I Lived

By Emily O. Gravett
It was the summer of Shakira songs. We danced in clubs all over downtown Jerusalem until 4 a.m. and studied biblical Hebrew for six hours in the daytime.

Common Ground

By Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar
My name is Sara, I say. I’m from India. Never met an Indian with that name, they say. Is it short for something? No, that’s my first name. I say.

It’s Better This Way

By AJ Atwater
The convertible black as night with straight-up fins and a grille like shark’s teeth comes to rest in the bar’s parking lot among long-bed pickups with pipes and lumber and paint-splattered extension ladders...

Photo Story: Arcana

By Robert Keal
Each card foretells a fresh doom. She lays them side by side, three perfect slabs, her bridge towards the truth.

Jigsaw Puzzle

By Roberta Beary
When someone said, I saw your husband eating out with another woman, he said she’s a colleague and I believed him...

Foreign Countries

By Emily Farranto
When we fell in love, my future husband wrote: Being with you feels like being in a foreign country.

Lullaby for Mariupol

By Stephen Connacher
I remember the chilly winter carnivals at Drama Theater, and the new green and yellow maternity hospital. Neighborhood babushkas gossip among the falling leaves.

Darling at Dinner

By Ellie Prusko
The waiter was staring at Darling, not me. When Darling admitted she wasn't 18, he left her wine glass anyway. He took mine immediately, probably mistaking me for 12.

Photo Story: Dan Needs Sober Friends

By Patrick Grewe
She screams toward him: “There are faces…” points adamantly “…in the lights!”

Your Hair Looks Like Taillights

By Lexi Butler
You talk to your mother in Spanish, your sister in English, and then in numbers to order Chinese take-out. And you love to talk, especially about how you grew up in a one-room walk-up.

Photo Story: Testing Mom’s Claims During Lunch at the Tail End of Our Final Family Vacation

By Abbie Barker
They’re arguing again. Mom says she shouldn’t sit in the sun...

Struck Silent by Whalesong

By James Claffey
The morning of my mother's last day on earth the nurses didn't notice her waif-like frame slip out the door...

Book Review: Snowdog

By Beret Olsen
In Snowdog, Kim Chinquee’s latest collection of flash fiction, the writing is clean and concise, the language unornamented. “[T]he best time to make fake snow is when it’s actually snowing,” she writes in the opening story.

Photo Story: The Gaps Between

By Denise Bayes
They announced on the radio that Freddie was dead. I picked up the phone. “Come over,” he said.

Photo Story: Valentine

By Christy Brothers
Mom packs us into the car. Billy and Jasmine sleep. I sit up front chewing the corners of my nails until they bleed.

Canadensis

By Corinne Silver
They arrived silently, swiftly during the night and stood present by morning. They flocked the fields, parking lots, and manmade suburban ponds. They were big.

Her Mother, My Mother

By Hema Nataraju
Her mother never wore a sari, my mother never did not. Her mother drove a Mustang, my mother walked everywhere, even though I hated being picked up last.

Photo Story: At a speed of 0.5 inches per second

By Nora Nadjarian
The heartbeat is fast and sharp, except no one knows where the snail’s heart is.

Don’t Bother, They’re Here

By Meg Pokrass
“Guess what, Hon? They’re here!” you said, referring to the clowns. They were pounding on our door.

Gone Hunting

By Binx R. Perino
Danny sucks the wet end of a cigarette, tapping his hand on the steering wheel. Wisps of Maggie’s hair whip around from the rolled-down windows.