By Mark Russ

“This will be your last haircut,” Sal said. He draped his barber’s gown over me and fastened it tightly around my neck.

My jaw dropped, hanging loose like a tree limb severed by lightning. The barber’s mirror amplified my expression.

“I thought Aldo had sold the business, and the shop would stay open.”

“The new owner, he changed his mind. Not a good man. Gave only two days’ notice. Today is the last day.”  

I looked around the shop. There were no other customers. Marco and Luca, the other two regular barbers, were not there. Aldo, the ninety-five-year-old owner, sat in a straight-back chair, a walker in front of him. He did not look up to greet me, nor did he speak. 

“What are your plans, Sal?” I asked, hoping to lighten the mood. Sal, a fit-appearing man in his late sixties, had cut my hair for thirty years. He was more comfortable speaking Italian; his English was surprisingly limited for someone who had lived in the country so long.

“I’m not going to work for those other shops in town. No good.” He walked to a drawer where he kept his scissors and combs, pulled out a business card, and said, “I’m going to cut hair in customers’ homes. Maybe you try?”

“Sure. Sounds like a plan,” I said. My sullen expression in the mirror remained unchanged.

“How you like it today?” Sal asked.

“Shorter,” I said, repeating the same awkward joke I had made at every haircut. It seemed more awkward today. “You know. Same as always, Sal.”

“Ah. Short, but not too short.” Sal had a knack for making his standard response sound new.

Content with his instructions, Sal set to work. The water from his spray bottle cooled my scalp on this warm autumn day. He parted my hair in his usual deliberate manner, wielding his comb like a baton. His scissors clicked out a confident march around my head: left side, back, right side, top, then front. My hair, a mix of brown and gray, fell onto the gown, like frayed threads cut from a worn-out overcoat.

Sal stepped back to examine his handiwork, then snipped a stray hair from my forehead and asked whether he should trim my eyebrows.

“Yes. That’s fine,” I said, stealing a glance to my right, where Aldo was sitting behind his walker, his chin resting on his chest. Cheery Italian pop music played overhead. 

“It wasn’t his fault. He did his best,” he said, motioning toward his boss.

“Aldo’s has been an institution in town for seventy years. I can’t imagine what it will be like without you guys.”

“Nothing lasts forever.” Sal’s intonation sounded unconvincing. 

In the mirror, I pictured my first haircut at Joe’s, a hole-in-the-wall barbershop in the neighborhood where I grew up. Joe called me by my father’s name. Burly men crowded the shop, smoking and cursing. Small and frightened, I feared all the cutting. At the end, a cherry-flavored lollipop marked my rite of passage.

“What about Marco and Luca?” I asked, trying to distract myself.

“Sick. Both sick. Luca has bad cancer. Not good.”

Some men are barber shop talkers. Not me. None of the barbers knew my name, what I did, or whether I had a wife or children. I knew the barbers’ names because of the white-on-black nameplates perched on their counters.

“I’m sorry to hear that about Marco and Luca.” The barbers’ world was collapsing, and I was spiraling with them. 

“What can you do? That’s life.”

Sal tucked a white cloth between the gown and my neck and reached for the shaving cream dispenser. The warm cream comforted my neck, but it quickly cooled as Sal’s razor made its first pass.

I knew what came next: Pinaud Clubman talc. The delicious woody, citrusy-sweet aroma enveloped me like a swaddled newborn. For the moment, I felt nothing had changed or would. But no amount of talc could bring Aldo’s back from the brink. I pictured Sal cutting hair in my kitchen.

Sal picked up his scissors and comb, then made the final cuts. 

“There! How you like?”

“I don’t like.” I tore my face from the mirror and looked straight at Sal.

The corners of Sal’s mouth turned down, and his lips puckered in feigned disappointment. 

“I understand, my friend,” Sal said somberly.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” My protest echoed in the barren shop.

Sal removed my gown in silence. As always, I went to pay Aldo. He pushed his walker aside, slowly rose from his chair, and opened the register. I glanced at the charge board one last time.

“Still twenty-five dollars,” he said faintly, but proudly. 

I handed him the money.

“Aldo, you should feel good about your work. You touched three generations,” I said, placing a hand on his bony shoulder.

“I couldn’t save the shop.”

“It’s not your fault.” 

Aldo shrugged. I walked over to Sal, rifling through my wallet.

“This is all the cash I have today; I’m sorry,” I said, handing him the last tip. I wanted it to be more. 

“Fine, fine. Thank you. You don’t owe me anything,” he said, smiling. 

I moved toward the exit. The lingering scent of Pinaud Clubman talc followed me. I pivoted for one last look and caught Aldo’s eye, moist yet with an unanticipated glint. 

“Lollipop?”

                                                   *   *   *

Mark Russ is a psychiatrist in Westchester County, New York. He was born in Cuba, the son of Holocaust survivors. He has contributed to the psychiatric literature throughout his career and has published short stories and nonfiction pieces in recent years. His work has appeared in The Jewish Writing Project, The Minison Project, Jewishfiction.net, The Concrete Desert Review, Literally Stories, Fig Tree Lit, Of the book, Blue Lake Review, BooksNPieces, Sortes, and Bright Flash Literary Review. These stories and others are in a collection of short stories titled Mostly Fiction-Stores by a Second Generation Holocaust Survivor (Regent Press, 2025).

By Emily Hampson 

January in Wisconsin. No one will even see her bare legs.

Unless. Marcus. 

In the shower, she slides a hand down one knee. The hair has grown long, almost rodent-like. A mangy, post-holiday fur. She swears, then shaves, lathering the Junior Mint-scented shower gel she got stuck with during the office white elephant exchange.

4 minutes. 

Wrapped in an old Snoopy robe, she fixes dinner. A grilled cheese sandwich oozing with the dill Havarti that she buys at the corner market along with the expensive seed crackers that deliver endorphins of extravagance. She knows she can’t afford $10.99 crackers, not even close, and it sometimes scares her how much she relishes this small grocery rebellion.

Licking the grease from her fingertips, she remembers the last time she drank on an empty stomach and cringes. But she’s making good choices tonight. She will not sleep with Marcus. Regardless of how smooth her calves are.

12 minutes.

She blow-dries her hair. Indulgently. In sections as demonstrated by her salon stylist who always smells like Cherry Coke. Afterwards, she wrangles the flat iron, clips one side up, then decides to wear it down. To spite Marcus. 

16 minutes.

She’s running late. A text from Jody.

But she can’t find her boots. The cute ones that zip up the back. She settles on the tasseled loafers, although Jody claims they make her look like a middle-aged math teacher prioritizing arch support. Maybe she should skip the party. Stream one of those intolerable romances where the couple fails to kiss until the final scene and then lives happily ever after on some pesticide-free boysenberry farm. But no. She bailed last time. Besides, she loathes boysenberries and Jody would kill her. 

2 minutes.

In the foyer, she swears again before barreling down the hall to retrieve the cardigan that she’s certain she left on the bed—but, in actuality, has slipped off the console table onto the entry rug speckled with sidewalk salt.

28 seconds.

Dashing to the car, she snags her purse strap around the front doorknob, an obstacle that compels her entire body to lurch back like a hooked fish.

3 seconds.

At the curb, she sighs, her breath misting the dark as she laments the cloak of snow shrouding her Camry. Briefly considers an Uber. But she won’t drink tonight. One glass of Prosecco, max. Defiant, she snatches the scraper off the passenger seat and sets to work. The car will hold her accountable. She’s making good choices. Under fleece tights, her shaved legs turn to gooseflesh. 

3 minutes.

Later, she will not register the impact. The sheer, deafening ferocity of it. The blinding streak of yellow light breaching the median. The sickening crunch of metal and bone. Her skull, limp against the airbag — a pillow for a final sleep.

 *

When the mother arrives in the ER, she will collapse over the body. Wail like a newborn bungling breath — frantic to pump air into limp lungs. To incubate what is no longer warm.

From the hospital, the mother will drive on autopilot to the apartment. Shrivel against the wall and sob in the pre-dawn dark. There, she will suffer the vacuous void, rewinding the hours, seeking to elucidate the inexplicable. To return to the before.

After a while, she will bolt upright, galvanized to contrive a different outcome. For the driver of the SUV to swerve across the median a minute, thirty seconds, even ten after the Camry had passed. For her only daughter to be home. Sick with the flu. Navigating a different route. Stalled at a red light. Lost. Pulled over, consulting Siri for directions. 

Like a sleuth obsessed, the mother will dissect the evening, the afternoon, the entire week, the last voicemail, the final text, the New Year’s lunch where the two of them split a Caesar salad and her daughter gagged at the anchovies like she was six.

The mother will painstakingly unravel each and every stitch in the yarn, as though she might reknit her child’s life, a new sweater with longer sleeves. She’ll scour the apartment for clues. Decipher faded receipts and rummage for bargaining chips that might accommodate some type of exchange, one that might allow her to trade places, a voluntary swap. 

Instead, she’ll find the hairdryer. The plate of crusts in the sink. The Snoopy robe, a heap on the hardwood. She will never know to blame the dill or the doorknob. The missing boots or the blow-dry. 

Eventually, the mother will crumple on the bathroom floor to nest inside her grief. Eviscerated by loss. Stupefied by absence. While her daughter’s damp hair congeals under the shower drain, cowering like a guilty offender, secreting faint whiffs of artificial mint. 

                                                        *   *   *

Emily Hampson’s shorter work has appeared in Fractured Lit, Writer’s Digest, The Sunlight Press, Apricity Press, and WOW! Women On Writing. She resides outside of Chicago with her husband, two daughters, and a mischievous Bernedoodle whose collective antics supply her with endless narrative material.

By C.T. Baldwin

“Sign here, here, and here,” the suit said, pointing to the lines I needed to fill. The paperwork piled up. My eyes tried to shovel it away. Let me clear the view of my new home. Years of work, and this is the reward. It may be the farthest plot from the neighborhood’s iron gates, but that’s okay; I won’t be leaving much. The grass may need some work, but that’ll be worked out by the gardener. After the suit left and I had quiet at last, I knelt in my little plot. A house can’t be built here. The city’s regulations won’t allow it. That’s fine. This is mine.

I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to the dirt. My nose filled with the smell of the American Dream. Soon I had that familiar high. I let my reward seep in. The days began to slip away. Weeds grew around my ankles. The grass enveloped me. I waited. I counted. The weeds finally grew enough courage to put their arms around me. Pulling me into bed, my head lay to rest on a rock. The dirt walls made me feel snug. Blankets of soil began to be heaped around me. The lights slowly dimmed for my rest. I’ve earned this.

                                                   *     *.   *

C.T. Baldwin is an editor and teacher. He earned his MA in English Studies in 2021 from Kutztown University and now spends his free time writing. His writing has been published in HeartWood Literary Magazine, Shoofly Literary Magazine, and Wishbone Words. He can be found on Instagram @cbald95.

By Shahab Eddin Pakbeen

It is the last day of Dr. Brian Adams’s leave. He lives on the eighth floor of Paradise Tower.

It is eleven o’clock in the morning. Adams walks over to his usual barber’s shop, readying himself for his first day back at work after a month away.

A month earlier, a young boy had been left permanently paralyzed after Adams operated on him. The medical review board found Adams at fault, but his record was strong enough to save his career. He was forced to take a month off.

That month, Adams never left the city, went to the movies, or cooked. He walked eight kilometers a day and rearranged things around his apartment several times. Everything except the room he had shared with his ex-wife and his son’s room.

The barber has a cold. Whenever he coughs near Adams’s ear, Adams draws his head back a few inches. His hair ends up shorter than usual, his sideburns uneven. As always, not a word passes between them. Adams pays, leaves his usual tip, and takes the receipt. A corner is bent. He presses it flat with his thumb. It curls back up. He crushes the receipt and stuffs it into his back pocket.

He wants out. He pulls his jacket sharply from the coat rack. The metal zipper pull catches on his wedding ring and bends out of shape. Outside, he cannot make himself wait until he gets all the way home. He stops and tries to straighten it, but presses too hard and bends the metal the other way. This time he presses more gently. Almost straight. Just a little more. He presses. The zipper pull snaps.

He closes his fist around the broken piece and hurries home in short steps.

Still dressed, he finds a replacement zipper and goes at it with a screwdriver, forcing the new one into place. The doorbell rings. The pizza has arrived. He opens the box. The cheese has stuck to the lid, pulling some topping away with it. He closes the box, crushes it, and throws it in the trash. He washes his hands and returns to the zipper.

The screwdriver slips, cuts his palm, and knocks into his half-finished cup of coffee. Coffee spills across a book he bought yesterday, whose cover creased when he put it in his bag, and which he has ironed five times since. Adams grabs the book and wipes at the cover with his sleeve. The stain spreads. He rubs harder. Two wet pages tear. He holds his breath, gritting his teeth. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

He hurls the book across the room. It strikes the apartment’s only framed photograph. The frame falls and shatters. Adams pulls the photograph from the broken glass. A shard cuts his palm. On the right, the woman. In the middle, the boy. On the left, the exposed edge where part of the photograph has been cut away. Blood drops onto the woman’s face.

His gaze shifts from his son’s face to the tree standing behind him.

The boy is among the branches again, and Adams is filming him.

“Dad! Look at me! See how high I climbed!”

The boy’s foot slips. The image tilts. A moment of black. Then blue sky.

Adams gathers the boy into his arms. The mother screams:

“Brian, do something.”

Adams says nothing. He only looks into his son’s eyes. Moments later, the boy dies in his arms. Adams stays there, gripping his son’s hands in his own.

The phone screen still shows blue sky. The mother wails offscreen: “Give me my baby! You killed him!”

Adams sets the photograph carefully on the bookcase and takes his phone. He opens the video. His son’s voice comes through the speaker:

“Dad! Look at me! See how high I climbed!”

He sets the phone down and goes to lie on the couch where he sleeps at night. A few shards of glass are caught in the blanket.

He returns to the zipper.

He grips the zipper pull between his teeth, trying to work it back onto the track. His bloodied hand slips; the metal catches the inside of his lower lip. He jerks back; his lip splits. Blood runs onto the collar of his sky-blue shirt.

He pulls the shirt over his head, smearing blood across the fabric with his palm.

He removes the rest of his clothes and goes into the bathroom. He pauses in front of the mirror and takes a pair of electric clippers from the cabinet. He tries to even out his sideburns, but each attempt leaves one slightly higher or lower than the other, until they have crept above his ears. After several attempts, he shaves off all his hair.

He brushes shaving cream over his scalp and slowly draws the razor across the skin. His skull is uneven; the blade catches on the ridges, but he keeps going. When he finishes, several places on his scalp are bleeding.

He turns on the hot water and stands beneath the shower with his eyes closed. Stepping out, he rinses off his feet and puts on his slippers. He carries the shirt, jacket, and book into the bathroom and lines them up in the tub. He retrieves the crushed pizza from the trash and wedges it in beside them. He sees the coffee and bloodstains on the carpet. He pauses. He takes the blanket from the couch and fits it into the tub as well.

He takes rubbing alcohol from his son’s closet and returns with a lighter. He picks up his phone. He pours the alcohol over the contents of the tub and flicks the lighter until a flame catches.

He records the fire on his phone. The flames spread from the shirt to the book and jacket, then catch the blanket. He throws the phone into the tub. He tries to take off his wedding ring, but it is stuck on his finger. He takes a pair of wire cutters from the cabinet, cuts the ring while it is still on his finger, and throws it into the fire. The gold ring glows in the flames and slowly turns orange. The shower curtain catches fire. Adams’s gaze stays on the faucet. The flames rise. He stands motionless, naked except for the slippers still on his feet. He looks at himself in the mirror.

Outside, the seventeen-story Paradise Tower is already burning.

                                                      *   *   *

Shahab Eddin Pakbeen is an Iranian fiction writer whose work has appeared in The Markaz Review. His fiction is forthcoming in Queen’s Quarterly, Gone Lawn, The Hamilton Stone Review, and Does It Have Pockets.

By Jan English Leary

I’m at work where I’m supposed to be, in a staff meeting, but I’m also supposed to be at home with my son, Davy, who now calls the nanny Mommy instead of me. 

If I were where I’m supposed to be, I’d be at home with my husband and child instead of at a Best Western with my co-worker, a man I don’t even like except for the shattering orgasms he gives me. 

If I were at Pilates class, as I’m supposed to be, I wouldn’t be sitting alone in my car, listening to The Moth podcast, smoking my one cheat cigarette a day, popping mints to cover the smell. 

When I go to the nursing home as I’m supposed to, I ask my father where he is. He usually complains he’s in his duplicate apartment, and how the hell did I find him? Today, he says, “I’m where I’m supposed to be.”  So, I tell him I am too, which seems the only thing left to say.

                                                                    *    *    *

Jan English Leary is the author of three books published by Fomite Press. Her short fiction has appeared in such journals as Pleiades, Carve, Ghost Parachute, and Flash Fiction Magazine. She lives in Chicago.

By William Falo

I looked at the town I loved, knowing my childhood home would soon become part of my past.

I had been chosen to go to Dublin to record an album and perform. It was the opportunity I’d dreamed about for years. In the morning, I’d take a train from Galway, but first I wanted to hear some of the local musicians I’d read about online.

I’d been lucky. After a wealthy uncle left my mother money, I’d had lessons, teachers, and mentors other singers couldn’t afford. Then an agent heard me perform and offered me a contract.

The last contract they were offering that year.

I signed it.

My mother told me to go.

She’d been lonely since my father committed suicide. Alcohol had destroyed his liver and, eventually, his mind. Leaving her alone bothered me more than I admitted, but she insisted this was my chance.

So I left.

In Galway, I visited several pubs before making one final stop — O’Connor’s, where Ed Sheeran had once filmed part of Galway Girl.

I walked inside and felt as though I’d entered someone’s crowded den. Books and household treasures filled shelves around the bar.

Then a red-haired girl stepped onto the small stage.

Her hair was braided down both sides of her face. She picked up an acoustic guitar as I ordered a Guinness.

“My name’s Fiona.”

She strummed a few chords and began singing “Wild Mountain Thyme.”

My mother’s favorite song.

Something about Fiona’s raspy voice brought tears to my eyes. I pictured Mum sitting home alone and wondered how long it would be before I saw her again.

Fiona moved through several Irish classics before singing her own songs.

That’s when everything changed.

Her lyrics were raw, intimate, painful. They weren’t just songs. They were pieces of her life.

And they were better than mine.

That hurt.

But what hurt more was looking around the pub. Everyone had gone quiet. A woman wiped tears from her eyes. A man stared into his drink.

I’d never made an audience feel like this.

When Fiona announced a break, I slipped outside and leaned against the wall.

I’d spent my childhood being bullied because I was small and terrible at sports. Music became the place where I could matter.

But standing outside that pub, I wondered if my music had ever mattered to anyone the way Fiona’s did.

The door opened.

Fiona stepped outside and lit a cigarette.

“Want one?”

“No thanks. You shouldn’t either. It’ll ruin your voice.”

She laughed. “I know. I’m Fiona, by the way.”

“Tom. And you’re amazing.”

“Nah. Average.”

“I know someone in Dublin. I’m going to tell him about you.”

Her expression changed.

“Listen, Tom. I’m tired of disappointment and guys making promises. Don’t promise something you can’t deliver. Girls don’t like that.”

She crushed the cigarette beneath her shoe.

“I’m sorry.”

“No worries. Good luck in Dublin.”

She handed me a card with her Instagram information and disappeared inside.

I started to follow her.

Instead, I pulled out my phone.

“Ed, I’m not coming.”

“What? I need you. I promised the producers a new artist.”

“I found you one.”

“Don’t blow this chance, Tom.”

“Just listen.”

I opened the door and held my phone inside while Fiona sang one of her original ballads.

When it ended, I put the phone back to my ear.

“Well?”

“She’s good,” Ed said. “We can use a female singer.”

“I told you.”

“Send me her information. But understand something—if she gets the opportunity, you’re out.”

Through the doorway, I watched Fiona sing.

“Understood.”

I put my train ticket into an envelope along with some money and Ed’s number. Then I dropped it into Fiona’s tip box and walked away before she could see me.

An Irish goodbye.

When I arrived home, Mum stared at me.

Then she threw her arms around me.

“I think I’ll play locally,” I told her. “Maybe become an agent.”

She shook her head, but I saw the relief in her eyes.

She wouldn’t be alone.

                                           Six Months Later

One night, while searching YouTube for new musicians, I saw a familiar face.

Fiona.

One of her videos had gone viral. She was recording and preparing for a European tour.

I watched every video I could find.

When one ended, I realized a tear had fallen onto my desk.

Giving away my chance hadn’t ended my career. Because I’d discovered Fiona, I’d been hired as a talent scout. I still performed occasionally, but I’d discovered something I loved more.

Finding people who deserved to be heard.

That night, I went to a pub to watch a young singer.

He was good.

But good wasn’t enough anymore.

Fiona had taught me what I was looking for—that rare moment when a room became silent because everyone felt the same thing.

I headed toward the door.

Someone tapped my shoulder.

I turned.

Red hair.

Fiona.

“I quit smoking,” she said.

I smiled. “That’s great.”

She suddenly wrapped her arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe.

I didn’t know what to say.

Finally, I managed, “I should get home. My mother’s making dinner.”

Fiona pulled back and looked into my eyes.

“No, Tom. No Irish goodbye this time.”

She smiled.

“Call your mum and tell her your girlfriend is coming to dinner.”

Before I could answer, she kissed me.

Then we walked out of the pub together.

This time, there was no Irish goodbye.

                                                   

                                                             *   *   *

William Falo lives with his family, including a papillon named Dax. His stories have been published or are forthcoming in various literary journals. He can be found on X @williamfalo, Bluesky @williamfalowriter027.bsky.social @ WilliamFaloand Instagram @william_falo.

By Joli Huelskamp

“I don’t see it anywhere,” said my husband, emerging from behind the naked Christmas tree. “Are you sure we even hung it?”

It was New Year’s Day, when we traditionally took down the holiday decorations. I was pretty strict about this, probably in response to my mother’s tradition of leaving her tree up until late January. We always joked that some year she’d be hanging red hearts on its dry branches in February. 

“Of course we did,” I insisted. “We hung all five of them and now I only have four.” I held out the square of tissue paper where the tiny ornaments nestled: wooden snowmen, no bigger than a thumbnail, each different, painted with a few quick brushstrokes and hanging from cheerful cords: pink, yellow, blue, orange. The green one was missing.

We bought them at a flea market for our first Christmas tree. We’d acquired some unusual ornaments over the years, including a cute helicopter piloted by two rabbits, but the snowmen were our favorites.

“We’ll be late to your mom’s,” said my husband. “Let’s check again later tonight.”

Mom’s house still glowed with holiday spirit – the big tree with glass beads, the little tree with popcorn strings, the crèche with the ox missing a horn – but everyone was in letdown mode. My sister had already exchanged the scarf I’d given her and my niece said the carrot cake I’d brought “looked like puke.”

Our apartment felt bare and sad when we got home later. No sign of the missing snowman, either. My husband carried the tree out to the dumpsters. “The holidays are officially over,” he announced on his return.

*

The commute next morning was cold and rainy. The “waterproof” boots my best friend had given me weren’t; I dried my feet with paper towels in the restroom. Most people were back at work, but the office was subdued. A few people shared photos of family dinners, Florida vacations. At ten, an executive summoned our team into the conference room for an announcement: Our supervisor had been let go early that morning, we were now reassigned to the Conversion effort, and we had to move from our cubes to bullpens by end of day to make room for incoming consultants.

Our cafeteria table was gloomy at lunchtime; the supervisor had been well-respected. The cafeteria’s A-team was clearly off duty; the beef stroganoff was gray and the salad bar lettuce was slimy. After moving to my new station in the bullpen, I began reviewing the Conversion requirements. It was going to be a tangled, complex, migraine-inducing monster of a project. “The holidays are officially over,” announced a coworker as we left the building together and walked out into the rain.

*

The freeway was backed up. It was late when I pulled into the apartment complex and looked for a spot. My headlights caught something familiar as I drove past the pile of discarded Christmas trees by the dumpsters.

Our apartment felt warm and cozy. My husband had dinner well underway; a crisp salad sat on the table and a rich stroganoff aroma filled the room. “What a day!” he called from the kitchen. I walked over and gave him a hug.

“The holidays are officially over,” I announced with a smile, holding up the fifth snowman by its cheerful green cord.

*    *   *

Joli Huelskamp lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Her work appears in a number of online journals, including Brilliant Flash Fiction, ONE ART, and Kings River Life. Please visit jolihuelskamp.com for a complete list.

By Afsana Triya

“Why do you write every night?” asked my butterfly pea plant.

I pretended I didn’t hear her, ignored her effort to make a conversation, and continued to write.

She was quiet for a while. Then, “What is it you write?”

She received no answer from me.

It was already past midnight, so I got up and went to sleep.

The next evening after dinner, I sat on the balcony doing my usual writing.

“Are you writing in your journal again?” the butterfly pea plant asked.

“Poems,” I said. “They aren’t published yet.”

“Can I see them?”

“No.”

“This house is so quiet. I never see you having any visitors.” She hesitated before adding, “You don’t have many friends, do you?”

I didn’t respond.

As it was growing very chilly outside, I plucked three of her flowers to make myself a warm drink.

I went to the kitchen. As I turned the stove on and watched my water boil, I wondered if I should have thanked her for the flowers. Nah, I can’t be too friendly.

I went back to the balcony with my drink.

“Listen, Pea,” I said. “I’ll be away for a week on a work trip. I’ve asked my husband to water you on time. Good night.”

“Will he remember?” Pea asked.

“He will,” I said, and went inside.

That was the first time I had ever spoken to the plant without her asking me something first. 

A week later, on my first night back, I sat down to write. I immediately noticed my butterfly pea plant was gone. In her place stood a sunflower. 

I went to ask my husband, but he was already fast asleep. 

The next morning over breakfast, I asked, “What happened to my butterfly pea plant on the balcony?” 

“Oh, that one,” he said. “I was so busy with work that I forgot to water it, and it dried up. But I bought you a sunflower instead! I remembered you liked sunflowers.”

“That was a long time ago,” I said softly. “I wish you had just watered it.”

The next day, I went to the nursery and bought another butterfly pea plant. 

That night, I carried my notebook to the balcony earlier than usual. As I started to write, I kept glancing at my new plant.

After a long silence, I finally asked, “Do you want me to recite one of the poems I wrote?”

No answer.

Thankfully, this one asked no questions.

                                                                      

                                                            *    *    *

Afsana Triya is a digital artist and writer residing in Bangladesh. Outside of writing, she enjoys reading, gardening, and cooking. Her poems grow from emotions and experiences she has carried throughout her life.

By Monica Kagan

I soak in the bath and inhale you, barely visible through steam. Your wild hair casts a lattice shadow around your face and neck. You talk again about hiking through Turkey. “Now isn’t a good time,” I say. 

After my bath, we devour oven-baked croissants, the chocolate coating your lips. I lick off the chocolate. We forget to close the curtains. 

The morning sun pierces my skull. As I rise, my shadow lingers on your cold empty sheets.

                                                                      *   *   *

Monica Kagan lives by the sea in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. She identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Her work appears in: New Coin Poetry Journal (ISEA, Rhodes University), FICTION on the WEB, and Crack the Spine, among others. 

Twitter/X: @MonicaOFAH 

Instagram: @monicakaganpoet

By Michael A. Clement

Nobody attended the gold panner’s funeral except the gravediggers. They set the granite tombstone on his grave beside the gentle stream where he’d spent decades prospecting. The epitaph, inlaid with fool’s gold, read:

As gold is tested by fire,

A man’s soul is tested by failure.

At night, the prospector’s ghost still pans for gold.

                                                          *   *   *

Michael A. Clement was born and raised in San Diego, California. He spent most of his career in financial services. Since 2006, he has lived in Hong Kong. Now retired, he writes science fiction as a hobby. He has self-published several books on Amazon. You can find him online at: http://www.facebook.com/Michael.A.Clement.Books