by Lois Anne DeLong

She always loved sunsets, he recalled. If her schedule permitted, she stopped everything when the first red streaks appeared in the sky.  If they were together, he would wrap his arms around her, and they would stand in silence until the last drop of color drained from the sky.

They met in Key West, a place where the sunset is celebrated every night. He was seeking temporary escape from a staggering series of failures. Her history had been equally difficult, yet somehow she had retained a deep well of inner joy that was triggered every time the day made its fiery surrender.

When she passed away—ironically just as streaks of red and orange made their first appearance within a crystal blue Montauk sky—he could no longer continue these end of day celebrations. Every night, as the sun made its descent, he would close the curtains, turn on the TV, or retreat to a dark and noisy bar.

But, today, a sunset caught him by surprise. He went to draw the curtains, but the reflection of the fading rays off the snow stopped him in his tracks. He stared deeply at that shimmering mirror of ice and snow and caught the reflection of a man buried in darkness. Not his beloved’s darkness, which she likened to a warm, encompassing blanket. No, this was a darkness filled with monsters, most of them of his own making.

As he slowly lifted his eyes to the skies, he decided the curtains would remain open tonight. He poured a glass of wine and moved closer to the glass.  Pulling the warm blanket of her darkness around him, he toasted the night as it slowly rolled in.

* * *

LOIS ANNE DELONG is a freelance writer from Queens, New York, and is active in the Woodside Writers literary forum. Her work has appeared in Dear Booze, Short Beasts, Bright Flash Literary Review, DarkWinter Literary Journal, and The Bluebird Word. 

by Colleen Addison

In those days his madness struck me as magic. He made drinking cups from foxglove flowers, replaced buttons with the heads of dandelions. Stories fell out of him about the fairies living in mushroom rings. As I grew older, I saw how the cups leaked; how the blossoms withered and grew grey. I saw how neighbours shifted away from him, fearful of any perceived association. I was angry but stopped short of wearing a hat like his, a long-abandoned coalhood he said kept off the rain better than any poncho. I felt trapped, jealous of his playful nature and reluctant to condone it, furious at the condemnation he endured while secretly harbouring a similar discomfort. One day when I trotted up the multicoloured cobblestones of his garden path, I saw emptiness in his house windows. Where had he gone? My eyes fell, surprised and envious, on a ring of mushrooms. 

* * *

COLLEEN ADDISON completed a PhD in health information; she then promptly got sick herself. Her work has been published in Halfway Down the Stairs, River Teeth, and Little Free Lit Mag. 

by Steven Lemprière

Fearful of the dark, Jake cried while observing his first solar eclipse. Four-years-old, teetering on five, his elder brother told him the moon was hungry and  it would eat the sun. Something Jake accepted as gospel when it took a small, tentative nibble from the sun’s perimeter and then gorged on what remained. He’d felt his heart race as an eerie silence replaced the farmyard’s ever-present birdsong, before noticing the comforting weight of his grandfather’s hand resting on his shoulder. A reassuring touch, both warm and firm, that turned the tide of his crippling anxiety. Crouching down beside Jake, his grandfather had looked him dead in the eyes. “The moon doesn’t like hot food,” he said. His usual gravelly voice, now a hushed whisper, “Just wait, and see,” and sure enough, the sun reappeared, like the vegetables Jake sheepishly chewed, and the birds rediscovered their voices.

Age and experience had widened Jake’s eyes to the wonders of the cosmos, captivating his imagination. Now a tenured astrophysicist at an Ivy League college, he travelled extensively, visiting observatories scattered around the globe, many set in remote and majestic landscapes. However, his current assignment, as the chief scientific officer aboard the International Space Station, would see him launched on an exciting new trajectory.

Amazingly, Jake’s tour coincided with an eclipse. Pure chance, but one of deep personal significance. Viewed from the earth’s thermosphere, he again felt his heart race as four-hundred kilometres below their orbit, its shadow traversed a vast tract of land which he knew encompassed his home state. The gravity of the event hadn’t escaped him. A breathtaking sight, that seen from a viewpoint that few would ever witness, prompted joyous, but also wistful, tears as he recalled his grandfather’s soothing words.

* * *

STEVEN LEMPRIÈRE’s flash has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Drabble, Friday Flash Fiction, 50-Word Stories, 50 Give or Take and Punk Noir Magazine. He spends his time between the West Coast of Ireland and South-West France.

by Jennifer Griffin Gaul

The blue dots scatter across my chest like a constellation. These stars have lit my life before. They burned on my husband before they burned on me. In less than four months his were gone, their promise unfulfilled. Mine have remained. So like a ship from days of old I will use them to navigate my way.

* * *

JENNIFER GRIFFIN GAUL is a pianist and music educator who writes in the moments of silence when not making music. 

by Katja Fox

​
first day at school— 
left at the gate
a teddy bear


flirtation— 
the snap dance
of a butterfly


end of summer— 
a single flip flop left
in the bicycle basket


knowing
where the blueberries grow— 
homecoming


new tattoo— 
​she’s got you
under her skin

* * *

KATJA FOX is a British artist and poet. She loves writing short-form poetry, many of which have appeared in leading journals and anthologies across the world and also in her two poetry books “out of nowhere“ and “there was a moment.”​

by Patricia Russo

The old man is weaving a net out of ashes
in which to catch a name.
She can tell his eyes are burning
but he won’t stop to wipe them.
She’d like to stroke his head 
as she passes behind him
but he’d only shrug her off.
She has names in every pocket
tucked inside twists of pretty paper
but he wouldn’t thank her
for any of them
so she keeps them for the children
who visit her shyly
on certain afternoons
when a quarter moon
is visible in the sky.

* * *

PATRICIA RUSSO's work has appeared in One Art, The Sunlight Press, Vagabond City, A Sufferer's Digest, Hex Literary, Eulogy Press, Revolution John, and Crow and Cross Keys.

by Steven Bruce

We’ve learnt to carry it
like a sack of half-rotten potatoes,
the skin split,
the smell lingering behind us.

The days drag on,
each one more worn,
duller than the last.

There’s no choice
but to keep walking,
heavy footed,
eyes on the clouds.

With hope,
that somewhere ahead
we’ll find a place
to set it down.

* * * 

STEVEN BRUCE is a multiple award-winning author. His poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous international anthologies and magazines. In 2018, he graduated from Teesside University with a Master of Arts in Creative Writing. Born in England, Steven now resides in Poland.

by Mary Kipps

This is how it will always be:
that last light of a saffron sun
slipping down the medina wall;
the muezzin’s prayer running the maze
of cobblestone alleyways;
our blue-eyed cat stolidly watching
the rush of doves taking wing.
There’s a lot to be said
for leaving while still in love.

* * *

MARY KIPPS enjoys composing in traditional forms as well as in free verse. A former Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems have appeared regularly in journals and anthologies across the U.S. and abroad since 2005. 

by Lori Cramer

Natasha greets me at the door. Once we’re settled on the sofa, I confide that Gavin has, once again, broken a promise to me. Though Natasha has had to listen to countless chronicles of Gavin’s disingenuous deeds, she kindly lets me vent without interruption. I wish she could tell me what I should do, but I must make up my own mind. So I decide: I’m going to break up with him. As soon as I’ve said the words aloud, I feel better. And, apparently, so does Natasha. She curls up into a ball, closes her eyes, and begins purring.

* * *

LORI CRAMER’s short prose has appeared in Fictive Dream, Flash Boulevard, Scaffold, Splonk, Switch, and elsewhere. Her work has been longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for Best Microfiction. Links to her writing:
​Wordpress: Lori Cramer Fiction 
Bluesky: @loricramerwriter.bsky.social.

by Chris Cottom

​Go full mortgage on a fixer-upper in Forest Gate. Love the way Beth swears she can’t live with this prissy Laura Ashley shit, wrestles the wallpaper stripper like it’s a hissing serpent. Try different finishes in different rooms; go bold in the bedroom with Salsa Red or Jungle Ginger.
 
Watch Beth mark out a spare-room mural with puddleducks and beaky geese. Start with the ceiling, careless about speckling her raven curls with Haystack Gold. When she splodges you in Jersey Cow Brown, let her lead you to the shower to loofah it off.
 
Assemble mood boards for Beth’s new business: mid-tone caramels, indulgent ochres, earthy terracottas. Let her chatter about tonal contrast, about Crushed Aloe and Distressed Leather. Photograph her remodelled basements, her faux-marble bathrooms, her kiddies’ bedrooms.
 
In your kitchen awash with swatches of Lost Lake and Atlantic Surf, ask your seven-year wife if it’s time to redo the spare room in Classic White, turn it into an office. Dab her tears with a handy length of curtain lining. Hold her tight until she pushes away with a sad little nod.
 
Wait until her workshop in colour psychology; spread your dust sheets as the front door closes. Bid goodbye to the pigs and chicks, the carthorse and the collie, the tractor and the barn. Be sure to use low-tack masking tape. You don’t want anything to tear as you start to pull away.

* * *

CHRIS COTTOM lives near Macclesfield, UK. One of his stories was read aloud on the Esk Valley Railway between Middlesbrough and Whitby. In the early 1970s he lived next door to JRR Tolkien.
Bluesky: @chriscottom.bsky.social

by Bernard Pearson

In the  cradle
Of our last night,
When all things hang
In the balance of time
Will we see, really see?
The world that dies with us,
or the one that has waited
So patiently, for our return.

* * *

BERNARD PEARSON: His work appears in over one hundred and thirty publications worldwide, including; Aesthetica Magazine, The Edinburgh Review, and Crossways. In 2017 a selection of his poetry, In Free Fall, was published by Leaf by Leaf Press.

by Karen Schauber

We hug the coastline, the water lipping and lapping, squeezing us against the scrub brush and pink granite boulders. Sophie stomps her feet in plops of seafoam eddying in tide pools. We let her play. So much has been lost. But not this. Her innocence glinting in the sunlight, giggles clutching our heartbeats. We safeguard this last remnant, this singular, unsullied, untarnished, vestige. Otherwise, what is it all for. Trudging at night beneath ribbons of greenish-blue light, the auroras coxswaining us toward safety in the northern hinterlands. We press ahead. Agents two days behind at most. Our precious cargo intact.

* * *

KAREN SCHAUBER’s flash fiction appears in over 100 international journals, magazines, and anthologies with nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction and the Wigleaf Top 50. Schauber curates Vancouver Flash Fiction – an online resource hub.
​Read her at: https://KarenSchauberCreative.weebly.com 

by Veronica L.

Lorena took a sip of wine. The intense ruby red, tending towards garnet, reflected the terracotta tones of the Roman sunset. For the first time, she admired that sunset alone, surrounded by a scene still capable of moving her.

Rome, her adopted city, for two decades the stage of stolen kisses under the Colosseum. Rome, a silent witness to many nights of love under a generous moon. 

Slow rhythms, a comfortable life, built brick by brick. Those same bricks that had gradually ceased to be the sign of solid foundations and had become an imposing wall between her and her husband. An overwhelming gap for those who can no longer see themselves in the other’s eyes.  

* * *
​
VERONICA L. is an Italy-based writer with a PhD in Iberian and Ibero-American Languages and Literatures. She has authored several non-fiction books, some published in English by Anglo-Saxon presses, along with works of fiction. Her short story The Poor Copy appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine (No. 73, February 2025).

by Tim Love

He tried to catch her eye across the room. Maybe he imagined that she smiled back, but it was enough for him to start talking to her.

"Can you still hear me?" he asks forty years later, sitting by the bed. "Smile for me, that's all I need. One smile."

* * *

TIM LOVE’s publications are a poetry pamphlet “Moving Parts” (HappenStance) and a story collection "By all means" (Nine Arches Press). He lives in Cambridge, UK. His prose has appeared in The Forge, Stand, JMWW, Under the Radar, etc. He blogs at http://litrefs.blogspot.com/

by Scott Ortolano

I remember
the first time we slept together,
slumbering in a room covered with poetry and song.
 
We held one another desperately
in a world that refused to stand still.

* * *

SCOTT ORTOLANO is an English Professor at Florida SouthWestern State College. You can usually find him reading, running, hiking, or frantically grading. More of his work is available at www.SOrtolano.com