My family has used the same advent calendar since I was a very little girl. Every year starting on December 1st, my mother would fill it with beads or chocolate or money. Sorry if the advent calendar I’m filling up for all of you is not as exciting as chocolate.
The rules:
* Every day this month I will write at least 100 words of fiction and post them here. (Actual advent calendars only through Christmas or Christmas Eve, so you’re really getting the better deal here.)
* If I miss a day, I will write two stories the next day. There will be 31 stories at the end of the month.
* Since my schedule is not consistent, the stories will not be posted at a consistent time of day. It will be sometime between 12 AM and 11:59 PM.
* Comments are ENCOURAGED. Post thoughts, critiques or your own stories at the bottom of the page.
* Readers can subscribe and receive a short story in their inbox everyday by clicking here.
There was an opaque layer of Pepsi at the bottom of the bottle, and Carola tilted her head all the way back to drink it. She put the bottle back on the table and screwed the top on. She hoped it was clean enough. Ms. Halifax was shouting over the…
What people need to understand about dragons is that we really have no one to blame but ourselves. Take the gold hoarding for instance: back before people were around (and dragons were most certainly around before people), there were no gold platters to covet. Yes, dragons have an intrinsic affinity…
I told myself that simply being at the beach counted, even if it was cloudy. I picked it up from my mother who told me It’s the thought that counts when my father sent me mindless belated birthday gifts. I was walking like a bird with one foot exactly in…
The sopapilla, also called sopaipilla, sopaipa, or cachanga, is like the Isla de Muerta in Pirates of the Caribbean: it can only be found by those who already know where it is. Only in this case it’s a food—if you do not already know what a sopapilla is, you cannot…
She walked out on stage at the same time as the great Mr. Simon, smoothing the sides of her pants. They told her it didn’t matter what she wore as long as it was black, but she took pride in it. The pants were always creased. The shirt sparkled. She…
When I was a little girl, I never learned to crawl. I learned to walk and then I learned to fly. My parents were very proud of me. They said, Go far, but watch for sharp winds from the East. So I would leave my home and go everywhere. I…
Man Spotted Ordering Two Frappuccinos SOMEWHERE—A man in a Starbucks on Tuesday is reported to have been seen ordering two Frappuccinos on a cold day, and then exiting the store, according to witnesses. Speculation abounds over the destination of the second Frappuccino and the motive behind the choice of beverage…
Regina picked the bundle up off the the side of the road wrapped in a blanket. She checked first to make sure no one saw her. She had been standing behind the wall waiting for a long time. Waiting was something Regina was very good at; it was perhaps her…
She never asked for window seats. In fact she avoided them. She liked aisle seats because it was easier to escape people. Sometimes she would go to the airplane bathroom and wash her hands for fifteen minutes so she didn’t have to talk to the grandmother in the middle seat.…
He never knew tweezers could break. Alright, sure, if you wedged them into a door jamb and applied force to them, it wasn’t so uncalled for maybe. He just hadn’t expected it. Fine, they didn’t work as a screw driver like he had hoped—he had really thought he’d figured it…
