The Confabulator Cafe

Author: barista

  • August Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Hello, readers! We have a fantastic lineup for you this month, with a record-breaking number of stories for your enjoyment. We’ve got guest authors, newly minted full-fledged contributors, and returning authors we haven’t heard from in a while.

    What prompt incited so many authors to come out of the woodwork? Time travel. Writers love to mess about with time, and for this month, we encouraged our Confabulators to tell us a tale using their interpretation of how time travel would work. Is time fluid and history changeable, like in Back to the Future? Can you only go back to moments in your own life, like in Reply or Time Traveler’s Wife? Are there fixed points in time you can’t change, like the Doctor is so fond of telling his companions in Doctor Who? Only time–and our writers–will tell.

    So have a seat, order a drink, and let us entrance you with our confabulation. And as always, thank you so much for your time. We promise to use it for good rather than evil.

    Here’s the August schedule:

    Wednesday, August 1: “The Past Like a Pudding” by Emily Mosher
    Friday, August 3: “The Museum of Claire” by Dianne Williams
    Wednesday, August 8: “All The Time We Need” by Lea Orth
    Friday, August 10: “A Multiverse of Possibilities” by Sebastian Sanchez
    Wednesday, August 15: “Time Sleeper” by Kara DeLaughter
    Friday, August 17: “Until Death Do Us Part” by Eliza Jaquays
    Wednesday, August 22: “Timeline Unlimited, Inc.” by Nate Morsches
    Friday, August 24: “Deep Shaft Run” by Aspen Junge
    Wednesday, August 29: “The Scavenger’s Jar” by Ashley M. Hill
    Friday, August 31: “Tourtime Terms and Conditions, Page 6” by Neil Siemers

  • The Date

    “Literally everything about this is illegal, Johnny,” Christine said.

    “I know!” I grunted, “Now give me a hand.”

    Up until that night, I had never tried to lift a forklift off of its side.  It fucking sucks. My desire to impress Christine came to a screaming halt the second she got it stuck in a pile of thick, gloppy mud and decided that the best thing to do was pull a hard right turn on the steering wheel, turning it over onto its damn side.

    She really deserved that bloody scrape on her forehead.  In the end, she could still walk and talk, so I didn’t feel so bad thinking such a nasty thing about her.

    But I didn’t start out so bitter when the evening started.  After getting my ass handed to me at wrestling practice, I rushed home.  It was only an hour before it was time to meet up with Christine. Shower, brush teeth, time to do my hair.  Yeah, that’s right, I spent an extra few minutes on my hair. She was a babe, though.

    If I was honest with myself, I didn’t deserve her.  I was in the 125lb weight class. So first of all, I’m a shrimp.  Second of all, I only won my spot on the varsity team this week for the meet against Flushing High on merits of a fluke.  Ethan Lawrence could beat me 99 times out of a 100. Just happened to be my lucky week, I guess. I was a JV kind of guy. Pretty much always have been.  Third of all, Christine was way out of my league.

    I’ve had what those in the medical community call a colostomy.  When I was young, my large intestines stopped working. All the shit that normally goes out of an ass got stuck inside me. (more…)

  • July Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Hello and welcome back to the Cafe. We hope you enjoyed our stories last month. We’ve got even more stories for you this month! We even have two new guest authors, Kara DeLaughter and Nate Morsches, so I hope you’ll give them a warm Cafe welcome.

    The prompt this month was a first-line-last-line prompt, where Confabulators were all given the same line they had to start their story with and a line they all had to end their story with. It’s always interesting to see what directions the middle of the story takes within those parameters.

    Please visit us to find out! Here’s the July schedule:

    Friday, July 6: “Consideration” by Emily Mosher
    Friday, July 13: “Jade and Hugo” by Kara DeLaughter
    Friday, July 20: “The Date” by Nate Morsches
    Friday, July 27: “The Bounty Hunters” by Sebastian Sanchez

  • June Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Welcome to another month of free fiction here at the Cafe. Pull up a chair and let us get you a nice iced coffee or tea. It is much too warm out there for June. Which really means it’s great weather to stay inside and catch up on your reading.

    This month, Confabulators were charged with looking back through the titles of old Cafe stories and using one for inspiration to write an all new tale. Then they had to give it a new title to make it their own. We call this Recycled Titles. We’ve also linked the original story at the end of each piece, so you can go read the original story, as well, to see how they measure up.

    Here’s the schedule for June:

    Friday, June 8: “The Real Boy” by Emily Mosher
    Friday, June 22: “Witch Way” by Sara Lundberg

     

  • May Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Greetings, readers. Welcome to the Confabulator Cafe, where us Confabulators write tales based on prompts every month.

    This month, the prompt was: “legendary/mythical beast vs. legendary/mythical beast.” We didn’t limit what kind of creature or even what kind of verses. We hope you’ll enjoy the stories that sprung from this prompt.

    Here’s the May schedule:

    Tuesday, May 15: “The Upset” by Emily Mosher

  • April Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Hello and welcome (back) to the Cafe! Grab a seat and prepare to be entertained (no fooling).

    This month, the Confabulators were given the prompt: “Never trust a survivor until you find out what they did to stay alive.” We hope you’ll come visit us on the following Fridays to find out what our survivors did.

    Friday, April 6: “Faithless Helen” by Dianne Williams
    Friday, April 13: “100% Fatal” by Sebastian Sanchez
    Friday, April 20: “Gin and Tonic, Part 1” by Andrew Putnam

  • March Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Welcome to March at the Confabulator Cafe! We’ve got another great lineup of new, free fiction for you this month.

    Our prompt: revenge or breaking point.

    We hope you’ll enjoy where the Confabulators took this prompt. We also hope you’ll give a warm welcome to brand new guest author Sebastian Sanchez, who will have his Cafe debut later this month.

    Here’s the March schedule:

    Monday, March 5: “Electric-type Revenge” by Dianne Williams
    Monday, March 12: “Of Sewing Shears and Budget Cuts” by Emily Mosher
    Monday, March 19: “The Fastest Thing” by Sebastian Sanchez
    Monday, March 26: “Blessed Omeka” by Aspen Junge

  • Responsibility of Blood

    Alicia fastened her seat belt and took deep breaths to calm herself as John, her newly wedded husband pulled out onto the highway pushed the speed limit. Instead of heading north to start hiking part of the Appalachian trail, the honeymoon as they’d planned for the past year, they drove south.

    She closed her eyes and remembered what her mother had told her so many years ago, “It’s a blessing and a curse.”
    Alicia was only nine at the time and didn’t understand. They were sitting together in the back of a police car, speeding to the local emergency room.

    “Are you sick?” She asked her mother.

    “No, dear,” was the response. She’d heard that before and wanted to believe it was true. She only remembered going with her mother a couple of times, but not since she was six or so, in the afternoon on a weekend, her dad was there then. But this time Dad was away, an engineer advising on a new bridge construction in Brazil. It was 2:00am, and no sitter was available, and it was an emergency. She’d awaken when the phone rang in the hallway. She’d listened as her mother spoke quickly, “Oh, of course … I’ll bring Alicia with me … fifteen minutes, we’ll be ready.”

    Alicia wore her heavy coat over her pajamas. Her mother had quickly dressed in sweats.

    “You might be able to get some sleep while you wait for me” her mother said as both watched out the window as they passed the emergency vehicles and glimpsed the mangled cars and the over turned semi. The hospital was less than twenty miles away.

    (more…)

  • February Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Welcome back, reader. We hope your 2018 has been wonderful so far and that our stories may have the smallest something to do with that.

    This month, the Confabulators wrote to a prompt about a phone call: The phone rings. The voice on the other end says, “We need you again,” then hangs up.

    We hope you enjoy the tales spun for this prompt. Also, please give a warm welcome to our new guest author Lea Orth! Her debut story will go live on Monday, February 12.

    Here’s the rest of the schedule for February!

    Monday, February 5: “Microbe Mike” by Emily Mosher
    Monday, February 12: “Responsibility of Blood” by Lea Orth
    Monday, February 19: “Psychic Call” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, February 26: “Plausible Coincidences” by Neil Siemers

  • January Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Greetings, readers! Welcome back to another year of free fiction at the Confabulator Cafe! We have an exciting year lined up for you. We’re even going to give you a little teaser by sharing the monthly prompts for the whole year on the Fiction Archive page. So take a look and make note of months you think might tickle your fancy.

    As for January stories, what better way to start the new year than have our writers tell you stories about new beginnings? But, because this is the Cafe, we can never just leave it at that. For this prompt, we also wanted a twist or a catch with that new beginning.

    We hope you’ll enjoy our stories this month, and this year!

    Here’s the January schedule:

    Monday, January 8: “Leaving the Nest” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, January 15: “The Time of Boxes” by Dianne Williams
    Monday, January 22: “Intergalactic Clown Thief” by Sara Lunberg