Short Fiction

With circumstance stacked higher than you can see over, how can you ever find your way?

So many terrible things we could avoid if we could only see the future -- or see clearly into another person's heart...

Kim seems to be anti-social. She isn't. She is using all her energy to hold on...

Award-winning California author and poet, Barbara Link, has had three stories aired on KVPR, a National Public Radio Affiliate. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous literary magazines and small presses. She also received the Sacramento State University Bazzanella Prize for fiction.

It's always good to plan ahead...

Gary Durbin is a retired serial entrepreneur having founded four software companies. He now writes, hikes, and advises startup companies.

They get into your head, into your blood, and nothing can take them away...

He was her helpmate, her support, and her secret. And no one knew, especially not the constituents.

Ambition -- check. Analytical mind -- check. Determination -- check. Whiskey -- yeah, that, too. Now all they need is the case...

Her life is made up of broken puzzle pieces. But she had a life, and she will remember it...

A rare look from within a lost mind...

Who was the first one? And who -- or what -- will be the last?

All things happen for a reason...

A hacked computer has to be reformatted here. A server has to be taken offline there. People are accustomed to piracy...at least they thing so...

Beate Sigriddaughter lives and writes in New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment, USA. Her work has received four Pushcart Prize nominations and won four poetry awards.

Yep, this is how it happens...

Charles Chettiar is an Engineer by circumstance and writer by choice, working in Mumbai. He started writing short stories when in college, and is working on his first novel.

Jordan Ramsey is a Professional Writing student and Graduate Assistant in the Southeast Missouri State University Master's program. He graduated with an Undergraduate Degree in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Illinois in 2006. Since then, he has worked as an English Teacher for NOVA Group and Lanier Technical College and a copy editor for The Southern Illinoisan. Jordan plans to graduate from SEMO this May.

Luanne sees a kinship between a dead tree in an abandoned cemetery and her past. She decides to forget what cannot be retrieved and enjoy Jeff, the new love in her life...

It used to happen this way, it does happen this way, and when it comes, it will...

Sometimes the best plan of action is to just be up front and genuine...

Sometimes everything changes. Sometimes the world looks different. Michael struggles to salvage the relationship that has been torpedoed by Jessica's desire to return to religious practice, and he hopes that Jessica's son might be his ally, but change is never easy.

While her husband fights long lines of traffic blocked by an accident, Helen meets her blocked past ...

Thomas Elson lives in Northern California. He writes of lives that fall with neither safe person nor safe net to catch them.

Is it possible to seek something if you don't even know it exists? And do you only know something exists when you perceive that it is no longer there?

Charles teaches engaged couples how to communicate on a deeper level. But Charles has a secret he hides from himself. And it takes more than mind-reading to hear truth...

What a little princess she was!

A simple prank? No, not at all. A complex prank? Sure, why not? A killer of an idea for a prank? Of course!

This is Michael Price's last work to appear in the Piker Press. Mike died unexpectedly on February 12, 2016, and will be sorely missed.

Conclusion. Carl Tyson has found a way to venture into the future -- and it appears that the future needs him to change things for the people who are left...