By Christine Robertson

It’s December, and I’m dancing in the bathroom, barefoot, dressed in my World’s Best Sister nightshirt, about an hour late for work. Lynyrd Skynyrd blasts from my phone. That soaring crescendo in Free Bird where the vocals peak, and the guitar goes wild. I should get ready, head to the office disguised as a responsible adult, but the music crawls up my skin, alive. It just feels so much more damn important. 

The phone rings. I send it to voicemail, bob my head like a chicken, belting into my toothbrush. 

Then it rings again. 

A voice I don’t know is on the other end. It says “Miss,” and my name, and tells me it’s sorry, and has terrible news. 

They found a body.

It’s my brother.

I book a flight from LAX to Miami. Stumble through the airport, drowning in loudspeakers and fluorescent lights. I pass a woman I know holding a cup of coffee—fat baby beside her in a stroller. And hours later, in a cheap rental car, I drive to the place where they lifted him.

*

I’m on a forgotten knoll off the shoulder of a road. A chain-link fence stands like a sentry guarding the parking lot behind. The road’s too wide for the few cars that speed by. It’s quiet. Industrial on one side, mobile home park on the other. Too quiet.

The Florida sun presses down. The air, thick and damp. The cop says they dragged him, dumped him, drove off in his car. They don’t think they’ll find it; it’s probably already in pieces. 

No one can tell me if he was still alive when they left him. There’s no way to know. All I do know is they found him in the morning, and he’d been dead awhile. 

It would have been dark out. 

Black. 

Stitched in silence. 

Was he scared? Did he suffer? Did he die alone? 

I search for answers I don’t want like his life depends on it. Stare at the mound, dried grass crumpled like discarded paper, desperate for proof. Something I can make sense of. Even a sign he was really here. 

There’s nothing but a gum wrapper. Half-buried rusted tuna can. Decades-old cigarette butts. 

Then behind a blade of grass, I spot a lighter. It’s red, plastic, chipped at the edge, but it looks new. I rub my thumb across the smooth surface holding it too tight. Look up at the sky, cruel blue with swollen clouds, secretive and still. A witness refusing to speak. The air won’t move, and I can’t breathe, and I want to leave, but I don’t want to leave him.

I force myself to drive to a hotel and lie alone in the dark while the world lights up. Outside, there’s a holiday boat parade. Red and green lights flicker through the window. Music blares. People laugh, slurring, loud and loose on the obsidian sea. I press a pillow over my ears, shielding myself away from the festive roar, and try to sleep.

The next several days I return to the knoll, but he’s not there. He’s nowhere and everywhere. I whisper-cry his name like a spell. Wrap myself in his laugh—that crack in his voice when he tried to sing. I hide in his crinkly eyes and mock accents, and a grin that warmed the entire world. 

Then I pull myself away, and head toward a rent-a-car place next to the airport. 

When I pull into the driveway, a bird the size of my palm bounces in the path. It chirps. Once. Twice. Three times. 

Its eye locks on mine.

Time stops. 

And just like that, it flies away.

I follow slowly at first, but as it moves ahead, my feet move faster and I’m on a street I’ve never seen before with no idea how far I’ve run. My chest burns and I gasp for air. 

It darts around a corner and disappears. 

I stop. 

Completely alone. 

There’s only a dead-end fence. A silence of sky and air so loud it throbs in my ears. I’ve no idea how to move or where to go from here. Every second he moves farther away, but I know if I keep running, I’ll find him. There’s no way he could have gone that far. 

*   *   *

Christine Robertson lives in Los Angeles. Her recent work has been published in Club Plum and Eunoia Review, and she is a two-time contributor to The Sun’s Readers Write. She holds a BA in English and French from UCLA and currently studies creative writing as part of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She can be found online at christinerobertson.com. 

A Brooklyn Story by Phil Baisley 

“Marble? You home?”

Jerry DeLuca peeked into the darkness of his Bensonhurst apartment.

“Marb?”

No response. No mewing. No purr.

Well, cats have a life of their own.

That’s why Jerry left the kitchen window open on all but the coldest nights. Marble, the malnourished tabby kitten he’d brought home…

How many years ago?

had never quite been domesticated. Oh, he devoured the cans of Friskies Jerry dutifully left him, one each morning, with some dry kibble in the evening, but he spent most of his time…

Where the fuck did that cat spend his time?

outdoors, a minuscule lion prowling the Brooklyn streets.

After his dinner of reheated spaghetti with sauce made from those wonderful Roma tomatoes Louie’s Market carried, Jerry listened to the tunes on his dad’s old Stromberg-Carlson until his body leaned onto the sofa cushions and he drifted into sleep. Sometime before the sun whispered hello to Montauk Point, Jerry felt, or maybe dreamed of, a warm, furry body snuggling beside him.

                                                                                *

When he awoke, Marble was alone. He arched his back and stretched his forepaws to their fullest extent. Feeling himself a bit dirty behind the ears, he licked one paw at a time, carefully wiping it behind each offending ear. When he was certain his ears were clean, he licked his lips. He tasted blood.

Usually, sensing blood on or near him triggered in Marble an image of whatever creature he’d last caught and toyed with before consuming. Rat taste was common for any New York outdoor kitty. Sparrows brought their own peculiar memories. With starlings, the blood Marble smelled could easily be his own. This was definitely rodent.

Licking until he was certain his fur was presentable should anyone disturb his sleep, Marble stretched again and then curled into a ball for the kind of rest a miniature predator can only find indoors, sunken into a down comforter.

                                                                               *

Per his custom, Jerry fell asleep before the third stop on his morning commute. Some instinct deep within him, bred through generations of New Yorkers, would rouse him just before Union Square. It always did. That left only three stops and a brisk walk to the little coffee shop where his signature order was two cherry Danishes and a black coffee.

“Mr. DeLuca!” Called the Greek gentleman behind the counter. “Your usual?”

“Sure, Georgie.”

Minutes later, the clerk returned with Jerry’s breakfast.

Hey, Mr. DeLuca, you’re looking kind of pale today. You ain’t comin’ down with something, are ya?”

“Nope. Don’t think so.”

Just to make sure, Jerry swallowed, straining his neck to feel any telltale signs of a sore throat.

“Nope. All’s good.”

But Jerry wasn’t completely convinced. What did Georgie see that he couldn’t?

“Tell ya what, my friend. Can you put one of the pastries back? Maybe I am feeling a bit off today.”

Georgie chuckled.

“Hey! You’ll be hungry as a horse by lunchtime for sure.”

And he was.

Jerry’s appetite returned with a vengeance right about 12:20, just a few minutes before lunch hour. He decided to keep the bologna sandwich he’d brought with him in its paper bag in the break-room Frigidaire and spring for a steak at Tad’s. Rare. The baked potato made up for the Danish he hadn’t eaten for breakfast, and the gnarly little sirloin, oozing blood like a gangster in a “B” movie, satisfied his other desires.

Jerry spent the afternoon listening to the Yankees beat the Red Sox on the office radio while he and the other claims examiners pored over statements from physicians and employers as they determined whose unemployment compensation claims had enough merit to appeal their denial. At five o’clock, he grabbed the sandwich out of the ice box, thinking that after a big lunch it might be all he’d need for supper.

Later, walking through his doorway, Jerry wondered again, Where’s that damn cat? 

                                                                               *

Marble couldn’t resist the call of the evening sun, and he found a spot on a stone stoop that suited him nicely. He knew the kids who lived there and understood their cries of elation and dejection as their stickball games progressed in the street. When the streetlights came on, and the children trudged home, Marble stretched, bathed his hind end and feet, and began his hunt. Last night’s mouse was not enough. He needed a richer source of nourishment sometimes, and this was one of those times.

The hatless gentleman never saw it coming. He was too busy moving his eyes left and right in the darkening alley. You never know what kind of muggers and perverts might be skulking in the corners, behind garbage cans, or in dark doorways. New Yorkers never look up.

Marble timed his leap from the fire escape perfectly, digging his claws into the stranger’s back and his teeth into his neck. The victim would recover in a daze, remembering only the pain, hoping whatever bit him wouldn’t require a painful series of rabies shots, never knowing how valuable was his unoffered, but gratefully received, gift of life.

                                                                          *

The day was warming quickly by 7:00 a.m. Jerry checked the cat food dish and the water tin, opened the apartment door, and called back, “Have a good day, okay, buddy?”

That morning at the coffee shop, Georgie called, “Mr. DeLuca! Hey! The usual?”

Jerry brushed his fingers over his lips, savoring a metallic memory.

“Just coffee today, Georgie. I’m not that hungry.” 

  *   *   *

Phil Baisley was born and raised in Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York. He is a retired seminary professor, current pastor, and reptile enthusiast currently residing in Richmond, Indiana. 

Baisley’s non-fiction work has been published in books by Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, Cascade Books, Atla Open Press, and in his own book, “The Same, But Different,” by Friends United Press. His short story, “Jarvis Hampton,” was recently included in the “Stolen” horror anthology by Easton Tales Publishing.

A Memoir by Leah Mueller

As I wandered down Van Allen Street towards Keenan’s house, I could see that the block looked exactly as I remembered. Immaculate three-story Victorian homes. Massive oak trees, shedding their first autumn leaves. Old-fashioned streetlamps on cement poles. An eerie, Norman Rockwell scene, transported into the early 21st century.

I spent my middle and high school years in downstate Illinois. Popular kids ridiculed me in the hallways. At first, I ignored them, gritting my teeth as I strode in the opposite direction. They were like cockroaches—for each one I saw, ten more waited inside the walls. I learned how to sling insults back.

Keenan was intensely neurotic, prone to nervous tics like hair-pulling. He already had a couple of visible bald spots. Rumor held that he drank a fifth of gin every night. I adored him because he was different from everyone else. Keenan was like a gnome from outer space. He and I often discussed eclectic topics that no one else understood. Social dysfunction was our shared bond, our stock in trade.

His family’s place lay halfway between my parents’ house and the high school. Our home was much nicer than his. We had a well-kept yard filled with flowers and vegetables. Keenan’s front porch was covered with rusted machine parts, old shoes, and broken toys.

Twenty-five years had passed since my last visit. Central Illinois wasn’t exactly a tourist mecca. I gazed at anonymous rows of leaded glass windows. I once knew every step to Keenan’s place. Had somebody torn down his house?

A middle-aged, corpulent mailman lumbered in my direction. He stopped a few feet away and smiled. “Looking for somebody? I know everyone in these parts. Maybe I can help.”

“I attended high school here. Just sort of wandering around. I’m doing a nostalgia tour.”

The mailman erupted in laughter. “That’s a good way of putting it. I’m Gary Hinman. Class of ’75. Been working this route for 24 years.”

“My name’s Leah. Class of ’77. You might remember me.”

“Who could forget?” Gary chuckled. “You definitely stood out from the crowd. Of course, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

“Whatever happened to Keenan?” The words burst out before I could stop them. “I’ve been searching for his house, but I can’t remember exactly where it is.”

Gary shook his head. “Man, that’s a sad story. He died only a few months ago. His heart just kinda exploded. Serious drug addict. One day, he showed me a tackle box full of pills. Acted like it was his candy drawer. The house is still there, but nobody lives in it.” His tone sounded casual, like he’d seen many people expire during his years of mail delivery. 

I gaped at him, horrified. “God, that’s awful. Forty-four is too young. Poor guy. He always wanted to buy a mansion and listen to Bach all day. Guess he won’t be doing that now.”

“No, he stayed in his parents’ house,” Gary said. “He tried to attend college in Champaign-Urbana but came home after six months. Poor guy should’ve stayed in school. He was smarter than some of the professors. Damn shame.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Hey, I’d better get back to work. Nice talking with you.”

Gary adjusted his bag and trudged towards a row of waiting houses. Halfway up the block, he spun around and snickered, “Nostalgia tour. I like that. You know, I can’t do a nostalgia tour, because I never left. Oh well.” 

A moment later, he wandered behind a bush. The mid-afternoon sun had grown frigid. A couple of acorns plummeted to the ground. The street became eerily quiet, like the moment before an explosion. 

I no longer wanted to see Keenan’s house. My old friend lived somewhere in the ether, long past Tuscola’s city limits. I tried to imagine him, crouched over an easel or a typewriter, hard at work on his latest project. Both eyes closed, swaying to music only he could hear. Like he’d found his place in the world after all.

*   *   *

Leah Mueller’s work is published in Rattle, Certain Age, Writers Resist, Beach Chair Press, NonBinary Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction, New Flash Fiction Review, Does It Have Pockets, Outlook Springs, Your Impossible Voice, etc. She has received several nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. One of her short stories appears in the 2022 edition of Best Small Fictions. Her fourteenth book, “A Pretty Good Disaster” was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2025. Check out more of her work at substack.com/@leahsnapdragon.

By Richard Collins

I was going in for chemo. I brought my daughter Izzy with me but for some reason asked her to wait in the car. A nurse came to the waiting room and took me through several long halls to another building. We passed I don’t know how many doors, most were closed, some were swinging, few were labeled. I was worried Izzy wouldn’t be able to find me if she went inside to the waiting room, or that she would stay in the hot car. I was already thirty minutes late for my appointment, but by the time I got to the new location through the maze of the hospital’s various mystery clinics I was forty-five minutes late. I tried to call Izzy or her mother on my phone but it was busy updating its operating system. The doctor gently scolded me by saying, ‘you were already late, so don’t push your luck, we only give you two chances.’ I still kept looking at my phone in case it had finished its upgrade. I thought, ‘okay, chemo, here it is. The beginning of the end. It’s not so bad. It’s been a good life. I can go out calmly.’ No raging against the dying of the light for me, in fact I’ll help it along. 

There were a lot of other patients waiting. There were gurneys lined up everywhere in the new waiting room, lots of patients milling about like me, some on their phones. Why not me? On a couple of gurneys were charcuterie boards full of half-eaten salami and cheeses, grapes and crudités. I thought this in bad taste. Some celebration, some kind of ward party? The doctor was cleaning all this up, as though he had just finished surgery or a meal. I said, “look, I’ve got to call my daughter, she’s waiting in a hot car, and I need to tell her to go inside or something.” He looked at me mock-sympathetically, held up two fingers, but did not give me permission to use the phone at the nurses’ station, so I continued to check my cell to see if it had unfrozen to continue its upgrade. The speed of the upload was not encouraging, choppy, some instability in the connection here maybe. I was about to tell him again, more assertively, that my daughter needed looking after, but then I remembered that she was not six years old but twenty-three and surely she could take care of herself and go inside if the car got too hot or she wondered where I was, here in the cancer clinic in mid-winter, when my name was called. 

                                                                   *   *   *

Richard Collins is abbot of the New Orleans Zen Temple and lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he leads Stone Nest Zen Dojo. His work has been nominated for Best Spiritual Literature and a Pushcart Prize and appears in Clockhouse, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, MockingHeart Review, Pensive, Sho Poetry Journal, Think, and Willows Wept Review. His books include No Fear Zen (Hohm Press), In Search of the Hermaphrodite: A Memoir (Tough Poets Press, 2024), and Stone Nest: Poems (Shanti Arts, 2025).

By Arthur Pitchenik

Sunlight alone incubated an abandoned egg in a quiet corner of the coop—and I was born again. Unlike the other hatchlings, I would not—could not—peck for insects, no matter how hungry I was, and I longed, more than anything, to fly.

One day, I watched a caterpillar struggle to crawl toward a plant, contracting its body, wrenching itself forward. It then spun a silken thread and hung from a leaf. A chrysalis slowly enclosed it—fragile and still—for days. Then the shell cracked, and a butterfly wriggled free—wet and crumpled. Its wings unfolded slowly, fluttering with the promise of flight.

I was mesmerized.

“Can I fly with you?” I whispered.

The butterfly replied softly, “You’re a chicken. You can’t fly.”

“Why?”

“You’re too heavy, and your wings are too small.”

“Why?”

“You were bred that way—so you can’t escape. You were meant to lay eggs and be eaten by humans.”

I lowered my head.

“And you’re a grounded insect meant to be eaten by chickens—yet I let you live. Is there a higher authority for me?”

“I was meant to become a beautiful butterfly.”

“And I was meant to become a sleek bird with enormous wings–meant to escape.”

As dawn broke, I felt myself grow lighter. My wings stretched wide and strong. I lifted from the coop and soared above the trees, toward the rising sun.

I awoke to the beeps of my cardiac monitor and the  breath of my ventilator—

Tomorrow I’ll be a gazelle.

*   *   *

Arthur Pitchenik is a retired physician who writes poetry, short stories, and flash fiction about adversity, vulnerability, empathy, struggle, and triumph in fantasy, science fiction, and contemporary genres.

By Ella Torres

She put herself in that position. She had loved a man who didn’t know how to love. Really? Really, Cleo. We went over this a thousand times already. She reassured herself as she stuffed the expensive Ralph Lauren winter vest he’d gotten her two Christmases ago into a cardboard box full of other expensive clothes she’d never have occasion to wear now.

Cleo was twenty-five, broke and broken-hearted, and homeless, well practically homeless (she did not yet have a home) in New York City, the city she moved to seven years ago thinking she would make it as an abstract expressionist. Instead, she’d made it as a cautionary tale.

She looked at the high-ceiling NoMad apartment she’d shared with Eric for the past year and a tear fell down her face before she could stop it. This was never home, she whispered to herself, pressing the elevator button like it might argue back. Eric had never wanted her to move in. She’d pushed for it after two years together, and he’d finally said yes with the enthusiasm of someone agreeing to a root canal. 

Eric wasn’t cruel. Not text-book cruel but wallstreet jerk cruel, sure. He’d surprise her with flowers sometimes, daisies, her favorite and cook her dinner when he was able to get home from the office early. He’d watch Love Is Blind with her and tell her how she’d be the prettiest contestant, clearly not getting the show’s purpose. But Cleo didn’t care, all this flattered her. Sometimes Eric really saw her, made her feel like the only person in the world. Those moments were heroin. 

But Eric had turned thirty this year, meaning he had a new five-year plan and she wasn’t a part of it. She found the ring. His grandmother’s. Not for her. Not for anyone with a face yet. Just a placeholder in his timeline, a girl-shaped space waiting to be filled. The position could be filled by anyone who checked the boxes: finance girl, maybe a doctor, someone whose family summered somewhere with a capital S. Someone whose mother hadn’t worked the cosmetics counter at Macy’s. Someone who understood which fork to use without watching everyone else first. For Eric, marriage wasn’t about love it was a line item on a spreadsheet, scheduled between “make VP” and “buy property in the Hamptons.”

Cleo was the intermission. The warm body in his bed while he built his career, the convenient plus-one who didn’t demand too much while he wasn’t ready to look for someone serious. She kept his apartment from feeling empty, laughed at his colleagues’ jokes at dinner parties, and never complained when he worked through weekends. She was easy. Undemanding. Temporary. And she’d mistaken all of that for love.

She hailed a cab she couldn’t afford down to her older cousin’s condo in Tribeca, where she would be staying for the week. Minnie, who worked as an analyst at JP Morgan and hadn’t texted Cleo since someone’s wedding in July, had responded within minutes: “Of course you can stay. Stay as long as you need.” Which Cleo translated to mean two weeks, possibly three if she kept the crying to acceptable levels. 

As the cab turned onto Prince Street, SoHo spreading out like a promise she’d almost forgotten. The cast-iron buildings with their fire escapes like black lace, the gallery windows glowing warm against the November cold. This was the New York she’d fallen for at eighteen, before Eric, before she’d learned to make herself small. She used to walk these streets for hours, ducking into galleries she couldn’t afford to buy from, sketching in cafes, believing she’d make something that mattered. As she went past the street she loved she realized, Eric had made her second, but the city had made her first. She’d loved New York before she’d loved him, and she’d love it after.

The cab parked outside Minnie’s apartment, a high rise with floor-to-ceiling windows and the kind of lobby where people said “good evening” instead of “hey.” The building had a gym Cleo would never use and a doorman who looked like he’d been hired specifically to make people like Cleo feel underdressed.

The meter hit $47 she didn’t have.

Instead of panicking she gave the driver a smile.

She’d figure it out. She always did.

*    *    *

Ella Torres is a Brazilian writer and translator and a graduate of Barnard College, where she earned a degree in English and Creative Writing. She writes editorials, fiction, and poetry, and is currently pursuing an MFA in fiction at The New School. Her work has appeared in Broad Ripple Review, Litbop, and other publications. Her upcoming novel, The Midnight Saints, won the New 2 The Scene Novel Competition 2025.

A Memoir by Alison Colwell

In the photograph, I am sitting with my kids, leaning back against the driftwood log. Emilie and Eric are ten years old. It’s my forty-fourth birthday and we’re having a picnic at Pebble Beach. I am painfully self-conscious in the first bikini I’ve owned since I was 14 years old. In the photo, dappled sunlight filters through the alder leaves above us; pieces of dried eelgrass stick to Emilie’s leg. Eric’s wearing the shirt he lino-printed himself. The kids and I collapse against each other, frozen mid laugh.

*

It’s just a tiny moment in time and I have carried it with me in my purse for the last year. I have stared at that photo so many times I only need to close my eyes to see the macrame necklace I was wearing, the friendship bracelets that circle Emilie’s wrists, see how Eric’s eyes crease in laughter. That photo is my talisman. That photo belongs to the time “Before”. It belongs to a time when my family was whole and healthy. When the only thing I worried about was whether I could wear a bikini at my age or my size. It’s not like everything was perfect in that time “Before”. The house was always a mess. Eric was coping with anxiety, and we never had enough money, but we were happy then. I know we were. That photo of arrested laughter is proof.

*

In that time “Before” I didn’t understand how corrosive an opioid addiction could be, and how the lies and deceit needed to hide such an addiction could undermine and unravel a marriage before I even understood what was happening. In the “Before” I am happy, but I was already living in ignorance. I just won’t know that for another five years. When he leaves in an explosion of guilt and rage, does that mean the happiness wasn’t real because the foundation it was built on wasn’t true? I don’t think so. But I often circle that dilemma in my mind. Wondering why I pushed for honesty when ignorance had made me happy.

*

In the time “Before,” the voice of anorexia hadn’t yet taken up residence in Emilie’s head, and turned our lives into a constant state of triage, where each day was spent battling the disease, forcing me to make one impossible choice after another. I hadn’t left Eric home alone at fifteen years old to go live part-time in the hospital with her, to sit with her, hold her while she struggled and slowly, so very slowly, came  back to herself. Emilie has three more healthy years ahead of her in this photo. 

*

In the time “Before” I’d never stood at the top of Lover’s Leap, tears drying on my cheeks. I’d never stared down into the water of Trincomali Pass below and wondered what the point of all this pain was. There had been laughter before. The photo was my proof. 

*

In the time “Before” the three of us had found laughter together on a beach in July. In what came after, laughter erupted at unexpected moments, like when Eric took the handles of Emilie’s wheelchair, bumping over sidewalks and doing wheelies on the hospital parking lots late at night. Laughter was edged with grief, as I watched the clock and counted the minutes until we had to return her to the hospital ward.

*

The photo served as my talisman, reminding me of a time of laughter, a time when our family remained intact. It acts as a promise, because if there is a “Before” then there must be an “After.” The easy laughter that I knew existed once can exist again in some future time. The photo of the three of us at the beach, leaning into each other, is hope.

*   *   *

Alison Colwell is a writer, mother, domestic violence survivor and community organizer. Her work has been published in several literary journals including: The Humber Literary Review, The Ocotillo Review, Roi Faineant Literary Press, Hippocampus Magazine, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes and is forthcoming in Grist and the Literary Mama. She lives on Galiano Island, Canada. Connect with her at: alisoncolwell.com.

By Don Tassone

I was taking a nap when my watch vibrated and woke me up.

“Time to stand,” it read.

I got up and decided to go for a run.  I grabbed a pair of socks.  They were labeled “L” and “R.”  I pulled them onto the correct feet.

Halfway down my driveway, my car started beeping like crazy.  I’d forgotten to fasten my seatbelt.

On my way home, my smartphone pinged.

“You have an appointment with Dr. Brown tomorrow at 11:00 a.m.  Reply C to confirm or R to reschedule.”

Over dinner, Alexa reminded me of a Zoom call with my boss at 7:00 the following morning.

As I was watching TV, my Romba rolled in and navigated its way around the room.  When it got to my feet, it stopped and beeped.  I picked up my feet and said, “Sorry.”

My watch buzzed.

“Breathe.”

Drifting off to sleep that night, I was jolted awake by a ping.

“Set your alarm.”

I reached over and did as I was told.

                                                                  *   *   *

Don Tassone is the author of two novels, one novella, 10 short story collections and one children’s book.  He lives in Loveland, Ohio.

By Sloan Richman

Harlan took a final drag on his cigarette, pondered whether to use the dying ember to light another or go back inside. The extra two minutes required to smoke the thing could make a difference. Erring on the side of caution, he dropped the butt to the ground, stomped it out, then readjusted the cuff on the left sleeve of the hooded sweatshirt to make sure his laminated ID bracelet was obscured. 

He strode back through the sliding doors, pointing at the visitor’s pass affixed to the sweatshirt, barely making eye contact with the guard, who waved him through. He headed to the elevator bank and patiently waited along with two other “visitors.”

He extended his bracelet-free right hand, making the ‘after you’ gesture when the elevator doors opened. The couple exited on the third floor, and he was alone for the remainder of the ride up to five. He ambled down the long corridor to room 5133, where he was greeted by Earl.

“Get your nicotine fix? Took you long enough.”

“Addiction is a bitch, my friend. You’d think a hospital would understand this and we wouldn’t have to go to such extreme measures.” He removed the hooded sweatshirt and handed it back to Earl. “Thanks for the loan, buddy.”

Earl slipped his sweatshirt back on, then took a closer look. “What’d you bleed on it?”

“Sorry. Probably from when they took blood before. I yanked the bandage off my hand so I wouldn’t look too suspicious.”

“Right. Like you didn’t look suspicious enough with that hoodie covering your face?”

“Anyone come by while I was gone?” Harlan asked.

“Nope. Nurse was busy with the old lady down the hall.”

“Perfect crime.”

“Except that you stink of cigarette smoke. They’re bound to ask.”

“If they do, I’ll just blame it on you. Your sweatshirt reeks of it.”

“That’s fine. Blame me for everything.”

“I plan to.”

Harlan crept back into his hospital bed and pulled the blanket over him. He patted the wad of bills that were secreted in his waistband. When the cops came looking, Earl would be wearing the hoodie with the victim’s blood on it. 

*   *   *

Sloan Richman writes mystery and crime fiction. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Sloan now lives across the East River in Manhattan. He works as a technical writer by day, but at night, prowls the mean streets of the city looking for wrongs to write. He graduated from University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. His debut novel, Small Town Symphony (in Four Deadly Movements), is the first in the Daniel Cole/Nat Gilliam music and mystery series. His short stories, including the Detective Oswald Cox mysteries, have appeared or are forthcoming in Mystery Tribune, Big Smoke Pulp, Sci-Fi Lampoon, and The Bookends Review.

By Christopher Wiley-Smith

You said it while looking at a patch of dead mint in the planter, hands shoved deep into your Carhartt jacket. “Sometimes I just want to commit suicide.”

Your voice didn’t even shake. It was flat, bureaucratic. Exhausted. The way someone mentions they need to renew their registration.

I didn’t gasp. I didn’t reach for you. That’s the shame of it, the delay. I just stood there, annoyed by the cold, staring at the mud caked on the heel of your sneaker. It was dry, grey mud. Old mud.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked. My voice sounded too loud, a trespass in the quiet yard. “No.” “Okay.” We stood there. A neighbor’s dryer vent chuffed out a cloud of steam, smelling of artificial lavender. It hung in the air between us, ridiculous and soft.

Beside your boot sat the Havahart trap. The mesh was empty but still smelled of wet iron and rodent panic. Two hours ago, you’d driven a gray squirrel three miles to the underpass, obsessed with releasing it far enough away so it wouldn’t return, but close enough that it could find water. You’d spent twenty minutes researching the release site. You called it “ethical.”

You nudged the empty cage with your toe. “Is it work?” I asked. “Is it the house?” I was throwing categories at you, trying to sort the chaos into a folder I could help with. You blinked, slow. “It’s not a thing,” you said. You rubbed your thumb against your index finger, a nervous tic you’d developed that made a dry, rasping sound. Swish. Swish. “It’s just…too much.”

You looked at the back door. You wanted to go inside. I wanted you to scream, or cry, or let me fix it. But you were just checking the sky, calculating if it would rain. The asymmetry of it made me nauseous. I was terrified, and you were just bored of being in pain.

“I’m cold,” you said. Not an invitation. A statement of fact. You turned and walked toward the house. You didn’t wait for me. The motion sensor light flickered on. A harsh, halogen white, bleaching the color out of your flannel shirt before you disappeared behind the screen door.

I stayed in the gravel. I looked at the trap. The door was open, the trigger plate waiting for something heavy enough to spring it. The wind picked up, cutting through my layers, and I just stood there, listening to the plastic flap of the dryer vent opening and closing, opening and closing, breathing for a house that felt suddenly, terrifyingly airtight.

                                                               *    *    *

Christopher Wiley-Smith’s work centers on flash fiction and personal essay, exploring the psychological landscape of grief, the endurance of family bonds, and the ethics of witness. He is the author of the recently completed survival memoir, In His Absence.