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 Now, withdrawn, widowed, childless, and nearly broke, she stared out the cracked window in the direction of a rotted oak, happiness still an unachievable feeling.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. 
​Follow Liz at www.ldebeerwriter.com and https://lizardstale.substack.com.

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.

by 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 https://bsky.app/profile/iamagnat.bsky.social.

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

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 Fatimah Akanbi

​​A crumpled paper landed at your feet, and you hoped it would be a letter telling you how she had always loved you—like you had always loved her. Or how she always thought about you in those dreadful holidays between semesters, like you always thought about her. Or maybe how she would scribble your name on the mirror every morning, the way you would always scribble hers. But when you opened it, you only found wrong math workings she tore out of her notebook. She was going to throw it in the bin, and you just got in the way.

​* * *

FATIMAH AKANBI writes fiction and poetry. She has been writing since she was five, and is currently pursuing a degree in Information Technology at the University of Ilorin. She is @legendary.scribe on Instagram. 

by Claire Kroening

Today, burnt coffee clung 
to the back of 
my throat. A bitter 
epilogue of your 
sweetness.
Today, tears patter 
into empty china 
cups; moon-drenched 
lyrics shakily 
forgotten. Today is a 
reminder of our last.

* * *

CLAIRE KROENING is an award-winning writer and freelance editor/proofreader residing along the great lakes. Connect with them on Instagram @clairerosek. 

by Suzie Pearson

Emptied.
Standing as a monument to
      every discount,
      every sale,
      every closing down event,
      “everything must go”.
Packets, unopened, aged with neglect.
Boxes remain sealed.
A forgotten moment of need.
Duplicates waiting in the depths of shelves.
A reminder of what was lost.

* * *

SUZIE PEARSON’s poetry has been published in Whispered Words (Writer Shed Press, 2024), as well various online magazines. She's also received a highly commended in Wolverhampton Literary Festival Poetry competition and appeared at WoLF 2025, and participated in both Ironbridge & Shrewsbury Poetry Slams 2025. Find her at @wordsfromanotebook  and www.wordsfromanotebook.com 

by Bart Edelman

Hadn’t walked the plank
In a number of years.
Never planned on it again.
But when you showed up,
I dispensed with my shoes,
Feeling the smooth wood,
Cold beneath my feet,
Familiar step by step.
I was halfway across,
Before you called out--
Told me to abandon fate.
And I wavered, of course.
Didn’t know how to retreat.
Couldn’t envision the course.
Unsteady each moment.
Then I paced my way back,
Where you stood, open-handed,
Offering what still remained--
One pirate heart to another.

* * *

BART EDELMAN’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, Whistling to Trick the Wind, and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023. 

Anne Marie Lyall

Seth placed his mother by the hearth. It had been her favourite spot. Until that night. When she’d stormed out. Swore never to set foot in his house again.

He supposed she’d kept her word.

Banjo whimpered as he sniffed the opaque jar. He had always been fond of mother. 

* * *

ANNE MARIE LYALL is from Scotland. She can almost see Loch Lomond on a clear day. She is published in the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize Anthology, 101 Words, Cafe Lit and long listed in the Myslexia Flash Fiction Competition.  

by Lori Cramer

Dressed in a neon-pink sweatshirt, leopard-print leggings, and Reebok high-tops, Barbara pushes a grocery cart from one aisle to the next. Nearly every song on the supermarket’s retro playlist sparks a fond memory of her youth. Dances. Frat parties. Games in the quad. As she’s selecting a Lean Cuisine entrée for tonight’s dinner, a ballad comes on, stirring tender recollections of her first love, Barry. Over by the frozen pizzas, a man in khakis and a blue oxford like Barry used to wear catches her eye. He smiles. And, for just a moment, Barbara could swear that it’s 1987 again.

* * *

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: https://loricramerfiction.wordpress.com.
Bluesky: @loricramerwriter.bsky.social.

by Colleen M. Farrelly

He says do you have a lighter and I say no and he says can I borrow twenty bucks and I say no and he says I love you and I say okay and give him twenty bucks. He goes wherever he goes, and I promise I’ll say no tomorrow.

* * *

COLLEEN M. FARELLY is a mathematician and haibun poet from Miami, FL. She's trying dribbles and drabbles, which seem to fit well with haibun.

by Adele Gallogly

Why does Faye keep giving the same line to library staff asking, “How are you?” When they emphasize are, she pictures a single, careening letter R. 

“Oh I’m good, besides missing the old lump in my bed!” she says. Exactly. Breathlessly. Unfailingly. To the retiring director. To the teenage volunteer. To the brusque clerk returning one-word titles Ron was too confused to begin: Endurance, Unbroken, Atonement.
​
Near the exit, Faye starts to answer the janitor tipping a black wastebasket, but stops after “Oh.” She hears herself tucking her beloved husband into a soft mound of grief in her throat. 

Oh.

* * *

ADELE GALLOGLY is a writer and editor in Ontario, Canada. Her very short stories have been published in FlashFlood, Writers' Hour, Six-Sentences, and Paragraph Planet. You can follow her on BlueSky.

by Sarp Sozdinler

So we up and swapped lives for a day: she would have two healthy breasts, and I would still have a mother.

* * *

​SARP SOZDINLER has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, Vestal Review, Fractured Lit, JMWW, and Trampset, among other journals. Their stories have been selected for anthologies including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50.