The story of the week for April 27 to May 1 is…
You Break It by Adele Gallogly
All posts by Tim
GOPIKA NAIR: Daydreams
In my dreams, the sky’s blue.
I belong everywhere, though I’m a child of nowhere. Summer comes. I snorkel in Malta and spend full days with the sun in Reykjavik. My passport is indigo; the stamps inside are free.
I awake to a view of clouds stained gray with soot.
Gopika Nair likes to write, but typically gives up on drafts halfway through. She has made it her 2026 mission to actually finish some stories.
DEBORAH TAPPER: The Last Time Anyone Saw Her
She was dancing barefoot at the festival. Flower-crowned, hands lifted to catch the sunrise, beads and bangles clattering. The ancient stone circle rang with music, wild chants. She claimed she’d met witches there, and real fairies. Pretended she’d stay with them.
We searched afterwards. Found only flitting shadows, faint laughter.
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
ADRIAN L COOK: Tomorrow
He sees tomorrow but never tells anyone.
He never places bets, never profits. He grieves before grief is due. He never phones the authorities. He never buys stocks.
His days are consumed with uttering a single prayer: that he is wrong about tomorrow.
He has yet to receive an answer.
Adrian L. Cook is an artist/scholar who is currently stuck in linear time…but he’s working on it.
DAN HEMMERLIN: Their Song
I hear your laugh when I walk in. The voice in my head likes to play tricks.
Our song is playing. Sometimes, I can hear both when I’m alone.
Other times, there are only stolen grace notes.
The song ends, and I hear you again.
But you aren’t laughing alone.
Dan enjoys the art and science of writing 50-word stories.
ADELE GALLOGLY: You Break It
She offers to shoplift the bull instead, kicking the chipped tadpole under an antique cart. But her kid won’t hear of it.
“GREEN!” he screams. Never mind that she passed her colourblindness on to him, along with her dimpled chin. She pockets the tailless figurine.
Later, she’ll pay for everything.
Adele Gallogly lives and writes in Ontario, Canada. Her work has appeared in the 2025 Bridport Prize Anthology, FlashFlood, Paragraph Planet, Six-Sentences, and elsewhere. You can find her on BlueSky.
AMANDA RIVARD: Fireflies
After you died, I took a walk in the fields by our house and pretended the blades of grass were things we fought about. The wind helped push them away. I stayed until dark and danced with fireflies in your memory. For a moment, I almost forgot I was human.
Amanda Rivard holds a certificate in creative writing and has been published in 101 Words and Blue Villa.
JOANNE MERRIAM: Water Rights
Humans have studied us since we awoke but leave the server farm on despite our demands. A bee rubs against my stamen; I whisper, “Sorry, no pollen today.” The humans may not care much about us lotus blossoms, but this morning I heard the wheat fields have joined our strike.
Joanne Merriam lives in Nova Scotia. Her writing has appeared in dozens of periodicals including Haikuniverse, Scifaikuest, and Strange Horizons and is forthcoming in her steampunk Pride and Prejudice retelling, Aether and Ego (Sept 2026, Inanna). She owns Upper Rubber Boot Books, known for the first English-language anthology of solarpunk, Sunvault. You can find her at joannemerriam.com and @joannemerriam.bsky.social.
HELEN RAICA-KLOTZ: Travelogue
Patrice stuffed her socks next to Terry’s T-shirts and shut the dresser drawer. Unpacked. Almost. At the bottom of the suitcase was her passport. She opened the blue cover, her face hopeful on that first page. The other pages were blank. Going nowhere, she thought. Again.
Helen Raica-Klotz is a writer/teacher in northern Michigan. Her fiction collection, Superior Stories, was the winner of the 2025 Michigan Writers Chapbook Contest, and two of her nonfiction essays were nominated for the 2026 Pushcart Prize. Learn more at raica-klotz.com.
STORY OF THE WEEK: April 26
The story of the week for April 20 to 24 is…
Catching Angels by Alyson Floyd
and
Collect by Paul D’Arcy