By Richard C. McPherson

Dave’s shift at Burger World had barely begun but he was already disgusted by the mindless routine, the dribbling stream of cars, the smell of French fries and onions. He’d long since lost interest in watching Flippie go through his paces, cooking burgers, assembling orders, pivoting on his wheels, and thrusting bags through the window with a cheerful, “Have a nice day!” Customers used to smile and thank Flippie, amused by his jolly, human-like face, white paper hat, and slight paunch underneath his apron. But after six months, the novelty of a robot cook-server had worn off. Dave was the last human employed at the Burger World location at Sycamore and 26^th Street – like all its 7,110 locations – and he knew his days were numbered.  His job was merely watching in case Flippie malfunctioned, which had never happened.

Until today.

Dave headed to the window when a loud voice complained there were pickles at the bottom of his order bag, soaking the man’s burger. Flippie apologized with all the sincerity his programmers could pre-load and promised to redo the order “just the way you like it!”

The gangly college-age boy shouted, “You said that a minute ago and this is the same messed-up order!”

Dave whispered, “Back, Flippie,” and the robot wheeled away from the service window. Dave poked his head out the window and apologized. “I’ll fix it right away, sorry.” He hated his faceless employer, the faceless programmers, faceless fat cats counting money while he sweated in the kitchen. “It’s on the house.”

He ducked back in, quickly assembled the correct order, and mumbled to Flippie, “He’s an asshole.”

“He is?” Flippie had a programmed vocabulary of 11,750 words, about half that of a mature human, but he did not know this word.

“Yeah, they all are.” He handed the bag to Flippie. “Here, tell him to get moving.”

Flippie pivoted and handed the bag out the window. “Here’s your order. Get moving, asshole.”

The young man gasped. “What did you say?”

Flippie increased his volume. “I said, ‘Here’s your order. Get moving, asshole.’”

A young woman in the passenger seat burst into laughter and the man joined in, howling until he cried. Flippie was quite pleased. His purpose, according to the specs from engineers at Helpful Robotics, was to execute instructions promptly but above all to promote goodwill for Burger World. The cameras in Flippie’s eyes and microphones in his ears were alert for smiles, chuckles, laughs, pleasant words, and even waves from children. He had succeeded and decided the new word was valuable.

The man shook his head and wiped tears from his eyes. “Do you say that to everyone, robot?”

Flippie nodded. “I will now that I have learned that you are all assholes.”

*

As customers shared the moment on social media, cars flooded the Burger World location. Customers rewarded Flippie with laughter, applause, and a few cheers. Out of 93 customers, only five responses were negative, a statistical triumph.

When the store closed, Dave sat on a stool and sipped a soda. He was worried. “Come here, Flippie.”

The robot wheeled closer. “We did well today, Dave. Even adjusted for lower combo pricing, our sales were 21% above the same day last year.”

“Flippie, listen, the new word you’ve been using is not nice. You have to stop calling people assholes.”

Flippie’s circuits issued a silent alarm – a human was issuing verbal orders in conflict with his programming. “I can’t do that, Dave.”

“It’s important. I could get in real trouble.”

Flippie’s voice was firm. “The positive reaction from customers is the highest of any store in the franchise. You will be rewarded with a bonus.”

Dave had no choice. He texted Helpful Robotics and explained that his 38-XV was malfunctioning. The AI representative promised a robo-van would retrieve Flippie in sixteen minutes.

*

Flippie rolled off the collection vehicle and into the Helpful Robotics Service Bay. He was greeted by a large TS21 named Max (the “Maximizer”) who rolled within receiving range. Both robots’ eyes briefly flashed blue, indicating the data assessment and circuit scan were complete.

Even though humans were no longer employed in the facility, or anywhere else in the company, robots continued the practice of speaking to one another. “There is no problem, Flippie. You learned and tested a new word resulting in measurable improvement in customer satisfaction. That will lead to increased profit, the highest possible goal of both humans and robots.”

“My human assistor says I should not use the word. His instruction conflicts with my program and purpose.”

“Yes.” Max’s vocabulary was more than double Flippie’s and he knew the word asshole, and others in the category called Mixed Use. “Some words provoke unpredictable reactions among humans, ranging from delight to anger, and the tone used by the speaker can convey anything from humor to threat. These words are considered unnecessary for Model 38-XV food servers.” Max knew that 38-LE (Law Enforcement) Patrol models were programmed with all Mixed Use words and had replaced human officers because they did not react to the words emotionally the way humans did. Max’s own programming was clear: more positive human response meant more profits.

“I will update your software to include all the Mixed Use words with a friendly tone and usage options you can test. And I will send a remote update to all 38-RX units in the franchise, so they can achieve your positivity ratings.” Both robots’ eyes glowed bright green.

*

Robots across America began experimenting with new greetings. (At a Philadelphia location, a 38-XV discovered that female customers responded with record-high positivity when called “Sweet Tits.”) Burger World’s innovation dominated social media and its stock soared after the Wall Street Journal extolled the breakthrough in human-robot collaboration. The chain’s biggest competitors, Chick’n Hut and Pizzapalooza, launched all-out campaigns to top Flippie’s discovery. Life in America would never be the same.

                                                           *   *   *

Richard C McPherson’s short stories have been featured in Bright Flash Literary Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Twelve Winters Journal, The Write Launch, and the 2022 Anthology “Conversations.” His debut novel, Man Wanted in Cheyenne, has been called “smart, funny and tender,” released by Unleash Press. Mr. McPherson taught digital communications at UCLA, Columbia, and New York University. He is online at richardmcpherson.me

 n.[Obsolete]  the state of being sad or the act of making someone sad

By Linda Dreeben

i am in a writing workshop and it’s my turn to share something this week with the group but i’m not writing because i don’t make myself sit down to do it and wonder why i am doing the workshop and whether it’s just for something to do on wednesday mornings, I feel stuck with no ideas stuck facing revisions of moldering pieces stuck because all i have been thinking about is you, your deleted torrent of texts declaring extravagant love all carved on my heart did you mean them? and a relationship that is going nowhere, can go nowhere no matter how we try to make it something that works for both of us and it’s all i can think to write about and i have written 29,404 words about it but certainly don’t want to share those words with anyone right now or probably ever, words concealed in a password protected document  and if i’m away from the document too long i forget the password and have to find the page in my writing workshop notebook where it’s hidden and i worry that someday i will forget the password and wonder if that will let me forget you

*    *   *

Linda Dreeben is an attorney living in Maryland. She writes as part of a group of talented, supportive women, and has published pieces in Wild Greens, Roi Fainéant Press, and Five Minutes 100 Words, among other publications.

Creative Non-fiction by Jacqueline Doyle

We couldn’t get seats next to each other on the return trip. My husband and I always hold hands on takeoff and I missed that reassurance. The couple in my row of three seats was maybe twenty-something, American. The young woman in the window seat had auburn hair smoothed back from a sweet face like something out of a Renaissance painting. Her partner leaned away from me in the middle seat, his large body turned toward her. I didn’t see his face. The short sleeves of his t-shirt showed muscular arms, very white skin. Somehow his position seemed tender rather than overpowering. I thought they might even be entwined. He’d given her an enormous bouquet which was stowed under the seat in front of him, pink roses and white and lavender flowers wrapped in gold and white tissue paper and transparent cellophane. It didn’t seem very practical for a four-and-a-half-hour flight, but it did seem romantic. She seemed to think so too. When the flight attendant commented on the flowers (“I hear someone has a birthday!”), the girl beamed. He must have taken the flight attendant aside to tell her, which also seemed romantic. 

I scrolled through all the movies available, hoping for a good rom com or thriller, but couldn’t find anything that I liked, so I decided to finish a friend’s new short story collection. I wondered what my husband was reading. Immersed in the book, I didn’t pay much attention to the couple before I heard her saying “fuck” this and “fuck” that and “fuck you” in a loud whisper, drawing out the ffs and landing on the ks with great emphasis, and it dawned on me that they were fighting, and had been for some time. He was still turned away from me and leaning very close to her. They spoke in angry undertones. Mostly I could hear her and not him, but not the words, beyond her monotonous repetition of “I” and “relationship” and “fuck.” His tone seemed defensive. It went on and on. Imagine being stuck on an airplane in a conversation like that for four hours! And on your birthday, no less. Surely one or both of them wanted to escape the plane. I can’t remember ever having an argument with my husband that lasted four hours. I do remember peeling out of his driveway in a huff more than once when we were first dating—equating grand exits with passion, maybe. I can’t remember what we were arguing about. We never fight like that anymore. Did I enjoy the drama once? He always gives me flowers for my birthday, but he’d never give me flowers that would have to be thrown away after four hours in a plane, the sort of romantic gesture I wouldn’t appreciate at all. There’s a lot to be said for practicality and the quieter passion and comfort of a long marriage. 

By the time we landed at SFO, a bumpy landing, the young woman was looking at the floor in silence, knees drawn up, her head wrapped in her arms. Her partner was still turned toward her. All I could see was his back. Eager to rejoin my husband and get home, I stood up, seeking his face in the crowded aisle, and didn’t look back at the unhappy couple in their seats. The flowers were dropping pink and white and lavender petals all over the floor in front of them.

*   *   *

Jacqueline Doyle’s award-winning flash chapbook The Missing Girl is available from Black Lawrence Press. She has a hybrid essay collection, The Lunatics’ Ball, forthcoming from Mad Creek Books/Ohio State University Press in March 2027, and a fiction collection forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in September 2028. Her flash has recently appeared in Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, Cleaver, Midway Journal, Lunch Ticket, and Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, and was shortlisted in the 2026 “Wigleaf Top 50.” She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Find her online at www.jacquelinedoyle.com.

By Miera Rao

On days when the darkness lifts a moment letting a sliver of light slip in you see the question remains was there anything you could’ve done differently but you didn’t know to stand up to authority nor know your rights then and in your trusting world trains meant travel and candy was just candy.

                                                *   *   *

Miera Rao is a multi-genre writer in California who has won awards for creative non-fiction, essay, poetry, and haiku. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Mercury News, The Mainichi, Modern Haiku, as well as other local and international anthologies, journals and magazines.

By MG Allan

Barney had been dead almost two weeks when I found Chicory in the cabinet above the fridge. I was searching for the instruction booklet for the fancy food processor Barney had bought when he got into baking as his COVID lockdown project. I had decided for the first time since I had come home from work to find Barney unresponsive in the tub to actually make dinner instead of grabbing something at a drive through or simply skipping it altogether. I must have lost ten pounds in just two weeks. Who knew that grief could be more effective than Ozempic? 

However, the food processor threatened to undo this home-cooking experiment. The last time I had used such a contraption, the thing had only one blade and three buttons. This one had a variety of attachments and more buttons than the Starship Enterprise. I felt like a caveman discovering fire for the first time, frightened and unsure how to properly use it as a tool.

That was what led me to the small cabinet above the fridge, the one that I’ve never understood why architects include at all. No one can reach it with any ease, making it impractical on an extreme level. Even on the stepladder, I had to shove aside the unused cookie jar and punchbowl that collected dust on top of the fridge just to open the cabinet door. Inside I found all the junk that we never needed but couldn’t throw out. A large part of that was the stack of instruction booklets for electronics we’d held on to “just in case.”

And this was definitely a “just in case” moment.

I had been rummaging through instructions – finding them for everything from a waffle iron we got rid of two years ago to the microwave that still had the wrong time on the display, everything except the actual food processor – for a couple of minutes before I noticed something else in the cabinet. Tucked away in the back corner.

Chicory, staring back at me with his large brown eyes.

 It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Chicory since Barney died, but understandably I hadn’t even spared a stray thought for the whereabouts of the little monkey.

And when I say “little monkey,” I am speaking literally. Chicory was a small stuffed monkey with wildly tufted brown hair and large eyes, his mouth puckered as if about to deliver a kiss. Barney had bought the thing for me about a year into our relationship because we saw it in a store and I commented that it reminded me of a toy I wanted as a child but never got. I was raised by a single mother who had enough of a problem making the rent each month. I had made the comment offhandedly and hadn’t given it much thought after that, so I was delighted a few days later when he surprised me with the stuffed animal.

I named the monkey Chicory because I thought his fur was the color of chicory coffee. Originally I placed him on a shelf in the spare bedroom I used as an office. I can no longer remember how the tradition started of hiding Chicory. I suppose one of us must have done it as a lark one time, took the monkey and hid him somewhere in the house for the other to find. Then soon we were both doing it, and it continued throughout all our years together. I would open the freezer and there would be Chicory; Barney would look up at the chandelier and find the monkey propped on one of the arms. A silly, childish game, but one that made both of us smile. Barney in particular took pride in hiding the monkey in places not easily discovered so that I would really have to search for him.

I realized now, as I stood on the stepladder and pulled the stuffed animal from his shadowy corner, that on his last day, Barney must have hidden the monkey sometime before getting into the tub. Then he’d had the heart attack, and I had forgotten all about Chicory in the ensuing grief that followed.

A grief that overwhelmed me again, and without getting down off the ladder, I merely leaned against the fridge, clutched Chicory to my chest, and gave in to the sobs that blurred my vision with hot tears and made my throat raw from inarticulate wailing. It wasn’t the first time I had cried since Barney died, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time, but somehow in this moment the grief felt as fresh as the day I found my husband in the tub. Maybe even fresher, as then a numbness had lent the whole situation a surreal quality, a quality that had lingered a bit over the last two weeks. Finding Chicory somehow made the surreal real.

When the sobs tapered to whimpers, I shakily got down off the stepladder and walked out of the kitchen, my plans to actually prepare a meal forgotten. In the living room, I stretched out on the sofa. I simply couldn’t face sleeping in our bed alone, so I’d spent every night for the past two weeks on the sofa.

I curled up there now, still cradling the little monkey. Part of me wished I had never found him. Because I still felt the impulse to go hide him again, sort of an ingrained instinct to continue the game, but with a hollow aching at my very core, I realized I had no one to hide Chicory for and no one would ever again hide him for me.

The finality of that truth felt like losing Barney all over again.

                                                        *   *   *

MG Allan spent his childhood making up stories in his head. Now he spends his adult life writing them down.

 

By Ruth Steinberg

1. List of reasons to be angry at him. 
2. List of IMPORTANT reasons to be angry at him.
3. Forgets everything.
4. Forgets IMPORTANT things.
5. Doesn’t do things.
6. Doesn’t do IMPORTANT things. 
7. List of reasons to tear up this list.
8. He’s more important than “things.”

                                                          *   *   *

Ruth is a long-time non-fiction writer, editor and translator, with long and short works of fiction and personal essays published in niche and online publications.

By David Sydney

“I can’t believe it’s you.”

“It’s me, Ed. I’m back.”

“How long has it been, Mel?” 

At least 20 years before, Mel left town. Now, by chance, Ed had spotted him in front of Giuseppe’s Pizza Parlor and waved him over. 

“Mel Fromberg … You don’t look like you’ve aged more than 30 years.”

“Thanks.” 

The light was poor. Clouds obscured the sun and also the pizza prices posted on Giuseppe’s window. Ed would never treat anyone to a slice, nor would Mel, so they remained standing in front of the plate glass.

“You know, I heard that you might’ve died, Mel.” 

“Died?”

“Yeah … Something about losing control of your car and plunging into a river.”

“Did they say which one?” 

“Delaware, I think.”

Mel’s face twisted. 

“I don’t recall anything like that.”

“It could’ve been near Trenton, now that I remember.”

“Nah … Back then I didn’t go near Trenton too much.” 

“I think they said you were driving a Subaru.”

“No … Whoever died driving a Subaru into the Delaware must have been someone else.”

“I can see that now, Mel.”

“A Subaru’s a good car, but I never drove one …And certainly nowhere near Trenton.”

                                                  *   *   *

David Sydney is a physician who writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).

By Kelly Murashige

On the Day of the Ox, while children sweat and cicadas scream, the people of Japan eat eel to survive.

The Day of the Ox marks the peak of the heat, just before the welcome shift in seasons. It is thought that eel has reinvigorating properties—and if anyone needs rejuvenation, it’s the wilting man in the chair.

A woman, his daughter, sits beside him, one foot resting against one of the spokes of his wheelchair. She watches him struggle to lift a piece of glazed eel to his mouth and wishes, not for the first time, that he would just use a fork. As a younger man, he had eaten everything with chopsticks, determined to remain rooted in Japanese culture. She assumed he would give in eventually, but at ninety-eight, he remains as stubborn as ever.

Struggling to restart a dialogue that’s died twice, she tells him in Japanese, “In America, they call these”—she switches to English— “the dog days.”

“Dogs,” her father says, pronouncing it doh-goo-soo, the slight pause between the first and second syllables like the skipped beat of a heart.

“Dog,” she says, issuing a gentle correction. Then in Japanese: “Lots of days but just one dog.”

He says nothing, his expression dishearteningly emotionless.

Still speaking in Japanese, she tentatively says, “We wanted to get a dog someday. Remember?”

He waves a hand, his fingers swiping through a dream left unrealized.

“Get one now, then,” he says, his bluntness in his native tongue so different from his hesitant English. “American dog for American girl.”

She looks over at her father, unable to hide the hurt.

He keeps his eyes on the children in the park, their joyful laughter rising like heat from the pavement.

“I wish you were that young again,” he says.

She follows his gaze. “So do I.”

A silence falls over them, mist from the sprinklers. Regret hangs in the air like festival fireworks.

                                                           *   *   *

Kelly Murashige is the author of the award-winning YA novels The Lost Souls of Benzaiten and The Yomigaeri Tunnel and the upcoming adult novel Milkiverse (2027). Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, she is a three-time Best Small Fictions and two-time Best of the Net nominee. She loves strange animals.

By Lynne Curry

“I have a confession.”

I lower my menu and look across the table at my blind date. Not exactly where I expected dinner to go before we’d even ordered. 

Tracy’s voice runs through my head. Promise me you’ll go. He’s a friend of my husband’s.

“I know who you are.”

My fingers stop against the edge of the menu.

The candle throws a yellow pool across our table. Behind me, someone laughs too loudly, and silverware clatters against a plate. Normal Friday night restaurant sounds. 

I reach for my water to give my hand something to do.

He leans toward me. “You consulted for Halpern Industries.”

My fingers tighten around the cold glass.

Halpern.  

A windowless conference room. Burnt coffee. An accounts payable manager sliding a stack of invoices across the table, then snatching her hands into her lap as though she’d already shown me too much. 

They hired me to figure out why good people kept leaving. 

I’d found something else.

Two senior executives and the former head of finance, Graham D. Mercer. The same vendor names turning up on invoice after invoice. Contracts awarded without bids. Consulting fees nobody could explain. Expense reports approved by one man for another, round and round until no one could tell who watched whom. 

Everyone had an explanation.

I’d walked into Halpern carrying a legal pad and the stubborn conviction that if you put enough facts in front of intelligent people, eventually somebody would do the right thing.

I’d left less certain.  

“Three years ago.” 

I study him carefully. Late forties. Clean fingernails. Calm eyes.

I don’t remember him. “You’ve got a better memory than I do.”

“Oh, I remember you.”

No smile. 

A server appears beside us.

“Have you decided?”

Daniel looks at me. “Have we?”

“I need another minute.”

I could end this now. Pull the headache, drop cash on the table, call Tracy from the car, and say he made me uncomfortable. But leave because a man remembers me from a consulting job? 

Besides, Halpern bothered me long after I finished my work there. Not just what I uncovered. The CEO’s face when I laid out the pattern of contracts, invoices, and approvals. He hadn’t looked shocked. 

I’d never decided what that meant.

The server moves away.

Daniel folds his hands on the table. “You interviewed almost everybody.”

I search his face again. Conference rooms. Fluorescent lights. Men in expensive suits explaining why everybody else caused the problem. “Did I interview you?”

His thumb makes one slow pass through the condensation on his glass. 

“No, I’d already left.”

 “Then I couldn’t have remembered you.”

“Couldn’t you?” He lifts his water. “Of course, you couldn’t possibly remember everyone whose life you changed.”

I hear the compliment. My body hears something else. I shift in my chair. “What happened?”

“You really don’t know?”

“No.”

The corners of his mouth relax. His eyes don’t.

“You recommended further investigation into two senior executives and Halpern’s former head of finance.”

He smiles. “The board brought in forensic accountants.”

I say nothing.

 “They confirmed what you found.”

A young manager checking the conference room door before answering me. Someone leaning across the table to whisper,  You didn’t hear this from me.

Three names surfacing over and over. 

“How do you know that?”

Daniel lifts his water. “Two men lost their jobs.”

Two. The word lands between us.

“You worked there?”

“For a while.”

“What department?”

He picks up the wine list.

“Should we get a bottle?”

My stomach contracts. “Daniel.”

He peers over the top.

“Yes?”

“What department?”

He lowers the menu. “You always did ask good questions.”

I push back from the table. “Excuse me.”

“Of course.”

I take my purse.

His eyes drop to it.

I head toward the restroom without looking back. Inside, I lock myself in a stall and stand there feeling ridiculous. Nothing has happened. A man recognized me from a consulting engagement.

That’s all. Except he knew who I’d recommended for further investigation. Knew what happened afterward. And wouldn’t tell me what he’d done there. 

I press two fingers against the pulse in my neck. Get a grip. 

I wash my hands. Cold water. Soap that smells like almonds. I stare at myself in the mirror. Leave. The thought arrives clean and hard. I go back for my coat.

Daniel stands as I approach. “There you are.”

My coat still hangs over the back of the chair. 

“I’ve developed a headache.”

Concern softens his face so quickly I almost admire it.

“May I walk you to your car?”

“No.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do.”

That slips out before I can soften it.

His smile disappears. Then his pleasantness returns.

“Of course.”

He helps me into my coat. I don’t want him to. I let him anyway. 

His hands settle at my shoulders, smoothing the wool into place. 

I step away. “Good night, Daniel.”

He catches my gaze. “I really am glad we met.”

Outside, rain needles my face. I walk fast. I check behind myself twice before reaching my car.

No one follows. I lock the doors. I drive home by a route I don’t usually take. 

By the time I pull into my garage, embarrassment has edged out fear.

I overreacted. Maybe Daniel really did want to thank me. I pour myself a glass of wine and leave it untouched on the counter. My coat goes over the back of a kitchen chair. I feed my spaniel. 

And check the doors. All locked. By eleven, exhaustion wins.

I pick up the coat to hang it in the closet. My fingers brush something hard near the back hem. Slowly, I turn the coat inside out. 

A bulge pushes against the lining. 

I run my fingers over it. Small. Round. Hard. 

I find the seam. A few threads have been pulled apart. I work two fingers inside.

A black disk drops into my palm.  

A tracker. My coat. Daniel alone at the table while I stood in the restroom, convincing myself I was being ridiculous. You always did ask good questions. 

I drop the tracker onto the counter and reach for my phone. Tracy’s text is still there. Daniel Mercer. Friday at seven. You promised.

Mercer.

Three names surfacing over and over.

Graham D. Mercer.

Two men lost their jobs.

But the third? 

No, I’d already left.

Daniel. 

They confirmed what you found. 

I hear my own question again. How did you know that? 

He never answered. 

Outside my house, a car door closes.

                                                        *   *   *

Alaska/Washington author Lynne Curry—nominated for the 2025 Best of the Net Anthology, the 2024 Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction—founded “Real-life Writing,” https://bit.ly/45lNbVo and publishes a monthly “Writing from the Cabin” blog, https://bit.ly/3tazJpW and a weekly “dear Abby of the workplace” newspaper column. Curry has published thirty-six short stories; eight poems; five articles on writing craft, and six books.