By William Falo

I looked at the town I loved, knowing my childhood home would soon become part of my past.

I had been chosen to go to Dublin to record an album and perform. It was the opportunity I’d dreamed about for years. In the morning, I’d take a train from Galway, but first I wanted to hear some of the local musicians I’d read about online.

I’d been lucky. After a wealthy uncle left my mother money, I’d had lessons, teachers, and mentors other singers couldn’t afford. Then an agent heard me perform and offered me a contract.

The last contract they were offering that year.

I signed it.

My mother told me to go.

She’d been lonely since my father committed suicide. Alcohol had destroyed his liver and, eventually, his mind. Leaving her alone bothered me more than I admitted, but she insisted this was my chance.

So I left.

In Galway, I visited several pubs before making one final stop — O’Connor’s, where Ed Sheeran had once filmed part of Galway Girl.

I walked inside and felt as though I’d entered someone’s crowded den. Books and household treasures filled shelves around the bar.

Then a red-haired girl stepped onto the small stage.

Her hair was braided down both sides of her face. She picked up an acoustic guitar as I ordered a Guinness.

“My name’s Fiona.”

She strummed a few chords and began singing “Wild Mountain Thyme.”

My mother’s favorite song.

Something about Fiona’s raspy voice brought tears to my eyes. I pictured Mum sitting home alone and wondered how long it would be before I saw her again.

Fiona moved through several Irish classics before singing her own songs.

That’s when everything changed.

Her lyrics were raw, intimate, painful. They weren’t just songs. They were pieces of her life.

And they were better than mine.

That hurt.

But what hurt more was looking around the pub. Everyone had gone quiet. A woman wiped tears from her eyes. A man stared into his drink.

I’d never made an audience feel like this.

When Fiona announced a break, I slipped outside and leaned against the wall.

I’d spent my childhood being bullied because I was small and terrible at sports. Music became the place where I could matter.

But standing outside that pub, I wondered if my music had ever mattered to anyone the way Fiona’s did.

The door opened.

Fiona stepped outside and lit a cigarette.

“Want one?”

“No thanks. You shouldn’t either. It’ll ruin your voice.”

She laughed. “I know. I’m Fiona, by the way.”

“Tom. And you’re amazing.”

“Nah. Average.”

“I know someone in Dublin. I’m going to tell him about you.”

Her expression changed.

“Listen, Tom. I’m tired of disappointment and guys making promises. Don’t promise something you can’t deliver. Girls don’t like that.”

She crushed the cigarette beneath her shoe.

“I’m sorry.”

“No worries. Good luck in Dublin.”

She handed me a card with her Instagram information and disappeared inside.

I started to follow her.

Instead, I pulled out my phone.

“Ed, I’m not coming.”

“What? I need you. I promised the producers a new artist.”

“I found you one.”

“Don’t blow this chance, Tom.”

“Just listen.”

I opened the door and held my phone inside while Fiona sang one of her original ballads.

When it ended, I put the phone back to my ear.

“Well?”

“She’s good,” Ed said. “We can use a female singer.”

“I told you.”

“Send me her information. But understand something—if she gets the opportunity, you’re out.”

Through the doorway, I watched Fiona sing.

“Understood.”

I put my train ticket into an envelope along with some money and Ed’s number. Then I dropped it into Fiona’s tip box and walked away before she could see me.

An Irish goodbye.

When I arrived home, Mum stared at me.

Then she threw her arms around me.

“I think I’ll play locally,” I told her. “Maybe become an agent.”

She shook her head, but I saw the relief in her eyes.

She wouldn’t be alone.

                                           Six Months Later

One night, while searching YouTube for new musicians, I saw a familiar face.

Fiona.

One of her videos had gone viral. She was recording and preparing for a European tour.

I watched every video I could find.

When one ended, I realized a tear had fallen onto my desk.

Giving away my chance hadn’t ended my career. Because I’d discovered Fiona, I’d been hired as a talent scout. I still performed occasionally, but I’d discovered something I loved more.

Finding people who deserved to be heard.

That night, I went to a pub to watch a young singer.

He was good.

But good wasn’t enough anymore.

Fiona had taught me what I was looking for—that rare moment when a room became silent because everyone felt the same thing.

I headed toward the door.

Someone tapped my shoulder.

I turned.

Red hair.

Fiona.

“I quit smoking,” she said.

I smiled. “That’s great.”

She suddenly wrapped her arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe.

I didn’t know what to say.

Finally, I managed, “I should get home. My mother’s making dinner.”

Fiona pulled back and looked into my eyes.

“No, Tom. No Irish goodbye this time.”

She smiled.

“Call your mum and tell her your girlfriend is coming to dinner.”

Before I could answer, she kissed me.

Then we walked out of the pub together.

This time, there was no Irish goodbye.

                                                   

                                                             *   *   *

William Falo lives with his family, including a papillon named Dax. His stories have been published or are forthcoming in various literary journals. He can be found on X @williamfalo, Bluesky @williamfalowriter027.bsky.social @ WilliamFaloand Instagram @william_falo.

By Joli Huelskamp

“I don’t see it anywhere,” said my husband, emerging from behind the naked Christmas tree. “Are you sure we even hung it?”

It was New Year’s Day, when we traditionally took down the holiday decorations. I was pretty strict about this, probably in response to my mother’s tradition of leaving her tree up until late January. We always joked that some year she’d be hanging red hearts on its dry branches in February. 

“Of course we did,” I insisted. “We hung all five of them and now I only have four.” I held out the square of tissue paper where the tiny ornaments nestled: wooden snowmen, no bigger than a thumbnail, each different, painted with a few quick brushstrokes and hanging from cheerful cords: pink, yellow, blue, orange. The green one was missing.

We bought them at a flea market for our first Christmas tree. We’d acquired some unusual ornaments over the years, including a cute helicopter piloted by two rabbits, but the snowmen were our favorites.

“We’ll be late to your mom’s,” said my husband. “Let’s check again later tonight.”

Mom’s house still glowed with holiday spirit – the big tree with glass beads, the little tree with popcorn strings, the crèche with the ox missing a horn – but everyone was in letdown mode. My sister had already exchanged the scarf I’d given her and my niece said the carrot cake I’d brought “looked like puke.”

Our apartment felt bare and sad when we got home later. No sign of the missing snowman, either. My husband carried the tree out to the dumpsters. “The holidays are officially over,” he announced on his return.

*

The commute next morning was cold and rainy. The “waterproof” boots my best friend had given me weren’t; I dried my feet with paper towels in the restroom. Most people were back at work, but the office was subdued. A few people shared photos of family dinners, Florida vacations. At ten, an executive summoned our team into the conference room for an announcement: Our supervisor had been let go early that morning, we were now reassigned to the Conversion effort, and we had to move from our cubes to bullpens by end of day to make room for incoming consultants.

Our cafeteria table was gloomy at lunchtime; the supervisor had been well-respected. The cafeteria’s A-team was clearly off duty; the beef stroganoff was gray and the salad bar lettuce was slimy. After moving to my new station in the bullpen, I began reviewing the Conversion requirements. It was going to be a tangled, complex, migraine-inducing monster of a project. “The holidays are officially over,” announced a coworker as we left the building together and walked out into the rain.

*

The freeway was backed up. It was late when I pulled into the apartment complex and looked for a spot. My headlights caught something familiar as I drove past the pile of discarded Christmas trees by the dumpsters.

Our apartment felt warm and cozy. My husband had dinner well underway; a crisp salad sat on the table and a rich stroganoff aroma filled the room. “What a day!” he called from the kitchen. I walked over and gave him a hug.

“The holidays are officially over,” I announced with a smile, holding up the fifth snowman by its cheerful green cord.

*    *   *

Joli Huelskamp lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Her work appears in a number of online journals, including Brilliant Flash Fiction, ONE ART, and Kings River Life. Please visit jolihuelskamp.com for a complete list.

By Afsana Triya

“Why do you write every night?” asked my butterfly pea plant.

I pretended I didn’t hear her, ignored her effort to make a conversation, and continued to write.

She was quiet for a while. Then, “What is it you write?”

She received no answer from me.

It was already past midnight, so I got up and went to sleep.

The next evening after dinner, I sat on the balcony doing my usual writing.

“Are you writing in your journal again?” the butterfly pea plant asked.

“Poems,” I said. “They aren’t published yet.”

“Can I see them?”

“No.”

“This house is so quiet. I never see you having any visitors.” She hesitated before adding, “You don’t have many friends, do you?”

I didn’t respond.

As it was growing very chilly outside, I plucked three of her flowers to make myself a warm drink.

I went to the kitchen. As I turned the stove on and watched my water boil, I wondered if I should have thanked her for the flowers. Nah, I can’t be too friendly.

I went back to the balcony with my drink.

“Listen, Pea,” I said. “I’ll be away for a week on a work trip. I’ve asked my husband to water you on time. Good night.”

“Will he remember?” Pea asked.

“He will,” I said, and went inside.

That was the first time I had ever spoken to the plant without her asking me something first. 

A week later, on my first night back, I sat down to write. I immediately noticed my butterfly pea plant was gone. In her place stood a sunflower. 

I went to ask my husband, but he was already fast asleep. 

The next morning over breakfast, I asked, “What happened to my butterfly pea plant on the balcony?” 

“Oh, that one,” he said. “I was so busy with work that I forgot to water it, and it dried up. But I bought you a sunflower instead! I remembered you liked sunflowers.”

“That was a long time ago,” I said softly. “I wish you had just watered it.”

The next day, I went to the nursery and bought another butterfly pea plant. 

That night, I carried my notebook to the balcony earlier than usual. As I started to write, I kept glancing at my new plant.

After a long silence, I finally asked, “Do you want me to recite one of the poems I wrote?”

No answer.

Thankfully, this one asked no questions.

                                                                      

                                                            *    *    *

Afsana Triya is a digital artist and writer residing in Bangladesh. Outside of writing, she enjoys reading, gardening, and cooking. Her poems grow from emotions and experiences she has carried throughout her life.

By Monica Kagan

I soak in the bath and inhale you, barely visible through steam. Your wild hair casts a lattice shadow around your face and neck. You talk again about hiking through Turkey. “Now isn’t a good time,” I say. 

After my bath, we devour oven-baked croissants, the chocolate coating your lips. I lick off the chocolate. We forget to close the curtains. 

The morning sun pierces my skull. As I rise, my shadow lingers on your cold empty sheets.

                                                                      *   *   *

Monica Kagan lives by the sea in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. She identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Her work appears in: New Coin Poetry Journal (ISEA, Rhodes University), FICTION on the WEB, and Crack the Spine, among others. 

Twitter/X: @MonicaOFAH 

Instagram: @monicakaganpoet

By Michael A. Clement

Nobody attended the gold panner’s funeral except the gravediggers. They set the granite tombstone on his grave beside the gentle stream where he’d spent decades prospecting. The epitaph, inlaid with fool’s gold, read:

As gold is tested by fire,

A man’s soul is tested by failure.

At night, the prospector’s ghost still pans for gold.

                                                          *   *   *

Michael A. Clement was born and raised in San Diego, California. He spent most of his career in financial services. Since 2006, he has lived in Hong Kong. Now retired, he writes science fiction as a hobby. He has self-published several books on Amazon. You can find him online at: http://www.facebook.com/Michael.A.Clement.Books

By Meg McGovern

11 pm. I am in a deep REM sleep when the light from my phone startles me awake.  His name scrolls across the top. I fumble to grab it, my voice course, “What’s the matter?” 

“I’m in the hospital, Mom. I had a bad rock-climbing fall…about 20 feet down. The ER is running tests, but no head injury.” I’m holding my breath while he talks. With his words, no head injury, I breathe out. “I broke a big bone in my arm and I’m in a cast from fingers to shoulder.” The tears are pooling in my eyes; my heart is beating rapidly. This boy of mine is taking years off my life.

“Oh my God, Pete. What happened?”

“Mom, I’ll fill you in tomorrow. I’m waiting for more tests. I need surgery, probably screws and a plate. I’m okay,” he says trying to reassure me.

Lying in bed, my mind goes to a dark place, the thought of losing my son, even though he has survived this fall. This is not the first time the phone has rung with news of an injury. The time when Peter was skiing in Vermont. His friend’s mom called to say Peter landed a ski jump on his side and fractured his collar bone. It was bad, she had said. That was his third collar bone break, the first two from playing football. There was the call when Peter was living in Utah, skiing at Alta every day, when he jumped off a cliff, landed with a ski pole to the side of his nose. The result a concussion, and a severe break needing surgery. 

I roll from my side to my back, to my side again for the rest of the night, dozing here and there, but my thoughts and worries keep waking me. I think about our mother-son bond. Peter and I can read each other’s emotions. We have deep conversations about life, what’s on our minds, hopes and dreams. I know people who have lost sons or daughters to cancer, to suicide, to accidents. How does a mother go on without that ripping her apart? Years ago, I asked my friend whose son had a diving accident and became a quadriplegic, how she went on. She said, “I have to, and you’d do the same.” 

Am I that strong? I wondered. With each of Peter’s injuries I talk to a higher power and plead to keep him safe.

Peter calls back at 8 a.m. He was up most of the night having CT scans and more x-rays. Surgery for his broken Ulna bone, the longest bone in the forearm that connects the wrist to the elbow, is scheduled for 2 p.m that day. 

“Tell me what happened, Peter.” As he spoke, I imagine the scene with my son falling like a meteor from the sky.

“My buddy and I were rushing to get down the rocks before dark. We made mistakes. We forgot to knot the rope. I was belaying down, and the rope went through the hook instead of catching. I felt myself falling and falling, then landing hard on my back and hitting my head. Ry tried to stop my fall, and he saved me from something far worse.”

“Geez, Pete.”

“There was blood gushing like a geyser from somewhere. Ry checked my head, legs, then arms. It was my left arm. He tied a shirt around my bicep to make a tourniquet and called 911 to meet us at the car, 1 mile out. Ry helped me out of the harness and my climbing shoes, put on my Bedrock sandals and we hoofed it out as fast as we could. The ambulance was there and took me to the hospital. It could have been so much worse, Mom.” His voice crackled, “Grandma Bunny was watching over me. I used to think I was invincible.”

My voice crackled back, “None of us are, Pete. You have a guardian angel who knows I couldn’t go on without you, and you have a full life to live.”

                                                              *   *   *

Meg is an author, speaker, and retired teacher. She authored We’re Good, The Power of Faith, Hope & Determination. Other writing can be found in Brevity and Five Minute Lit. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Fairfield University. Her memoir, Shifting Places, was a finalist for the 2023 Fairfield University Book Contest. She and her husband retired in New Hampshire to be near the lakes and mountains. Aside from reading and writing, Meg loves to swim, kayak, hike with her dog, ski, and spend time with her husband, sons, their partners, and her 2-year-old grandson.

https://linktr.ee/megmcgovern

Andrea Tillmanns for The Right Side, The Wrong Bed (fiction)

SE Wilson for losing it all (fiction)

Karen Zey for Ticked (CNF)

Lisa Brodsky for Somewhere Along the Way (CNF)

By Dipti Ranganathan

Marisol twirled around the coffee table in her red, frilled dress, skimming the glass with her bandaged knees, clapping overhead in time to the Bee Gees’ greatest hits. She reached her crescendo with a classic Travolta move and bowed. We jumped to our feet and clapped. She looked around the room, as if it were filled with adoring fans, tears in her eyes, and sighed.

“And now I die happy,” she said, bowing deeply as her chest rose and fell. I rolled my eyes and Oliver slapped my knee.

“This is ridiculous,” I said, as Marisol skipped off to pick a new song.

“Jesus, she’s only six. Leave her alone.”

“Exactly! All this death talk from a six-year-old? Where does that even come from?”

“Maybe she senses your worry?”

I rubbed my eight-month belly. “She has no reason to think that I’m worrying.” 

“Maybe she does,” Oliver said, but hesitated as Marisol bounced back into the room, her fingers wrapped around Lambeth, the Jelly Cat lemming. A strange choice of stuffed animal for a child, but that was Marisol. She shoved her way between us and rested Lambeth on her lap.

“When I am dying,” she said, “I’d like Lambeth to sit next to me. She’ll be in a fancy chair, all day and all night. We’ll listen to Bruce Springsteen, and I’ll dance like this.” Marisol swung her arms in unison from side to side in a fluid arc, snapping her fingers at each apex.

Where did this morbid obsession come from? It was not good for her, or for us. “Enough of this talk,” I said, and grabbed Lambeth, marching Marisol into her room as she tugged on my hand, crying and screaming. She sat on her bed, arms folded, staring at me, until she wiped her nose with her sleeve and slowly exhaled. Softened by her emotional control, I kissed the top of her head.

“I am calm now, Mommy. May I have Lambeth back? Please?”

I pulled her close and handed her the lemming. “Marisol, why are you talking about dying?” I asked.

“I’m talking about dying, cause I’m making a death plan.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Like your birth plan.”

“My birth plan?”

“Uh-huh. You and Daddy talk about it. A birth plan for the new baby, with music and everything. You’re going to have Daddy and maybe Grandma in the room when you go hee, hee, hee.” She let out her breath in staccato to demonstrate, as she jumped off the bed and hopped on one foot. “I’m already born, so now I need a death plan cause I’m not dead yet.”

“I see.” But I had no way of seeing. Of grasping the experiences that carved their way through Marisol’s brain. The infinite number of sounds, words, and stories that had sparked the neurons that developed the pathways that resulted in behavior that made me sad.

“Birth plans are different,” I said. “They make us happy. People don’t make death plans because they make us sad.”

“The baby didn’t have one when? Daddy said you packed up and went to the hospital, and you were sad.”

There it was. The story that had sparked the neuron that developed that pathway that created Marisol’s death plan.

“Mommy, you should’ve had a death plan for the baby.”

“The baby was just not ready to be part of our life. And you are right. We were sad.”

“But if you had a plan, your mommy and daddy and best friend would’ve been there, and it wouldn’t have been sad.”

I held her tight, rubbing my nose against her baby shampoo-scented hair. “You know the new baby is going to be just fine, right? A birth plan is all we need.”

Marisol nodded and clapped before running off to play with Lambeth. 

With any luck, Marisol, the six-year-old, would have forgotten all about her death plan by the next morning. But she had a point. How perfect it would be to die according to plan, with music and our best friend in a comfy chair by our side. How smart it would be to be prepared. A plan for every possible outcome. A kick in the belly demanded my attention. “Yes,” I replied. “A birth plan in which you get to meet your brilliant sister is all we need.”

                                                            *   *   *

Dipti Ranganathan is a first-generation Indian American whose parents immigrated to the United States in the early sixties. She has lived across the United States and currently resides in Chicago. While her formal education is in computer science, Dipti has a passion for writing stories. Her stories are rooted in experiences of assimilation, identity, and family. She was a finalist for the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers and has stories published in Old Lady Comedy Magazine and CafeLit.

By Rebecca Klassen

For nine months you’ve been eating the best things for our child. Shakespeare, Dickens, Bronte; you ate the shredded pages with chopsticks. I smashed the calculator and you swallowed the buttons and shattered microprocessor like aspirin. The mortarboard took you weeks; so chewy! Now you’re pushing and I see … azure curls, a tomato nose, pink cheeks, a rainbow two piece and flower brooch on our tiny baby’s lapel. The enormous shoes are your hardest push. He’s out. With white-gloved fingers he squirts us with water from his flower brooch, honks his nose, and we reach for him together, laughing so hard. 

                                                                   *   *   *

Rebecca Klassen is fiction editor of The Phare and lives in Gloucestershire. She won the London Independent Story Prize and was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Alpine Fellowship. Her stories have featured in Fictive Dream, Mslexia, Flash Frontier, New Flash Fiction Review, Baltimore Review, and on BBC radio.