My encounter with serial killer David Hastings went unnoticed by all around us. In the crowd, I pressed close, wiped my bloody DNA-laced hand across his sleeve, and slipped Kelly Mason’s silver bracelet into his pocket. Then I strolled to the corner phone box and dialled the anonymous police line.
Sandra James writes from a rural property in Heathcote Victoria, Australia. Her second collection of short fiction, Black Rain and other stories, is available now.
To write a poem,
Then
Craft a sentence,
Then
Utter a word,
Oh, and to
Cook a full meal,
Then
Butter toast,
Then
Hold a spoon,
And also to
Run,
Then
Walk,
Then
Crawl,
But for the joy of seeing you, dear child, learn to… [continue reading in reverse order]
Joanna Norland is a writing coach and playwright based in East Sussex, UK.
I thought I saw you, in a crowded train car, face wearing a scruff that is new, no? I pawed at the crowd to see, just a look, as you turned away. Maybe you saw me and decided, just then, that we are better apart. That you are better apart.
Susan Prause is a short story writer based in Minneapolis, MN. Her stories have appears in 53-Word Story Contest, Flash Fiction Magazine, Friday Flash Fiction and Spark Flash Fiction.
Space—the final frontier for verbal obfuscation.
Onboard a starship through nepotism, George has no formal training as an astronaut.
“Is there a rec room?” he asks.
“We have a holodeck,” he’s told.
Subsequently, George spends a lot of his leisure time in the cargo hold.
The ship’s hollow deck.
John H. Dromey has had short fiction, humor, and poetry published in many different venues.
The Story of the Month is chosen from the Story of the Week winners announced from the past month.
The finalists for June were:
The Notebook by Paul D’Arcy
The Big Score by Gordon Brown
Trapeze Artist’s Son by Linda Kohler
The Book that Blinked First by Saanvi Thakur
In Case My Mother Flies by Angela Carlton
The winner of the June 2026 Story of the Month is…
In Case My Mother Flies
I wanted to show her the place near where I grew up, near my old house, where they hung thieves in the 1700s. But now it’s under construction: an assisted living company bought it and is redeveloping the town’s last active farm. We took selfies by the last likely tree.
Jon Fain’s micro fiction has appeared in Blink-Ink, The Dribble Drabble Review, 50-Word Stories, Molecule, ScribesMICRO, Six Sentences, The Woolf, and elsewhere.
The weatherman is confusing again.
Worse yet, the house must’ve shrunk. Five of us crowded inside: me, my father, his wheelchair, and two watermelons in the fridge.
Not particularly concerned about the wheelchair, but the melons could easily come to believe that under these circumstances they have the upper hand.
John Szamosi is a wordsmith and peace activist. He’s been publishing short stories, satires and poems since his freshman year in college.
He changed the locks in October, the month he got married. But the landlord used the same hardware.
She figured it out in under a minute.
She doesn’t take anything. She doesn’t leave anything.
Just stands in his kitchen, flipping through the calendar on his refrigerator.
Counting backward from nine.
Paul D’Arcy tells stories. All real. Most brief. You can read more at pauldrc.com.
A fly bookmarked pages six and seven. The last reader, inattentive or overawed, flattened it into a full stop. Maybe, having cut a life short, they couldn’t read again. Or perhaps the fly crawled in for warmth and got crushed by the weight of the words. Hemingway is heavy stuff.
Tom Maher is a writer from London who was shortlisted for the 2025 Bridport Prize.
The story of the week for June 29 to July 3 is…
The Færie Feast by Ellen Taylor