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| Issue 33: | August 2026 |
| Microfiction: | 13+12+17+19 |
| = 61 words |
By Bob Lucky
Four Cuentos Atómicos*
Identity Theft
The man who stole her purse threw it over his shoulder.
Destiny
He was on the right train but facing the wrong way.
Progressive Revelations
When the sun rose, she knew she wasn’s a vampire and her parents were liars.
The Promise
He told her he’d walk with her until the end of time, but he got there first.
*Publisher’s Note:
“Cuentos Atómicos” (“Atomic Tales”) is a variation of the original term “atomic story” coined by Colombian poet, storyteller, essayist, and editor Umberto Senegal (born 1951) for a sub-genre of microfiction, tiny tales no longer than 20 words each, not counting the title. (My word counts above do include the title of each tiny tale.)
Source: Atomic tales: Umberto Senegal and Carlos Alberto Agudelo, selection of 20 atomic stories (10 from each author) with an introduction by Jonathan Alexander España Eraso in Abisinia Review (21 January 2021).
Bob Lucky’s
latest book is a collection of tanka and tanka prose, Careful Not to Startle the Yaks (Cyberwit, 2025). He is also the author of My Wife & Other Adventures (Red Moon Press, 2024); My Thology: Not Always True But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019); Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018), a winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize; and Ethiopian Time (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), an honorable mention in the Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards. He lives in Portugal.
More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond
⚡ Five Atomic Tales by Bob Lucky in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 30X, December 2025)
⚡ Book Review: My Wife & Other Adventures by Rich Youmans in contemporary haibun online (20:3, December 2024)
⚡ Clare MacQueen’s enthusiastic endorsement of My Wife & Other Adventures (Red Moon Press, 2024): “a mondo memoir of tiny poetic narratives infused with [Lucky’s] signature wit, wordplay, and philosophical musings; a handbook of 63 haibun that takes us meandering on a taste tour through the Near and Far East, entertaining as it enlightens...”
⚡ Bob Lucky at Haikupedia.org (September 2024)
⚡ A Tribute and Commentary on Bob Lucky’s new collection, My Thology: Not Always True but Always Truth by Ray Rasmussen in cho (15:4, January 2020)
⚡ Bob Lucky reviews Touching Fire by Charles D. Tarlton in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 1, January 2020)
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