Syzygy was just another word that summer, lost among moonlit beaches, sunburned shoulders, laughing salt kisses. We caught the stars together, caging them in cupped hands. Traded dreams and wove futures from impossibilities, never believing our worlds could drift apart again.
Maybe you still look up too, sometimes. And remember.
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
Once upon a time, in a bed that was not my own, I wandered through a dream that was not mine, and woke abruptly from a sleep that was not mine, to find strangers staring directly into my eyes, uninvited guests making themselves at home in the memory of me.
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.
I met a man on the street recently who claimed that everything was a metaphor.
“Is that right?” I had asked him. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s a knife you got there.”
It was late, so I handed him my wallet, and that son of a gun stabbed me anyway.
Nick Mendillo is a Rhode Island-based writer, artist, and educator. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in outlets including Had Journal, Novellum Magazine, and NINE. He’s also a professional cheeseburger chef.
A woman, tall as the hills and with silvery hair, wades barefoot up the river at night. She scatters star seeds in the east from a pouch spun of spider silk and moonlight. Sometimes, she’ll wield a copper crescent pick to flick away withering stars and wish them well.
Terri Yannetti is a Connecticut-based newspaper writer. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Star*LIne, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and 3rd Wednesday. This is her first flash fiction submission.
The tribes chanted in harmonious unison, their drums the oars pushing the salmon further upstream beyond newly demolished boundaries. Guided solely by memories not directly theirs, they are driven to reach the Klamath basin to spawn a new, free generation who never knew their parents’ odyssey, yet somehow never forgot.
Jimmy is a writer from Portland, Oregon. Having worked in the horticultural side of life for over 30 years, he is now working on a book about his backpacking adventures around South Asia in the early 1990s.
When Roshi says there are no accidents I nod, but my heart holds back. Tonight, washing dishes, I shatter a special beer glass. –Maybe there are no accidents, only transitions, migrations of spirit. I buy a handmade coffee cup knowing this clay, too, will find its own way to shatter.
Matthew grew up in Kentucky, joined the Air Force and was stationed in Crete. He still draws inspiration from Zorba, Odysseus and the wine-dark sea. Matthew lives in Maine.
My patient asked me if he was going to die. No, I told him, you should be fine. But then again, either of us could walk out of here and get hit by a bus. Yes, he said, looking up at me very seriously. That’s what happened to my brother.
Tom Maher is a writer from London who was shortlisted for the 2025 Bridport Prize.
At birth, he swung into the wrong crib, wrong life. Shimmering motes and sweeping flight should have awaited—a vagabond life. Instead, staid routine. Later, cleaners’ brooms. Oh, but he could see them!—those ropes between peaks of stars, begging down to him each night while he made floors sparkle.
Linda Kohler is a South Australian writer of poetry and brief prose. Her work has recently appeared in The Marrow, The Ekphrastic Review and Meniscus. She can usually be found near water or seeking new ways with cacao.
The Story of the Month is chosen from the Story of the Week winners announced from the past month.
The finalists for May were:
You Break It by Adele Gallogly
Vigil by Paul D’Arcy
Endurance Sport by JR Walsh
Morning in Rapunzel’s Tower by Bob Thurber
The Corner Seat by the Pond by Stephanie Lye
The First Nip by Jimmy Mack
The winner of the May 2026 Story of the Month is…
The Corner Seat by the Pond
The story of the week for June 1 to 5 is…
The Big Score by Gordon Brown
and
The Notebook by Paul D’Arcy