Allot Your Time

By Hector Duarte
86 words

So that nothing interrupts the valuable time meant for ME and YOU -- time that comes few and far between now that you’ve blossomed into a mature orchid.

Why answer the call when we’re in the middle of a conversation? I can hear the male tone on the other end. It bores into my head at night after you leave, taunting me awake.

A giggle. I thought I was the only one so successful at that feat?
Allot your . . . Hell, what’s the point?





Hector Duarte Jr. is an inspiring writer who resides in Miami, Fl. and loves the smell of fresh cotton laundry detergent.

Arranged Complacency

by Hector Duarte
100 words


It had all been arranged; into a neat, little package.
He looked up at her and smiled and averted his eyes. It was difficult to maintain eye contact because it brought in him a sense of longing, quickly followed by a sense of shame. In knowing that in one year she’d be lying next to him, under the same sheets, her surname different.

“It’s what I chose for myself,” she’d once said. He was embarrassed by the fact he’d let himself be deluded by the prospect that perhaps he had a place in her plans: her plan B, of course.



Hector Duarte Jr. is an aspiring writer and seventh-grade Language Arts teacher. He resides in Miami, Florida.