He saw the other man across the ridge.
Broad-faced. Heavy-browed. Uncanny curiosity in his eyes.
They watched each other without language.
He felt warning rise in his chest.
The other lowered his spear first.
The world held two kinds of man. Both fearful and weary.
Neither certain who would endure.
Bobby Battle Jr. is a speculative fiction author, who enjoys telling stories big or small. Thank you for your consideration.
My memories are all that I have now. The dust of a long lifetime coating the writing table of my mind, afraid of the slightest breeze or sneeze sending it all back in to the universe, mixing with all the random memories of those who have sneezed and breezed before.
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 1990’s.
The epiphany comes at midnight.
Everything matters less than you think.
There is more nothing than distant starlight.
Dark Matter is God’s backswing, and here you wait
fumbling to light your one candle, trying to see
the outline of your family in the dark,
passing the lighter, survivors.
Ed McManis’ work has appeared in more than 70 publications including Coolest American Stories 2025. His most recent chapbooks are “The Zombie Family Takes a Selfie” Bottlecap Press, and “Trash Truck 7:38 A.M. (And Other Love Poems”). He, along with his wife, Linda, have published esteemed author Joanne Greenberg’s (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden) latest novel, Jubilee Year. Little known trivia fact: he holds the outdoor free-throw record at Camp Santa Maria: 67 in a row.
I dig my heel into ground. and water fills the dent I make as soon as I pull my foot away.
As a child I’d stand for days at water’s edge casting and reeling. All that ground’s gone now, loosed by storms and salt water, just a ghost, a dent.
Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather, Brawl Lit, Moist, Okay Donkey, and other journals. He’s also had pieces included in Best Microfiction and Best Spiritual Literature. His latest collection is Fight Nights (Blue Horsey Press, 2025). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.
Seventeen. Just got her license. Sun was in her eyes. Look.
Constable notes:
Driver vehicle dented – a reduced tin of fruit at the supermarket.
Recipient – a soda can. Crushed. Ready for recycling.
Mother’s arms wrap her daughter. Consoling. Shielding. Hiding the stretcher covered in sheets. Burying the inconsolable. Refuting prejudice.
Born in Kenya, Karen now lives in Western Australia enjoying life by the beach. She is an aspiring author with an array of short stories dotted around the world.
Her skin droops under the bar’s neon lights, melting away like candle wax. From underneath, a different woman emerges. Disheveled hair. A tattoo sleeve on her arm. Gray eyes that might’ve been green once. With every self she burns through, all that becomes clearer are the screams she hears inside.
Alyson Floyd is a writer, artist, and poet. She hopes to publish a novel someday and then disappear into the woods.
In a parallel universe,
he would ask for my heart.
But this is here, this is now.
Not fantasy, where we walk hand in hand.
Fearless.
And he sacrifices everything for me,
while always wondering,
what if-
Now I sit alone,
even when I’m not alone,
always wondering, what if-
Sharon is a nurse-attorney and writer. She lives in the midwest and her works have appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Dying Dahlia Review and 50-Word Stories.
She found the teacup on a dusty shelf as though it had been waiting. It was the one he’d set down between them that morning, steam unfurling, his face unreadable. The clink was small yet carried the weight of the truth he finally spoke.
Lisa Leinberger is an emerging author who writes under the name of Pippa Alder and focuses on flash fiction and short stories. Born in New Jersey, she now resides in Pennsylvania. When not writing, she enjoys photography, reading, and embroidery.
Every evening after eating, Eve walks. Her feet scatter geckos at random intervals, the sound of crows warning in the warm air. When she reaches the gate of the cemetery, the sight of wrought iron against the pinkening sky reminds her of leaving Paradise. She has been falling ever since.
Emily Ryan received her MA in French Literature from Middlebury College, where she was awarded the Bombas Prize for Literature. She currently lives in New Orleans, LA, where she enjoys live music, stray cats, and multiple book clubs.
The story of the week for February 9 to 13 is…
The Modern Brometheus by Joe Pearson