The new house smelt of dust, plastic and lemon detergent. Walls bare, furniture wrapped, they unpacked boxes, mopped floors, hoovered carpets and cleaned cupboards, but an odour still lingered of damp, bones and blood. Two grey eyes watched them.
They wouldn’t erase her scent. She would make sure of it.
Ellen Townsend is an art teacher and writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, Fairfield Scribes, 50-Word Stories and others.
Every slinky dreams of a staircase like this. But for Bobby, the dream was about to become real. It hadn’t come easy. Escalator camps. Winters at Mount Niesen. He looked down at the stairs and up to the fluttering banner: THE M. C. ESCHER INVITATIONAL. He began to fall. Forever.
Simon Buckley is a contemporary visual artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. His interdisciplinary practice explores language, rurality and non-human intelligence. He is currently a co-director of the Action Research group Durty Beanz. His work is exhibited and published by galleries, museums and biennales across the world.
The library breathes at dawn.
A girl opens a forbidden book; ink rearranges the future.
Footsteps chase her between shelves.
She chooses courage, not prophecy.
Outside, sunlight waits.
The book closes itself, satisfied.
Some stories escape pages.
Some choose their reader.
Today, both do.
Magic smiles, pleased with its consequences.
Saanvi Thakur is a writer who lives for quiet tension and loud emotions. She has already written two books, Whispers Between Worlds and Threads of Silence, both exploring hidden truths, fragile choices, and the power of what goes unsaid. When she isn’t writing, she’s usually lost in books, plotting new stories, or convincing herself she doesn’t need one more notebook.
the sunset burns orange, deep pink, soft lilac,
and your skin is rough against my fingers
where I cradle what remains of you, sand eater,
and breathe in this rich salt air–
the thought comes to me quiet, impulsive but certain:
i promise, i’ll take good care of your bones.
Maria Cargille wrote this story.
Lili grips the piano, coughing. Bloody notes splatter her half-composed score.
She must finish. Barely twenty-four, her life a semi-quaver in history’s melody, but her music will live forever.
Breathless, she plays.
Death hesitates, his skeletal hand on her shoulder, ivory fingers tapping along, obsessed with knowing how it ends.
Lucy Mac writes short stories, flash fiction, and microfiction. She won the New Writers 100-word competition 2025 and has been longlisted for New York Midnight, Bath Flash Fiction, Yeovil Literary Prize, and Not Quite Write. Find her on Instagram/Bluesky at @lucymacwrites.
The story of the week for June 8 to 12 is…
Trapeze Artist’s Son by Linda Kohler
“According to the cosmic microwave background, the universe is expanding at sixty-seven kilometers per second per megaparsec. But measurements using Cepheid variables suggest it’s almost exactly seventy.”
“Dad, I was asking whether you’re actually six feet or five eleven.”
“What I’m saying is… I mean… It depends on who’s asking.”
Greg Hill is a poet and a flash fiction writer in West Hartford, Connecticut. His work has appeared in Barzakh, Grub Street, HAD, NonBinary Review, and elsewhere. He and his wife enjoy the struggle of raising three determined feminists. See more on his website
My once fertile mind lies fallow. Where colors and music danced, now nothing takes root. Wounded, my imagination searches endlessly for a healing balm.
I know it is there—hiding in a butterfly’s wings, or a summer day, or a burst of laughter.
I need only believe that is so.
A prolific writer, Carol is loving the freedom and challenge of Flash Fiction. Her memoir, “All the Little Miracles,” was published in 2022. She is frequently published in Flash Fiction Magazine and 50 Word Stories.
The customer laughs when he sees my dirty hands. “Grease monkey.” I laugh too. Rent is due on Friday. By closing, oil has settled into every crack of my skin. At home, my little sister asks if I fixed another car. I tell her yes. Groceries cost money. She smiles.
Louie Rivers is a writer from Mississippi whose work explores labor, family, faith, and Southern life through microfiction and poetry.
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.