The kerchief was stiff with salt, sweat, and machine oil. She pressed it to her face.
It was him, alright. Not much of a dad. Always working, drinking, fighting, womanizing. Never home.
He couldn’t make her bedtime, but could always make her laugh.
She breathed him in one last time.
Paul D’Arcy tells stories. All real. Most brief. You can read more at pauldrc.com.
She used to call every month. When we last speak, she asks if I think about her. Every day, I say. But she doesn’t believe me. She hangs up in a fury, and I stare into the last piece of artwork our daughter ever made, still taped to the refrigerator.
Graham Fortier lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. He is a survivor of the Altadena wildfire.
Spirit asks Flesh what he’s gonna do once that thing is through?
Flesh squints, blinks, thinks.
Then he puffs on the cigarette, sends a curling finger of smoke trailing up to heaven through the warm rain.
“I don’t know,” he says, “wanna find out?”
And she’s his.
Until she isn’t.
George Evans is a querulous nuisance from Birmingham, Alabama. When he isn’t teaching (and sometimes when he is) he writes poems, essays, and stories. You can find him on Substack at Fourth Castle on the Left.
If I could do it again, I’d worry less about the package and more about the contents; less about the calories, and more about nutrition; less about the cost, and more about the value; less about being liked, and more about being likeable; less about wanting, and more about thanking.
A prolific writer, Carol Reeves is loving the fun, freedom and challenge of Flash Fiction. Her stories frequently reflect on the blessings and vicissitudes of aging—and can be found in Flash Fiction Magazine and 50 Word Stories. Carol’s memoir, “All the Little Miracles,” was published in 2022.
The story of the week for June 9 to 13 is…
Helicopter Seeds by Kate E. Lore
Mom knocked on my door after school and told me we were having dinner at 6. We always ate dinner, but when we had dinner, that meant at the table. With napkins and an important conversation.
“Who died?” I asked when I sat down.
“That’s not funny,” Mom said. “Grandpa.”
Gracie Lyle is an emerging writer from Brooklyn, NY. Her work has appeared in Elegant Literature. You can find her online at @gracielyle.bsky.social.
A tuft of her hair sits in my drawer. She asked that I cut it so it wouldn’t get in the way as she died. We stood in the bathroom, sharing our last mother-daughter moment. Catching each other’s eyes in the mirror, we smiled: a final gift to each other.
Melanie Stern is a journalist and writes poetry. She misses her Mum.
Adam’s shirts and pants were hung in tight rows with cardboard protectors. The officer had never seen cardboard protectors.
“OCD,” I said.
He’d seen OCD. Said the stress could make a heart attack plausible, even at 38.
I found him. The neighbors heard me scream. No reason to suspect me.
Michelle Meyer is a poet who is experimenting with (and loving) micro flash fiction. She is the author of The Trouble with Being a Childless Only Child (Cornerstone Press, 2024) and The Book of She (2021). Poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, ONE ART, Pearl Press, Tiny Spoon, Welter, and elsewhere. Micro flash has appeared in 100-Word Story and Ink-in-Thirds. Find her at michellemeyerwrites.com.
I would like a breast pocket to hold my boarding pass and pen
so I may eat a plate of fries with
the certainty that nothing of mine might
just slip away, beyond reach, and
I would be left
questioning if anything—this body even—has ever belonged to me.
Emily Mathis is a writer and dancer. Her essay, “Men Smoking,” was the 2024 nonfiction winner of Sonora Review’s The Erotic contest. Her essays have been finalists for contests through the Sewanee Review, Fourth Genre, North American Review, Tucson Festival of Books, and Epiphany. Her essays have recently appeared in Sonora Review, Hunger Mountain, Epiphany, Los Angeles Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and others. She is seeking representation for her debut essay collection and working on a novel. Find her at emilymathiswriting.com or on Instagram at @emily_a_mathis.
Branches above us let loose a sprinkling of helicopter seeds. Arms stretching up, seizing at spinning dancing things, we hold magic in our hands, as if we could keep still this moment, to grasp fully, like we weren’t ourselves some early sapling thing, small and green, not yet set solid.
Kate E. Lore is a queer, neurodivergent, femme she/her, born into a lower class/low income family, via a divorced, widowed, single mother of four. Under the pen name Kate E. Lore she has had a handful of short stories and nonfiction essays published with various literary magazines.