By Meg Pokrass

After a month with the psychic, Dad slunk home. Said he’d been in a trance but the spell finally broke. “I’m home in exactly one piece.” 

Mom glared, said “Whoopee Hallelujah!” 

Took Dad’s hand and the two of them hip-bumped down toward tracks. 

Only then, did I hear the train.

                                                              *   *   *

Meg Pokrass is the author of nine collections of flash fiction and two novellas in flash. Her work has been published in three Norton anthologies of flash including Flash Fiction America, New Micro, and Flash Fiction International; Best Small Fictions 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023; Wigleaf Top 50; and hundreds of literary journals including Electric Literature, McSweeney’s, Washington Square Review, Split Lip, storySouth, and Passages North. Her new collection, The First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories by Meg Pokrass, is forthcoming from Dzanc Books.