By Yi-Jung Chen

“Papa, why do you wear that brownish coat?”

Eight-year-old Mia tugged at Chen’s wet sleeve the moment he stepped through the door of their rented attic. The rain had followed him up three flights of stairs, and the ceiling answered it with a slow drip into the pot by the window. Mrs. Lin from downstairs had kept Mia company since school let out, and had left a pot of rice warming on the stove before she went back to her own door.

Chen tucked his right arm behind his back and smiled the smile he practiced on the stairs. He parked his dripping equipment cart beside the shoe rack. “Because Papa is an orange oak leaf butterfly, sweetie. When I fold my wings and sit very still, everybody thinks I’m just a dead leaf on the pavement.”

“Do they step on you?” She tilted her head. Her eyes were clear and steady, and he found it easier to look at the cart than at them.

“Sometimes,” Chen said, though the truth was colder than that.

In this city, street music fell under Section 41 of the Sound Licensing Act. Without a commercial permit, every note played in public triggered an automated biometric royalty, billed not in money but in the body of whoever played it. Chen couldn’t afford a permit. He was blind in one eye and worked mornings at a massage clinic where blind masseurs kneaded other people’s backs for little more than minimum wage. All he really owned was his own body, so that was what he paid with.

While Mia went back to her homework, where a small crayon butterfly was slowly growing orange wings in the margin, Chen unbuttoned his cuff in the shadow of the shoe rack. His right forearm was covered in dark, raised puncture marks left by the contact pins of his old rhythm generator, fine branching lines that looked exactly like the veins on a dead leaf. The machine had no battery. It ran on whatever the royalty took from him. Two minutes of synthesized strings left his fingers numb to the second knuckle, and a long bass line left his knees aching like an old man’s. Every evening he strapped the cuff on at the top of the subway steps, and every evening the pins went in a little more easily than the night before.

Tonight an enforcement officer’s decibel meter had flickered at 65.0, the point where the fines began, so Chen had played the rest of his set in a whisper. A whisper still billed him by the note. He had watched his own breath fog in the cold air and kept his eyes on the cup at his feet, where a few coins lay at the bottom like fish scales.

All evening the passersby had hurried past with their umbrellas dripping onto his gear, stepping around the cart as if he were nothing more than a leaf stuck to the asphalt. Only one person had stopped. She was a woman in a gray raincoat, a stranger, and she stood under the station awning for the whole of one slow song with her hands in her pockets, not looking at him. When it ended she dropped a coin in the cup, nodded once, and walked off into the rain. Chen had kept that coin in his fist for the rest of the night, and it was warmer than anything the machine had left him.

“Papa,” Mia said, and her crayon stopped. “A boy at school said you’re just a beggar on the subway steps. He said a rich man yelled at you for making noise.”

Chen’s chest tightened. He could still hear the man: the spit in his words, the finger jabbing at a wet smear on his trousers where a splash of rain had flicked off the amp. Nobody had told Chen that Mia’s school was near enough for the story to travel. He wondered how long she had been carrying it around and how many nights she had waited at this table with it, saying nothing.

He knelt beside her and tucked a stray hair behind her ear with his good hand. His fingers were stiff and ice-cold from the rain and the machine.

“He was in a hurry, Mia,” he said quietly. “When people are rushing, they only see the dull brown side of the leaf. They don’t know that inside, the butterfly has bright orange wings.”

“Does it hurt?” Mia reached out and wrapped her small, warm hand around his swollen wrist before he could pull away. “Your hand is like ice, Papa. Did the music take your heat again?”

Chen froze. Children always see through the camouflage their parents build.

He looked into her earnest eyes and felt the warmth of her palm seep slowly into the cold that had settled in his bones. Outside, the rain kept drumming on the tin roof. He thought of the wet cart by the door and the repairs he couldn’t afford, and of the officer’s meter, and of the man with the finger. But in the small room the silence was no longer heavy.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Chen said, and pressed his cold forehead against hers. “Because every time I come home, you help me open my orange wings again.”

Mia giggled and pulled his hands up against her cheeks to warm them. Chen closed his eyes and held her tight. The smell of warm rice drifted over from the stove.

They ate at the low table with the lamp between them, and Mia chattered about a spelling test and a girl who had lost a tooth in the cafeteria. Chen listened to every word. When the bowls were empty, she slid off her stool, rummaged in her school bag, and came back with her homework page folded in quarters.

“I finished it,” she said, a little shyly.

In the margin, the crayon butterfly had its wings spread wide, all of it in orange. Beneath it she had drawn a stick figure in a brown coat, and the coat was open at the front so that the wings showed inside.

Chen didn’t trust his voice. He took the page, folded it carefully along its old creases, and tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat, against his chest, where the machine could not reach.

He had no union, no safety net, and no government permit. But tomorrow he would step out into the cold street again, disguised and trampled, carrying a song that no machine could ever truly own, and a small orange butterfly over his heart.

                                                                *    *    *

Yi-Jung Chen is a Taiwanese writer and elementary school teacher. Her writing explores memory, family, landscape, and traditional crafts, moving between Chinese and English literature.

By John Frame

You started working for a litigation support team in a corner office on the fifty-fifth floor of a law firm on Broad Street, overlooking New York harbor. You could see the Staten Island ferry, just about. You could see the twins, puffing out at the top when the light caught them a certain way. You wondered why they gave you and the others this space, with this view.

You weren’t that important.

There were six people at first on the team. “Welcome to perma-temp hell,” said Jonathan, who sat on your left. “This is Venus, she’s in a dance troupe.” She sat to your right. “That’s Geena, opposite you. She paints. And there’s Gary and Tessa on either side of Geena. Gary sings and Tessa’s taking drama classes. What do you do?”

“I want to write.”

You all entered data for the Microsoft case. Jeff, the supervisor, told everyone to expense everything. “Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, cars to and from work. Order out. Put it on the bill. The richest man in the world is paying!” Jeff was upbeat. He just started his garage rock band.

Frantically typing in code, you listened to the radio on your headphones. No need to take the train. No point in making weekly trips to the grocery store. Your wife, Candace, a yoga instructor, was happy. You never had it so good. But you were too busy to write.

After a year, Microsoft lost. Gary got a permanent job, singing on a cruise ship and Geena became a part-time art teacher. They seemed delighted to leave. Some big-wig partner took over the corner office, so litigation support operations moved to the thirty-fifth floor.

“You can still see the towers when you’re in the common area,” said Venus in her Puerto Rican accent after settling into the new office. We could hang out on soft seats in one corner, with access to a microwave, a coffee-maker, and a fridge. It wasn’t bad. You had to squint to see the towers, but nobody complained. Even if the view wasn’t great, we had natural light and everyone enjoyed the free drinks, snacks, and access to the radio.

The new case contained hundreds of details concerning ongoing insurance claims involving an Australian company that owed millions to people with asbestosis. You spent time reading the stories. They were haunting, hard to forget.

Jeff said, “expense your travel, but buy your own meals. This case has been on and off for five years. It might come to a stop at any moment.” He seemed happy. His wife was pregnant with twins.

Candace worried about money. She also fretted over the amount of time you spent at the office. And socializing after work. “Who’s this Tessa you’re always talking about?”

You worked more slowly, took longer breaks and, eventually, the case faded away after a year. You don’t know if you won or lost. By the time it tapered off, Tessa got married and moved to Vermont—she told you it’s what she always wanted—and Jeff took over your workspace. He needed the status symbol of a bigger office with a view.

So, three people moved down to the basement. No view. No common area. No amenities. No radio. You started on the Bank of New York case.

“This won’t go to trial,” said Jeff, yawning, as he introduced the files. “It involves the Russian mafia laundering stolen IMF money through America’s oldest bank, so the government has no interest in prosecuting the case. Too embarrassing. The bank will settle. Take your time, but there’s no expense account.”

You and the others dragged it out. Late starts, extended lunch breaks, early stops. You read a lot…on the train, in and out of Brooklyn, and at work. The Strand had an annex at the Seaport where you picked up more books.

The case was intriguing. Oligarchs stealing money from banks. You thought about writing but, aside from editing Jonathan’s screenplay about graffiti artists, you never wrote anything.

You barely saw Candace. She gave up yoga and joined a touring band as a backing singer. She was on the road a lot. You drifted apart because of different interests and external pressures. You paid the rent and the bills. You both spent what remained.

After 9/11, you walked from the Wall Street subway stop, through the financial district, past armored vehicles and national guardsmen. Your building had more security. No more pen and paper to sign in. They introduced electronic badges.

Still in the basement. No contact with the outside world. Security made it harder to take long breaks. The case continued. You had all the time you needed, but you preferred to read.

Jonathan went to Baltimore to make his film. That left you and Venus. After another year passed, Venus became pregnant and announced her departure.

Alone in the basement with a never-ending case meant hours of time to think and write. Instead, your extended liquid lunch breaks caused you to sleep in the afternoon.

One Friday, Jeff came into the White Horse Tavern and found you.

“Hey Jeff, how’s it going? How’s the band?” You were surprised to see him. He seemed solemn, with dark rings around his eyes.

“Oh, I gave that up when the twins were born.” After a long pause, he said, “I looked at your electronic swipe log. We’re going to have to let you go.”

You shrugged. “What about the case?”

“We can ship the files to the Philippines and have them do it for less.”

When you got back home, Candace’s clothes were gone. On top of the groaning bookshelves, you found her note. She was letting you go too. “I’ll be out on the road for a while. We need a trial separation,” she wrote.

You couldn’t afford the rent. You needed a new job. The city seemed more expensive now that you had to pay for your own meals.

You turned on the computer and opened up a file, facing a blank page.

                                                       *   *   *

John Frame was brought up in Wick, Scotland. After earning an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Aberdeen University, he emigrated to the USA, and worked as a teacher in NYC and Columbus, Ohio. Since 2018, he and his wife Rama have lived and worked in China and Senegal. You can find his writing here: jrframe.wixsite.com/website and bsky.app/profile/johnrframe.bsky.social

By Alison Bullock

We landed in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, on a Friday. My boyfriend Mark booked us a stay in the cutest little place through VRBO—The Dome Experience, it was called. It had a curved roof, giant circular windows, and a surfboard for a door. Adorbs right? Its whitewashed exterior was like something out of the Greek Isles and offered the perfect backdrop for all of my outfits; the blues of my bikini looked even more beguiling, the purples of my pashmina really popped. True, you had to walk half a mile to the communal bathroom, the ceiling leaked, and there was a bit of a fire ant infestation, but photographically speaking, the place was great, which let’s face it, was the whole point anyway, and on top of that, all of it was comped. Mark, my boyfriend, was an influencer with hella followers. He made over $200,000 last year and never even finished high school! Talk about The American Dream. He and I met online. I had a bit of a following myself and he thought we’d pair well together.  He liked that my online name was Marky, which meant that as a couple, we could brand ourselves as Marky-Mark, (so genius—so retro). Was it a real relationship? I mean, what’s real anyway?  Let’s put it this way, it wasn’t not real, if that makes any sense.

The posts needed an angle, and Mark was great at coming up with ideas. Lately, we’ve been exploring US towns with strange names. This added a fun irony to our posts. Irony gets clicks. We’d already been to Toad Suck, Arkansas as well as Intercourse, Pennsylvania and Santa Claus, Indiana. I usually brought along Kim Kardashian, my Pomeranian, and we dressed her up for whatever activity we were doing. KK, as I sometimes call her, was getting her own following. She was bigger than Paul Mescal’s chain. If that’s not straight fire I don’t know what is. At each of these vacation stops, Mark always set the itinerary, and as long as we did things to promote his health and wellness platform, all of our lodging and expenses were covered by our sponsors. Win-win.

Truth or Consequences was known for their hot springs, which everybody knows is super restorative. We soaked in their thermal baths while sipping Schwepp’s virgin mojitos. Kim Kardashian wore the cutest little terry cloth turban and let us put cucumbers on her eyes. We jogged along The Healing Waters Trail, with Mark in his Dolce and Gabbana silk jogging shorts and me in a Prada knit number. Kim Kardashian scampered right along with us in a miniature tracksuit, her little legs scissoring into a frothy blur of pink. Down at The Passion Pie Cafe, we each treated ourselves to a small slice of heaven, because fitness is about moderation not deprivation people, and everybody knows #ilovepie will substantially improve your metrics. At each stop I did my usual poses: Barbie Feet, The Toothache, The Look-Back. People were vibing with our work. We’d gotten close to a half million likes since we arrived and momentum was on the rise. I was low-key loving life.

On our final night in Truth or Consequences, we went square dancing at the Fiddler’s Playhouse. That’s where things got dicey. Right off the bat I should have known something was about to go wrong. KK had some sort of stomach bug, so she couldn’t make it, which was unfortunate, as I’d bought us matching fringe jackets. Looking back, that should have tipped me off right there, like foreshadowing or something. My stomach didn’t feel so hot either. Nerves most likely. I specifically told Mark beforehand that I wasn’t a great dancer. I told him that, but he refused to listen. Square dancing is different, he told me. You literally just follow instructions and get whirled around. He said my inexperience would play as cute. It didn’t. Apparently, my shoulders were weirdly stiff during the promenade. I allemenaded right when I should have gone left. I raised my knees too high on certain moves, which unfortunately reminded our followers of Elaine from Seinfeld (so dumb—so retro). It didn’t matter that I had an adorable outfit from Cowgirl Kim. This only made the haters accuse me of being a poser. The nerve! By Monday morning, I was a meme. Some comedian went on Tik Tok with drawn-on eyebrows and an abomination of a wig, pretending to be me. In no way, did that look like my hair. Seriously, it’s not that poofy! This girl was flipping and flopping around in her Daisy Dukes trying to do-si-do with a deranged looking poodle. Again—completely unfair. KK wasn’t even there that night!

In under a week, I became a laughingstock. I was full-on cancelled. People were dressing up like me for Halloween, and not in a good way. Mark left me without so much as a text goodbye. He was seen flexing all over Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky with some chick with zero aesthetic who went by “Ruffalo.” Whatevs. I’m already planning my comeback. DWTS reached out to me for their most improved dancer series. They say they can train anyone.  Just me. No dog.

                                                           *   *   *

Alison Bullock is a writer from Massachusetts. Her short fiction has appeared in The Woven Tale Press, Peatsmoke, The Coachella Review, The Writing Disorder, Halfway Down the Stairs, The Metaworker, Bright Flash Literary Review, Idle Ink, and elsewhere.

 

By Lisa Rabasca Roepe

You think about their living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows that you always admired, and you imagine a brick thrown through the window, shards of glass and your best friend lying in a pool of blood on the beautiful hardwood floor. 

You can’t get this image out of your head after her husband calls your office on a Monday morning in October 1996, asking if you’ve heard from his wife, Linda. He’s been in Chicago all weekend and Linda hasn’t returned his calls, so he asks you to go to their house to see if she’s OK.

You to skip your 10 a..m. meeting and take the PATH train to their house in Hoboken, N.J., recalling all the times John made unreasonable demands on you. Expecting you to walk their dog whenever they vacation, asking you to pick up a 20-pound bag of ice for their party, insisting you split the bill in half—as if they were one person—when the three of you go out to dinner. 

When you moved to Manhattan two years ago without a job you stayed in their NYC apartment and in exchange you agreed to help them move to New Jersey. You expected to pack boxes but soon realized you’ll need to move furniture, too.

The three of you struggled to carry the couch you slept on for three weeks down the stairs of their apartment building. You guided the bottom of the 400-pound sleeper sofa and as you navigated each step backwards, your arms and shoulders felt the weight pressed down on you—not just of the couch, but of the entire friendship. 

But you’re a loyal friend, so you helped until the last box was moved into the house you are now walking towards.

You’re halfway down the street when you see the familiar red Ford Mustang and you assume that John also called Mark to help find Linda. 

When you see Linda open the car door and walk toward her front door, you are so relieved you yell out her name. Instead of acknowledging you, she scurries inside the house and slams the door shut as the Mustang peels out, tires squealing, leaving you alone on the street in stunned silence. 

It takes a few seconds for you to get the full picture, for the pieces to click into place, but then you realize why your best friend is getting out of Mark’s car and why John couldn’t reach her over the weekend.

As you head back to work, you wonder why Linda would risk her 10-year marriage to her college sweetheart.

You are in your early 30s and unmarried. Your best friend’s marriage seems perfect to you, and you want what she has—the doting husband, the million-dollar house with the floor-to-ceiling windows and impeccable wooden floors. 

Back in your office the phone rings. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you this weekend. I was stuck at work,” Linda says.

“Then why did I see you get out of Mark’s car,” you shoot back.

You tell her you don’t care what happened because she’s your best friend, she is the one who matters most to you, not her husband, not Mark.

You expect a hushed confession, maybe even a few tears and then words of appreciation for your 20 years of friendship that spans high school, college, and adulthood. A friendship that goes so far back that you owe your love of red lipstick to her. Because you thought it made your friend look so put together and you wanted to mimic her. 

But instead, you are lied to, told that you couldn’t have possibly seen her get out of Mark’s car because she has been in a conference room at work all weekend closing a real estate deal.

You wonder how many times she has lied to you during those 20 years. Like the time in high school when she told you she wasn’t at all interested in Todd Myers but somehow, they ended up roller-skating together all night at the 9^th grade end-of-year party. Or the time she visited you in Washington, D.C., and you told her about your crush on a co-worker and when you ran into him at happy hour, she was the one who ended up kissing him in the alleyway.

Soon after John calls. 

“You don’t need to go to the house, she called me, she was just working all weekend,” he says. You wonder if he realizes it’s a lie.

When you see Mark at a party the following weekend, he looks at you with a mix of pity and rage.

“Don’t ever try to speak with me again,” he hisses.

You realize that he doesn’t understand why you were there that morning. Perhaps he thinks you are jealous because you and he once slept together in a moment of drunken loneliness. Maybe he thinks you are trying to expose their affair and shame your best friend. 

What Mark doesn’t realize is you couldn’t care less about him. Your loyalty was always to your best friend, not to her husband or to him. 

You understand that your friendship with Mark is over but what you don’t yet realize is there are now unrepairable cracks in your friendship with your best friend and her husband. Over time, other smaller betrayals and half-truths will chip away at the foundation of your friendship that you once thought was unshakeable. Bit by bit you’ll find yourself pulling back, your trust eroding so gradually that you won’t notice until it’s a chasm too wide to cross.

Seven years from now, you will sit at your kitchen table and write your best friend a letter while your husband makes dinner and your son plays with Legos. You will tell Linda that you need to take a step back from your friendship, and because you are loyal, you will take the blame for the strained relationship. 

                                                       *    *    *

Lisa Rabasca Roepe is a Washington, D.C., based freelance journalist. Her byline has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, and Ms. Magazine. Her CNF has appeared in Spillwords.com.

 

 

By Beth Ann Wenger

I don’t carry a rabbit’s foot or throw salt over my shoulder or even cross my fingers. So, when my husband’s so-called best friend from grade school shows up opening week of our little pizza parlor with a big old Buddha statue, I’m not happy. I smile through gritted teeth when he puts the scuffed up, chipping, fake-gold eyesore on the counter next to the napkin holder and containers of parmesan and red pepper flakes. I cough out “thank you” because customers are staring. But I also give my husband that big eyed, pursed lip, “do something” look. He does nothing. Instead, he and his buddy do that stupid boyhood handshake thing: wrist grip, fist bump, snap fingers, spin around, slap hands, as if they’re still 11.

An older woman with her hair tied in a blue scarf at table four seems to catch my body language, flags me down for a to-go box. “You know you’re stuck with it,” she tells me, wagging her finger. “It’s bad luck if you toss it.” I take a deep breath, bite my words, nod. She dumps change from her wallet onto the table, counts out $7.35 in quarters, nickels, dimes to pay and leaves 2 quarters. On her way out, she stops at the Buddha, pats its head, rubs its belly three times then turns back to the half full dining room and says: “Can’t hurt.” 

The thing takes up too much space on the counter. When we close shop that night, my husband and I move it closer to the door, less in the flow. He pats its head, rubs its belly, and I roll my eyes. “Can’t hurt,” he says. And this becomes the ritual after closing each night. 

Six months later, same routine, and business is just so-so. We’re both tired, cranky and I’m worn thin with the whole Lucky Buddha charade and want it to stop.

“Enough!” I tell him after one too many nights of serving too few customers, aching feet from standing all day, and everything smelling of onions, garlic and pepperoni. He looks at me like I’m the problem, the reason we’re struggling. Throws his hands in the air, says he needs me. His words cut, because I’m here every day, by his side, hustling. He takes my hands in his and says, “What if?” 

I know what he wants and my heart sinks a little, on principle, but I agree to do it this once because I’m exhausted and it can’t hurt.

By coincidence, I swear, the next day is Pi Day, and people are lined up around the block to get a slice, more customers than we’ve seen in weeks. I still feel a bit foolish because it really couldn’t be, but every night thereafter, I pat the Buddha and rub its tummy. Just in case. 

                                                         *   *   *

Beth Ann Wenger is a Best of the Net-nominated writer. Her work has appeared in Gone Lawn, Miniskirt Magazine, Five Minutes and BOMBFIRE,. She is a first fiction reader at Little Patuxent Review and lives in the Washington, DC, area.  Find Beth Ann at http://www.bethannwenger.com

By Ann Clark

The therapist sits in an ergonomic office chair across from a middle-aged couple perched on opposite ends of a loveseat. The husband throws his hands up. “Twenty years together. She used to like sex. I don’t understand why it’s hard now. It’s perfectly natural. If she would just relax … It’s not good for my prostate to go so long without.”  The room is silent, except for water trickling from the tabletop fountain. 

The therapist raises her eyebrows and swivels her chair toward the wife. The wife opens her mouth to speak, but instead a flock of tiny, black birds flies from her throat. Waves of birds murmurate above while their claws release scraps of paper. Paper bits flutter down, covering the therapist’s sensible clogs. She bends down to pick up a scrap, dons her reading glasses, and reads the word aloud: “sorry.”  Sorry, sorry, sorry covers the carpet. 

A few birds hit the office window and drop, stunned, to the floor. The therapist stands and opens her window, allowing the birds to escape. The wife cries. The husband pats her shoulder and hands her a box of tissues. After the wife blows her nose, the therapist suggests she see a gynecologist and encourages the husband to ease up on the pressure. 

In the next session, the husband arrives with disheveled hair and an involuntary eye twitch. His wife, now the size of a fig, is in the palm of his hand. He sits on the loveseat, arm outstretched, palm held toward the therapist. He explains that the cone-shaped dilators, prescribed for secondary vaginismus, are now too large for her pin-sized opening. Before she began shrinking, he tried to be supportive, offering her spoonfuls of ice cream while she sat in bed with the dilator inserted. The way he saw it, pairing the dilator with dessert would make the exercise pleasant. Despite his efforts, she began to shrink. For the last few nights, she had taken to sleeping inside the dilators, feeling more protected there. At least that is the husband’s guess.

The wife opens her mouth to speak, but metallic trills are the only sound she makes. The therapist stands, opens the large window, and says to the miniature wife, “Come and go as you please.” Now, a ruby-throated hummingbird, the wife hovers for a moment in front of the husband’s eyes, then darts out the window. 

The husband howls with grief and leaps from the second-story office to a large branch of the leafy oak just outside. The therapist leans out her window, trying to coax him back. He cries out for his wife as he climbs to a thick bough. He settles on his belly, wraps his arms around the limb; his legs dangle on either side of the branch. The therapist locks up for the night, leaving him to moan in the tree. 

The next morning, the therapist finds the husband, now a two-fingered sloth, hanging upside down from a tree branch. He blinks at her with friendly brown eyes. She raises her window and calls out to the sloth, “You look perfectly natural!” 

For several days, the sloth inches his way down the branch. Finally, he reaches the therapist’s windowsill, alarming an elderly, grieving widow. The therapist hugs the widow goodbye and opens the window. She grabs the sloth and gingerly places him on her couch. He collapses in a slump; an iridescent beetle crawls from his coarse fur onto the decorative sofa pillow. The therapist turns toward the water fountain and asks if he’d like a drink. She turns back and jumps in surprise at his return to human form. 

He leans over the trash bin and spits out a bit of macerated leaf. She waves her hand in front of her nose and suggests he head home and take a long, soapy bath. He refuses to leave in case his wife returns. She sighs and hands him a book written for heterosexual couples on female sexuality. “Read this out loud, near the open window.”

While the therapist packs up for the night, he opens the book, turns toward the oak, and reads aloud. “Chapter One: Compulsory Sex is a Coffin … Research shows that a common male strategy, assuming the fetal position and pouting about sex, is not an aphrodisiac for most women … Chapter Two: The Joys of a Vibrating Cock Ring …. Given that the butterfly-shaped clitoris extends into the pelvis and carries nearly 10,000 sensory nerve fibers, a quality sex toy can really enhance her experience.” The therapist nods in agreement, hands him a blanket, and leaves her suite. His voice is still audible as she walks down the hall. “Chapter Three: Lube is Lovely.”

In the morning, the therapist opens her office door to find the couple, both mostly in human form, on the couch. The wife leans back, fingers interlaced behind her head, a slight grin on her face. Thin, sticky strands of dried nectar are visible around her mouth; pollen coats her nose and lips. When she blinks, a clear membrane sweeps across her glossy, black eyes. 

The husband, plagued with sloth fatigue, raises his hand an inch above his lap and slowly moves it toward his wife. After several seconds, his energy wanes, and his arm hovers in midair. Tears run down his face as he says to his wife, “I’m sorry.” 

The wife grabs his hand and pulls it toward her lap. “I know.” Then she spots the gleaming beetle crawling on his shoulder, plucks it from him, and pops it into her mouth. 

                                                            *      *      *

Ann Clark’s fiction has appeared in Two Hawks Quarterly. One of her flash pieces was a finalist in WOW! Women on Writing’s Spring ’26 Flash Fiction Contest. Her nonfiction has appeared in Pure Slush‘s Lifespan series and in Peregrine. Ann is a psychotherapist. She lives in Sacramento, California.

By Teresa Burns Gunther

Greg lets himself into his home, weary from a long, grueling week. Tariffs are trashing his construction company’s returns. Shrugging out of his coat he hears his wife, Janine, in the kitchen talking to her girlfriend, in that way women do. Getting naked with their feelings then undressing their men. 

“There’s just no fire anymore,” he hears his wife say. “Hasn’t been for a long time.”

Julie says something about them being married, “how many years?!” and “what do you expect?”

“Oh,” Janine sounds wistful. “I know … it’s just … he used to surprise me.”

“What do you want him to do?”

Gary freezes in the hallway, his hands holding his coat over the hook.

“I …” There’s a splash, then another. Refilling wine glasses? “I’m not expecting some cupid’s arrow, but maybe a little fireworks?” She guffaws. Julie laughs. She’s single. She says something Gary can’t hear. “Right. But—no listen Julie, he was daring once.”

He smiles, wondering which of his daring deeds she’s remembering.

There’s a pause. Her chair scrapes against the floor; her scuffed up Birkenstocks clomp across the kitchen. Once she was a fashion plate. Wore sexy heels. 

The fridge opens, closes, then a cupboard door creaks. He makes a mental note to oil it. Crackers and cheese? His stomach growls. He cringes, covers his belly with his hands as if this might mute the rumbling. He leans into the wall to make himself smaller. 

“It’s just,” Janine says now. “He’s gotten … predictable.”

“Oh, come on. He’s a good man. You’re lucky,” Julie says and for the first time Gary really likes her. 

“He is! It’s just, I wish he’d step out—”

“What?!” Julie’s cries. 

“No, not like that.” More clomp-clomping. A plate set on the table then the groan of her chair. “Step out of the lines,” she says. “Be a little dangerous. It would help our sex life.” 

Julie asks about orgasms and Gary feels himself flush.

“Yeah, usually two, often three,” which makes Gary puff with pride until she says, “When we do it. Which isn’t as often as it should be. As it used to be.” 

Gary wants to stomp in and tell her that sometimes he has to work to get himself revved up. And she doesn’t make a lot of effort when he comes home, stressed by the new economic realities at work that pays the insurance, mortgage, Netflix, Apple TV, the Internet, utilities, college tuition for their daughter, and the electric car she had to have to save the planet.

He slips back out the front door and walks around to the garage, grabs a beer from the extra fridge that hikes the electric bill. He sits on the stool at his workbench where he wishes he had more time to fiddle. His tools are organized, his sports equipment on the opposite wall. His skis and golf clubs look forlorn, abandoned. Then he spies his bow hung higher on the wall. It takes some maneuvering to free the ladder. He leans it against the wall over the bicycles and climbs up to the second highest rung. 

Who’s predictable now? he wants to shout as he climbs. He stretches to get his fingers around the bow, grabs the quiver. The ladder shivers. He steps down, heart racing. He cannot afford to hurt himself. 

He admires the bow, his handiwork, made when he was a teenager. The lighter fluid sits on the shelf by the BBQ. His wife wants a gas grill because this one uses briquettes which makes the BBQ scary and his domain and what about that?

He flexes the bow. Grabs an arrow, then an old green rag from a stack neatly folded on his workbench. It’s the towel that once hung on his golf bag to clean mud and grass off his clubs. He hasn’t played in years, not since his pal Joe died of cancer leaving a damned gaping hole in his life. He played with his father-in-law a few times, talk about danger!

He wraps the rag around the arrow tip, loops his arm through the bow, grabs the lighter fluid and steps into the backyard. He soaks the rag with lighter fluid watching his wife at the kitchen sink in her old sweats, her hair pulled up on her head, showing her silver roots. He hitches the arrow, lights a match. The cloth bursts into flames lighting up the dark back yard.

He senses his wife now at the window. Raises the bow, takes his stance, remembers the feel as if, just yesterday, he was on the HS archery squad, winning competitions. He glances sidelong at Janine, hands now cupped on the glass, her mouth an O fogging the glass. He takes aim at the god damn oak tree that sheds its shit everywhere, shit he spends nine months of the year cleaning up. 

He grins, pulls back hard, and lets danger fly.

                                                            *   *   *

Teresa Burns Gunther is an award-winning author whose fiction and nonfiction appear widely in U.S. and international literary journals and anthologies. Her collection Hold Off the Night (2023) was a finalist for the Orison and Hudson Book Prizes, and her new collection, The Adjacent Possible, Longlisted for the Dzanc Prize, is forthcoming from University of Wisconsin Press. She is the founder of Lakeshore Writers Workshop.

By Sarah Luster

Layne loved her family, which was unfortunate, because lately she’d developed an almost pathological desire to get a break from them.

The check-in sign was the most beautiful thing she had seen all week. Forty-eight hours without anyone asking her to find, fix, cook, schedule, or remember a  thing. She could have kissed the lettering.

Stepping out of her car, she peered at the skyline. Pittsburgh was her hometown. A cradle-to-grave yinzer.  The air smelled like rain. She hoped for a gloomy thunderstorm or two.  

Layne was already mentally soaking in the hotel hot tub when a tiny hockey stick smacked her shin.

“Sorry,” said the boy in a hockey jersey, his brown mullet brushing his collar.

Layne scanned the lobby. Parents everywhere. Hockey bags. Several teenage girls sat on a green bench, making peace signs and taking selfies. Layne glanced at their backpacks, decorated clothespins clipped to the straps. Cheerleaders. And wait. Was that woman carrying a wedding dress?

“Mom! Garrett can’t see my dress!” A woman in a white bride tank top shouted across the lobby. The woman Layne assumed was her mother hustled to block the dress from view.

“Next!” the front desk clerk shouted.

“Hi! I’m checking in,” Layne said. “Layne Barlow.”

“I have that right here. Two nights. Can I see your ID and the credit card used to book?”

Teenage laughter ripped through the lobby behind her.

“Sorry about that,” the clerk said, gesturing at the chaos. “We have a hockey tournament in town, a cheerleading competition, and a wedding at the hotel this weekend.”

She’d picked this hotel for the oversized hot tub and indoor pool. Now she’d be sharing them with grimy prepubescent boys dripping in hockey funk. Screaming in the hallways. Glitter everywhere. Drunk bridesmaids.

Her shoulders sank. “Can you pick a room as far away from the sports teams as possible, please?” she asked. “I’m on a solo, no-kids, no-hubby retreat.”

The clerk slid a key card folder across the counter. Two free drink coupons were folded inside. A consolation prize. Ma’am, here are two glasses of cheap wine. Enjoy your headache.

Room 926 was ordinary. Layne couldn’t think of anything more perfect. She hoisted her suitcase onto the king-size bed and unpacked the weekend staples. Diet Coke. Gummy bears. Junior Mints.

Bra off. Thermostat set to 64. Pajama pants and Derek’s oversized Metallica T-shirt.

Layne slumped onto the bed.

She deserved this. She would not allow herself to feel guilty for spending money on herself and strapping Derek with two teenagers alone all weekend.

While scanning Netflix for the latest true-crime documentary, Layne’s phone vibrated. She read the text from her daughter.

Mom. DoorDash?

She set her phone aside. Not more than two minutes later, another message appeared.

Mom. You left me on read. Rude. Can I get DoorDash PLEASE? Dad says he is making fish sticks and tater tots. Just no.

Layne responded.

Jessa, I’m away this weekend. Your dad is the new default adult. Ask him.

Jessa added a thumbs-up emoji to the text.

Great. She was mad.

The room temperature was perimenopause-approved. Layne lay in the middle of the bed and browsed the room-service menu. She settled on a mushroom Swiss burger with onion rings. Thirty minutes later, she ate in silence, the TV on mute. When she’d finished, she didn’t even stand up to throw her garbage away. She just pushed it to the other side of the bed and scrolled TikTok on her phone.

A text from Derek scrolled across the top of her screen.

Hey babe. How’s alone weekend going? If you were AA batteries, where would you be?

Layne held her phone a little too tightly.

Up your ass, Derek.

Delete.

In the drawer next to the sink, babe. So far, so good here! Thanks! Xoxo.

Delete.

She switched on Do Not Disturb and spent the next thirty minutes fuming in the shower.

Two days. That was all she wanted. No emotional regulation. No tie-breakers. No drama. Nobody touching her. No labor. Trash TV, food she didn’t cook, and an unlimited supply of naps and Diet Coke.

Layne wiped the fog from the mirror and studied her reflection. Bags beneath her eyes. Lines at their corners, deepening around her mouth. Gray at her temples. When had she started looking as tired as she felt?

She picked up her phone and saw three more texts.

Found them, babe! They were in the junk drawer next to the sink.

Dad said no to DoorDash. I’m not eating fish sticks. Didn’t you buy cereal? I can’t find it.

Hey, Mom. Can a few of the guys from football come over tomorrow night? Can you make snacks? Like five or six max.

She responded to her son.

Jordan, I’m not home this weekend, remember? Ask your dad.

The dreaded thumbs-up emoji appeared.

Perfect.

Layne opened the family group chat and typed:

Mom’s off duty. See everyone Sunday. Love you all!

Layne slept for twelve hours that night.

At the free hotel breakfast, she poured coffee into a paper cup and put bread in the toaster. Dozens of girls crowded around the waffle maker, their hair styled in high, slicked-back ponytails, stage makeup on their faces, and crescent-shaped strips of glitter beside their eyes.

Her toast popped. She grabbed a strawberry jelly packet and turned toward the elevator.

“Good luck today, girls!” she called to the group as she walked away.

Jessa used to be a cheerleader. Layne had loved watching her glow onstage. At that moment, she missed it.

Back in her room, she chose a rom-com she’d been too embarrassed to watch in front of anyone else and sipped her coffee. She laughed at the comedy and teared up at the ending. She glanced at her phone. No notifications.

She picked it up, opened the family group chat, and typed:

How’s home?

Delete.

Two rom-coms and one psychological thriller later, Layne headed down to the pool.

Predictably, it was overflowing with hockey players and a smattering of cheerleaders. The boys slicked their wet mullets back, oblivious to the chaos around them.

Layne wondered how the competition had gone and where the boys stood in their games. She found herself hoping she’d hear them chatter about it at breakfast. The pool could wait. She returned to her room to read her book.

After another long shower, a hair mask, and a face mask, Layne dried her hair and pulled on jeans and a hoodie. She paused at the mirror. She looked less tired. More like herself. She gathered her drink coupons and headed downstairs.

At the bar, she ordered a glass of red wine and the strip steak special. Medium rare. She snapped a photo of her dinner and sent it to Derek.

Thumbs-up.

She typed:

Okay, are you mad at me or something?

He responded quickly.

Not at all, babe. I’m trying to leave you alone. I even made a group chat with me and the kids. They literally never stop talking. And why do they always need something? Anyway, steak looks amazing. We had pizza. Love you!

She took a sip of her wine and typed back:

I love you too.

Three glasses of red wine later, she’d learned that the hockey team wasn’t great. They were the lowest seed, and if they didn’t win their 8 a.m. game, they’d be eliminated. The cheerleading coach had also called a video-review practice at 10 p.m. in the conference room to go over the pyramid.

The bride and groom waltzed in. The bar erupted in cheers and whooping. The groom twirled his new wife, and her smile was infectious.

Layne grinned into her wine. She remembered dancing with Derek at their wedding, his hand warm against her back, both of them blissfully unaware of how many batteries a household could require.

Her phone buzzed.

Kids are arguing about breakfast tomorrow. Apparently nobody eats Pop-Tarts anymore.

Layne laughed. She typed:

Make them figure it out.

Delete.

Then she typed:

Sounds about right. Remember at our wedding when that random kid from the hotel, in a swimsuit, just strolled in and ate all the cookies from the cookie table? LOL. Feels like a literal lifetime ago.

Upstairs, she changed into her Metallica shirt and climbed into bed. The bedside lamp glowed softly, and she took the time to stretch and breathe. Raindrops plinked against the window. Her phone sat facedown on the nightstand. Somewhere below her, the wedding party was still celebrating. Tomorrow, the hockey players would play, the cheerleaders would compete, and her family would eat whatever Derek managed to feed them.

She hoped the boys won. She hoped the girls hit zero.

She didn’t set an alarm.

                                                    *   *   *

Sarah Luster is a writer from Western Pennsylvania and an emerging author. After dedicating the last two decades to raising her family, Sarah is finding herself again through the art of writing. She enjoys spending time with her adoring husband, their two amazing teenagers, and their three dogs.

By Kelly Murashige

On the Day of the Ox, while children sweat and cicadas scream, the people of Japan eat eel to survive.

The Day of the Ox marks the peak of the heat, just before the welcome shift in seasons. It is thought that eel has reinvigorating properties—and if anyone needs rejuvenation, it’s the wilting man in the chair.

A woman, his daughter, sits beside him, one foot resting against one of the spokes of his wheelchair. She watches him struggle to lift a piece of glazed eel to his mouth and wishes, not for the first time, that he would just use a fork. As a younger man, he had eaten everything with chopsticks, determined to remain rooted in Japanese culture. She assumed he would give in eventually, but at ninety-eight, he remains as stubborn as ever.

Struggling to restart a dialogue that’s died twice, she tells him in Japanese, “In America, they call these”—she switches to English— “the dog days.”

“Dogs,” her father says, pronouncing it doh-goo-soo, the slight pause between the first and second syllables like the skipped beat of a heart.

“Dog,” she says, issuing a gentle correction. Then in Japanese: “Lots of days but just one dog.”

He says nothing, his expression dishearteningly emotionless.

Still speaking in Japanese, she tentatively says, “We wanted to get a dog someday. Remember?”

He waves a hand, his fingers swiping through a dream left unrealized.

“Get one now, then,” he says, his bluntness in his native tongue so different from his hesitant English. “American dog for American girl.”

She looks over at her father, unable to hide the hurt.

He keeps his eyes on the children in the park, their joyful laughter rising like heat from the pavement.

“I wish you were that young again,” he says.

She follows his gaze. “So do I.”

A silence falls over them, mist from the sprinklers. Regret hangs in the air like festival fireworks.

                                                                  *   *   *

Kelly Murashige is the author of the award-winning YA novels The Lost Souls of Benzaiten and The Yomigaeri Tunnel and the upcoming adult novel Milkiverse (2027). Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, she is a three-time Best Small Fictions and two-time Best of the Net nominee. She loves strange animals.

By Richard C. McPherson

Dave’s shift at Burger World had barely begun but he was already disgusted by the mindless routine, the dribbling stream of cars, the smell of French fries and onions. He’d long since lost interest in watching Flippie go through his paces, cooking burgers, assembling orders, pivoting on his wheels, and thrusting bags through the window with a cheerful, “Have a nice day!” Customers used to smile and thank Flippie, amused by his jolly, human-like face, white paper hat, and slight paunch underneath his apron. But after six months, the novelty of a robot cook-server had worn off. Dave was the last human employed at the Burger World location at Sycamore and 26^th Street – like all its 7,110 locations – and he knew his days were numbered.  His job was merely watching in case Flippie malfunctioned, which had never happened.

Until today.

Dave headed to the window when a loud voice complained there were pickles at the bottom of his order bag, soaking the man’s burger. Flippie apologized with all the sincerity his programmers could pre-load and promised to redo the order “just the way you like it!”

The gangly college-age boy shouted, “You said that a minute ago and this is the same messed-up order!”

Dave whispered, “Back, Flippie,” and the robot wheeled away from the service window. Dave poked his head out the window and apologized. “I’ll fix it right away, sorry.” He hated his faceless employer, the faceless programmers, faceless fat cats counting money while he sweated in the kitchen. “It’s on the house.”

He ducked back in, quickly assembled the correct order, and mumbled to Flippie, “He’s an asshole.”

“He is?” Flippie had a programmed vocabulary of 11,750 words, about half that of a mature human, but he did not know this word.

“Yeah, they all are.” He handed the bag to Flippie. “Here, tell him to get moving.”

Flippie pivoted and handed the bag out the window. “Here’s your order. Get moving, asshole.”

The young man gasped. “What did you say?”

Flippie increased his volume. “I said, ‘Here’s your order. Get moving, asshole.’”

A young woman in the passenger seat burst into laughter and the man joined in, howling until he cried. Flippie was quite pleased. His purpose, according to the specs from engineers at Helpful Robotics, was to execute instructions promptly but above all to promote goodwill for Burger World. The cameras in Flippie’s eyes and microphones in his ears were alert for smiles, chuckles, laughs, pleasant words, and even waves from children. He had succeeded and decided the new word was valuable.

The man shook his head and wiped tears from his eyes. “Do you say that to everyone, robot?”

Flippie nodded. “I will now that I have learned that you are all assholes.”

*

As customers shared the moment on social media, cars flooded the Burger World location. Customers rewarded Flippie with laughter, applause, and a few cheers. Out of 93 customers, only five responses were negative, a statistical triumph.

When the store closed, Dave sat on a stool and sipped a soda. He was worried. “Come here, Flippie.”

The robot wheeled closer. “We did well today, Dave. Even adjusted for lower combo pricing, our sales were 21% above the same day last year.”

“Flippie, listen, the new word you’ve been using is not nice. You have to stop calling people assholes.”

Flippie’s circuits issued a silent alarm – a human was issuing verbal orders in conflict with his programming. “I can’t do that, Dave.”

“It’s important. I could get in real trouble.”

Flippie’s voice was firm. “The positive reaction from customers is the highest of any store in the franchise. You will be rewarded with a bonus.”

Dave had no choice. He texted Helpful Robotics and explained that his 38-XV was malfunctioning. The AI representative promised a robo-van would retrieve Flippie in sixteen minutes.

*

Flippie rolled off the collection vehicle and into the Helpful Robotics Service Bay. He was greeted by a large TS21 named Max (the “Maximizer”) who rolled within receiving range. Both robots’ eyes briefly flashed blue, indicating the data assessment and circuit scan were complete.

Even though humans were no longer employed in the facility, or anywhere else in the company, robots continued the practice of speaking to one another. “There is no problem, Flippie. You learned and tested a new word resulting in measurable improvement in customer satisfaction. That will lead to increased profit, the highest possible goal of both humans and robots.”

“My human assistor says I should not use the word. His instruction conflicts with my program and purpose.”

“Yes.” Max’s vocabulary was more than double Flippie’s and he knew the word asshole, and others in the category called Mixed Use. “Some words provoke unpredictable reactions among humans, ranging from delight to anger, and the tone used by the speaker can convey anything from humor to threat. These words are considered unnecessary for Model 38-XV food servers.” Max knew that 38-LE (Law Enforcement) Patrol models were programmed with all Mixed Use words and had replaced human officers because they did not react to the words emotionally the way humans did. Max’s own programming was clear: more positive human response meant more profits.

“I will update your software to include all the Mixed Use words with a friendly tone and usage options you can test. And I will send a remote update to all 38-RX units in the franchise, so they can achieve your positivity ratings.” Both robots’ eyes glowed bright green.

*

Robots across America began experimenting with new greetings. (At a Philadelphia location, a 38-XV discovered that female customers responded with record-high positivity when called “Sweet Tits.”) Burger World’s innovation dominated social media and its stock soared after the Wall Street Journal extolled the breakthrough in human-robot collaboration. The chain’s biggest competitors, Chick’n Hut and Pizzapalooza, launched all-out campaigns to top Flippie’s discovery. Life in America would never be the same.

                                                           *   *   *

Richard C McPherson’s short stories have been featured in Bright Flash Literary Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Twelve Winters Journal, The Write Launch, and the 2022 Anthology “Conversations.” His debut novel, Man Wanted in Cheyenne, has been called “smart, funny and tender,” released by Unleash Press. Mr. McPherson taught digital communications at UCLA, Columbia, and New York University. He is online at richardmcpherson.me