Bartholomew Makes Wigs

Debra Daniel Writer’s Note: One day at my hair salon, my stylist was altering a wig to fit one of his clients. […]

Skin Beetles

Rosaleen Lynch Mam boils the skull until flesh falls off, and scrapes the rest, but fat melts into bone, leaving it a […]

The Tantrik

Ani Banerjee             Adjacent to the burning ghat in Benaras, in the narrow winding maze of lanes filled with stores selling marijuana […]

Unfurl

Lyndsey Croal               I know the change is coming from the scratch in my throat. Next, my fingers elongate and sharpen as […]

Everything is Flat

L. Soviero               Flat building. Flat windows. Flat sky. Flat sun.               Alex kicks a can. It ricochets off the building wall. […]

The Parting Glass

Helen Chambers               Move fireside-close; warm away your bone-ache. A bitter evening to be out. You’re the last to stumble this way […]

The Boys of the Loup Garou

Karen Arnold It happened so slowly, the falling apart. We got used to it, each frayed stitch, each reduction, each thinning and […]

Manna

Jude Higgins               Her mother’s at the door, criticising the litter of mouldy leaves and walking boots on the porch. But then […]

Cult Status

Fiona McKay I was in high school when the Preacher arrived. Revivalist this, born again that. A show, all of it, or […]

Small Gods

Becky May We reminisce about dahl baht, the way it coated our tongues, the rice fluffed to perfection, the greens we´d try […]

Heart in Hand

Colleen Kearney Rich When the clerk at the hardware store asks about her fingerless gloves, the fancy red leather ones she treated […]

The Geometry of Dead Girls

Kik Lodge               You can never leave the place you die in, Harriet says, and Fay nods like a hand puppet.               […]

Witch

Janice Leadingham               Your wife called to me, John Bell. She came to the craggy grin, the doorway to my home under […]

Science Never Sleeps

Stephanie Carty               Stella is a scientist of men. She logs every detail in the notebook of her mind: the creasing of […]

Warning

Eda Tse Decide this time you’re done. Find a secluded section of the park. Put your back into it when you dig. […]

Double-Glaze

Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: Travelling to Ireland from France could sometimes cause culture shock. This piece started with my father’s reaction to […]

The Weight of Feathers

Lindz McLeod Writer’s Note: Near my home, there’s a high tunnel where pigeons nest; whenever I pass through it, I wondered whether […]

Delete water, insert rubbish

Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: Delete water was provoked by a very vivid memory of myself and a few student friends huddled over […]

White Feathers, Scarlet Heart

Sarah McPherson Pristine snowfall; the familiar made unfamiliar by winter. The early morning light touches each heap and hollow lightly. She is […]

Snapshot

Peter Burns               Sixth day standing at this bus stop staring across at him in the bookies, he comes out plunging his […]

On the Backroads

Jeanine Skowronski 1. We dig holes, because Wren insists there’s treasure buried in this dirt. We unearth silver slips of paper, two […]

The Only Constant is Change

Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: This flash piece was inspired by a very real woman who used to sit at my tram stop, […]

Night on Preston’s Bald

J. Dianne Dotson Writer’s Note: This story bounds ahead of a real-life terrifying encounter on a mountaintop in East Tennessee many years […]

Slaughterhouse of Love

Max Hipp Writer’s Note: I’d been thinking about how isolating love feels when it goes wrong and how marriages crack along childhood […]

Annie Is Sleeping

Sherri Turner               Annie will wake in the morning later than usual. She will have a hangover that she doesn’t remember getting. […]

A Climmer’s Chance

Christine Collinson Writer’s Note: I was listening to a podcast on birds through history when I first came across ‘Climmers’ (or Climbers). […]

Love, Departed

Emily Devane Writer’s Note: This piece started with a voice, and a feeling: I am looking for the key to the drawer […]

Truth or Death

Lori Sambol Brody Writer’s Note: I set out to write a flash novella about a high school theater kid (Julia) navigating her […]

What We Leave Behind

Stephanie King Writer’s Note: This is part of a series I call “Monologues,” a loose collection of those really voicey flash pieces […]

However far she runs away from home

Rosie Garland               My mother lives in a house full of gravestones. Every morning, she vacuums around their beds and washes their […]

She Remembers it Like This

Emily Devane               Always, the sun shines and the black telephone dangles from its cloister wall like a stricken beetle.               Always, […]

I took my skeleton for a walk today

K.A. Nielsen               My skeleton tilted their skull up, stretched their bones wide in the cool, crisp sun. We stood in the […]

A Fable of Two Halves

David Luntz Writer’s Note: Myths and fables have long interested me. So, I tried writing a quirky fable that shows how we […]

Seed of a Rainbow

David Luntz Writer’s Note: Seed of a Rainbow is the third flash in a series I’ve written about a fictional uncle (“Uncle Kev”). […]

The Psychic Plays Dress-Up

Chelsea Stickle Writer’s note: The psychic snuck up on me one day. She tapped me on the shoulder and introduced herself as […]

Welcome to the Pixel Exhibition

Paul Thompson On screen you are an abstract masterpiece. I secretly take screenshots as we talk, print and rearrange them on my […]

This Seagull

Richard Barr This seagull was bigger than my cat. Noticeably so. It was rush hour. All at once the people, so many […]

Osmosis

Shannon Frost Greenstein It doesn’t taste as bad as you would expect. I thought it would be like swallowing a mouthful of […]

The Vanishing

Jared Beloff 1. The house went without a sound during Mrs. Thompson’s daily trip to the mailbox last fall, her back turned […]

My Boyfriend’s Wife

Iona Rule When I’m with my boyfriend, who is also her husband, he serves me spaghetti in their pond green bowls. I […]