LF KHOURI: Inheritance

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My grandfather folded prayers into matchbooks. Lit cigarettes with them. Swore they tasted sweeter.

When he died, we found them tucked in jars: Surahs beside postage stamps, verses pressed into lottery tickets.

He left no will.
Only this:
“Keep burning what they want you to forget.”

L.F. Khouri is a writer who has studied in the U.S. and abroad. His work explores war, memory, and the inheritance of silence. His flash and short fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in literary journals such as SmokeLong Quarterly, miniMAG, and Literally Stories.

ANGELA CARLTON: The Girl by the Pond

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The girl by the pond has secrets that she can’t bury underwater.

She walks the chain fence until she finds the grave with one rose planted firmly in the ground. She’d been held captive for years-years-years, years before the pregnancy, the afterthoughts of a baby who might set them free.

Angela Carlton’s fiction has been published in Every Writer, Everyday Fiction, Pedestal Magazine, 6S, 50 Word Stories, Spillwords Press, The Dribble Drabble Review and Friday Flash Fiction. In 2022, “A Jigsaw Life,” a collection of stories was released. In 2023, her story “Swallowed,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. See more on Facebook.

DAVID DEZELL TURNER: The Darkest Timeline

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

Everyone in the TimeGuild warned me about “the darkest timeline.” I assumed they were joking, since the scans showed a timeline without disease, famine, or war. I had to go.

Upon arrival, I spied a newspaper headline: “Princess Bride Reboot Coming 2027.”

I jumped home, horrified. The TimeGuild was right.

David Dezell Turner is an aerospace PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder. When he isn’t giving directions to real spaceships, he’s writing about fictional ones. Check out more of his work at daviddezellturner.com.

FIONA H EVANS: In the Nuts

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He tickles her, making her squirm.

My brave daughter shouts, “No!”

If he doesn’t stop, she’ll kick him hard— right where it hurts. I taught her that no means no. I taught her to fight. But I’ll never tell her my secret. That if I’d defended myself, she wouldn’t exist.

Fiona H Evans is a retired mathematician. She lives on Noongar Boodja in Perth Western Australia and is hoping to publish her first novel this year. You can read more of her writing at fionahevans.com.

SEAN BURKE: Then

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Bees hummed in the honeysuckle on the fence. A screen door squeaked open and slapped closed and porch chimes tinkled. Someone laughed in the backyard. Then tires screeched, metal thumped, and glass shattered. Someone screamed. Sirens wailed far away. Someone whispered and bees hummed in the honeysuckle on the fence.

Sean Burke lives with his husband and their grumpy little dog. When not writing, he works a day job to pay for a very small house with a yard to grow raspberries. Sean’s fiction has been published in Prime Number Magazine, Across the Margin, The Evening Street Review, and Brilliant Flash Fiction. His most recent stories can be found at seanpeterburke.com.

LILIAN POMEROY EDMONDS: Memories

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The scent of my dead grandmother drifts past me, luring me home. I return willingly to her, following the rosewater scent of my childhood. Like last summer’s relentless rains driven by the early winds of a devastating hurricane, memories long buried flood inside my studio. Too late to forget. Regrets.

A short story and creative nonfiction writer born in Pennsylvania, Lilian resides on the west coast of Florida. After living three decades in California, she trekked back east in 2003 to a state where the sun shines brutally hot most of the year. An inveterate wanderer, former weekly journalist and technical writer, Lilian dreams of moving to points unknown. While she works on a memoir series grounded in her discovery of her grandmother’s poems written during the years 1899 – 1931, she writes flash fiction and 50-word stories.

ED WALKER: The Longest Week

Adventure, Submissions, , ,

The zombie apocalypse finally arrived, and it was not anything resembling what humanity had come to expect. There were no humans crawling their way out of musty graves, hungry for brains. No, there were thousands of insect species erupting from everywhere. Trillions of them. Humanity lasted just over six days.

Ed Walker is a retired engineer currently living in Catalunya, Spain. His work can be found in fiftywordstories, The Arcanist, Blink-Ink and elsewhere.

NATHAN DOYLE: Cicada Summer

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They shrilled for seventeen years underground. When they rose that warm June afternoon—dozens, then hundreds—no one listened. So they screamed louder. The town buzzed, trembling like spent paper, then fell still. Forgetting helped. It was better that way. No one noticed the tears crawling down my cheeks, soft as legs.

Nathan Doyle (he/him) is a poet and writer from Boston, MA. He received a Scholastic Silver Key in Poetry and three Honorable Mentions. His work explores silence, survival, and the spaces between perception and memory. His debut poem is forthcoming in Feral Poetry. Find him on Instagram at @geekgumo.

MATTHEW EICHENLAUB: Triggered by Internet Photo

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I did this once. Dwayne, Nancy
and me boarded a bus in Oakland
5:00 am. Eye-balled pretty good
only others like us were winos.
Sun-baked fields, whole families
working like no tomorrow. A kind
one said, kick in your shiny new
buckets. Fewer tomatoes, your
tickets get punched more often.

Matthew is an old guy who lives in Maine. Drinks coffee. Listens to music. Prefers Pacifico. Writes when inspired. Strawberry Fields Forever.