By Stacey Lounsberry

I didn’t see the hook right away. Those first few days after her birth, we were enshrouded in a hormonal high, in that mother-child bonding as old as millennia. And I had already promised many times to devote the entirety of my life to her, unasked. I had learned this from my own mother, who believed she’d put a patent on good mothering. Mother’s reproduction quickly became exhibition under the watchful social media eye, the likes and loves and floating hearts. The endorphin-producing comments. Within an hour, I myself had posted the first photo of Delia, my baby: washed and ready for her closeup, in the dusk light that would make her, at least appear, artsy. Her beauty campaign had begun.

Then, from beneath the pink cotton blanket, appeared the hook. Its sticky, sharp end dusted in lint, loose curly hairs, the torn plastic wrap of a small hospital straw, it hovered at face level like a cobra preparing to strike. A scorpion, angling its stinger. A man, waving his gun.

Behind me, the nurse quieted her cries, covered the hook as if it did not exist, tucking it back beneath the blanket with her perfect row of red, pea-pod toes. “There, there,” the nurse said. Aren’t you a cutie pie?” Then, to me, “And how is your pain, Mom?”

“Don’t you see it?” I asked, incredulous.

“Perfectly normal,” the nurse assured me, without talking about the hook by name.

That same afternoon, a new mother in the room next to me was caught leaving without her child. “Please,” she begged. “I have five others at home. It’s too many. It’s too many.” I imagined her clawing out of her sheets, the sutures, like mine, frowning across her stomach.

Through the open doors, I heard my nurse’s voice shush her. “At least yours doesn’t have a hook,” she said. And that must have been consoling enough, since I didn’t hear from the escapee mother again.

 When Delia fed, galaxies lived and died in the neural network of my brain. Our bodies communicated beyond either of our comprehension, newborn mouth to nipple. Each suck, I felt a pull in my back shoulder as if the milk were stored there, each cry sent a washing letdown that ballooned inside my breasts. I recorded each feeding on my phone, the time and amount. I used an app to transpose a tree of life onto a photo of us nursing: the tree blooming from the white of my breast, with limbs stretched across Delia’s cheek in the way her hook looped around my wrist when I held my phone. I posted this on every possible social, and others followed suit, including, I believed, the mother who tried to leave.

No one came to the house. Not one, to see her in person. No one to hold her. Send pics, my mother texted on the drive out to the vacation house at the beach. 

Yeah. have fun, I texted back.  

Wish I could squeeze those widdle toes, someone wrote beneath Delia’s picture. A friend from school whose face at the grocery store looked unnatural compared to the face in her profile picture.  

Don’t babys smell be the best? Wrote another. I leaned in, sniffed the brown whisps of hair flat to her head. They do <3, I answered.

As Delia grew, so did the hook. In photos, it had easily been tucked behind, locked down by a foot, hidden from the camera lens. But that was becoming more difficult by the day. Many times, it shook the phone from my hand, and her water drop eyes would meet mine, and I would be forced to look into them. No one told me that this would hurt. No one told me the mirror she would hold. 

When she slept, the hook remained alert. Darting among the crib bars like a watchdog, repeatedly knocking the internet-connected baby monitor off its mount. One night, in a fit of exhaustion, I eased myself down on the carpeted floor. I sat just outside the nursery and typed into my phone’s search bar: born with hook.

The AI search summary was unhelpful: The pronghorn uses its hooked horns mainly for defense. I leaned past the doorframe, eyed the hook that hovered near Delia. Did that make sense, though?

I kept going. Several entries down, lonelyrevolution posted in r/HookBaby: my newborn came out perfectly normal, except for a hook??? Wtf? It won’t let us use our phones. My husband left. I’m writing this in the bathroom while she’s asleep, I hear her waking now—

Bruhgold replied, it’s evolution on steroids.

SigmundandRoy: it happens to people who used too much 5g during pregnancy. Its worse than drugs, what it does to the brain. Poor kid.

Others referred the original poster to conspiracy sites. The moderator bot ended it there.

Delia woke suddenly with short, hiccupping cries. I dropped the phone to the carpet and scrambled sideways into the room to see the hook jabbing its pointed end at her face, marring the vital outward beauty. Her pale skin dotted red with beak marks. An orchestral hiss, like a rally.

“I’ll put it down. I’ll stop. I’ll never post again,” I cried, thinking of the internet posts. “Please.” I bowed low, a believer begging relief at a temple, ancient and upheld. From the hallway, my smartphone dinged notifications, begged me to lookLookLOOK.

The hook dared me to.

“I’ll show you,” I said to it. “I’ll prove it.”

So quickly, I took the phone from the hallway, the hook levitating—a stone-cold glare if it had a face. I bit into the corner of the phone until my teeth crunched glass. “See?” I said, taste of coins, metal and blood. My blood. “I love her more. I don’t need it.” My teeth dug, scraped, tore. I spat miniature wires that singed my tongue, mic, speaker cells. The 8 GB ram stuck between my back molars; 128 GB memory sliced my gums. I swallowed a corner of the ion lithium battery shell, but accidently inhaled the eSIM card. It attached itself to my airway. 

As I choked, the hook lowered, gently. Tucked itself behind the blanket. Slithered from sight. Somehow, the beak marks on Delia’s face had healed. It was a miracle I was looking at. The dawn sun peaked through the curtains, lending the kind of shadow the best instafluencers would die for. I mourned my half-bitten phone. It would have made the perfect photo post. 

*   *   *

Stacey Lounsberry is a prose reader at the upcoming literary magazine Broad Ripple Review, and her work has appeared in Heavy Feather Review, Liminal Spaces, Appalachian Places, SBLAAM and others. Her flash fiction, “The Bet,” (first published by The Mersey Review) is a 2025 Best of the Net nominee (Sundress Publications). She is a full-time mother and writer and holds a BFA in Creative Writing and an MAT in Special Education. Find her in Eastern Kentucky, online at http://www.sglounsberry.com, or on twitter @sglounsberry.

By Devan Erno

The first good shoes Jesse ever owned were a deep red with blue stripes running midway along the sides. He had picked them out himself, in a fancy shoe store where someone carefully set his feet in a giant metal footprint, which told them exactly what size was best. All the shoes he’d previously owned had come from stores that sold a little bit of everything, all of it faded and worn. No others had ever fit properly. And none of them had come in a box. 

It was plain cardboard with a small black logo printed on it. A hinged lid opened and closed over and over again, yet it remained new and unspoiled. The possibilities were endless.

“Please, Dad?” Jesse said.

Dad sighed, for a moment looking faded and worn, like Jesse’s old Velcro shoes that he’d never have to wear again. Then he smiled in resignation. “Alright. Let’s get going, then.”

He winced at the counter when he paid. Jesse wondered if his leg was hurting again.

*

Jesse sat with Dad at the brown dining table, sunset through the window revealing the thick layer of dust on the unused side. They silently ate their plain pasta. He didn’t really remember Mom, but Dad always said she had been a better cook. 

Dad broke the silence. “Do you remember going to the sea?”

Jesse thought hard. “Nope. Don’t think so.”

Whenever Dad smiled, he seemed even sadder. “It was your Mom’s favorite place. Tomorrow let’s get in the car and go there. She always liked collecting seashells.”

Before bed, Jesse decided what to use the shoebox for. With a black marker, he wrote in stuttering letters on its top: PRESHUS THINGS.

*

The sea and sky were both the same shade of grey, as if that had been the only colour left when the world awoke and painted itself that day. But grey or not, there was magic in the shoreline. Jesse watched the steely waves coming in, pulsing to unseen rhythms. He strolled down the pebbly strand, occasionally stopping to gather a dried-out shell. He placed them in his box, carefully folding the lid over each time. Each one was unique, pretty in its own way.

After exploring for a time, Jesse looked back. Dad was seated on a colourless log, bark stripped off, washed up years ago by a relentless high tide. 

“Dad! Over here!”

Slowly, Dad got to his feet and walked over. His face was red for some reason, even though it wasn’t sunny enough to burn.

“What’ve you found, Jesse?”

“Look!” Jesse waved a hand at the tidal pool that had formed where the sand and pebbles made way for a patch of rocky ground, its centre sunken as if a giant’s fist had punched it down.

Both of them knelt. Little crabs scuttled sideways in the water, some taking cautious steps out of the pool, others moving quickly, as though running errands. Mussels and sea urchins sat motionless; a lone sea star’s purple brightened the pool, the only creature that wasn’t trying to conceal itself.

“Which one’s your favorite?” asked Dad. 

“Hmm, I’m not sure. Maybe the crabs, because they move around a lot.”

“The sea star’s pretty. Too bad it’s alone though. I guess in this pool I prefer the crabs too.”

“I’m going to look around more,” said Jesse. 

“Okay. Just for a few more minutes. We need to head home soon.”

“Can you hold my box? It’s full enough.”

It wasn’t until the next morning that Jesse noticed the lid of his box didn’t close all the way. But he had taken great care not to overfill it. Slowly opening the lid, he saw a small chunk of wood, twisted and gnarled, its corrugated surface rough in places, smooth in others. A thin, spiky shard had nearly pierced the smooth surface of the shoebox lid.

“Dad! Why’s this thing in my box?” Inexplicable tears filled his eyes.

Quick footsteps as Dad stepped into the tidy room. “It’s driftwood. I thought you’d like it. Mom always picked it up on the beach, along with shells. Every piece is unique, you know. Precious. Hey, what’s wrong?”

“It’s for my things! Not the things you say! I don’t even remember Mom. And it doesn’t fit!” Jesse threw the box into his closet.

*

It sat, untouched. Not forgotten, but unwanted. Jesse still didn’t know why the driftwood had made him so angry, but looking at the box made him feel bad. So he buried it all under school projects, art assignments, broken hand-me-down toys. Like layers of sediment, crushed under unbearable pressures into stone, the strata of childhood waited for an excavator. 

One day, after he had outgrown his good red shoes, Jesse began to dig through the rubble. Not with any specific purpose in mind. A stack of papers fell to the floor, revealing the box. He flipped it open. There was a bump in the lid, but it wasn’t ruined. Maybe it was even better than new. After all, the small flaw allowed it to hold more things.

Jesse carried it to the kitchen, where he knew Dad would be this morning, fingers of one hand twined around a chipped coffee cup, other hand absently tracing a path along the dusty table as he looked out the window.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, Jesse?” The tired smile again. “Oh, that old box?”

“I’m sorry. About the driftwood. I looked again, and it fits perfectly.” It was hard to get the words out. “Dad? Can you tell me about why Mom liked driftwood? I get the shells, they’re pretty. But this is just wood.”

Dad had trouble speaking too. “She said it was like looking at clouds. Everyone could look and see something a bit different.”

“It sort of looks like a dinosaur skull.”

“Interesting. I see a mountain peak, if you turn it this way.”

“Can we go back to the beach sometime?”

Dad’s smile wasn’t sad at all this time. “How about tomorrow?”

*   *   *

Devan lives in Calgary, and writes in a variety of genres. When he’s not writing, he runs marathons, plays board games with his family, travels, and works as a database administrator.

By David Margolin

Raindrops ping on the top of my tent. I hear hollow, sloshing footsteps. The moisture liberates the street odors: asphalt, dirt, oil, debris. These molecules are mixed with the scents from the passersby: perfume, pungent reefer, and sweaty trepidation as they approach the tent. The emergence of these smells, coupled with the wind, are energizing–my surroundings are coming alive.

I sleep three feet away from the electrified fence surrounding the lot that stores the vehicles towed away by Vulture Towing. I can feel the vibration and hear the hum of the 7,000 volts that keep would-be trespassers at bay. What if I grabbed the fence with both hands and held on tightly? Would I sizzle and burn or just feel a buzz? Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad way to go—a poor man’s self-execution.

I unzip the tent flap, exit, stretch, and pee. People pass by, look at me out of the corner of their eye. I hear John Lennon’s plaintive, pleading, imperative, “Don’t’ put me down…”

I think, I hope you’re having a nice day.

I shout, “HRACK, I’ll poke your eye out, out, out.”

Why can’t I say what I think?

Around the corner, behind FoodFeast, there is a dumpster. I find a Twinkie, it looks fresh, the ants run away when I reach for it.

Why is everyone so large? All of the women are over 6 feet tall, and powerful. They could easily crush me.

I remember my mother calling me to come in for dinner, “Don’t forget to wash up, Ronnie.”

“OK, Mom.” Her fried chicken was the best.

“How did it make you feel when your mom hit you, Ron?” asked the V.A. therapist.

“It hurt.”

“No, emotionally, how did it feel emotionally?”

“Nothing, it’s like you’re asking me to name colors and I’m color blind, Doc.”

I want to ask a passing man for change, but I glare menacingly instead.

I’d like to be stable, steady, predictable, reliable. I could be a streetcar conductor. It would keep me on track, but there would still be a lot of responsibility. What if I went too fast, or too slow? What if a passenger needed help, or tried to hurt me? I don’t like confrontations, but I would use my hunting knife if I had to.

When did everyone get so small? I step carefully so as not to crush people as they scurry by.

I see lights inside of apartments and homes and think how great it would be if I lived there. I bet it’s warm inside, and that the people are happy, sitting, joking, smiling—making small talk.

I walk, walk, and walk. It makes me feel calmer and it’s good exercise. I have bad thoughts about the people I pass.  That guy is walking too close to me, that woman looks threatening, why are those people shouting? Stop it, Ron! You are what you think. For the next ten minutes you must think only positive thoughts.  That woman in the wheelchair, turning the wheels with her hands, she’s tenacious. That guy is wearing a nice jacket. They look like a happy couple. It’s exhausting.

Tap, tap, tap. I like the sound my walking stick makes as I walk towards the river. I don’t like waiting for traffic lights to change so I follow the green lights. I like to keep moving. I think that I have walked about 20 miles today. Eventually I will get to where I need to be—I hope that I like it there.

It was a good day—nothing bad happened. Tomorrow I will probably take another long walk. I can go anywhere I want; I’m a free man.

*   *   *

David, a resident of Portland, Oregon, enjoys writing comedy, as in “Table Manners” (R U Joking?), “Showdown” (Little Old Lady Comedy), and Wishful Thinking (Witcraft). He is often nostalgic, as in “Teabags” (Memoir Magazine), “The Toys of My Youth” (Bewildering Stories), and “Interwoven” (Bright Flash Literary Review), but he can be grim, as in “The Outing” (Children, Churches & Daddies), “Brain Raid” (Freedom Fiction Journal), and “The Audience” (Akpata Magazine). He posts on https://davidmargolin.substack.com/.

By Graeme Richmond Mack

“Daddy, you need to make-ee the cake for mommy’s birthday!” Summer, my three-year-old, shouts out with tiny urgency. “You have to make-ee the cake.”

It’s a cool summer evening, and we’re sitting on the grass in our backyard, while my wife naps inside. I’m gazing out at the tree branches swaying in the breeze. I breathe in and out.

Handing me a shovel, Summer points her finger. I look down at the cluster of white rocks arranged in a circle on a cement slab in front of us.

“It’s mommy’s birthday?”

“Yes. Mommy’s birthday! We have to make-ee the cake.”

I nod and, without a word, take the shovel from her.

I think about Summer’s mommy, my wife, Isabella, who hasn’t been herself all week. Monday night, the phone rang, and Isabella learned her father was gone.

Thursday night it’s a warm and breezy summer evening. We’re sitting on the grass, beneath the giant bay windows of our home.

Taking in the long light of summer, I’m sipping a glass of red wine, gazing up at the sunset’s half-light. Stuck thinking about the passing of things, of my own inevitable death, I’m having trouble focusing.

But I’m trying to be present with Summer as she bakes her imaginary cake for mommy’s imaginary birthday.

With shovels in our hands, Summer and I look down at a circle of white rocks on a cement slab in front of us.

“Mmm…this cake is so tasty!” I say, looking over at Summer, the shovel below my mouth.

“No, no, no, Daddy. You can’t eat it! It’s not ready. Not ready!” Summer shoos the shovel from my mouth with her tiny hand.

“Sorry, honey,” I say, putting my shovel down. “I thought the cake was ready.”

I gaze at the tree branches swaying in the breeze. I smile. I can see the long light. Even after all the pain—I can still see it.

“The cake!” Summer exclaims when she notices I’m distracted. Leaning forward, I adjust a few white rocks in the circle.

“Oh, yes…that’s perfect, daddy!”

I slowly turn a white rock through my fingers, thinking about Isabella playing with her dad as a girl.

“What a beautiful cake, honey.”

In the kitchen, there’s a photograph of them smiling up at the camera. Her middle-aged dad holds a three-year-old Isabella as she tilts her head and her blonde hair tumbles down.

Isabella’s mother used to gaze at it and say, “I remember taking that, Izzy. Do you remember? Your dad had just gotten back from that long work trip overseas.” She would sip her coffee and stare at the photo for a long time. “Boy, did he talk about missing you kids that trip,” she’d say with a faraway look.

It’s getting later out. The sunset’s retreating behind the trees. A purple hue gilds the skyline as the day dies away, darkness sets in. The light of day lives on only in memory.

I think of the night my wife told me about her father’s diagnosis. She pulled out this pamphlet from the glovebox and opened it to a page with a cartoon diagram of the human body.

“Daddy, the moon! I can see the moon!” Summer shouts, sitting up abruptly.

“Wow, isn’t it beautiful, honey?”

I can see the long light, even after all the pain—the doctor’s appointments, the second opinions, the second guessing. I can see the light up ahead, exactly long enough to know it will one day fade away.

I remember my father-in-law once watching Summer play in the backyard. “You never get it, what this feeling is, until you have kids of your own.” His eyes filled with feeling as he shook his head.

I thought he might cry. But I didn’t know why then.

“Yes daddy,” Summer shouts, “So beei-uty-ful!”

Then, squinting at the sky, Summer asks, “Why, daddy, I’m talking to the moon, but the moon’s not talking back?”

I chuckle like my wife’s father used to chuckle. I try to think of something he would’ve said.

“Maybe it’s just a quiet moon tonight, honey.”

“A what?” Summer asks, her curiosity piqued.

“A quiet moon. It’s my favorite kind of moon because it’s good at listening.”

“It’s listening?” Summer shouts as her eyes go big. She squeals, kicks, and throws her head back.

“Yes. When it’s a quiet moon, you can tell it anything. What shall we tell it?”

“I want to say happy birthday to my mommy. That I love my daddy sitting next to me. I want to say that my mommy and daddy are my best friends. I want to say that I miss grandpa.”

“Anything else, honey?” I ask, my eyes tearing up, my stomach dipping.

“Yes. I want to sing like a princess, daddy. I want to run and dance like a ballerina. I want to, I want to, I want to go to the playground in my princess dress. I want to dance like a beautiful mermaid princess on the tallest tower.”

Summer peers up at the sky, telling the moon of the world she adores. The light up ahead—the near side of the moon—glows iridescent overhead.

“That’s beautiful, honey.” I smile, my eyes shaking.

“What’s going on out here, you two?” The latch on the backdoor clicks and Isabella steps out into the backyard, a bundle of jackets under her arm, a glass of red wine in her hand.

“Oh mommy. The birthday cake! The moon!” Summer squeals, pointing upwards.

I look over at Isabella who gazes up at the sky, smiling. “Yes, honey. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Isabella sets the jackets and glass down next to Summer’s imaginary cake. I hold Summer and kiss the top of her head.

“Ok you two. Say cheese,” Isabella says, holding up her phone.

We look up smiling. Summer tucks her cheek into my neck. The phone’s camera flashes, and I see Isabella’s eyes looking back at us from a long time away.

* * *

Graeme Richmond Mack writes flash fiction and historical commentary, which has appeared in literary magazines such as BigCityLit and outlets like the Washington Post, The Conversation, H-Net, Yahoo!News, and the Journal of San Diego History. Originally from Canada, Mack studied history and literature, earning his B.A. at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, M.A. at McGill in Montreal, and Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego. He lives in Virginia with his wife and young children and teaches college history.
http://www.graememack.com

 

 

By Maia Brown-Jackson

1. Tell her you need more. You’re both seeing other people but if she asked for more you would stop in a heartbeat. You want love like a story that could bring a dying man back to life because the universe owes you. After everything, you want someone—her— to make you spill out the bullshit and the things hiding in the shadows like a misogynistic doctor practicing bloodletting in 1832. You have baggage: you have too much baggage, but she accepts it. She accepts you. And you’re brave today— maybe it’s the wine— or was it whiskey?— and you tell her. And she doesn’t know what to do.
2. Meet someone who fights to earn you. Who fights to keep you. Tell her. Tell her how sorry you are. Explain in abstruse metaphors and broken sentences, because it’s the only way you know how. Don’t say you still love her because you don’t want to make this any harder and you know this already hurts and you can’t give her hope because there’s nothing that can break a heart like hope. Let this new person adore you, tell you how brilliant you are, how beautiful and strange and lovely. Let yourself believe it in a way you wouldn’t have been able to before her.
3. Let him fall for you because you’re desperate for a love that makes you forget what it was to hunger. Swallow as much of it as you can stomach. Tell him you feel the same because you don’t know what else to say, and you do care, and you want him to feel happy. (Hate yourself for giving him hope and don’t think too hard about what’s different this time, what’s wrong with your heart, why you’re saying these things.)
4. Become enamored of a stray cat. Convince him (too easily) to take it in for you. Text her, just to check in, joke about how you’re still adopting strays. Slowly start to talk again. Keep it light. Don’t mention him. Wonder if she’s dating, too. Hate yourself a little bit for the hypocrisy of caring.
5. Break up with him. Finally. He deserves better. Let him keep the cat.
6. See her again. It’s like old times. Kiss her in a dive bar. Take day trips in her red jeep and drink too much on her roof with her arm around your shoulders and sneak out each morning to buy two cappuccinos because you always wake up too early for her. Don’t let yourself think about how easy this all feels. 
7. Wonder if this time, she’s going to tell you that she needs more. You’ve never been able to stay still, to settle, and she’s never been able to ask you to stay. There might be someone else and the timing is never quite right. You were only ever casually in love, after all. Or at least that’s all either of you would ever admit. But she can’t seem to ask you and you realize she can’t do this forever, just like you couldn’t. Every couple gets the same two options: you stay together or you don’t, and you two aren’t a miraculously grey exception. You learned long ago that love was never enough in this world; how could you let yourself forget?
8. Shock at this new shade of heartbreak when you set her free (chickenshit).
9. Wait until talking doesn’t press directly on the bruise she left. Start to wonder if your friends are right and you were an idiot. You were too raw to trust and she was always terrible at communication. But. She waited for you. You flitted from place to place and adventure to adventure, and she was always there when you came back. It was you who was unpredictable. Everyone could see she had been mad over you for years except for you. You and your baggage. You and your stupid, overly-protective brain and the military fortress around your heart and a steadfast refusal to believe that someone could love you despite despite despite. Maybe if your heart hadn’t grown so calloused, a knee-jerk reaction to a lifetime of believing in magic fucking decimated, your innocence hacked at with a goddamn machete by someone you eventually had to accept was just a man and not a monster, you might have let yourself hope that just this once the universe would give you the fairytale ending. If you’d just let yourself let go of the iron-fisted control over your own heart and offered it up one more time—
10. Let time pass. (It doesn’t matter. It isn’t going to.) Recognize you’re still a bit in love with her. Know you always will be.

*    *    *

Maia Brown-Jackson is a Pushcart-nominated, award-winning writer whose second poetry collection, Gifted, opens for pre-orders this autumn with Nymeria Publishing. In her spare time, she volunteers with a Yazidi NGO, occasionally studies quantum physics, and wastes time with the world’s sweetest, clumsiest cat.

By Litsa Dremousis

“My name’s Starling.” She pauses. “Like the bird.”

I try not to laugh because my dorm room is two doors down and she always introduces herself the same way, “Like the bird.”

It makes me want to reply, “My name’s Pussy. Like the cat.”

She wears tortoise shell sunglasses and tan leather sandals and looks a little like Marianne Faithfull, but often as not reeks of weed. I can’t tell if it impedes her memory or if my scar makes her nervous, forcing her to search for something to say, no matter how repetitive. 

My scar seems to make everyone nervous.

Well, except for me. 

I’ve had it 11 months now, this deep red gash swerving across my forehead. And while today I snapped at a guy on campus, “What are you looking at?” when he gawked, that had more to do with his Nixon button. By now, I usually ignore the stares and stammers.

I mean, why bother? It was a car accident—it’s not like I was mauled by a bear.

That’s the good thing: if the glass couldn’t end my life, who can scare me? I’m not invincible—I don’t think anyone is, no matter how hard they pretend—but somedays now for fleeting moments, paradoxically I feel unbreakable. And that’s kinda cool.

But back to Starling.

She continues to stand in front of me, in the grip of anticipation, or a perhaps a milder substance tonight.

I debate pretending that this is the first time we’re meeting, but can’t conjure the energy to lie.

“Starling, we’ve met a few times. I’m Mia, remember?”

She takes off her shades with great flare like she’s in a Jacqueline Susann novel and it’s the first thing she’s done that makes me like her.

“Miiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaa!”

“Yes?”

She just poses now. Maybe she’s expecting me to fill in the blanks.

I need to go. I walk toward the elevator and call “Have a nice night!” over my shoulder. 

She runs after me. “Wait, Mia! Hold the door!” and I hear her sandals flapping.

She gets on. It’s just the two of us and for the briefest second, she holds my hand.

“I never know what to say around you,” she whispers. “You’re so different and beautiful.”

I experience a different kind of crash.

Hey eyes are lovely, shimmering and green.

For the first time since the accident, I’m scared.

*   *   *

Litsa Dremousis (she/her) is the author of Altitude Sickness (Future Tense Books). Seattle Metropolitan Magazine named it one of the all-time “20 Books Every Seattleite Must Read”. She recently left the Washington Post, where she’d been an essayist who wrote extensively about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Her work has also appeared in The Believer, Esquire, Flash Fiction Magazine, Flare, Hobart, Jezebel, The Literary Underground, McSweeney’s, Monkeybicycle, NPR, NY Mag, NYT, PEN Center USA, P&W, PW, The Rumpus, Salon, Short Beasts, Slate, et al.

 

A Memoir by M. D. Roblyer

LeeLee, one of the girls I waitressed with at the Dutch Pantry Restaurant in the summer of 1968, told me that the commotion I made two weeks into starting work there made quite an impression on her. I never meant to make an impression, let alone a commotion, just a little cash to carry me through my senior year at the University of Maryland. And I definitely never counted on getting a civics lesson from a temporary waitress job. 

The restaurant lay at the outskirts of the central Pennsylvania town of State College, home to both Pennsylvania State University and my boyfriend Don. He hoped to finish his degree at Penn State in the not-too-distant future, and we were sharing an apartment as much to save money as to maximize our together-time. The only short-term job Don could find was driving cab, but my blond hair and bouncy personality helped me get hired at the Dutch Pantry, a plum position in area waitstaff circles. Wages and tips were rumored to be good and the work not too onerous; the menu was small and so was the restaurant. The Dutch Pantry styled us as Mennonite girls in blue-and-white checked aprons over white uniforms and white caps we pinned into our hair. We purchased our own uniforms and the restaurant supplied aprons and caps. I fancied myself spiffy as I skipped out the door to work.

When I strolled into the restaurant one Monday, LeeLee pulled me aside. “Did you hear about the new requirement?” she whispered anxiously. “Frank is making us wear girdles starting next week!” Frank was our manager, and the waitresses agreed with LeeLee that he was “constipated,” meaning he had a sour disposition.

A familiar resentment flooded my brain. Not for the first time was I encountering someone with a deep need to lasso others into their blinkered worldview. A memory from high school stirred. I had crossed swords with the principal when he refused to allow one of my friends, a new mother, to return and complete her graduation credits. “We can’t have her here strutting her stuff,” he had huffed. As I considered Frank’s new regulation, I began to wonder if these scenes signaled more such battles to come.

I thought for a minute. “How’ll he force us? He doesn’t know what we have on under these uniforms.”

LeeLee’s round face lit up. “I guess you’re right. We could just lie.” The plan might have worked, but she blabbed it to everyone, and it got back to Frank by way of Jean, another Dutch Pantry waitress with designs on rising to management. 

The first day the new edict went into effect, Frank ordered me into his office and, towering over me, began his interrogation. “Are you wearing your girdle?” 

I nodded and forced a smile. “Sure, Frank, sure I am.”

He eyed my skinny butt. “Jean will go with you to the restroom to check.”

I did a quick calculus. Was keeping my job worth letting a restaurant tell me what to wear under my uniform? Teeth clenched, hands on hips, I took my stand. “No. Jean won’t. My underwear is my own business, not hers—and certainly not yours.”

“Get a girdle on or you’re fired!” he barked, sticking a finger in my flushed face.

“Forget it, Frank; I quit!” Other waitresses had gathered to watch the scene, and mouths flew open as I ripped off my blue-checked apron and threw it at Frank’s feet. The little white hat followed.

Within weeks, LeeLee called, excited with the news. Frank was history. The waitresses learned that the girdle requirement was not a Dutch Pantry policy, but Frank’s whim. Jean, sensing a career-making opportunity, had snitched to the chain’s headquarters. The company was offering a “please-don’t-sue-us” payment to anyone who had been forced to quit over Frank’s girdle requirement. The windfall was welcome, but I felt had also been gifted something more valuable: a seminar on the rights of individuals in a free society. Later that summer, the whole country got a course on the same topic at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

No one I knew in State College ever learned what happened to Frank, and I wonder if he learned anything at all from being fired for his fixation on girdled butts. I like to think he ended up selling women’s underwear.

                                                                   *       *       *

M. D. Roblyer [ she/her ] is a retired professor of educational technology and textbook author. She wrote a dozen Pearson Education textbooks, including Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, which became the field leader in 1996 remains so today in its ninth edition. Strong Glass: A Memoir of Escaping the Dark Mirror of Family History, forthcoming from Apprentice House Press in 2026, is her first non-academic book; she is currently at work on another. Some of her work has been published by Orange Blossom Books, Bewildering Stories, and TrashLight Press. Her nonfiction story “Cat Fight” won a prize in a Chattanooga Writers Guild contest and will be included in the CWG Fall 2025 Anthology.

 

By Kevin Hogg

“One, two, three!” counted Jillian, Alicia, and Erin. All three threw their sticks together.

They rushed to the other side of the bridge and looked down.

“That’s mine! I win!” shouted Erin as her stick emerged and carried on down the stream, changing paths every time it bumped a rock.

“Second place!” Jillian celebrated as hers appeared. It avoided the rocks and logs, eventually disappearing over a small waterfall.

All three waited, but Alicia’s stick never came.

“Must have gotten stuck underneath. Try again,” urged Jillian.

Alicia took another stick and dropped it in the water. Again, nothing showed up.

“Drop one over here,” suggested Erin. “Mine came through quickly.”

Alicia tried again, but the result was the same.

She walked back to the path and gathered an armload of sticks, then dropped them all from the bridge at once.

“That’s so weird,” observed Jillian. “Where did they all go?”

“I’m not sure, but I need to find out,” said Alicia. She walked around and to the bank of the creek. It was dark underneath, but she could see through to the other side. No sticks visible.

She took a cautious step into the water. Cold, but bearable. Maybe a couple more steps, then turn back if nothing is there. She lowered her head and pulled back her copper hair, ducking under the bridge. 

The air around Alicia grew hazy. She could no longer see the light on the other side of the bridge.

“Erin? Jillian? Are you up there?”

No answer.

Knowing that she should turn back, Alicia instead continued forward.

After several minutes, there was a light in the distance. The water had warmed up. If anything, it felt pleasant.

A small island lay ahead. Alicia could see a figure sitting alone.

As she approached, she saw a mess of sticks surrounding the island. She pushed them aside and joined what she could now see was a boy.

But not just any boy…

“Jerry Kincaid?” she asked.

He looked up and nodded slowly.

“I thought you were…I mean, didn’t you…”

“Die?” said an ethereal voice, seeming to come from above.

Alicia was stunned into silence.

“Nobody dies down here,” the voice continued.

“But Jerry has been missing since last year. The town held a memorial service for him.”

Jerry spoke, his voice trembling. “I was sick. But nobody dies down here.”

The voice returned. “Jerry sought refuge from his illness. But the choice can only be made once.”

Alicia asked, “So, he won’t die now, but he can’t come back?”

“This is true. He will not be able to return. And I offer you the same choice.”

Alicia was shocked. “But, I’m not sick.”

“I regret to inform you that an illness grows within you. And now, I ask you the same: Will you remain here, safe from your sickness?”

Alicia felt frozen in place.

“The choice is yours, but if you will return, it must be now.”

Thoughts crowded her mind. It couldn’t be true. And yet, if she thought back a year: the appointments, the excessive reassurance from her parents that the tests were negative.

She looked at Jerry, who seemed excited for the company. And yet, the hollow eyes, the tear rolling down his cheek…

It was all too much. She hurried back up the creek. Fighting the current was much more difficult, and she stopped for a break after a few minutes.

Nobody dies down here.

Surely, this must be better than living her parents’ lie, better than…

A muffled sound from above. She listened carefully, praying it would come again.

“Alicia!”

She froze, unsure of which direction to go. Would it really be better to face such a devastating reality?

“Alicia!” An image of Jillian and Erin flooded her mind. Three more steps, and she was standing below the bridge. The sunlight was blinding.

“What are you doing? You looked like you were in a trance,” said Jillian.

“You mean, you could see me?” asked Alicia.

“Of course,” replied Erin. “You walked under the bridge and twenty feet down the creek. Then you were talking to yourself and ran back. Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Alicia hesitated, looking at their relieved faces. “Yes, it’s all okay.”

She saw a stick at her feet and picked it up. “Maybe I should give it one more shot.”

She stood on the bridge and dropped the stick. She turned and looked down. The stick emerged and floated downstream.

Jillian and Erin cheered at the success. Alicia remained fixated as the stick disappeared downstream, along with her chance to avoid the tragedy that lay ahead.

The girls put their arms around her shoulders for the walk back to Erin’s house. As they reached the edge of the park, Alicia glanced back at the bridge. She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by Erin’s cheerful whistle.

The time would come to tell them, to welcome their support. But for now, the secret was hers alone.

*         *        *

Kevin Hogg teaches high school English, Law, and History. He holds a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from Carleton University and enjoys presenting at conferences about his 1969 narrative nonfiction work-in-progress. He spends much of his time exploring local forests, which also inspired him to pursue certification as a forest therapy guide. He loves supernatural horror movies and punk rock, but he’s just as likely to be watching Clueless or listening to the Monkees. His website is https://kevinhogg.ca.

By Larry Levine

Live, from Con-Com Stadium in Miami, Florida, the play-by-play voice breathlessly intoned, we are just moments away from Game One of the 2032 World Series.

Ralph Vincent turned up the car radio and gave a sour glance to his wife in the passenger seat.

“Why are they having this dinner party tonight?” he asked, knowing it was a rhetorical question, but not caring. “I mean, I can understand Susan not knowing it was Game One of the World Series, but Fred’s a huge baseball fan. What’s his excuse?”

Michelle Vincent stared out the windshield. “There are a lot more important things in the world than baseball. And besides, a World Series between Miami and Minnesota? Why do you care?”

“Because it’s the World Series.”

“Hmff,” she muttered.

Bobby Grayson is completing his warm-up tosses now as Phil Lawrence, Minnesota’s leadoff hitter, settles into the batter’s box for the opening pitch. And this opening pitch is brought to you by Opening Pitch Business Solutions. Get your presentations across with Opening Pitch.

“How many Walco Dinner Parties have Fred and Susan had this year, five?” Ralph said irritably. “It’s enough already. Making us give up our Saturday nights like this.”

“Not if it helps everyone out.”

Grayson winds and delivers. Fastball on the outside corner for strike one. And the first strike is brought to you by First Strike Ant and Roach Killer. Throw a shutout against pests with First Strike.

Something occurred to Michelle. “Why did the announcer call it ‘Miami’? Didn’t they vote to sell the naming rights? Isn’t it ‘Florida Conglomerate Bank City’ now?”

“No, that doesn’t start until 2034.”

…low and away, for a ball. And when you’re low and away, don’t feel bad. Spend a relaxing night at a Comewright Inn.

Michelle turned and looked at the backseat to make sure the mac-and-cheese casserole wasn’t leaking.

“Are the Canfields going to be there tonight?” Ralph asked her.

“I suppose so, why?”

“You wanna make a bet on how soon George works into the conversation that he and Ethel need only three jobs to get by?”

Michelle laughed. “Right. They’re letting us know they’ve got it easier than we do, but they pretend it’s altruism. Like having one less job is allowing someone else to have one.”

Lawrence swings and lofts a lazy fly ball to center field. Dugan camps under it and makes the catch. And that catch is brought to you by Catch o’ the Day Seafood Restaurants. Ocean or bay, it’s Catch o’ the Day.

“Slow down, that’s their driveway over there,” said Michelle.

“I know, I know. You don’t have to tell me every time.”

He pulled into the driveway, parked behind several other cars and reluctantly, turned off the radio.

*

There was a new couple at the table that night, Jeff and Judy Clancy. They were in their twenties, ten years younger than the others, and they sat shyly at the far end as Fred, their host, introduced them.

“Jeff and Judy work with me at the Burger Meister,” he explained. “I think it’s great that a husband and wife have the same second job. I’m trying to get Susan to quit that checkout thing she does and apply there too, so we can actually see each other, but she won’t do it.”

“Can’t take the chance,” Susan said over her shoulder as she headed into the kitchen. “They’re always laying people off at Burger Meister. Top Shopper’s a lot more secure.”

“What do you guys primarily do?” Michelle asked the newbies.

“I’m a tax advisor,” said Jeff, “and Judy teaches physics.”

“You’ve got interesting T-shirts,” George Canfield noticed. Both Jeff and Judy were wearing matching T-shirts with the flying-duck logo of Mallard de Mer Cruise Lines. “Any special significance?”

“We wanted to tell you about this,” Judy offered in a wispy voice. “It’s a new promotion. If you’re wearing one of these shirts in a Walco Dinner Party video, you get points toward a free Caribbean cruise. We brought along some extras, if anyone wants to do it.”

This got a chuckle. “Thanks but no thanks,” said George. “I don’t think we’ve got a lot of time for cruises.”

“You mean,” Ralph whispered in Michelle’s ear, “not even with all that extra time from only three jobs?” Michelle gave him a playful kick under the table.

“Well, you can always sell the points,” said Jeff.

Susan came back into the dining room carrying Michelle’s reheated mac and cheese. She placed it in the center of the table among the other dishes.

“Okay, as we all know,” she announced, “this is a Walco Dinner, so let’s do the necessaries. Does everyone have their phones out?”

They all nodded and stood up, aiming their smartphones at the platters of food. “Ready?” said Susan. “Go!”

“This is a Walco Dinner Party,” they said in unison. “Every morsel of food on this table comes from Walco. Walco’s the best. We love you!”

They tapped to reverse their phones and display themselves. Then they all said their names and e-mail addresses, copied the videos onto the Walco app, and tapped “Send.”

“I suppose it’s not much to go through for a month of 30 percent off everything,” Ralph said, “but it’s so robotic and cultish. It’s creepy.”

“I don’t mind,” said Ethel Canfield. “If they use your video in one of their commercials, you get fifty percent off.”

They all settled in at the table and began to eat. Susan apologized for the toughness of the baked ham. “They have much better hams at Serve-town than at Walco, but what can you do?”

At one point, the topic turned to politics. “Did you hear?” Fred remarked. “We may have our first nonhuman member of Congress.”

“Get out!” George said.

“It’s true. Ever since the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the same rights as people, they’ve been talking about corporations running for public office. Now they’re really doing it. There’s a congressional district in South Carolina where Wise Acre Realty is ahead of the incumbent by ten points.”

They all shook their heads. “I guess if my accounting firm ever ran for office, I’d be expected to vote for it,” Jeff said. “Or else make damn sure no one knew I didn’t.”

“I just wouldn’t vote,” said Judy. “Why take the chance?”

After dessert, Ralph tried to persuade Fred to sneak into the den and turn on the World Series, but Michelle overheard and nixed the idea.

“You can find out the score on our way home,” she told him. “We can’t just hang out here all night, you know. You have to get up early for work, remember?”

“How can I forget?”

Susan was curious. “Work tomorrow? I thought the Shoe Shack was closed on Sundays.”

“It is,” said Ralph, “and that’s why the opportunity to be the giant drumstick in front of Chickie Chickie Boom Boom’s was too good to pass up. The only thing is, I hope none of my students come by there and recognize me.”

“They’re making him teach gym now, as well as French,” Michelle put in. “It never ends.”

“C’est la vie,” Ralph sighed.

“Actually, we have to leave too,” said Ethel. “George’s mother is babysitting, and we really should get home and rescue her.”

“You’ve got kids?” Judy said enviously. “I know people aren’t having them so much anymore, but Jeff and I would like to have at least one someday.”

The others laughed good-naturedly. “Have several,” said Michelle, “if you can find a free minute.”

They all said their goodbyes, Fred turned on the exterior lights, and the three couples trooped out to the driveway. George asked Ralph if he’d do him a favor and video him and Ethel in front of their car.

“Takahashi is having a promotion,” he explained. “If we do a video testimonial next to our car and post it on InstaChat, we’ll get a hundred dollars’ worth of free charge-ups.”

“We should check and see if Nishomon is doing something like that,” Michelle told Ralph, who grimaced.

“Listen, I know it’s stupid,” she said, “but if we don’t do it, it’s like throwing away money.”

“Mustn’t throw away money,” Ralph muttered. “You can throw away your life, no problem. But don’t ever throw away money.”

They all got into their cars and, with a final wave and a flick of their high beams, drove off into the moonless night.

                                                                *     *    *

Before turning to fiction writing, Lenny Levine enjoyed a successful 20-year career as a recording studio singer and composer of many jingles, such as McDonald’s, Lipton Tea, and Jeep. His stories have been widely published in literary magazines and journals, and he received a Pushcart Prize nomination for short fiction.