“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.
Eight years. That’s how long my brother has been missing. Mom still sets his plate every night. Dad stopped correcting her years ago.
Tonight, she smiles at his empty chair. “You’re late.”
Dad goes pale.
A fork moves. Just slightly.
Mom smiles wider. “Eight years, and you still don’t knock.”
Fatemah Zaminpaima is a third-year student majoring in Information Systems and Business Analytics at the American University of Sharjah. She is currently enrolled into a creative writing course which reminded her of the passion she had for writing. Amongst all the chaos of business studies, this course is a breath of fresh air resulting in her to write stories again and work her mind for stories in a way she has not since 10th grade.
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.
There are no rules but the phones work and it’s a party line. I dare you to say “More syrup, please” into the receiver.
Listen. You’ll hear: “Where are you?”
It’s not from servers or another table. It’s the diner’s hungry ghost. Regulars won’t touch the sticky phones or pancakes.
JR Walsh is the Online Editor at The Citron Review. He teaches creative writing at SUNY Oswego. Find his writing on itsjrwalsh.com.
Grandma, bless her kind blind soul, calls me the ‘Prodigal Grandson’. She wrote me back into the will (with a sizable portion of her estate) for the hours I’ve spent doting on little Albert—her seeing-eye dog— teaching him to roll over, play dead, and… walk dear Grandma into traffic.
Bryan Davis is an aspiring writer from Knoxville, Tennessee with a Bachelors Degree from the University of Tennessee. The Prodigal Grandson is an extract from his publication Break Neck 180°: One Hundred-Eighty Short-Shorts, Micro-Minis, Blasters, One-Liners and Snippets of Flash fiction, currently under revision.
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.
Whenever Ms. Mary paused their walks to scowl, pointing menacingly at speeders, Prince Charles VI gnawed the cord. A passing Bronco — sullying their walk with its recklessness — finally allowed the frayed leash to snap. The terrier sprinted toward brake lights. And Mary prayed lucky VII would stay until the end.
Leah is the recipient of an individual artist award from the Arkansas Arts Council and has been published in 101 Words and The Normal School.
After signing the divorce papers, I go to my local pet store. Gerbils and hamsters and rabbits skitter behind thin bars.
“Anything bigger?”
*
Within weeks, I’ve moved from my high-rise to a log cabin. At night, I howl along with the coyotes, each of us free, each of us wild.
Laura Besley (she/her) enjoys exploring big topics in small spaces. She has published four micro- & flash fiction collections, most recently: Sum of her PARTS (V. Press, 2025). She is currently a Creative Writing PhD student at the University of Leicester, an editor with Flash Fiction Magazine and JMWW, and runs The NIFTY Book Club. Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea.
As a girl she dreamt of becoming a butterfly, pearl-winged and pure.
Instead she turned dark and rigid, crawling out of adolescence on spindly legs. She could not fly, and so taught herself to weave. The silk in her veins was endless and iridescent; the tales it spun were beautiful.
Alyson Floyd spins her stories late at night with caffeine in her blood and a CD in her discman.