By Cathy Carroll-Moriarty

I’m surprised he came. But there he is at our usual booth by the window. Time hasn’t changed him much since our childhood days in Little Bohemia. Light colored hair with eyelashes to match. Indistinct chin. Small eyes set close together atop a small nose and thin line of a mouth. Only difference from middle school till now is that he can finally grow a moustache, though not much of one.

The years haven’t been as kind to me. But I haven’t been kind to the years I’ve been given, either.

He takes a drink of water and looks at his watch, probably one of the few people left our age who still wears one. I could leave right now. It wouldn’t be the first time I stood him up, in fact, he’s probably expecting me to.  Instead, I take a deep breath in and saunter over to the table.

He looks up when I sit down. His eyes don’t light up, nor does he smile like he used to when he would see me. There was a time when I could count on both.

“I ordered you a coffee and a piece of your favorite torte.”

“Thanks.”

“But I’m not staying long. Matthew has an appointment.”

I have no idea which one Matthew is; he has a whole brood of kids. Maybe he’s the one with Muscular Dystrophy? I don’t insult him by asking. There was a time when I would’ve delighted in watching the pain and annoyance take shape across his flaccid features. But not today.

“So, I guess I should say what I need to say right off the bat.”

“Yeah, guess so,” he checks his watch again.

I clear my throat, “so the thing is…I saw the doctor the other day. Got some news.” Good lord, he’s not even looking at me. “I’m dying. There’s no treatment, at least that my insurance will cover.”

His eyes flicker with what might’ve been emotion. No, it’s gone, now.

“So, you need money or something? Is that it?”

“No…” Although money never hurt.

“Cause I’m not doing this dance again. I’m still paying off the last loan I took out for you.”

“I, um, I just thought you would want to know, that’s all.”

“Why would you want me to know unless there’s some benefit in it for you?”

“That’s not really fair…”

“Not fair? No, not fair was me missing Cecelia’s baptism to bail you outta jail. Not fair was me losing my job because I vouched for you. Fair doesn’t exist between us anymore.”

“We used to be close. For old times’ sake, I want things to be like they were.” I lowered my eyes for effect. “For you to be with me at the end.”

Abruptly, he stands, at least as abruptly as someone can stand up from a booth. His face red, his unremarkable brown eyes narrowed, “I don’t know what you’re playing at. But I’m not doing this with you. When I said I cut you off, I meant it. I don’t even know why I came.” 

He shuffles through his wallet. “Use this to pay for the coffee and torte.” He tosses some bills on the table. “Don’t call me again.”

He stomps off, checking his watch again. Forgiveness and sentiment are among his many weaknesses, so I watch the door for his return.  I don’t care that he doesn’t shuffle back inside.  Andy could be a stubborn little brat and I don’t need him.

The waitress brings over the order, and I almost send her away. Almost. It is my favorite torte after all. The memories melt in my mouth with each bite. How he’d give me his lunch when he saw I was hungry during our days at St. Adalbert’s grade school. How he’d taken beatings for me from high school bullies. He’d never let me down until now; guess that’s how some people are.

I lick the fork to get every ounce of frosting. Setting the fork down and reaching for the money, I realize that he left two fifties. More than enough for coffee and torte. Smoothing the money flat and stacking the two bills on top of each other, I twist my face into a smirk. I could always count on Andy.

I pocket all of it and leave the cafe.

*   *   *

Cathy lives in the Midwest and has started a writing career later in life. When not writing stories and rewriting her novel, she enjoys book club meetings at a café in Little Bohemia , gardening, and luxurious Sunday afternoon naps. Her work has appeared in Ariel Chart, Adelaide, Grande Dame Literary, and Four Tulips.

By JJ de Melo

To get to my job—where I spend my days rejecting expense reports submitted by the incompetent and the would-be corrupt—I take the L train crosstown to Civic Center, on the more bustling side of San Francisco. This morning, however, the Twin Peaks Tunnel was shut down for maintenance. Again. 

I was forced to disembark the tram at the mouth of the tunnel—the “West Portal” we call it—where it normally slices through the base of Twin Peaks. I, along with the other commuters, was then shepherded by SFMTA staff onto a bus-shuttle-thing that would carry us in a crescendo over the intercity summit and back into the heart of downtown, where we all either worked or were otherwise shuffling to this A.M. 

The single benefit to this impractical detour came at the peak of the rerouted journey. It was a clear morning—the fog had stayed offshore for once—leaving an unobstructed view of the city I served as a municipal financial analyst, a role in which I ensured the taxpayer dollar was spent without error or regulatory violation. The morning sun reflecting off the towering high rises renewed my passion to serve. 

This bliss was brief. 

We soon hit the beginnings of Market Street, where the passengers boarding the bus diversified. To put it lightly. The second we reached the makeshift, street-level stop that had replaced Castro Station, a rotund, ruddy man boarded the bus without paying—an increasingly irritable habit I’ve noticed among riders. The fare-evading man plopped himself down between two of my fellow commuters. He belched loudly. Then a liquor bottle appeared from oversized sweatpants. I recognized it to be a brand of dry vermouth, which felt particularly absurd to consume by itself at eight o’clock in the morning. He took a long swig straight from the spout. 

I tried to ignore him. 

A few stops later—the bus was packed at this point—more silent, zombie-like commuters joined us. That’s one thing I preferred since leaving New York: the San Francisco commute is quieter. Of course, an exception to that observation boarded soon after. A woman. With a shaved head. Sunken eyes. Her defining characteristic? Her lack of shoes. And it appeared she’d been without shoes for a very long time. Her otherwise pale feet were absolutely blackened to filth. 

She entered through the back door. Without paying. Obviously. And to say she “boarded” the bus really puts it far too elegantly. I might actually say she stomped onto the vehicle. I was standing at this point—making room for more elderly riders—and she shoved right past me as she stormed in. Next thing I knew she had marched up to a petite, young woman—she looked to be fresh out of college—and was quite literally hissing at her. Glued to her phone up until the hiss, the young woman looked up at the barefoot one. Stunned. Terror painted her face. 

“Give me your seat,” the barefoot woman growled.

The other woman shot up instantly and headed for the back of the bus. She also shoved me as she passed. 

What was with all the shoving?

The seat free, the barefoot woman threw herself into it. Dared anyone else to say something. No one did. Myself included. But I couldn’t stop looking at her either. This barefoot woman. As the bus rolled along, I found myself questioning the label I’d mentally demarcated her with. Did her lack of shoes really define her? 

I mean, she was clearly homeless. Was she better described as the homeless woman? No, wait. Unhoused woman. Or was she a woman experiencing homelessness? Houselessness? Whatever it was you were supposed to say these days. I made note to look that up again. There’d been an e-mail about this at work. And I do try to stay on top of these things, working for the city. Optics and all that.

So, as I was saying, this homeless, unhoused, woman experiencing homelessness has hissed her way into a seat. And it happened to be right across the aisle from the man partaking in a bottle of morning vermouth en route. He too found himself entranced by the hissing woman. His gray, bloodshot eyes diverged in their expression. The right maintained an intoxicated glaze. The left twinkled with a predatory shine.

He scratched his stubbly chin. Belched shamelessly. And said, “Hey.” How eloquent.

The unhoused, barefoot woman glanced at him. She broke eye contact quickly. 

“Hey, girl,” he called again. 

A hissed “What?” followed.

“You need shoes?” he nodded coolly at her feet. 

He must have been handsome once. A cool nod and a pickup line probably used to work for him. Before he was drunk on a bus drinking vermouth in a faded Niners jersey and sweatpants. Wreaking of alcohol and body odor. Preying upon a shaved-headed woman with no shoes.

She wasn’t impressed. She just stared back at him. Dumbfounded. Looking quite like the petite, younger woman she’d scared out of the same seat moments ago. I presumed the woman’s hissing behavior earned her a sort of apex predator status amongst the city’s transit riders. She’d grown used to being yielded to by the likes of myself. This drunken man defied that status quo.

“Come on, girl,” he slurred. “Lemme buy you some shoes.” 

The bus screeched to a halt. Outside a man was beating the side of the bus with a bright, yellow umbrella, despite the sunny day. He was yelling, insisting the driver let him on even though I’m quite certain this particular intersection wasn’t a shuttle stop. The driver decided to reward the uncivilized, bashing behavior by opening the back door.

Before the umbrella’ed man could board, the barefoot woman was storming out the bus. She avoided addressing vermouth man as she departed. She did, however, growl at me and anyone else even remotely close to the exit. Then she leapt off, landing on her dirtied feet like some escaped zoo animal before darting across a lane of traffic to reach the main sidewalk. 

I’m not sure what compelled me at that moment. But I followed her off the bus. I needed to help her, I think. If I could. 

This was new for me.

I waited patiently for the traffic signal to flash the little walking man before I crossed from the bus median to the sidewalk. It took me a moment, so I had to hustle to catch the unhoused, shaved-headed woman with no shoes. She was surprisingly speedy, though I was back on her tail soon enough. Sensing physical contact might upset her, I made sure to get her attention verbally.

“Excuse me!” 

She continued walking. Feet slapping on the pavement.

“Hey!” I wasn’t sure how to address her. “Hey, lady!” Lady? Did I really say that? 

She stopped. Turned to stare at me. She seemed upset that I’d broken her stride. I wondered where she was going anyway.

“I… uh,” I muttered. “I saw you on the bus and… I noticed you don’t have any shoes.”

She looked me up and down. “So?” 

“Well, I…” I couldn’t believe I was doing this. “I’d like to help get you some.”

She scowled at me. The expression felt more confused than anything. I kept talking. Tried to explain.

“Would you like that?” I asked. “I work for the city. I know this support service that–” 

“What shoe size are you?”

“Huh?” Now I was confused. I didn’t need shoes. I answered anyway. “Size 8.”

“Small feet for a man.” She was staring at them now.

“What?”

She looked me dead in the eyes, said, “That’ll work.” 

And she punched me in the throat. 

My vision turned to stars. I keeled over. Grasped at my neck.

I was struggling so hard to breathe through the pain—to breathe at all!—that I could do nothing else as she untied my laces and slipped my shoes right off me. Writhing on the ground as she pulled them onto her two bare feet. My business casual loafers looked ridiculous on her.

She clomped a few steps in them. They were a little loose. She removed them. Peeled my socks off too. Put everything back on. She took a few more cursory steps. Shrugged in satisfaction at the improved fit with the addition of my socks. 

All through it I was wheezing on the floor like an asthmatic. She didn’t pay me any mind as she ran off, stomping in the same direction to the same nameless destination as before. Defeated, I laid there. Catching my breath as she returned to the wild.

A passerby walked up a moment later. He looked down at me, flat out on the sidewalk. He didn’t offer to help me up or anything. Just asked me what happened.

“Some homeless lady stole my shoes!”

*    *    *

JJ de Melo is a queer, Filipino-American and Portuguese writer with creative writing training from the City College of San Francisco. He’s had work published in Fiction on the Web, Space & Time, Sci-Fi Shorts, and Literally Stories. In 2025, he won the editor’s choice award for fiction from Forum Magazine.

By Ashley Neary-Greenhouse

Graham hated his name because all the kids called him Graham Cracker. He asked his mom if he could change it, but she said, “No. I love the name, besides, who doesn’t like graham crackers? It’s the first ingredient in s’mores!”

Graham collected chocolate frogs and had almost all the cards that came with them until his dog ate every one of the thirteen he’d collected, and he lost interest. The dog had been a gift for his thirteenth birthday. He asked for a chocolate Lab, and she arrived early in the morning wearing a yellow ribbon around her chubby puppy neck. He named her Nutella, and they played together every day after school because Graham was a loner. 

He read books under a big sycamore tree in the pet cemetery by his house while Nutella bathed in the sun and peed on old headstones marking the graves of dogs, cats, monkeys, parakeets, and a horse. People thought it was weird that he hung out there, but he thought it was the perfect hiding spot. No one bothered him.

That was until a Sunday afternoon in May. He was reading Ancient Civilizations, absorbed in an article about the study of ancient fecal matter and the protozoan responsible for dysentery, when an old man approached. Nutella, toxically friendly, greeted him by violently slapping her tail into his thigh. The man laughed loudly, startling Graham so much that he tore the page he was reading. Irritated, Graham got up and walked away, ignoring him. Nutella hesitated, then followed her boy.

The next afternoon, Graham returned with a copy of National Geographic, looking forward to reading about penguins until the man appeared again. Nutella bolted toward him, muscular tail wagging. He knew dogs were good at reading people so he thought maybe he should hear him out.

The old man introduced himself as, “Stephen, with a ‘ph’.”

Graham didn’t introduce himself. He muttered “Oh, like the pH scale.”

Stephen explained that he had a dog named Plank who looked just like Nutella and was buried just a few paces from the sycamore tree. Plank lived to fifteen before dying of lymphoma. Stephen hadn’t been able to visit for weeks due to his own health, but now he was back and he had a plan. He was going to spray paint Plank’s headstone. Graham found this strange, but he appreciated strange.

“What color?” he asked.

“Taxicab yellow,” Stephen said.

“Why taxicab yellow? 

Stephen replied, “Because taxicab yellow is scientifically proven to be the easiest color to spot in a crowd. That’s why taxicabs are yellow! The pet cemetery is so crowded, I figured it would be much easier to find Plank if his headstone is taxicab yellow!”

Graham considered this. It made sense but he wondered if it was legal. 

“Are you allowed to spray paint Plank’s headstone such a bright color?” 

“Technically, it’s against the law. But what are they gonna do to an old man trying to find his dog? Fine me? Who cares! I’m old and not long of this world!”

Stephen asked if Graham had a pet buried there. Graham said he just liked to read under the tree. Stephen didn’t seem to judge him. 

“I can be your lookout if you want,” Graham said.

“I’d appreciate that,” Stephen said.

They walked to Plank’s grave. Stephen grew quiet but said Plank had lived a life full of adventures.

“Why’d you name him Plank?” Graham asked.

Stephen smiled. “It’s short for Plankton. He was found swimming in the ocean off Catalina Island. Authorities guessed he’d been in the water for some thirteen hours, just drifting with the current, the same way plankton do. They called him Max the Miracle. I brought him home, gave him a warm bed, and decided he deserved a better name. Plankton became Plank.”

Stephen, Graham, and Nutella met weekly to check Plank’s headstone, which had been repainted by cemetery employees like clockwork. Graham acted as lookout each time Stephen repainted it taxicab yellow. After a few months, the cemetery threatened to remove the headstone. This did not deter Stephen. He seemed to get a thrill from it. 

The repainting continued for almost a year until the day Stephen was a no-show. Graham saw that Plank’s headstone was restored to its original color again, but a bright yellow leash—the color of a taxicab—was draped over it, a note addressed to Graham pinned to it.

Dear Graham, 

I hate to surprise you like this, but I figured it was the best way to break the news. If you’re reading this letter, it means I have been reunited with Plank. I have asked to be buried here next to him. I would appreciate it if you and Nutella attended my service. My wife and daughter will attend. I’ve told them all about you. They look forward to meeting you. They know something that you don’t—how much happiness you and Nutella have brought me in my final months. You have been a faithful friend. You have made me feel young again. You have performed heroically as lookout on our repainting missions. Please do not be too saddened by my passing. Try to remember that, like Plank, I have lived a long life filled with adventures. Stay close to Nutella. Cherish each moment with her. When the time comes for Nutella to join me and Plank, please consider burying her under your sycamore tree. 

Always faithful,

Stephen J. Pless

P.S. This leash belonged to Plank. I know you’ll appreciate the color.

The day after Stephen’s headstone was installed next to Plank’s, Graham painted them both taxicab yellow.

            *   *   *

Ashley Neary-Greenhouse studies creative writing at Boise State University. Her work has appeared in Maudlin House, Paper Plane Press, Jackdaw Press, The Sheepshead Review and The Lindenwood Review. She is the winner of The Lindenwood Review’s 2025 undergrad flash fiction contest.

By Huina Zheng

I went to the reproductive medicine department to have my eggs retrieved. The doctor told me to spread my legs and rest them on the stirrups. I bit the inside of my cheeks, forcing myself to expose the most private part of my body in front of a strange man. All I could see was the pale blue of the surgical gown. The anesthesiologist pushed the drugs into my vein.

I stared at the ceiling and felt myself float above the operating room, looking down with the doctor at my legs, parted. I know there are things you don’t tell even your closest friends, but my mouth was no longer mine. I heard myself telling the doctor that infertility was the fate of the women in my family. My great-grandmother had been barren. My grandmother was bought as a daughter. My mother was my grandmother’s stepdaughter; her biological mother starved to death during the famine. And me? My mother says she found me in a trash bin.

I want to believe it’s a joke. But I was the only only-child in my village, during the one-child policy, when pregnancies were hidden and women disappeared into the mountains, all for the chance of a son. 

The doctor told me to close my eyes and relax. His voice came from far away, like from underwater. I had studied every step of the procedure online, but I still turned my head toward the monitor beside me. On the black-and-white ultrasound, the dark circles were my follicles.

“Good follicles,” the doctor said. “Eight on the left, six on the right.” 

Then the needle came in. I had seen pictures of it online, as long as a forearm. When it appeared on the screen, my body should have tensed, but instead it went slack, like a wet rag. The tip of the needle was a thin line of light. It aligned with one of the dark circles and pierced it. 

I didn’t feel pain, but I could feel its length, as if someone were digging a well inside my body, and at the bottom of the well an eye blinked. 

I smiled at the black-and-white version of myself on the screen. I said that one of them was my daughter. 

“Which one?” the doctor asked. 

“The one on the far left,” I said. 

The circle blinked at me, lashes long, almost smiling. When the needle withdrew, I could hear her humming to me, Mama is the best in the world, her voice soft and sticky, like rice cake. “She can’t wait to meet me.” 

The doctor didn’t respond. His eyes stayed fixed on the screen. 

The needle went in again. This time, the nurse pressed harder on my abdomen. I lifted my head and looked at her eyes. Single-lidded, clear, a young face hidden beneath the mask. The curve of her eyes told me she was smiling. She told me it would be over soon. The coolness of her latex gloves felt like a fish just cut open, still twitching, against my skin numbed by disinfectant. She began telling me about another patient. A woman who had spent eight years going from one fertility clinic to another, across Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou. She had taken over a hundred injections; her abdomen was mottled with bruises, like it had been kicked. She tried herbal medicine; the bitterness stayed in her throat, people could smell it when she spoke. Later, her husband had an affair. The other woman got pregnant. He said it was her fault, that he had no choice but to find someone else to give him a child. The day they divorced, she drank half a bottle of baijiu, and slept with a stranger in a bar. A month later, she found out she was pregnant. 

“In the past, people would call it fate,” the nurse said. “Modern medicine calls it immunological infertility, the sperm and egg attacking each other.” 

I wondered whether the hands inside her gloves were warm, whether her nails were neatly trimmed. I imagined her slender fingers moving across my chest and abdomen, the way my mother used to, telling me that we all have breasts and a uterus, that our bodies are made to carry life. 

There was a dark mole on the nurse’s neck, a long hair growing from it, out of place against her pale skin. 

“This is fly droppings,” she said. “When I was six, I didn’t wash it off in time. It sank into my skin and fed on my blood.” 

I thought she was trying to distract me. How could fly droppings grow? But as she spoke, the mole trembled, like a fly beating its wings. 

“Those three days when the embryos are in the dish,” she said, “whatever you eat, they can smell.”

“So should I eat spicy?” I asked. “Sweet? Sour? Salty?”

“Anything,” she said. “Think about the tastes you want them to have when they’re born. Then you won’t mind if they’re different from you.”

That night, I went back to the apartment my husband and I had just bought and opened the fridge to see what I could cook. Everything inside was something my mother had told me to buy, foods that were supposed to help with conception. Black chicken, fish maw, pig stomach. They made me nauseous. Red dates, longan, lotus seeds. I was sick of them. Even pomelo and pomegranate tasted like nothing.

In the end, I made a pot of porridge, adding salt, sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce.

When I set it on the table, my husband stared at me.

“It has every flavor it’s supposed to have,” I told him. I took a spoonful and swallowed it without chewing. Warm, sliding down my throat, like the length of the needle inside my body.

My husband said nothing. He just watched me as I reached into the pot with my hand and stirred. I pulled my fingers out and licked them.

It had every taste.

It had none.

*   *   *

Huina Zheng either writes as an admission coach at work or writes for fun after work. She lives in Guangzhou, China, with her family.