January 12, 2025
The rain fell relentlessly – the type of heavy rain that soaked right through your clothes within a minute. The grey denseness of the sky contradicted […]
December 26, 2024
First candle. Our first apartment. We download the blessings off the internet because we don’t remember the words. I run my finger along the Hebrew script […]
October 31, 2024
I was 12 that year, and my friends and I dressed up in our costumes and went trick-or-treating up and down the elevators… Every neighborhood has a witch, an old person every kid avoids, out of fear of something we couldn’t exactly grasp at 12. They were so foreign to my Yankees-loving, Keds-wearing self – their thick Yiddish accents, their mouths and ears seemingly oversized for their faces, the women smelling like talcum, the men of spittle and phlegm. But the scariest of them all was Mrs. Pincus, apartment 12B.
October 26, 2024
“You have won a luxurious casket with a choice of satin interior lining; solid Mahogany construction in a polished natural finish with elegantly rounded corners. It comes with brushed bronze handles and a matching pillow. But that’s not all; you will also enjoy a prime site in the Restland cemetery.”
September 15, 2024
Welcome to the first prize winners issue of the MockingOwl Roost - the Prized Myths and Fairy Tales of the MockingOwl Roost. This beautiful collection of fairy tale and mythology-based flash fiction, micro-essays, and haiku/tanka sequence pieces come from authors around the world.
May 26, 2024
The car was quiet. Eddie listened to a radio station doing a two-hour Phil Collins set. He heard ‘In the Air Tonight’, ‘You Belong to Me’, “Sissudio’, ‘Take a Look at Me Now’ and ‘Take Me Home’ every thirty-five minutes. Everything repeated. The show was taped then looped because apparently no one wanted the late-night on-air shift.
The programming kept him awake. He didn’t stop again until they reached the junction with I-10 in Lake City, Florida, just after three in the morning. Eddie had driven two-hundred-sixteen miles. The Old Man needed all fifteen gallons.
May 22, 2024
“I’m sorry. I’ve almost got it licked though. I’m never touching another drop. Going on the wagon. I’m quitting. That was it last night, I promise. I’m done,” he said.
May 12, 2024
I thought about all I had gone through to reach this point: all the planning, lying, deceptions, and even the murder. With a widening smile, I concluded that I felt happier than I had for years.
May 10, 2024
As we walked among the pods, I stressed the level of demand and the need for absolute secrecy to protect the privacy of the famous clientele. She seemed satisfied, and we returned to my ‘consulting room’ to finalise the terms.
April 25, 2024
Sure, they were real pros compared to Rex, but all they did was cover songs. Rex, though he could only strum a few chords, was a dreamer. The chords and melody came to him one night sitting alone in his apartment after a couple hits on a bong.
April 8, 2024
When she said that, I noticed that the baby's head was falling downward. I thought this strange because I have always heard that new mothers ooze with motherhood and instinct. But in this case, it seemed like she had no concern for the baby. Ignoring the other red flags, my brain compensated with the thought: Maybe she is exhausted?
April 6, 2024
Paulie and Will were friends because they were almost the same age and lived next door to each other but Will spent more time with his brothers, John and Stevie, than the neighbors. Will and Paulie kind of looked alike, though, and when they walked around town people thought they were brothers, or “Irish twins,” as Mr. Carey at Carey’s market said.