By Sarah Freligh

Rita started working third shift at a 24-hour laundromat the week of Mary Jane’s accident, 11 p.m.-7 a.m. and overtime if Maxine is late, which turns out to be pretty much on the regular. Maxine shows up smelling like lust and Southern Comfort, but she can fold a fitted sheet absolutely flat in under a minute. The secret, she says, is to keep the corners tucked and flush, not to let them get all screwjiggy, something Rita can’t wait to tell Mary Jane when she visits her in the hospital. Screwjiggy, WTF. She brings Mary Jane a hot cherry pie from McDonald’s and a single knitting needle to scratch the itch inside her cast, only Mary Jane can’t feel a thing yet, thanks to pain meds and the wine slushie Rita sneaked in. Mary Jane’s mother flutters around the entire time Rita’s there and seeing as she’s a church lady, Rita makes sure to keep it clean: no fucks or motherfuckers or even asshats, even though Mary Jane’s doctor is a giant one. He says out loud that Mary Jane’s leg will heal in time but she won’t be whole again until she gets some serious psychiatric help, which is absolute BS. What does any man know about the night, how a smother of dark will make any girl lonely and more than a little screwjiggy? Make her want to lean out of an open window and howl at the full moon.

                                                                  *   *   *

Sarah Freligh is the author of seven books, including Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize, Hereafter, winner of the 2024 Bath Novella-in-Flash contest and Other Emergencies, forthcoming from Moon City Press in 2025. Her work has appeared many literary journals and anthologized in New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction (Norton 2018), and Best Microfiction (2019-22). Among her awards are poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Saltonstall Foundation. 

By Eric Kasten

An errant zephyr scented with notes of cedar and summer forest stirs my memory as the lake gently laps at the sandy beach.  The cottage is as I remember it, painted white with a large screened-in porch perched on cement blocks facing the lake.  Mullioned windows divide the light that reaches into the rooms within.  An age ago, a sign by the road announced that this cottage was modern, promising that running water, electricity, and an inside bathroom were included with the rental.  Today, with its peeling paint, listing porch, and roof carpeted with more mottled moss than shingle, it would be regarded as rustic and in disrepair.  It is the last of five cottages to survive and the result of merging two cottages into a larger summer home.  It is also pleasantly haunted, at least for me.

I pull open the screen door on the old leaning porch.  The door resists my tug as the frame is a bit askew.  I enter, cross the porch, and push open the lacquered pine-plank door leading into the cottage’s main room.  The door squeals loudly in greeting, having not been visited by a drop of oil in some time.  The interior of the cottage is lined with more lacquered knotty pine planks.  The blonds and browns of the wood blend and make the space feel like a continuation of the neighboring forest.  

I turn and look across the room into the kitchen.  A window is centered in the wall above the sink, locked shut with an ancient brass latch that you turn to open.  The kitchen counter is a little too low to be comfortable for an average-height cook.  A very old, but still serviceable, refrigerator is to the left, and a cooktop to the right.  A lady of middle age is carefully slicing up onions and green peppers on a small cutting board wedged between the sink and the cooktop.  A pot on the stove begins to boil and she stops cutting vegetables to break the dry spaghetti in half before carefully adding it to the boiling water.  She turns and pops the top off a quart mason jar of homegrown and canned tomatoes with a can opener.  Her hair is a touch grey and more wavy than curly and cut to stay out of her eyes.  She wipes her hands on her apron, smudging the farm scene depicted on the fabric with a bit of red tomato.  She often sews her aprons choosing a bright scene or pattern to help lighten her day.

“Making stove-top spaghetti, Mum?”  I ask quietly.

She continues cooking as if I’m not there and picks up the cutting board to slide the cut onions and peppers into a hot skillet with the knife.  The vegetables sizzle and sputter as if angry about being dumped into the hot pan.  The scent of cooking onions drifts across the room to where I stand watching.  I’ve watched her cook many times over many years.  I know that soon she will pour the tomatoes into the skillet with the onions and peppers, adding a pinch or two of salt and pepper to taste and maybe a little oregano or basil.

“I have to go, Mum.”

She turns and lowers her brow, glowering at me as only she can do, unhappy that I’m leaving, but smiles at me with understanding.

I leave, tugging the front door closed and ensuring the screen door is secured in its crooked frame.  I head down the gravel drive and up the hill through the woods.  As I approach a vast growth of lush green ferns thickly covering the woodland floor, my heart tugs to ask for a moment.  Beneath those ferns lies the scattered ashes of my mum and dad, brought north to a place they loved.   It was a last request from my dad that their ashes be scattered here.  And so, my siblings and I had brought their ashes north to a hill overlooking the lake to lie quietly together, caressed by the breath of the lake rippling through the ferns.  You see, my mum and dad loved this place as much as I do.  It was here where they were unfettered from the tireless cycle of life’s demands.  It was here where we were free to explore, swim, fish, and simply be a family.  

 I look out over the lake and my thoughts drift back to something my dad told me many years ago.  He’d turned, looked me in the eye, and told me quietly, almost as if he were asking permission, “We just want to be free for a while.”  He’d just retired, and Mum and Dad were heading out to travel the country, visiting old places my dad had not seen since his time in the Air Corps during the Second World War, and exploring new places they had not seen before.  They would also visit this land by the lake many, many times.   It would be here, under the ferns atop the hill, where they both could be free and at peace, leaving me behind to be pleasantly haunted by my memories.

                                                                    *   *   *

Eric Kasten lives in Michigan with his wife, Debbie, and two cats.  As a research scientist, he has co-authored numerous journal articles and book chapters on a variety of subjects including computer science, ecology, and informatics.  Recently, he has rekindled his interest in creative writing and hopes his readers enjoy what he has to say.  When he’s not writing, Eric enjoys roasting coffee, exceeding the speed limit while walking, and having long heartfelt discussions with his cats about their mysterious and unacceptable behavior.

 

By Roger Singer

stretching between

half thoughts

where memories

unwrap

releasing the 

soul with

offbeat breaths

from the ashes

beyond reality

at an uncommon

intersection

to the delight

of mischief

somewhere 

in the middle

of good and evil

while hastily

following 

foot prints

from another 

night of 

incomplete 

escape

*   *   *

Dr. Singer is a Poet Laureate Emeritus of Connecticut, and past president of the Connecticut Shoreline Poetry Chapter, in association with the Connecticut Poetry Society.   He has had over 1,500 poems published on the internet, magazines and in books and is a 2017 Pushcart Prize Award Nominee.

By Eli Daniel Ehrenpreis

She brakes suddenly and stares out the driver’s side window.  I assume she is watching something bad such as a tree smashed into a roof from the storm, or a lost dog. Then she climbs out leaving the car in the middle of the street and stands staring at the sky. I follow her eyes upward and then I see the rainbow. 

The colors are clear against the background of grey clouds pushing along as the storm winds are dying down. The rainbow arcs over the across-the-street neighbor’s roof then goes southward over the corner house where a swat team once waited, covers another house where the husband was escorted away and never returned, then at a 120-degree angle, loops past the roof where the lady who talks-too-much lives. Her geriatric husband pulls up the window shades for a closer look.  The prism from the light, now seen through the clouds, passes the window and reflects on their living room floor.

I put the car back in the garage. It’s Sunday, so traffic is insubstantial.  

A group of neighbors from around the block stand on the parkway in front of my place, taking pictures with their cellphones.  

A quiet woman from the east side of the street we don’t see too often crosses to join us. The longitudinal line forming from the apex of the rainbow lands right in the middle of her roof. 

Another neighbor nobody has spoken to in years walks over and addresses the group.

“Let’s stay here and watch the rainbow until it fades.”

“And disappears like me,” says the quiet neighbor, who unfolds a chair.

She says, “I can’t promise rainbows, but I do make good coffee.”

A few onlookers promise to visit sometime.

Then the rainbow light dims, and some in the group decide to leave.  

But most settle down to catch up, long after the evening blooms into a portrait of soft silhouettes.

                                                                *   *   *

Eli Daniel Ehrenpreis started life as a musician and then became a physician, educator, and researcher. He stopped seeing patients after major surgery. He has published many scientific papers and six medical books. His poetry and short stories are published in Reapparition, Pharos, Medicine and Meaning Journal, Hektoen International, Tamarind, 101 Words, and Star 82 Review. He lives with his wife Ana and a little dog named Fili in Skokie, Illinois.

By E.C. Haskell

The ocean lies calm around us, blues and greens, shifting shadows, glinting in the morning sun. We’re drifting with a steady breeze, our sail full and taut. I’m almost sleeping, lost in a daydream, when Huckleberry leaps from my lap.

His claws dig into my thigh, the equivalent of an electric shock. Jolted from my reverie, I watch as he scrabbles onto the teak deck. Tail high, he makes a beeline for the bow. A soft whine trails behind him. 

“Come back, Huck!” I yell after him.

He pays no heed. No surprise there. A small sheltie who I rescued from a hoarding situation several years ago, Huckleberry has a mind of his own. And a will to match. I open my mouth to call again, but Huck’s stopped cold at the tip of the bow. He hunkers down, staring forward, shivering. Huck is no coward, and no fool either. That shiver means trouble.

Leaning on the tiller, I bring our 20-foot Flicka into the wind, then jigger the sail so we stall, backwinded. I jump up and head for the bow.

Without warning, a sudden wind whips my pony tail sideways across my cheek. The boat shimmies sideways. I gasp and flatten myself on teak. The mainsail rockets across the cockpit, missing my head by inches. The mast shrieks its disapproval. 

The wind has shifted, enough to jibe the sail. I’m lucky the mast hasn’t broken, to say nothing of my head. I look to Huck. He hasn’t budged.

But the mainsail’s jawing, jiggling the boat like a penny arcade. That needs my attention. I crawl back to the tiller, pulling on sheets to trim the sail. Once that’s done, I grab my binoculars, skimming the water.

At first, I see only dancing waves. Then the shimmer of a porpoise, moving fast. It bounds from the waves, only to dive deep, disappearing. A gull cries overhead. I scan to starboard. 

A black dorsal fin appears, then vanishes, replaced by a black and white tail rising, up and up, a tower of pure muscle. Without warning, it flips against the ocean’s surface, sending seawater stinging in my eyes.

My breath lets go with a whoosh. 

“Orca,” I whisper. Then raise my voice. “Huck! Come!”

This time he listens, scurrying across the deck, pressing his little body against mine, still shaking.

I scan the waters, but the orca’s disappeared. I find myself counting the seconds, wondering when, and how, the whale, a female by the shape of her fin, might reappear.

It’s not even a minute, when that incredible creature – as long as the boat and far faster – shoots through the ocean’s surface, water drops glistening like diamonds around her. 

Huck and I huddle closer together, watching as she dives again. I’m not surprised to see an orca. They’ve been frequent visitors to the Strait of Juan de Fuca for centuries, if not longer. But lately their numbers have grown. They’ve become more aggressive. And more lethal, killing even some of the massive gray whales that visit our area in spring.

I keep a close eye on the waves around us. The female isn’t alone. Cruising just 15 feet behind us is the tall dorsal fin of a male. Then a second fin, a third and, with the smallest fin of all, a fourth. It’s only a baby, about nine feet long, its big brother sticking close by.

Counting the mother, this whale pod numbers five.

For some time, they linger, the mother leading the pack, occasionally spy-hopping as she sticks her black and white head out of the water to survey the area around her. I know she’s seen us – orcas have excellent eyesight both in and out of water – but we’re just a little boat, no match for her speed or power, especially when crewed only by a small woman and even smaller dog. 

As if to emphasize our insignificance, the mother whale lets out a blow, a cascade of white water that sprinkles our hull.

Is she playing with us? I’m not sure. But whatever, it ends abruptly. The massive muscle of her body coils. Her progeny spread out in a circle, well-drilled soldiers all. Tales of orcas attacking boats streak through my mind. But it isn’t us they’re stalking. Silently, they dive, black and white missiles headed for the deeps.

As we drift closer to the spot where they’ve gone down, a chill wraps itself around us. The ocean roils, a heaving, rocking motion. Huck snuggles closer, tucking his nose into my armpit.

Something pops up in the water beside us. A shredded mass of porpoise lung, trailing blood.

I tighten my grip on Huck. A cold mist rises from green waters, redolent of living and loss, decay and hunger and animal energy. Altogether it conjures the darkness that hunkers deep in all creatures. Even something as sublimely beautiful as an orca.

 I hold my breath, and an orca shoots up, black and white body draped in a sheath of streaming water. A second orca appears, two more, and finally the baby, twisting in delight. 

For nearly half an hour, they celebrate their meal. Breaching, spy-hopping, porpoising, splashing, whistling, jaw clapping, chasing each other down, then shooting up in a breathtaking ballet in black and white.

Finally, they settle and sink beneath the surface. I think them gone. But no. The mother’s head appears, not five feet off starboard. Her facing eye – a deep reddish brown encircled by blue – takes us in, two small creatures afloat on the surface of her world. Then she speaks, a whinny, punctuated with jaw claps and guttural pops. 

I stare at her. Not moving. Uncertain.

A nasal grunt and she opens her mouth, lips drawn back. Long rows of teeth – pointed, sharp and still bloody – glisten in the sun.

Her meaning is clear. I salute, and trim the sail to leave her be. 

*   *   *

E.C. Haskell lives on the edge of the Salish Sea with her family, three rescue dogs and a cougar who cries at night. After years writing nonfiction, including ads, documentaries and science based articles, she turned to fiction as a way to explore multiple realities. Thus far, she has contributed short stories to several publications, such as The Fantastic Other, Bright Flash and Adelaide. She is also at work on a novel. 

By Alastair Millar

In his now silent workspace, the Scientist sighed at the picture of his lost love. Despite all his efforts and devotion, she had left him as soon as she had the chance; “too controlling,” she’d called him. If only convincing her to stay had been as easy as creating her. 

                                                               *    *    * 

Alastair Millar enjoys good books, bad puns, coffee and traveling. His flash science fiction collection ‘Mars & More’ was published in 2024.  All his links can be found at https://linktr.ee/alastairmillar 

By Aashima Rawal

The station was louder than usual that morning, a chaotic symphony of voices, train announcements, and hurried footsteps echoing off the tiled walls. Emma stood by the platform edge, her fingers fidgeting with the strap of her shoulder bag. The 8:05 express had yet to arrive, and her heart raced in tandem with the flashing clock above—8:03, 8:04.

She glanced down the tracks, where the rails disappeared into the distant, shadowed tunnel. Her phone buzzed in her pocket—a message from Aaron. She hesitated for a second before pulling it out, her thumb hovering above the screen. “Come home, please,” it read. Short, desperate. Her breath caught, and she had to look away. Aaron’s words burned against her retinas.

Emma had left the night before, an argument still throbbing in her mind—a stupid argument, really, over something so trivial she couldn’t even remember how it had started. But she remembered the sharp words they’d hurled at each other. The tightness of Aaron’s jaw. The way he’d said, “Maybe we need space.”

Her shoulders slumped. She replayed that night over and over, the seconds ticking away until she could no longer tell if she was waiting for the train or for herself to come to a decision.

A shout broke her reverie—a child crying, the sound lost amid the rumbles and grinding metal of an approaching train. The clock switched to 8:05. The wind picked up, the express coming in fast, its bright headlights cutting through the station’s early morning haze.

Emma felt the vibration of the train underfoot as it approached. She took a step back, her phone still in her hand. Her thumb moved without her thinking, the screen lighting up as she replied: “On my way.” She hit send.

Then she heard it—a gasp. Emma turned her head just in time to see a flash of red—a balloon, slipping from a small child’s grasp, bouncing toward the tracks. A mother’s frantic scream ripped through the air as her little boy chased after it, his small legs darting out, oblivious to the express bearing down.

For one second, one terrible, elongated second, everything stopped. Emma felt her body move before her mind caught up—she lunged forward, her bag falling to the ground, her phone clattering to the concrete. Her fingers closed around the boy’s shirt, yanking him back with every ounce of strength she had.

The train roared past, deafening, a blur of metal that brushed the very edge of Emma’s sleeve. She fell backward onto the platform, the boy landing beside her, a scream dying in his mother’s throat as she ran toward them, sobbing.

Emma sat up, breathless, her vision swimming, her hands trembling as they let go of the child. The mother was there now, pulling the boy into her arms, her thank-yous coming out in gasps between tears.

The station returned to its chaotic rhythm. The train had gone. People stared, then moved on, their lives continuing without pause.

Emma reached for her phone. The screen had cracked, but she could still see the message she’d sent, glowing bright against the shattered glass: “On my way.”

A minute too late, and that child might have died. A minute too late, and Aaron’s words—her choice—might have gone unspoken, lost in the tunnel of indecision.

She stood, her legs shaky, and nodded at the mother who still held her child close. Emma took a deep breath, picked up her bag, and began to walk—away from the platform, toward the exit, back to Aaron. She wasn’t running away anymore. Time, fragile and fleeting, had given her one more chance.

She wouldn’t waste it.

                                                                    *   *   *

Aashima Rawal is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in publications such as FUTBOLISTA Magazine and NPQ Magazine. She enjoys crafting emotionally resonant stories that explore themes of resilience, transformation, and the intricacies of human relationships. Drawing inspiration from everyday life, Aashima seeks to capture moments that connect deeply with readers.

By Sarah Banks

The portrait of Benjamin Franklin stared up at Amelia as she placed the stack of one-hundred-dollar bills into the currency validator. She pressed a green button, and the machine whirred as the bills disappeared, one by one, into the black, square-shaped box.

“I’m almost finished, Mrs. Davis. Just running the bills through this machine to make sure I have the count right.”

Amelia didn’t mention that the currency validator also detected counterfeit bills as she looked up at the middle-aged woman, a regular customer at the bank whose eyes crinkled when she smiled. She wore an oval-shaped diamond on her left ring finger. Withdrawing this sum of money was uncommon, so Amelia focused on counting and authenticating it.

“Thank you, Amelia. I’m just glad everyone here is so thorough.”

“Of course.”

Amelia smiled as Mrs. Davis’s phone rang.

“I’m going to go over there to take this.” She fished the cell phone out of her purse and stepped toward the empty bank lobby.

Amelia nodded, then looked back down at the currency validator. The machine hummed, steadily sorting the bills Mrs. Davis had withdrawn from her savings account before spitting one into a side compartment. Amelia frowned and grabbed the bill. She pulled a counterfeit-detection marker out of a cup and drew a line near Benjamin Franklin’s hair. Instead of fading to the yellow streak that reflected a genuine bill, the line settled into a dark, inky shade.

Amelia furrowed her brow and suppressed a sigh as she pulled a different marker from the cup. She drew a line on the opposite side of the bill, and the slash immediately turned black. The bill was counterfeit.

Dammit.

A customer must have slipped the phony bill into one of the deposits she had accepted yesterday. During the afternoon rush, Amelia had neglected to check some of the small deposits for counterfeits.

She looked over at Mrs. Davis. The woman talked on her phone with her back to Amelia.

If Amelia kept the bill, the bank would force her to absorb the loss and assign the shortage to her drawer. While the bank would overlook a teller who misplaced twenty dollars from time to time, a large deficit would register a ping on the company’s radar. She sighed and tapped her foot in rapid beats.

Amelia had narrowly made last month’s car payment after buying her daughter a bicycle for her birthday. This month, she’d dipped into her savings account to pull together enough money to replace her house’s old heating unit.

She imagined passing the counterfeit back to Mrs. Davis. Amelia pictured the woman using the fake bill to purchase a larger diamond for her ring. Maybe Mrs. Davis would use the money to pay a suspect surgeon to perform an eyelift instead. The jeweler or the physician would unknowingly accept the fake bill and then attempt to deposit the money at a bank.

Amelia’s gaze wandered toward the teller window adjacent to the wall. She eyed the keys dangling from the lock in the drawer. Where was Pam? Probably in the break room on her phone. Amelia had warned her about wandering off and leaving the money in her drawer unattended. She looked at the empty hallway leading toward the break room and felt a nervous tingle settle in her stomach.

She was staring at Pam’s drawer when a voice jolted her from her thoughts.

“Counterfeit bill, huh?”

Jamie, the bank manager, peered over Amelia’s shoulder.

“Good thing you ran it through the machine. Is that a deposit or withdrawal?”

“Withdrawal.”

“Yikes. So you’ll have to take it as a loss against your drawer.” Jamie crossed her arms. “Be careful. I know we get busy, but you need to take the time to check every deposit for counterfeits. Even the small ones.”

Amelia nodded and handed the bill to her manager.

“I’ll take care of reporting it,” said Jamie.

As she walked away, Amelia opened her drawer and removed a fresh one-hundred-dollar bill to replace the counterfeit. She ran her fingers over Benjamin Franklin’s portrait. A glossy sheen covered the crisp paper. She popped the top off the counterfeit-detection marker to check the bill’s validity and looked over at Mrs. Davis. The woman had her back to Amelia as she placed her phone into her purse. Amelia’s hand shook as the tip of the marker hovered over the bill, but before Mrs. Davis turned around, Amelia put the top back on the pen. She laid the new bill on top of the stack of money.

“I have your withdrawal ready, Mrs. Davis. Sorry for taking so long.”

“No problem at all. I know you’re just doing your job.”

“Yes, ma’am. Those machines are really helpful.” 

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep Ronnie around until our daughter has her baby in October.” She eyed the portrait of Benjamin Franklin. “Even pay cash for his treatments.”

Amelia ran her fingers over the money, then looked at Mrs. Davis. “I understand. We’d both do anything to help our families.”

Amelia passed the bundle of bills across the counter.

“I guess I’ll see you next month,” Mrs. Davis said.

Amelia smiled and nodded as Mrs. Davis perched a pair of sunglasses on her nose. She turned around and walked out of the bank as Amelia pushed the currency validator back into the corner of her station.

*    *    *

Sarah Banks is a nurse living in Mississippi. Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears or is forthcoming in Fiction on the Web and Flash Fiction Magazine. Her poetry appears in Rust & Moth, Thimble Literary Magazine, Autumn Sky Poetry, Lit Shark Magazine, and elsewhere. Sarah enjoys traveling and working in her garden.

A Memoir by William P. Adams

During the summer of 1966, when I was ten years old, I frequently walked to Pacific Highway, crossed the busy road, and visited the three stores on the other side – TradeWell supermarket, Rexall Drugs, and Sprouse Reitz. Sprouse Reitz was a variety store that sold all kinds of interesting items, though their candy section paled next to Rexall’s. It even sold live animals like white mice and horned toads for terrariums. One day, I was looking at the mouse cage, and the furry ghouls were feasting on one of their inmates. I told one of the store clerks, a nervous-looking younger guy who wore a pocket protector filled with pens in his white shirt pocket, and he went to look. When he saw the little cannibals having their snack, he turned to me and said he’d take care of it. He looked embarrassed, as if it was his fault, but I think he was glad someone had told him.

I committed my first ever crime when I shoplifted a bag of marbles from Sprouse Reitz later that fall. I didn’t play with marbles, but the bag ended up in my jacket pocket, and I left the store without paying. When I got home, my mother asked why and how I acquired the marbles, and I fessed up that I’d taken them from Sprouse Reitz. She told me to put my jacket back on, and we drove back to the store with the pilfered orbs. On the way there, she kept saying that stealing was a sin and that I should know better because I had memorized the Ten Commandments. When we arrived, I returned the marbles to the same mouse guy and told him I was sorry for taking them without paying. He just took them back and said thank you. I don’t know if he remembered me from the mouse banquet, but he didn’t lecture or make a big deal about the situation. As we drove home, my mother told me she hoped I’d learned a lesson about stealing and grounded me for a week. I didn’t mind the grounding and hadn’t quite learned a lesson. A couple of years later, I would up the lawlessness.

In the spring of 1968, my best pal and fellow sixth-grader, Brock Weston, and I were briefly part of a small ring of juvenile lawbreakers. Brock’s cousin, Robbie Garvin, lived catty-corner from our house, was a year older than us in seventh grade at the Junior High, and was a bad influence. Robbie’s mother was Brock’s father’s sister. He had the Eddie Haskell schtick down pat and would charm our parents with his feigned politeness. Then, when he had us in his sway, he became a criminal mastermind. My mother saw right through the act, but he was Brock’s cousin, and family was family, so for a short time, we fell under the power of this young Svengali. Robbie’s forte was shoplifting, and his main target was TradeWell supermarket. He would nick things like cigars, candy bars, bottles of wine, and cigarette packs if he could manage that difficult maneuver. He told us cigarettes were the hardest because they were in a rack behind the checkers. Robbie boasted he could steal anything.

Robbie usually sold what he lifted to a group of high school kids he knew and asked us if we wanted in on the deal as junior shoplifting accomplices. Brock was all for it, but I was reticent, and it took some cajoling from Robbie with assurances that it was easy pickings. I caved because I didn’t want to look weak before these guys. My moral compass had gone awry. Robbie told us to go into the store alone – he said it would look too suspicious if we went in as a group. He had us wear jackets with pockets for the small stuff and said to bring an empty brown paper bag for the bottles. My first thrust into the Underworld resulted in a purloined pack of Swisher Sweet cigars and a giant Hershey bar. When I showed Robbie and Brock, who were waiting near the highway, they were impressed with my haul, and I was relieved to be out of the store. I knew it was a seriously wrong thing to do, but it made me feel like I was part of an exclusive club.  Brock would come away with similar items that day.

After a few days, Robbie got us together and said one of his buyers wanted a bottle of wine and would pay five bucks. I was tabbed to bring an empty paper bag and appropriate the vino, and I walked into the store, highly exhilarated, with the bag in my jacket pocket.  I arrived at the section with the screw-top wine bottles, and not knowing anything about wine, I hurriedly grabbed a bottle off the shelf, stuck it into the bag, and prayed no one was looking. Another thing Robbie told us was to go in when the store was busy because more people around made it harder for the TradeWell workers to watch out for crooks like us. There was a crowd that day, and I made it out the automatic door and crossed the highway with the wine safely concealed in the paper sack. My cohorts were waiting on the other side, and when we got into the woods, Robbie took the bag to see what I had. After he looked, he shook his head and said: “Shit, Sonny, this is cooking sherry.” Robbie called it garbage and said his guy wouldn’t pay five cents. What did I know? He sent Brock back across the street for a bottle of Port.

So far, none of us have been caught, and I had two successful misdemeanors under my belt. The three of us were at Brock’s house one Saturday at noon. His parents were out shopping, and there wasn’t anything to fix for lunch, so Robbie said let’s go to TradeWell and get some TV dinners. He was the boss, so we returned to the Honey Hole. We all went in together, and I thought he was going to buy the dinners, but being who he was, he called an audible, and we each stuffed a frozen entrée down the front of our jeans. The entrée-only dinners were smaller and fit perfectly, but he had broken the ‘don’t go in as a group’ rule. Right then, the store manager snuck up on us and said he’d seen us playing ‘Hide the Salisbury Steak.’ We were caught dead to rights and removed the icy fare from our frontal areas. The manager marched the three of us to his office and demanded that we each give him our names, parents’ names, and phone numbers.  

I was ready to sing like a canary, but Robbie took control and said we didn’t have to and we weren’t going to. I clammed up then. After some threats about calling the police and having us arrested didn’t break Robbie’s resolution, the manager took us out back to the loading dock and told us to sweep it and stack all the crates and boxes that were scattered around. We said we would, and I apologized for trying to steal the steak. Brock and I stacked a few crates, and after about ten minutes, Robbie said let’s go. The manager had returned to the store, but no one was watching us. As we left for home, I decided then that my career as a thief was over; back to confession for this sinner. Both cousins would continue their five-fingered ways for a time – stealing shirts they’d tried on in the Value Mart dressing room and walking out with their sweaters covering the new shirts. But I stayed away from that business.

Later that year (without his cousin), Robbie tried to walk out of the Value Mart wearing high-heeled, pointed-toe Beatle boots. As he clip-clopped down the aisle, store security stopped him and summoned the local Constabulary. After a few weeks in Juvie, Robbie returned home as uncontrite as when he arrived there. It wasn’t long before he started putting a new crew together.

To this day, I can’t abide Salisbury Steak.

                                                                    *   *   *

William P. Adams writes short fiction and memoir. His stories have appeared in Rockvale Review, Macrame Lit, and Neither Fish Nor Foul. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

By Karen Crawford

It takes a minute to adjust. Scrape of sawdust on the floor. Last night’s peanuts on the tables. Old man dank of cigarettes and beer. It’s been ages. We pretend not to notice the gray in our hair, but Lori’s bangs are still killer. She’s giving the dartboard hell while Amy tilts her head, flashing a midnight smile. Cackling when I remind her it’s mid-afternoon. And although we’re the only ones here, I grab a seat by the door. Because I’d always been the one to clock the exits.

Lori suggests tequila. It feels good. The burn in our throats. Embers in our eyes. Amy borrows my phone to Google old boyfriends. Her husband keeps calling. When she sends him to voicemail, we giggle like teens. I miss this, I don’t say. I miss a lot of things.

The geri-bartender puts on music: ‘What I Like About You.’ Lori and Amy jump up, pull me to my feet, and scream. You know what happens to friends that don’t dance, don’t you? They stay home!

Later, we’ll squint into the sun. Follow the cracks on the sidewalk to pick up Lori’s kid from therapeutic school. Pop mints into our mouths before we say goodbye. 

                                                                 *    *    *

Karen Crawford lives and writes in the City of Angels. Her work has been included in National Flash Fiction Day Anthology 2024, Flash Boulevard, Okay Donkey, Five South, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. She is a multi-Pushcart, Best Microfiction and Best of the Net nominee. You can find her on X @KarenCrawford_ and Bluesky @karenc.bsky.social