make it just one night in the old barn. Strips of light from the setting sun pierced the voids between the barn’s wooden slats. Dust filled sunbeams gripped the ground and crept up the wall onto Jack’s black overcoat. Looking down, the pattern reminded him of the jail cell he reluctantly called home for seven and a half years. The thought of his captivity turned his stomach. Reminders of his crime and his time plagued Jack at all hours of the day, but especially at sunset. Perhaps it was the impending darkness taking over the light of the day that set him on edge. The jail cell projection on his chest seemed to mock his efforts to hold fast to the newfound light in his life… his love. His Elanor. She carried his heart and stoked his yearning to… as Judge Hanes put it, “turn his life around, b’fore it was too late.”
By Ryan North5 years ago in Fiction
Donovan's Barn
Trenton and Rachel had moved away from Taftsville 15 years earlier. They had both attended Taftsville High School and after their senior year had moved to the city to attend college. They dated throughout their college years; on one warm spring night Trenton proposed and Rachel eagerly accepted. Though they had married young, they had made a good life for themselves and their two children, twin daughters who were now 12 years old.
By Julie Buchy5 years ago in Fiction
Leaving
I was feeling blue. I decided to take a walk. It was raining, but it was only a light drizzle, and I walked past all the shops in downtown and past the river. I went past the famous Spanish bar and peered inside, hearing the faint sound of boisterous laughter and I saw couples happily sitting together nursing their homemade spun concoctions and cocktails. They famously always had Matador bull fights on all the Flat screens they had in the bar. Old fights, new fights. Fights from years ago.
By Melissa Ingoldsby5 years ago in Fiction
Love Will Last Forever
The barn had changed since she had last seen it. She could remember when it’d been freshly painted red, the paint had gleamed in the sun for days. Her father had joked that you could always tell who snuck out of the dance hall those days since they would always come back with paint on their clothes. Now, even the wood was faded. Had it really been so many years? Even though it had seemed like a blink of an eye, her aching bones reminded her it had been many long years since her days dancing in the barn.
By Keely Huber5 years ago in Fiction
The Longest Kiss Goodnight
I love you. I have spoken those words many times, to many different people, but it wasn’t until I met her that I realized how hollow those words rang. She taught me what love truly is, what it means to be in love, and how it feels to have that same love reciprocated.
By David Dausch5 years ago in Fiction
Heartbreaker for Hire
My name is Violet and I am a heart breaker. Like, literally, it’s a family business. We get paid for it. So that’s why it’s not a huge deal that I’m cutting a hole in someone’s skylight so I can drop into his bathroom undetected. It’s part of the job.
By Valerie Ngai5 years ago in Fiction
First last love
The old barn had stood abandoned on the edge of the property for as long as he could remember. It had never been used as far as he could tell. He didn’t even know why he stood inside it now, except he couldn’t stand another second inside that house.
By Kelly Mendoza5 years ago in Fiction
