Lost Children: A Charity Anthology to benefit PROTECT and Children 1st

By Lynn Beighley, Nigel Bird, Luca Veste and 5 more

30 powerful stories from around the world to benefit two children's charities: PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children and Children 1st Scotland.

Stories by David Ackley, Kevin Aldrich, David Barber, Lynn Beighley, Seamus Bellamy, Paul D. Brazill, Sif Dal, James Lloyd Davis, Roberto C. Garcia, Susan Gibb, Nancy A. Hansen, K.V. Hardy, Gill Hoffs, Fiona "McDroll" Johnson, J.F. Juzwik, MaryAnne Kolton, Benoit Lelievre, Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw, Vinod Narayan, Paula Pahnke, Ron Earl Phillips, Thomas Pluck, Sam Rasnake, JP Reese, Chad Rohrbacher, Susan Tepper, Luca Veste, Michael Webb, Nicolette Wong and Erin Zulkoski. It began as a flash fiction challenge when Fiona Johnson and Thomas Pluck donated $5 to PROTECT and £5 to Children 1st for every story at Ron Earl Phillips' Flash Fiction Friday. Now we have collected the 30 best stories to benefit these two charities.

Join us and make a difference while you read 30 great stories genres by writers from the U.S.A., Poland, Hong Kong, Portugal, India, Scotland, England, Canada, and one told by a Lost Boy of the Sudan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Goombah Gumbo Press
• Release date: Sep 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516370900

Book preview

Message from the Editors

I’ve been a teacher for the past 27 years and during that time, many children have traveled through my classroom. I’ve seen potential in every single one of them and have shared their joy of learning as they make new discoveries about their abilities.

Sadly though, not all children get a good start to their life. Some have their potential limited even before they reach school age, their suffering increased by the many failures of our society including poverty, drug abuse and poor health.

Children 1st do so much good work trying to help these children so that they do not fall through the cracks and begin the cycle of failure again. Through purchasing this anthology, you too have helped to ensure a better future for a child.

Many thanks.

Fiona Johnson

I agree with Andrew Vachss that fighting the emotional and physical abuse of children is the only holy war worthy of the name. Monsters are made, not born, and there are no bad seeds. Our prisons are full of those who’ve learned that might makes right, and the only pain worth mention is their own. We reap the harvest of our tolerance of these daily atrocities, and we continue to ignore it at our peril.

Thank you for purchasing this anthology.

Thomas Pluck

You wake up in the morning, you expect everything to be same old, same old. Changing only slightly given the day of the week, time of the year, or a standard recognized date, but every once in a while you are surprised. I would have to say when Friday morning on September 2nd rolled around, I was surprised.

Roughly  a year earlier, a week short in fact, I started up a website, a task I am somewhat good at, to carry on the efforts of Cormac Brown and his Friday Flash Fiction blog which promoted writing by providing a weekly writing prompts. This new site would be re-branded as Flash Fiction Friday, an extreme change for sure. The only real change was to make the new site a team effort with a moderator taking a set Friday each month. This allowed the latitude to bring in new moderators as old ones got busy with life, all the time allowing for a consistent weekly schedule. Each moderator had complete autonomy. So over the last year, I've had many interesting Friday mornings, wonderful prompts which in return generated fascinating stories.

At the time this particular Friday rolled around Thomas Pluck was my replacement. I had stepped aside, a little weary to let go. I shouldn't have worried. Thomas brought in a ringer, Fiona Johnson, with my favorite prompt to date, The Lost Children. To see the magnificent art produced by Danielle Tunstall was enough to evoke harrowing stories for a writers mind, but the real call to action -- the story behind the stories -- was the generosity of both Fiona Johnson and Thomas Pluck who both offered to donate £5 and $5 to the charities Children First Scotland and Protect here in the States.

With 43 entries, 30 of which you will find in what we hope will be the first The Lost Children anthology, Fi and Tom pulled together and donated nearly $600 to the respective charities.

My greatest goal with Flash Fiction Friday is to give writers ideas to facilitate stories and their potential as writers. I want to thank Fiona, Thomas and the contributors to The Lost Children prompt for allowing Flash Fiction Friday to go a step further and give hope.

And thank you, the reader, the purchaser of this anthology, by buying this book you too are also giving hope to The Lost Children.

Ron Earl Phillips

October 24, 2011

In the Woods

by David Ackley

S- and I were going fishing, one of our friendship’s pegs. For the most part it takes place in silence, which, in a way, protects the friendship.

We were on a dirt road in the woods, near a pond I’d wanted to check out some miles from my home here in the White Mountains. He lives in Boston, though we’d grown up together in these parts. I could see the pond, a glint through the trees, all thumbs as I tried to tease a snarl out of my flyline.

S- stood by, fly rod rigged and set to go, making encouraging remarks.

If you weren’t so drunk, you’d be ready now.

I’m not drunk, I’m hungover, I said.

It was good to breathe the cool, clean air through the residue of stale booze and cigarettes. I could smell the astringent jack fir and pine.

An engine approached from the direction of the highway, but I kept my head down, trying to focus on the loop which would untangle the snarl if I pulled it just right. I didn’t want to see anyone else. You get possessive about your spots though we all have the same claim on them, I suppose.

A black pickup went slowly by, and I glanced up and back down, retaining a blunt thrust of a face on the passenger side, uncongenial in profile, and a green cap that said John Deere with the yellow picture of the deer helpful to graduates of our local school system.

Jesus, I hate to see that, S- said, looking after them.

I looked up at the truck from the rear, supposing at first that he meant other fishermen invading our spot.

The passenger’s bulky arm was draped along the seat and there was a small head between the two big men, wearing a stocking cap with a little ball on top that just reached level with their shoulders. There were spinning rods hanging over the tailgate.

It took me a moment to see what S--was seeing.

They’re going fishing, I said, with the taste of ash in my mouth again.

Sure.

We could follow them, I said.

Until when?... We’ve got to get back to the city tonight. You can take over. Make it your new career.

We watched the black pickup accelerate and pull away, beginning to shrink into the distance, the silhouettes of half-men and boy melding together into one blurred thing. Soon it would be out of sight in the woods.

I tried again. They’re taking him fishing. He’s one of them’s nephew.

No doubt, he said. Nephew. Cousin. Baby brother. Keeping it in the family.

Fuck you, I said.

Let’s go someplace else, he said.

We’d been driving for a while in silence when he said, Don’t say anything to Elaine. She’s death on that shit. It makes her nuts.

I pictured an army of S- floating into our congenial world under their white parachutes, armed only with clarity. Then, ashes.

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Everything In Its