No matter how hard she worked, her achievements were never enough. Straight As, art awards, concert solos, first place ribbons—she was always expected to improve.
Then she discovered the scale—her proof. The mirror—her judge. The hunger—her vindication.
It became easy to do nothing. To slowly disappear.
Shirlee Jellum is a retired English teacher who published fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Family drama, current events and the natural world inspire her writing.
You’d better start walking.
Start reading.
Start dancing.
Start crying.
Start being.
There is a stranger in the rooms of your mind.
He starts in the entryway,
Then the living room.
The dining room.
The kitchen.
He runs his fingers across every dusty shelf and pockets knicknacks as he goes.
Karlie Wright is a teacher, trying to convince her students to stay human.
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Best thing about Plastic Darlene is she’ll never be hooked up on life support, feeding tube snaking out her throat.
I’ll never have to question whether the machine is draining out her life like a clicking mechanical vampire.
Will never go mad tearing out the cords.
Tim Boiteau lives in Michigan. He is a Writers of the Future winner and author of The Nilwere (Grendel Press, 2024).
I walked out into the night. I stood out there and it was windy and cold and nobody was out there but me. I thought about you. I stood there thinking about how you’d left me like this— a person who stood outside at night alone for no reason.
Meg Pokrass lives in the Scottish Highlands. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals including New England Review, Electric Literature and Five Points. She’s the founding editor of Best Microfiction.
The story of the week for September 28 to October 2 is…
Pizza Fog in an F-150 by Robert Allen Arnold
and
Personal Effects by Jim Parisi
She bounced over like she always did.
Big smile. Pen poised.
“Eggs, coffee?”
“Thanks Susie.”
“My pleasure.”
But really, it was my pleasure.
These precious few seconds every morning
with this lovely girl.
Until the day she wasn’t there.
Just a message on my table.
Please scan the QR code.
It was a dark and stormy night many years ago in the city of London when Colin set off on his bicycle to ride around the world. He only made it as far as Hong Kong where he found work as a copywriter and is still planning his ride home.
After he invites her to escape beery ’90s karaoke, they eat seedless watermelon beside a humming dishwasher. Their mouths flood with someone else’s fruit. They wash their fingers in silent mode—smiling, blinking. Whose kitchen is this, again? One of them wonders. The other is already pretending. Ours. Ours. Ours.
Adele Gallogly lives and writes in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of places, including the 2025 Bridport Prize Anthology, Flash the Court, NUNUM, and Gastropoda. Find her on IG/BlueSky: @AdeleGallogly.
I loved him from the moment we met. It all felt so exhilarating and new. I melted into his sweet blue eyes and a smile that would forever steal my heart.
He’s 25 now. Soon he will be singing praises of his own.
My first grandchild is due this week.
Lisa Chambers is a Texas girl and writer. Love always wins.
I thought I knew you well. Obviously I was wrong. For your birthday, I bought the fancy caramels sold in the red tin. They were pricey.
“Yuck,” you said. “These are the imported ones.”
So now I have no boyfriend and a half-empty container of the most delicious caramels imaginable.
Roberta Beach Jacobson (she/her) was born in Massachusetts, but has also lived in Oho, Illinois, Iowa, and Europe (Germany and Greece). She is the author of Demitasse Fiction: One Minute Reads for Busy People. She edits Five Fleas Itchy Poetry and smols poetry journal. In her blended family, Roberta is the mother of two, grandmother of five.
My grandmother, never quiet nor proud. With bold hair, once dark, then light, stubbornly not gone. The woman who walked a week after a car shattered her knee. The woman who beat cancer thrice, and insisted she would easily do it again. Speaking quietly, telling me:
“I think I’m satisfied.”
Paige Templeton is a young writer from California. In her free time, she writes poetry and paints.