by Andrea Tillmanns

After the rain, the air tastes like summer, blowing in through the open window and enveloping you in night. The quiet grunting of hedgehogs in the garden, above which bats flit silently through the dark. A single blackbird sings timid notes from the fir tree before settling down to sleep.

These quiet moments write notes inside you, which you may transfer to sheet music and later to strings, and even later release to other people who listen to you in small groups and perhaps remember: the taste of the air after the rain and the summer night that envelops them.

* * *

ANDREA TILLMANNS lives in Germany and works full-time as a university lecturer. She has been writing poetry, short stories and novels in various genres for many years. More information can be found on her website www.andreatillmanns.de.

by Ruth Holzer

What would I not give
to lie in that first remembered room,
​to fall asleep as the lights
of cars on Main Street
slid across the ceiling
like friendly ghosts,
and my sister breathed softly
in the bed next to mine.

* * *

RUTH HOLZER is the author of ten chapbooks, most recently, On the Way to Man in Moon Passage to Man and Float. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. She is a multiple Pushcart, Touchstone, and Best of the Net nominee.  

by Terry Trowbridge

I did not know my kid likes kingfishers
until, 24 years old, they saw one
flying over the orchards,
tilting itself during a long glide,
shoulders facing the sun
within earshot of Lake Ontario.

My kid was all smiles and surprise,
noting they did not know we had kingfishers,
remarking on the bird panoply that soars above us.

Now they live away, at college, home weekly.
One of my privileges of parenthood
is learning what they see here, renewed,
educated to reinterpret our place.

* * *

Canadian farmer TERRY TROWBRIDGE's poems have appeared in CV2, The New Quarterly, Dalhousie Review, Nashwaak Review, The Great Lakes Review, Pamenar Press, The Ex-Puritan, Studies in Social Justice, and ~200 more places. He is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for funding during the polycrisis.

​
dropping into
the beggar’s hat–
spring rain


​park bench– 
an old man’s small talk
with pigeons

                    Martina Matijević


***


rising light
every song
a shade of orange

​
hollow sky
a hint of sandalwood
in dad's aftershave

​
from one tree
to another
the call of daylight

                    Gareth Nurden


***


Venus suspended, a low-slung crescent moon ready to catch her
                                         
​                    Clodagh O Connor


***


spring rhythms
the woodpecker performs
a drum solo 
​
​
seventeen years
in the making . . .
cicada serenade 

                  Valentina Ranaldi-Adams


​***


wind chimes
I'm just a name
in the breeze


spring meadows
a sheep circles back
to the same spot

                    Bhawana Rathore 


***


one petal
all the difference
to a daisy

                    Julie Schwerin

 * * *
​

With the start of a new year comes a new issue of The Hoolet’s Nook, and we’re glad you’re here.

THN has always gravitated toward understated, thoughtful work that values resonance over noise, and the pieces in this issue continue to carry that quiet strength.

We invite you to pause and let the words settle, perhaps with a warm cup in hand, and to all the contributors who have helped shape THN, we are deeply grateful—your trust and support mean the world to us.

Namaste,
G.R. LeBlanc
Managing Editor

Thinking of submitting? Our next reading round opens February 1. Guidelines are available here. ​

by Sarah Rodgers

Sealskin does burn, it turns out.
               
She was sleeping in our bed when I slipped away to do the deed. She didn’t know I had found the secret skin she had shed, and she never will.

I told myself I was setting her free. She wouldn’t be torn between land and sea anymore. She would be with me, fully, and neither of us would be alone. Love can look like this, right?

I didn’t know she would feel it, though. I didn’t know it hurts when you burn a selkie’s skin. Of that bit, I am innocent.

Loneliness burns, too.

* * *

SARAH RODGERS is a storyteller who lives in upstate New York with her husband and three daughters. In addition to (or perhaps due to) her passion for storytelling, she also loves movies, reading, and dancing.

by Liz deBeer

Eyes half closed, an iguana, the color of a peapod, poses in a sun patch. Oozing self-satisfaction like a Tik-Tok influencer, the reptile nods, dewlap bobbing. Phone in hand, I’m clicking when a gray blur interrupts. What the—? My gasp is met by a cat’s triumphant yellow eyes, the iguana dangling in its jaws. My instinct is to holler-scold, but I swallow my rage to reflect on Darwin. Cat has to eat too. The cat shakes the corpse, scaly tail swinging like a clock’s pendulum. Sighing, I click my phone again, capturing the iguana’s fate in the sun’s glare.

* * *
LIZ DEBEER is a teacher and writer with Project Write Now, a writing cooperative. Her flash has appeared in BULL, Fictive Dream, Switch and others. She is a volunteer reader at Flash Fiction Magazine. You can also follow Liz on Substack.

by Jim Harrington

She'd been young, brash, married to a banker, an older man. Happiness didn't matter. Money and prestige did. That's what her mother had preached unceasingly. Now, withdrawn, widowed, childless, and nearly broke, she stared out the cracked window in the direction of a rotted oak, happiness still an unachievable feeling.

* * *

JIM HARRINGTON lives in Huntersville, NC, with his wife and two dogs. His stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Free Flash Fiction, Short-Story.me, and others. More of his works can be found at https://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

by Liz deBeer

When an Adirondacks Park Campsite sign flashes past our station wagon, Daddy says, “Used to hike there with my pals.” Pauses. “Some never returned home from the war.” I inch closer, wondering but quiet. Later, we park and paddle to Lake George’s center, imagining catching bass, perch, trout. Daddy’s line jerks. He yanks, hoping-hoping-hoping. Too small. Then my line trembles, tugs. Daddy’s hands steady mine; we reel in together. Another loop of maybes, but—not a keeper either. Paddling back, me in the bow, him in the stern, we glide together, holding something that won’t fit into our empty cooler.

***

LIZ DEBEER is a teacher and writer with Project Write Now, a writing cooperative. Her flash has appeared in BULL, Fictive Dream, Switch and others. She is a volunteer reader at Flash Fiction Magazine. You can also follow Liz on Substack.

by Suzanne Hicks

Everyone’s chatting and forking lunch into their mouths, but I can’t take my eyes off the fish tank behind the bar, remembering the lake back home, watching hooks pulled from jaws, mouths gaping, gills pumping to breathe, smelling that lake water no matter the distance I put between us. If only I could plunge into the tank, gather all the fish in my arms, take them to salty, open waters. But I know they’d suffocate before I could find a place where they could feel what it’s like to swim free.

* * *

SUZANNE HICKS is a disabled writer living with multiple sclerosis. Her work has appeared in matchbook, Gooseberry Pie, Milk Candy Review, and others. Her stories have been selected for Best Microfiction and the Wigleaf Longlist. Read more at suzannehickswrites.com.

 @iamagnat.bsky.socialby Clodagh O Connor

My child is an unsolved equation. Doctors try to figure him out, cancelling out known factors until only his difference remains.

My child is a statistic. Normal children can’t help but be mean—it is their nature. He finds himself far from the centre, hiding in the long tail almost disappearing to nothing.

My child is not the problem. Why should he integrate himself into our way of thinking?  He must find his own solution, and I will be here to balance things out.

* * *

CLODAGH O CONNOR lives in Dublin, Ireland, and is working on becoming a writer. She particularly enjoys the challenges of tiny fiction. She can be found on Bluesky at @iamagnat.bsky.social.

Michael C. Roberts

As I drove her to the doctor’s office, my grandmother said, “it’s disorienting this business of getting old, all these aches and ailments, fuss and trouble, and thinking you’re 16 until you pass by a mirror.” I was 16 and nodded like I understood. Now 74, I’ve had an epiphany.

* * *

MICHAEL C. ROBERTS is a retiree enjoying life and good writing, and writing good, even if bad.

by Clodagh O Connor

I had to tell someone. Holding it all inside was so hard. Relief flooded in as my words spilled out.

“You seem so serene,” she said, “No one could ever tell.”

How right she was, sadly.
​
A newly dug grave provided the perfect hiding place. No one would ever tell.

* * *

CLODAGH O CONNOR lives in Dublin, Ireland, and is working on becoming a writer. She particularly enjoys the challenges of tiny fiction. She can be found on Bluesky at @iamagnat.bsky.social.

by Anne Howkins

maybe I wouldn’t have learnt the correct way to look at a painting. Think light and shadow, see the humility, the vulnerability, but here I am, in front of Rembrandt’s Night Watch, and yes, I see it, the chaos, the girl looking at the powerful, red-sashed man, I get it.  

Now you’ve slinked away like a guttering flame, I’d like to say thank you for all those times you pointed out what Constable, or Turner, or Cezanne had hidden in the shadows. For all those times you talked about the building of layer upon layer on an empty canvas—the way those layers became scumbled, burying what lay beneath. For all those times you stood with me, directing me to the source of light, to trace its delicate illumination of a lace collar, its cruel glare on an old woman’s wrinkles. For all those times you talked about colour; Vermeer’s miring himself in debt to paint a girl’s headdress ultramarine, Turner’s daubed red buoy mocking Constable’s over-use of the same shade.

And I wanted to let you know, I saw you in that gallery a couple of years ago with a woman. I recognised the look on her face before I realised it was you, pointing and talking, and it was too soon for me, that day, there were too many of the layers you’d painted still to be brushed away. It was too soon for me, that day, to look at your face, to catch that familiar flash of blue eyes blazing as you lectured your entranced companion, and just a glimpse of a faded red scarf was enough to send me trembling out onto the street.

But if you were here now, I’d just say that Rembrandt chose to shine his light on the girl, and she’s glowing. 

* * *

ANNE HOWKINS' little stories have appeared at WestWord, Flash 500, Free Flash Fiction, NFFD, Cranked Anvil, The Hoolets Nook and TrashCatLit. Anne also looks after the finances of a charity, walks and spends time with her adored grandson. 
Bluesky @anneh23.bsky.social

by Jenny Morelli

Dear Little Red, 

I understand now why you wore a hood tugged low around your head. It was to buffer your fears. I understand now why it was red. It flared with your heartbreak and despair. The edges were equally frayed from the depth of your rage.  

This was your life, your grim tale to tell, a tale that began on a snowy night when a fur-cloaked shadow howled with hunger into the wind, desperate to survive. When you approached, bearing meat from your basket, the wolf chewed and swallowed, lay her head in your lap with warmth and gratitude and a love you never knew.  

Then a crack split the snow-muffled silence and your lap grew warm with her blood-red-hooded eyes as the Huntsman ran to save you, to pull you free from the monster, but you didn’t need saving, so you shoved him away as tears drenched your fevered, red-raged cheeks.  

You ran and you ran along the beast’s beaten path to where her cowering litter lay huddled tight and you covered them all with your red-hooded cape. You lowered your frayed hood against the winds, against the savages and lived your life with a newfound purpose, with a confound hope, with a profound love. 

* * *

JENNY MORELLI is a NJ high school English teacher who lives with her husband, cat, and myriad yard pets. She’s published in several literary magazines including  Spillwords and Red Rose Thorns, and has four poetry chapbooks with Bottlecap Press. Visit her website: JennyMorelliWrites.com