by Angela Zimmerling

that was us

          spiked hair and black eye-liner
          plaid and chains
          our faces
          made pale with talc 

          no nukes
                     in acid rain                 
                     we raised the black flag 

         no future
         in the shadow
         of the bomb

         david bowie was our god

         we posed like dolls
         on street corners and on benches 

         searched
         for holes in the layers 
         of our sky
         while the rain-forests burned 

         wore our rage
         like broken hearts
         and cut ourselves
         on the shards
         of the earth
                             
​                      we lived
                      for the drums’ beat
                      a moment’s breath in the light
                     
         we lived to dance

* * *

ANGELA ZIMMERLING is a former journalist who works in poetry, fiction and illustration as well as in non-fiction.  She lives on a small subsistence farm with her husband and their beloved animals.

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 Kelleigh Cram

After driving for days, it’s the cows that do it.

A flock of them in a field, some standing, some grazing, some stealing a lazy nap in the afternoon sun. Activities that seem careless to us, performed with steadfast diligence.

 I slow down to watch them, these cows. Something is off. They have brown fur with white faces, like they are wearing their skulls inside out. Ghost cows. Are they real? I pull off on the side of the road and get out of the car. The gate is open, so I let myself in.

You call my name but I ignore you, walking up to one of the cows until we are standing face to face. I spread my fingers over its head, right between the eyes, the scratchy texture of cracked bone piercing my palm. So it is a skull, worn in reverse.
           
You run up from behind, your breath hot and rapid against my neck.
Wait, where were we going again?

When you grab my shoulder everything snaps into place: our bedroom, my feet sinking into the mattress, the cow painting looming over me.

“Why don’t you lie back down,” you say.

I yank my hand away as though it has betrayed me, revealing the portrait of a cow’s face. You guide me by the arm back to the car—or is it the bed? And once again we are on the highway, the ghost cows with their reversible skulls fading in the rearview mirror.

* * *

KELLEIGH CRAM resides in a small town near Savannah, Georgia. Her work has been featured in Ponder Review, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Right Hand Pointing.

by Chris Tattersall

In days gone by, family meals were obscured by the smog of tobacco. Three generations dining together, with just a damp rasp from deep in the lungs of Pete’s father to break the silence. Everyone being passive to its significance.

In later years, Pete was exiled to the garden, whether it be the home or beer variety, to enjoy a cigarette and time with his own son.

Now head of the table, Pete was comforted by the three generations gathered. They ate in silence, only to be disturbed by his son’s cough, a damp rasp from deep inside his lungs.

* * *

CHRIS TATTERSALL is a Health Service Research Manager who lives with his wife Hayley and Border Collie in Pembrokeshire, Wales. He is a self-confessed flash fiction addict with some publication and competition success. He also hosts his own flash fiction website.

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 Louella Lester

No one lives above us, but there is a woman who is part of the refugee family that lives across the hall. When she is there alone her screams sometimes escape. Slide right under our door where they wait for translation.

* * *

Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks, contributing editor at NFFR, and is included in Best Microfiction 2024.
​Instagram: @louellalester  
Bluesky: @louellalester.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 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 Lucy Barker

I watch you enter. Sunlight penetrates the stained-glass, suffusing your pale cheek.
​
Once, from that  pulpit, the Reverend Swales preached forgiveness, his gimlet eyes resting upon me; the sinner of his flock.

I reach out. I have come too close. Startled, you flee towards the headstones encircling those weathered walls. My empty, unmarked grave lies beyond; above the wind-buffeted waves raging far below.

He waits for you by the lych gate.

With venomous whispers I bid you not to go.
​
Convinced it is merely the rustling of trees, you rush inexorably towards him; oblivious of my pursuing shadow.

* * *

Lucy is a retired tutor living on the beautiful South Coast of England, which inspires much of her work. For some strange reason she is fascinated by the eerie and macabre, but that’s another story!

by Gabbi Grey

​She leads me down a dark alley. The smell of urine overwhelms, but I’m focused on her. She squeezes my hand, undoubtedly sensing my apprehension. I’ve never been to this side of town.

Rumors abound about it. Stories are shared. Whispered.

The door says Employees Only, but she pounds. The sound reverberates off the walls.

I cringe. I trust her with my life. But will this venture cost me that life? The promise, though. The lure of salvation. Of redemption. Too powerful to resist.

As the door swings open, a little man is revealed, his white pasty skin a direct contrast to my dark.

I hesitate, but she pushes me inside to follow the creature of the night. I straddle the chair he points to. My breasts squish against the cold padding.

She sits next to me, pressing a kiss to my temple.

I bare my back and the man fires up the ink gun. The pain is excruciating, but less than the fire that caused the burns. She whispers in my ear. How she loves me. How brave I am. How she doesn’t care about the scars.

I’d bear a thousand more to hear those words from her. I’d enter a thousand more burning buildings to save a wretched and ungrateful feline if she would hold me.

Magic ink.

A promise I didn’t believe.

The pain is transforming. The ink is taking hold. Tightened skin loosens. I feel my scars disappearing. Fading into nothing, replaced by beautiful ink. Healing ink.

For her I will do anything. To bask in her love, I will endure anything. And this particular anything is working. Is curative. Is transmuting.

The gun is silenced, and he wipes off drops of my blood.

She tilts my head and kisses me deeply.

Passionately.
​
Promising an eternity.

***

Gabbi Grey, a USA Today Bestselling author from British Columbia, dedicates herself to her fur babies and manages a government job while writing LGBTQ-focused contemporary romances. She also writes m/f romances as Gabbi Black and Gabbi Powell.