A starry night. She gazes at the sky through the window, choosing to avoid the porch. It brings back painful memories. She wishes she could cast a shadow over the meadow of memories, but they seem to be an inseparable part of her life. A field that stretches on forever.
Thompson Emate spends his leisure time trying his hand at every genre of fiction. His work can be seen in Friday Flash Fiction, ScribesMICRO, Poetry Potion and elsewhere. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
Sleepless, expecting, images flashing of your newborn face.
But my mother’s missing again, cop’s out looking for the “crazed woman” who ditched her meds. It’s the wicked tale that haunts me, life in pieces, s-c-a-t-t-e-r-e-d.
Still, in dreams, you’re born beneath a dazzling sky, child, a new moon illuminating us.
Angela Carlton’s fiction has been published in Every Writer, Everyday Fiction, 6S, 50 Word Stories, Spillwords Press, and Paragraph Planet. In 2018, her story “The Roommates,” was made into a short film. In 2023, her story “Swallowed,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. See more at Angela Carlton Stories & Art.
Think of something good. My eyes open slowly, like creaky elevators rising to the top floor, the riders not sure if they’re going to make it.
You, I think. But you aren’t something. You are everything.
I squish my toes into the carpet.
Because of you, I start my day.
Mary Lewis loves french fries, her family, and the feeling when the words finally fit together just right.
My brother asked who I voted for.
“Oh, you know me,” I laughed. We hugged.
Monday Night Football.
This commercial comes on. My brother says, “Can you believe these people?”
I’m like, “I know.”
Fourth quarter, I almost said something.
He handed me another beer. And I just took it.
Paul D’Arcy tells stories. All real. Most brief. You can read more at pauldrc.com.
Fleet are his feet as he flies down the street, fleeing the shouts, fur a blur of red. She awaits him with their three tiny balls of fluff, eyes closed and sleepy. Shaking dew from his whiskers he greets her with a mouth full of chicken stolen for his family.
Eleanor Buffam is an interdisciplinary visual artist, writer, and musician based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has published short fiction in Fifty Word Stories, Inlandia Journal, Moonpark Review, and the speculative anthology Constellations of Being, and has recently been longlisted for the Oxford Flash Fiction prize.
Open your eyes and the universe wheels.
Close them. It’s still as a winter’s night, peaceful but for the pounding of your heart.
Open them—spinning stars, the Earth a sapphire streak, the moon a silver comet, the darkness as crystalline as the meteor that severed your umbilical cord.
Close them—pray.
Tim Boiteau is a Writers of the Future winner and author of the novel The Nilwere.
“Don’t believe what you read and see on social media, son. When trust is broken, it’s broken forever. That’s not a rule — it’s a fact. And no matter how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise, the trust you once had in another human being will never be absolute again.”
D.M. Barlow is a writer, currently based in China. When not at his desk, he finds, fixes and uses old typewriters.
My hometown church’s WE HAVE FREE NARCAN sign’s third E has fallen. The letters are black and choppy. FRE. Last month’s O was gone for the event. SUP KITCHEN.
How many letters have never been put back in place? I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and keep driving.
After three years of teaching in Cincinnati Public Schools, Rachel Hapanowicz is currently attending George Mason University for her MFA in Fiction. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Virginia. Her works can be found at 50-Word Stories, wildscape. literary journal, and Spillwords. She thinks Sup Kitchen sounds cooler, anyway.
If we are in a simulation, does it occur to the alien programmers that the leaves are most beautiful while they’re in their death throes? Do they feel anything when they see crimson and gold rioting against a steel sky, against the coming winter, against the madness of it all?
Hawkelson Rainier lives in the American Midwest. He dabbles in prose and poetry from time to time.
Snow comes early in Cloudcroft. Every year a foot covers the cellar doors by Thanksgiving, two by Christmas. I hated it, but that’s life at eight thousand feet, Dad always said.
At eighteen, I left. After a decade, with Dad’s passing, I’m home.
Outside, snow’s falling. Dad would’ve loved it.
Stephen resides in upstate New York and writes flash fiction and dark stories. He has been published in Flash Phantoms, Trembling with Fear, as well as various other non-fiction publications.