She looked at their little coats hanging on their hooks, the little arms dangling emptily on the wall, and she thought, as every parent before her had thought, that someday their arms would grow and fill coats with long empty arms, and how she wished that she could wrap her own long arms around theirs and they would be like pads of butter on warm bread and they would melt into her and they could be one person again, though not exactly one, but certainly not two, or three, rather they could be like the matryoshka dolls that lay halved and scattered on the floor, and they could nest within her again, being themselves but also being her and never having to worry about which empty coat arms they would fit into because her arms were the only arms that ever felt the cold.

***

Emma Tessler is a psychotherapist and writer living in New York City. She is on Twitter @emmatessler.

A python swallows a mouse on Animal Planet, and the homeless girl watches that same clip loop over and over in the warm interior of a Best Buy two towns from hers, wondering how long it will take for the tiniest of its bones to dissolve. The homeless girl hates thinking of these sorts of endings as solid things. Curtains with weight enough to hide behind. Blackout, wool, never sheer. Never sunlight through thin glass. Never the beautiful and uncertain endings she dreams about—the ones where the mouse keeps kicking until the python’s mouth opens to blue skies. The ones where homeless girls make it out alive.

***

Jared Povanda is a writer, poet, and freelance editor from upstate New York. His work has been published in Uncharted Magazine, Pidgeonholes, and Hobart, among numerous others. Find him @JaredPovanda, jaredpovandawriting.wordpress.com, and in the Poets & Writers Directory.

Bus stop, wet day, here you are, waiting in the rain like a girl in an old sad song. You finally have a chance to be lonely. Unprotected. No longer snug in your mother’s soft flannel coat pocket. To be the stranger, the outsider. The girl at the bus stop hoping she’s getting on the right bus because she doesn’t know anyone to ask. Standing by the trash barrel with its peeling black bars, avoiding the man on the bench singing about red, red, roses; where have the roses gone? There are no roses here. A car slinks by, long and low, dinosaur footprints of bass stomping out of half-closed windows. You fade back onto the sidewalk, pretend to study rain-torn flyers on telephone poles. MISSING. LOST. HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Girls who stole away, or were stolen. Girls who are not you but who could be. You’ve never lived before in a place where it rains every day. Smell of clothes drying on radiators, crumbling mulch, eucalyptus buttons. Even the wood of the windowsill gone soft, so soft your fingernails leave crescent-moon marks when you stare out your window with no curtains, only the green aquarium light filtered through pine trees and rain. I could still go home, you think. Think of your phone, smashed and sparkling on a dust-dry highway miles from here. The wood gets softer every day.

***

Kathryn Kulpa teaches writing workshops for Cleaver magazine, where she’s a flash fiction editor. You can find her stories in Atlas and Alice, Cease, Cows, Ekphrastic Review, Flash Frog, No Contact, and other journals. Her work has been chosen for Best Microfiction and the Wigleaf longlist.

They are poised like French paintings, their boyfriends young and dangerous – the kinds that say here, babygirl; here’s how you deal with daddy issues or you’re so fucking fine. Their faces are unmatched with fear, hair tied in agony. They’re seventeen going on thirty, with bodies pierced with magnets. They say “marb red” to the convenience store clerk and then drive away with fifty more dollars in their pockets. They look at you in French and speak to you in German. They prefer boys who like sleek women, always taking out things from inside of them. For example, a baby that once climbed out of their frail bodies, later left wasted on the sidewalk. When they were young, the sun felt warmer on their face and their names rhymed like a poem. Now, they part their hair like they part their ways. Always late to parties. The life of parties. Pretty girls. One of those girls you stare, stare, stare, the distance seeming never-ending between you and them. But these girls, these girls eat quickly, taking the edge of their hunger. Go swimming in circles and sigh after their head bursts through the skin of the sea, always speeding past the world in their blue-rimmed sunglasses. Your mom doesn’t like them but you do because these girls know shit. They are left to themselves, the world around them is disguised in cheap stakes of cigarettes and ashes. They go to graveyards in search of peace. They build sandcastles that fall easily, headfirst onto the ground, take you to the lakes and dump you there, gawk at your dead body, take out your lungs and wear them to breathe like you, cut your heart in pieces and stare at it for a solid ten minutes before eating it, break your ribs to sell on their Etsy shops, make bracelets out of your eyes, pierce your nose and keep it as a souvenir on their desk. Burn all the water, and scream “fuck you” at anyone and everyone that says oh you’re so young. They darken themselves more with Dollar-store mascara and kohl, every inch of them clad in despair, I want you bad. These girls then drive to the end of the world with new lungs, hearts, ribs, eyes and noses. You only stare. The distance is never-ending.

***

Harsimran Kaur is a senior in high school in India. Her work appears in In Parenthesis, KNACK, Jellyfish Review, Big Windows Review, BULL, Jersey Devil Press, and elsewhere. She can be found on Instagram at @playitasitlaysss.

I’ll pitch the shaggy dough right there on the field, stab my shovel in deep to scoop and turn, knead the great globby mess until it’s smooth. We’ll cover it with the circus tent—bright red and gold stripes—smell the yeast working its magic, watch it rise in the midday sun. And as the dough rises higher than high, we’ll call all our friends, tell them “Come to the circus and bring your blowtorch.” And when they all come, we’ll pull off the tent, stand small under the hill of dough. With blowtorches in hand we’ll count—one two three—then let the flames roar at the bread-to-be. I suppose we’ll need ladders to bake the top of the bread. And of course, we’ll sweat buckets, I know. But even with the blowtorches biting in our hands, we’ll smile. Our stomachs will grumble at the smell of the bread. Our eyes will hunger with the crust turning gold. And then when it’s baked, we’ll turn off the blowtorches, see what we’ve made. And though we’ll want to eat the warm circus right away, we’ll wait. We’ll shove our hands deep in our pockets as we lick our lips, until finally, finally we hear the organ playing from inside. That’s when we’ll know it’s time. The circus is ready. And you, my love, you can do the honors. I’ll hand you the saw. You’ll slice a door in the side, standing back when the steam puffs into the air. You’ll carve deep into the bread, up, over, and down, and the more that you cut, the louder the music will ring, tootling arpeggios calling us in. Then just as the door is nearly cut through, all our friends will grasp on and pull off the door, the great bready door, so warm in our hands, and with great toothy smiles we’ll eat it all up. Then as is the way with a freshly baked circus, we’ll push through the entrance to the air pocket inside. Already the circus will be in full swing. The ringmaster grinning with breadstick moustache. Pizza crust acrobats spinning and flying. The brioche bun elephants gleaming soft shiny crusts. And you and me, all our friends, the whole damn town, we’ll nestle into the soft warmth of the loaf. And as we marvel, we’ll tear off bits of bread, eating our fill. We’ll laugh at the clowns, all funfetti and frosting, cheer for the animal crackers jumping through hoops. We’ll hold our breath for the hard-crusted man as he’s launched from the cannon. And yes, I’ll watch the delights, that much is true, but the greatest marvel will be your lips stretching in wide laughter, then parting gently in gasp, then stretching wide again.

***

K.A. Nielsen (she/they) is a U.S. writer living in Sweden. Their work has appeared/is forthcoming in Fusion Fragment, The Hunger, LandLocked, Sledgehammer Lit, and elsewhere. They are on the internet: www.kanielsen.net and @_kanielsen_.

i

They play in their garden every evening, spilling out of the doors at six o’clock sharp. I’ve never seen young boys with such restraint. They kick their foam green ball from foot to foot, and when the rare miss comes, apologise to each other, and sprint to fetch it. I hear their tinny voices saying sorry, and decide that when I have children, I want them to be apologetic.

ii

Sometimes, the oldest pushes the youngest on a chain swing, and he doesn’t squeak ‘higher, higher’, he just sits there, legs dangling, perfectly content to leave his brother in control. Four boys and all of them impeccably behaved. I want Jim to watch, sometimes. It’s 5.58 and I’m washing up by the kitchen window, scouring pots of burnt stew with iron wool. Jim says I’m crap at cooking, and I apologise, just like those lovely boys. Look, I say, as the spring light glances off their rounded cheeks. Shut it, Jim says, pulling the tab from his can and throwing it across the kitchen. Jim doesn’t really watch, not like me.

iii

Yesterday, the one with curly hair moved an outdoor chess set to the patio all by himself. His little hands turned red with the effort, wrestling their bulky frames in fits and starts. When his brothers came out, they embraced him as a thank you. It was a real squeeze, none of that light tapping on the shoulders. One day, I’d like to teach Jim how to hug.

iv

Pink light sifts in through the open window as the match commences, and their laughter floats above my sink. I’m so caught in the smile of the youngest, a wiry six-year-old in a blue jumper, that I don’t hear Jim’s question. I realise this only when his face is inches from mine. Are you listening, he hisses. I asked you a question.

v

I often wonder whether they notice me. When I’m feeling brave, I wander along our shared fence and pretend to water the hydrangeas. I notice the minutiae of their expressions. A scrunched nose here, a bitten lip there. A robin titters from my apple tree and the blonde one steps towards the trellis. Fly away, he says. Shoo. His face is expressionless as he jogs back to the game. What a lovely boy. His parents must be so proud of their gorgeous children. The last time I saw their mother, she was unpacking brown bags from the car. I nearly hugged her. I haven’t seen her for weeks now.

vi

They finish playing at seven and I hear the cuckoo clock chirrup as they file inside. Did you remember to buy beer, Jim says. You stupid bitch, Jim says. All the lights go off next door. I extract my fingers from the yellow gloves. The power cuts out, and we’re shunted into the dark. I’m going to ask next door for some candles, Jim says. I’ll go, I reply. No, you won’t, he says.

***

Anna Pembroke (she/her) is a writer and English teacher based in London, England. Raised in South Africa and Nigeria, she taught in Malaysia for a year before beginning a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing at the Open University. She spent the Fall 2018 semester at the Aegean Center in Paros, Greece, studying creative writing and photography under Jeffrey Carson and John Pack. Her most recent publication is a poem in Messy Misfits Zine. Find her on Twitter @annaisediting.

He sits before her like before the judge. He is an orange jumpsuit. He thinks maybe she thinks: he’s just a man, not the father I knew.  She knew what evil was before she knew it was him. Like a real dad, he wants to tell her all –  a day in 1952,  as if it began there, he still a boy helping her granddad carry the new television into the house to broadcast all things, both good and evil. He admits there were victims (pretty like her) who played pianos, owned dogs, and wrote in diaries. He can’t explain this, except to say: as a boy,  he too once did all that.  Each case presented a puzzle like a crossword at breakfast. She sees that in him. He wants her to know he is sorry his way. For a minute, she wants to wrap up a pretty daddy she knew with scotch tape and bright paper in her arms like Christmas, but this man reminds her of all the human in evil.

***

Paul Dickey won the Master Poet award from the Nebraska Arts Council. Paul Dickey’s first full length poetry manuscript They Say This is How Death Came Into the World was published by Mayapple Press in January, 2011. His poetry and flash have appeared in over 200  online and print publications. A second book, Wires Over the Homeplace was published by Pinyon Publishing in October, 2013.

They tell us about the veils. About the flowers plucked from ditches before they drown in rainwater. How they’ll tremble in our hands. About the sugar on our lips and the wine that feels like swallowed starlight.

They don’t tell us about the men standing in the yellow courtyard smoking. Leaning against archways, doorways, watching. How the ghost of smoke trails through parted lips. Or when the door is closed, the shutters locked against a violet sky. How rough an unshaven cheek feels. How it burns.

***

Linda Niehoff’s short fiction has appeared in TriQuarterly, SmokeLong Quarterly, Flash Fiction Online, and elsewhere.

There’s a picture of me somewhere, wearing a space suit. My little brown bob, grown out from the last time I got ukus, dusting the metal ring around the neck hole. I couldn’t believe how heavy it was, my arms and legs swimming in puffy whiteness. My hand shot up so fast when you asked who in the class wanted to try it on, my dreams of rocket ships and space, sparkling around me. I didn’t know who you were then even though I had visited your parents’ general store in Kealakekua after every coffee picking day, my back sore from carrying a basket of coffee beans around my waist all day. No matter how fast I picked or how many baskets I filled, I was never fast enough or skillful enough, each hundred-pound bag filled by my parents, extra money for school shopping and Christmas presents. Maybe you picked coffee too? Maybe you were never chastised because your best was good enough to get you out of Kona and into space. On the day you died, I cried. In that moment, when the Challenger exploded, I saw the end of all of our dreams, Kona boy made good. And I remembered the kindness of your parents giving me a free cup of vanilla ice cream and a bag of freshly fried kettle chips, my face sweaty, my hands sticky with sap.

***

Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer, living in Japan, has work published or forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, Reckon Review, The Hennepin Review, Cheap Pop, The Razor, Cotton Xenomorph, Lost Balloon, and Atlas + Alice. She is in Best Small Fictions 2021, Best Microfiction 2022, and Wigleaf Top 50 2022. Read Hard Skin, her short story collection, from Juventud Press. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at www.melissallanesbrownlee.com.

Everyone had a father who smoked cigarettes. Everyone had a father who smoked one, two, three, four packs a day. Everyone had a father who drank. Everyone had a father who drank one, two, three, four bottles of beer, wine, and whiskey a day. They smoked and drank. They drank and smoked. Everyone knew that fathers did these things. Everyone. Everyone had a mother who yelled. Everyone had a mother who yelled about the things we did. Everyone had a mother who yelled about the things we didn’t do. Everyone had a mother who beat them. Everyone knew that mothers did these things. Everyone. Everyone knew what the rules were. Everyone had the marks. Everyone had bruises. Everyone knew you count them up, one, two, three new ones on top of one, two, three older ones. Everyone knew who to tell things to. Everyone knew how to keep their mouth shut. Everyone.  And, in the summer, everyone played cigarette tag. Everyone. Bigger kids. Younger ones. All the kids played cigarette tag. One person was IT. IT chased everyone around and tagged them so they would be IT. The big difference was that if you wanted to be safe, you had to go down on one knee and chant the commercial for a cigarette brand. They came across the television day and night. Men on horses. People on boats. Happy and smiling and clean and as bright as a million stars. And everyone knew all the commercials. Everyone. Cigarette tag went on for hours. Eventually, everyone was IT, but everyone wanted to show off how many cigarette brands they knew. Filtered. Unfiltered. Menthol. Lights. Everyone knew them all. Rothmans. Marlboro. Kent. Player’s. Taryton. I’d rather fight than switch. Virginia Slims. You’ve come a long way, baby. Merit. Doral. Raleigh. Newport. Kool. Winston’s tastes good like a cigarette should. Pall Mall. Camel. Carlton. Vantage. Lucky Strikes. Chesterfield. You can take Salem out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of Salem. Everyone knew the magic to keep you safe from IT. Everyone knew. Everyone. As the game went on into the night, and everyone started getting called to come home, everyone wanted to be the last one. The final NOT IT in the cigarette tag game. Everyone wanted to be the last one to go home. To the mothers. To the fathers. Everyone.

***

Rina Palumbo came to writing after a career in college teaching and has published work in Survivor Lit, Beach Reads, and local magazines and journals. She is currently working on a novel and has two other long-form works in progress while continuing to write short-form fiction, creative non-fiction, and prose poetry.