Thursday, my sponsor says, surrender works.
Friday’s dealer says it too.
Saturdays, my therapist says addiction is a disease.
Sunday, the priest says it’s a sin.
Monday’s doctor says it’s genetic.
Tuesday, Mom says I’m killing her.
Wednesday’s mirror tells the truth:
I’ll believe whoever makes this feeling go away.
Paul D’Arcy tells stories. All real. Most brief. You can read more at pauldrc.com.
We’re in woodland with backpacks, introductions.
Glowing couples hold hands; our foraging instructor munches leaves. I nibble. He discusses elderflowers whilst sitting amidst daisies; we picnic on sourdough and dandelions.
“Wild mushroom pasta,” he says. “Folklore believes these fungi help people read minds.”
The couples devour bowlfuls, then leave separately.
Ellen Townsend is an art teacher and writer. Her work has appeared in Friday Flash Fiction and Paragraph Planet and has been broadcast on BBC Radio.
Before summer got too hot we fooled around on playgrounds. We swung blistered palms on monkey bars, got dizzy on tire swings.
Before winter got less cold we played in the snow. We ate icicles off our parents’ cars, sipped cocoa with tiny marshmallows.
The world was still hospitable; home.
Audrey Lee is a student from New Jersey. She enjoys writing flash fiction and poetry.
Sunset. We let it. I regret that. Orange orb, opulent lozenge dissolving upon the horizon’s tongue. Arriving night starlit, tarpit ignited by fiery eyes, infinite suns where one once was, numbed by the number.
I’ll hold the morning back, quash the dawn like we’re swallowing sick then keeping it down.
Steven Holding lives in the United Kingdom. His story TURNING A TRICK appears in the collection BLOODLUST from Black Hare Press. You can follow his work at stevenholding.co.uk.
White SUVs, gray minivans, silver sedans. Self-driving, late 2040s makes. Kasparov tapped his ID card to the window, but the door didn’t unlock. A notification flashed across his field of vision. “Credit score too low; access denied.” Kasparov sighed, put on his gloves, and picked up a concrete block off the street.
Matthew Klinestiver is an American English teacher residing in Bangkok, Thailand. In his spare time, he enjoys studying Mandarin, composing catchy pop songs on the piano, and watching old Godard films.
“What have you done?” said Jean, looking straight ahead, Gary in the passenger seat.
Parked at the kerb, they both watched as a young couple entered their home of thirty years, closing the door firmly behind them. Red car in the driveway. Gates locked.
Gary began to smile, eyes glittering.
Neil Foster is a composer, music therapist and budding writer from Northern Ireland. His music has been featured widely across local and international media, including BBC Radio and TV, and he writes fiction, non fiction and poetry.
One evening at the Westend Grill, Reid looked up from his chili to see his dead uncle sitting across the table.
Uncle Kirby sported his usual half-smile and red-checkered shirt. He nodded at the bowl.
“I liked lots of crackers in mine, too,” he said.
Reid crumbled in another saltine.
Jim Anderson is a retired college teacher who lives and writes in south-eastern Michigan.
My cat sat on the corner of my desk and watched me type. Every day for twelve years. Sometimes she’d tap my keyboard to correct my spelling. Today she wasn’t there. So I put a picture of her there instead. But the picture doesn’t spell any better than I do.
Michaele Jordan is the author of Mirror Maze. See more at michaelejordan.com.
Of course we’re wondering about the dead bus stop crow. Raven? Grackle? A smash of black on cement, witch-guts gross. We see the suited man who’s been hounding us before school, his Jehovah pamphlets flapping: “WHERE are YOU going?”
We bend to the bird, searching for its ears. Whisper: go.
Adele Gallogly’s very short stories have been published in FlashFlood, Writers’ Hour, Six-Sentences, and Paragraph Planet. You can follow her on BlueSky.
I wake and wander riverside
on a crisp winter morning.
Sunshine chases chills
from my bones
while my heart warms
with wonder
that I am welcome here
in what will always be
Aboriginal land.
My history not white-washed
but somehow forgiven.
My love for this place
a gift of grace.
Fiona H Evans has lived for 25 years in the suburb of Bayswater, by the Swan River in Perth. She walks the riverside every day in a place named Birralyn by local Noongar people long before it became Bayswater. Ever changing, ever the same, this place is as beautiful as it was 25 years ago. Probably as beautiful as it was a hundred years ago. Or 45,000 years ago, which is how long we have evidence of Noongar people living here. But of course, they’ve been here longer. This was always their land.