fin

Summer is upon us and our lives have taken on new endeavors. Therefore, 50 x100 will cease to exist. Call it an indefinite hiatus. If it starts again you can be sure to get emails and posts informing you. However, as of now, there are no definite plans for this.
You may be happy to hear [...]

fifty

He remembers little of all those other years. He takes vitamins after meals, runs a finger along receding gum lines. His mind flashes memories – a girl he used to study with who intermittently placed her pen between her breasts, a pair of socks he no longer owns. At some point he [...]

forty-nine

Cigarette smoke was seeping through an open window. He threw his belt across the room in a moment of rage. The buckle detached from it, cut through a fleshy-pink candlestick and chipped the wooden box containing her photos from Europe. They didn’t notice where it landed, being distracted by a surplus of [...]

forty-eight

Wool socks were of little comfort in the end.  Loraine put them on a pair of cold feet and did the dishes with hot water in hopes of warming herself without having to turn up the radiator.
But it was no use.  She still ended up sinking into a speckled kitchen chair by the window and [...]

forty-seven

The man at the bar on Broadway, sitting at the table outside, seems to be trying to counteract the effects of his beer with coffee. He is drinking glass after glass, cup after cup, and smoking cigarettes without pause. Allison, age fifteen, who has sat down across from him without invitation, silently supposes [...]

forty-six

He moved into the basement on 54th to escape a set of well-meaning parents and a pet bird with a squawk markedly similar to the sound of a woman in pain.
The roommates hung sheets around the large, cement-floored, wood-paneled room to section it off. Every morning he woke up with a headache from the [...]

forty-five

Years later, at a family gathering, the European wife, would state a little too loudly, “That was the best time in my life, when I lived here with you, before we got the house. If I…I would move back here in a moment. I would not hesitate.”
Mara, the youngest daughter, upon hearing this [...]

forty-four

The oldest son was away six months, leaving everything behind expect what fit in a medium-sized suitcase. Six months, yet no one moved his boxes from the living room to the garage. All of them, the parents and two sisters, simply learned to walk in a zigzag fashion.
The son has now come home [...]

forty-three

During her thirteenth autumn she thought it was funny; the neighbor boy was so young, he hardly knew what to make of her. In his yard, behind the dirty cream-colored wall of the mini mart, standing next to a sunken and rusted Chevrolet, she undressed. He was nine and simply continued to eat [...]

forty-two

The first eight years of their marriage were spent in the mauve house with his dying mother. Her children kicked at the neighborhood’s graffiti-covered fences. Her husband sedated bees in the backyard and gathered honey. She pickled cucumbers and made poppyseed milk on holidays. Her mother-in-law’s dementia slowly worsened and they [...]

forty-one

“It started in my toaster, burned the whole place down.”-A likely excuse from ever-absent receptionist Gina.
Jack, semi-sober, at the semi-awkward office party Friday, held out car keys and said, “My roommate used to fuck ‘er; I know where she lives.”
A car was packed with as many people as possible, who, minutes later, saw that not [...]

forty

Susie had been a surprise, sitting absolutely vertical on her bar stool, sipping a cherry coke. He asked her name. Susie. Sober Susie. He was unable to tear himself away; after three whiskey sours her presence was so utterly unexpected.
On Friday she said, “I have to go to work,” [...]

thirty-nine

After his fatal heart attack she finds herself looking through her father’s things.  The pornography is not as surprising to her as the electric razor.  In her childhood he had scoffed at such things.  She used to sit on the bathroom counter and watch him take to his face with heated shaving cream.
She presses the [...]

thirty-eight

While staring at the yellow scarf draped over his bedroom light he finally realizes the extent of his boredom. It’s their first night apart in over a week, and he’s been fingering the telephone keys for the past hour.
Finally calling, he asks, “What are you doing?”
“Emily’s talking about cute boys,” she drawls lazily. [...]