The death toll grew daily as did the burial mound, dominating the prairie, then requiring the removal of ageless oaks and tall, proud pines. As the dense groves receded, remaining trees turned frail, their branches soft and thin, bowing their majestic heads as if in prayer.
And the willows wept.
Mike Shields enjoys the Flash and Micro format.
The sheriff calls me twice.
He tells me they have to transport your body across the Bay Bridge.
To San Francisco.
To get an autopsy.
I pay $500 to move your body.
No charges against him. The one who pushed you.
Me. I get emptiness.
Nothing but a silent siren.
Yesica is a Mexican-American writer who lives in California.
It was supposed to rain. They went to the arboretum anyway. She wanted to see the peony garden where they were married.
It started to drizzle, then pour. Her son held an umbrella over her while she leaned down to sniff the battered but fragrant blooms already past their prime.
Lauren Budrow is an Assist. Professor of Mortuary Science.
She wasn’t breathing. My mother stopped breathing in hospice. Cradling my face, I tried to catch my breath, I tried, as the air conditioner kicked on-off-on-off, a constant groan, before her hand gripped mine, ONCE.
And I’m that frightened child, in the dark, the one who can’t close her eyes.
Angela Carlton’s fiction has been published in Every Writer, Everyday Fiction, 6S, 50 Word Stories, Spillwords Press, Friday Flash Fiction 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 | Facebook.
The gum lost flavor an hour ago. It was the last piece, lost to the bottom of the bag. To spit it out is to end something, or to acknowledge its end. So I chew and dig through her purse to find what else is left. She’s nothing but receipts.
Haley (she/her) is a queer autistic writer with an MFA who has published some stuff and spends too much time on Instagram @QAWriterHaley.
She couldn’t be angry with the brownies; they hadn’t known. This was simply what they did: tidying, mending, completing the tiny cap meant for a babe born in winter. They must’ve knitted by firelight, the hearth smoldering through the night, fueled by wood scraps from the forever empty cradle.
Mikaila Nalbantova is a speculative fiction writer with a focus on the epic, the folkloric, and the Classical. Her work has appeared on Apex Book Company and in Club Plum, Tension Literary, and others. You can find more of her work through linktr.ee/mikaila.nalbantova.
He kept dreaming about his leg. A shark in the surf; a sniper in Fallujah; drag racing in the desert. Always something different.
The room was private, but it was hard to sleep; hospitals are filled with ambient noise.
He hoped the oncologist would have good news in the morning.
Jeffrey Reeves is a former communications director living in Tennessee. He loves good books, good dogs, and good beer.
I lie here in the white, staring at the ceiling
trying not to read too far into the lyrics of your music,
not to project my grief onto yours–
this is the curse of the detail-hungry mind,
that choosing a radio station
feels like another means of baring one’s soul.
Maria Cargille wrote this story.
I spit toothpaste in the sink and dial a digit at a time. Numbers tied to pigtails and “can I come to stay?” Those not used enough while crossing college lawns. When adulthood came, the ones I called each morning. Ten-digits etched on my heart ring a final time today.
Jozzie Stuchell Velesig is a Harvard-trained writer and founding member of the Story Street Writers. For more information, visit jozziewrites.com or storystreetwriters.com.
Much tiresome work amounted to his death, but insurmountable resilience plagued his life. Sobriety, marriage, fatherhood, entrepreneurship. Un-hating his father, un-resenting his step-mom, recanting needles, renouncing the man he was. Cancer ate away at him, but he couldn’t die alone—not my brother. We sing for you, Prince of Toledo.
Charlotte Keller is a writer from northwest Ohio. She is an MFA student at Western Michigan University and a poetry co-editor for WMU’s literary magazine, Third Coast. She has been published in The Periwinkle Pelican, Planet Venus, and ReCap Literary Magazine.