People aren’t keen on zombies, even though they try so hard to fit in. The suburbs can be like that sometimes. The zombies grunt a greeting as they shamble into doggie day care, Starbucks, the yoga studio. They love yoga. They lurch in for Shavasana and come out with hope.
Marla Krauss is a writer who lives in Massachusetts.
Summoning a ghost isn’t so hard. If your lips touch the teacup rim at dawn, you taste rose instead of chamomile. If you wear a diamond ring with initials you don’t know, you feel a hand in yours.
Sometimes you can hear them too, but don’t follow too far.
Alexa Donley is a speculative fiction writer from Federal Way, Washington. When not writing, she enjoys traveling and walking in storms.
They called me today to say she has lost six pounds since last week. Mom has been refusing to eat for a while now. I visited her on Sunday. She looked radiant in her blue sweater, and long pearl necklace, wrapped in a wool blanket. Outside, it was 102 degrees.
Azarin Sadegh is an Iranian-American writer. Her work has appeared in Place Art Magazine, Scoundrel Time, LA Review of Books, and various anthologies.
This evening, on the western horizon, a low bank of clouds resembled a fleet of ships moving past.
We sat in the sand and watched until the shadows swallowed everything.
We haven’t seen an actual ship since we dragged ourselves ashore.
I say “we” to forget I am absolutely alone.
Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.
Mom so wanted to wear that dress to her granddaughter’s wedding. At least she’s getting to show it off to her loved ones waiting to caress her hand or whisper goodnight.
Look, she’s dreaming of dad, hoping he’ll still see his “lovely girl” when they meet soon, after years apart.
Carol Tymann is still banging computer keys searching out meaningful words, sentences, messages.
The lonely man washed his dishes in the sink and placed them in the strainer, stopping to reminisce over a chipped red mug. His heart skipped a beat: Her job had been to dry, close to him, warm and laughing. Instead, he dried the memory out of the cup alone.
Brenda Lee Carlson is a writer from Minnesota. She has an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing.
Color vanished from the world with his wife’s last breath. Murmured words of sympathy hovered at the edge of sound. Endless gray corridors led to the NICU. Masked and gowned, he stood beside the incubator, dark spines of hair visible among the tubes and wires. In that moment, color returned.
Suzi lives somewhere between truth and interpretation and writes whenever the words must come out and speak to others.
Her children, somehow adults, took hundreds of vacation photos, posting daily. Curating an online life didn’t appeal to her.
Instead, she walked behind them, always, watching their hair, hearing their laughter, tucking the moment safely into her memory, where she could return and return when they left again in September.
Melanie Winklosky is a fiction writer trapped in a grant writer’s body. Her work can be found in McSweeney’s, and was named a finalist in the 2023 Boston in 100 Words contest and a 2023 finalist in NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Challenge. She lives in Swampscott, Massachusetts.
Let’s take a break, you suggested, and told me to go see the world.
So I did. But every city, every day is empty without you.
I constantly message, phone, but never hear back.
I’ve studied so many maps but none of them shows me the way back to you.
Being on the road is common for this Australian writer. Fortunately, none of Michael’s own travel experiences are like those described here.
A corner nook with gravelly soil held six sister slips of chokecherry.
They grew sturdy in time, thick waisted in summer sun, through autumn’s vagaries, winter light and rejuvenating spring.
A thicket burgeoned, berried branches interlaced. For fledged sparrows, rosy finches and chickadees, a darkened refuge from the family cat.
Deborah lives and writes in Northwestern Montana. Her stories can be read in The Ekphrastic Review, Thin Air Magazine Online and 50-Word Stories.