The story of the week for March 9 to 13 is…
self-conference by Maria Cargille
THOMPSON EMATE: Ephemeral
It was a twilight in summer. We talked at length, sharing family memories that played back and forth between us. She promised that we would see each other again.
Feeble boughs swayed gently as the wind sighed and sang. Leaves, scattered across the porch. Her favourite season whispered her absence.
Thompson Emate spends his leisure time on creative writing, particularly poetry and prose. He has a deep love for nature and the arts. He is trying his hand at every genre of fiction. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
LAURA LEVIN: Birthday Remembered and Forgotten
“Happy Birthday, Ma.”
The phone had rung ten times before she’d picked up. “Oh, hi. Hang on a sec…”
Cell on the counter, she cooed at Herman, “Ah, sweet boy… Do you want a widdle tweat?”
It wasn’t a second before she returned, or a minute. It was a lifetime.
Laura Levin lives in New York’s Hudson Valley where she teaches writing as an adjunct professor. She has an MA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.
ROBERTA BEACH JACOBSON: Turning 80
too old to drive,
that’s what my daughters told me
when they took away my keys
my dignity
my freedom
in a heartbeat
all my choices disappeared
boredom set in
as suddenly my world became
four walls
tv, radio, the cat
and me
just sitting,
existing in hushed silence…
waiting
Roberta Beach Jacobson, 73, is looking ahead.
MARIA CARGILLE: self-conference
myself at fifteen and twenty-two
sit down together in a half-imagined
coffee shop to compare notes.
she, my seven-years-ago self,
looks me up and down with curiosity,
quick insecurity-laden belligerence,
and speaks a challenge:
“you haven’t changed much.”
I say, warm and aching,
“oh, my love, believe me: I have.”
Maria Cargille wrote this story.
PHILIP MATCOVSKY: Larry’s Intervention
Larry’s coworkers formed a threatening circle around his cubicle: arms spread, fingertips touching, staring emotionless. He was despised for his pessimism: always speaking of murders, car accidents, drug dealings, adultery, death.
Speechless now, Larry’s thought was quietly heard: Coven.
His coworkers softly opened their wings. “Of sorts,” one responded aloud.
Philip Matcovsky’s writing is nominated for Best Small Fictions 2026. It features in DarkWinter Literary Magazine, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Amethyst Review, Braided Way Magazine, Odyssey Magazine, and elsewhere. Philip is a lightworker and cosmic traveler based in New York.
PARKER DAVIS: The Cost of Fuel
It happened to our saurian cousins.
It will happen to us, too.
Crushed and pressurized, our bones trapped between billions of layers of sedimentary rock. Extracted and refined, our blood poured into barrels of premium petrol.
What types of vehicles will our bodies fuel?
Who will sit behind their wheels?
Parker Davis is a writer, a reader, and a complicit consumer of Earth’s dwindling energy supply.
ADRIAN L COOK: Daddy-Daughter
She barely reaches my waist in the first of our dance pictures—hair wild, giggling. Happy.
COVID paused our ritual.
One last chance this year.
***
I feel her behind me, standing 5’3”.
Solemnly she asks, “You mind if we skip it, Daddy?”
“No,” I say, careful not to turn around.
Adrian L Cook is a professor of drama, English, and humanities at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, TX. He writes when he can—amongst all the grading and encouraging others to write. He is a proud husband and father whose daughter is now actually taller than he is.
DEBORAH TAPPER: Sakura
Crowds swarm among blossoming cherry trees. Taking pictures, trampling fallen flowers—ignoring the aspiring poet who composes beneath their branches.
Hopeful koi surface,
mistaking floating petals
for drowned dragonflies.
Winds strip every tree overnight, faded blooms smothering the lake. He drifts with them, dreams and poems erased by uncaring water.
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
STORY OF THE MONTH: February 2026
The Story of the Month is chosen from the Story of the Week winners announced from the past month.
The finalists for February were:
The Astronaut by Sarp Sozdinler
Memento Mori by Kip Knott
Haunted by Uninvited Guests by Liam MacDonald
The Modern Brometheus by Joe Pearson
Flicker by Ed McManus
Expulsion by Emily Ryan
The winner of the February 2026 Story of the Month is…
The Astronaut