Flash

WOLF IT DOWN by Billie Chang

March 31, 2025

I push Ally’s note clean into the corners of my mouth, the motion wet and slow, the ink kissing molar. Finn is in the shower. The bathroom door splintered last week after Mr. Rutabaga ran into it, full force and head-on, in pursuit of a fast spider. We drove him to the on-call vet. He sits now in his doghouse with one less tooth and a tender snout. I can hear Finn’s motions through the wood-chipped cracks: the stumbling as he raises his leg to wash the bottom of his foot, the collapse of water after he pools the drops

SWORDFISH STRIPS by Michael Brooks

March 24, 2025

Emily spots her strutting up to the hostess stand: a willowy curl of a woman, Asian and raven-haired, white blouse tucked into a black pencil skirt at her narrow waist. Her eyes are sharp as blades, bright as the silver chain about her neck. She grips a Prada handbag that fins from her side and points with a slender finger to a table at the wide bow window, in Emily’s section. Nothing in her face or posture wavers. A man strides in behind her—maybe fifteen years her senior—a graying swoop of hair roofing a scrunched face and thin-framed glasses. He

ACREMONIUM by Shira Moolten

March 18, 2025

Gina didn’t believe Sam when he said he’d discovered mold inside the air duct. “What do you mean, mold?” she said from the couch, not looking up from her phone. “It’s probably dust.” Sam got down from his perch on the bar stool. “I’m going out,” he said, then went to Walmart and bought painting masks and rubber gloves and vinegar. Within 20 minutes he was back, reexamining the duct in their condo with a flashlight. “It’s everywhere,” Sam said. “Come look.” “That’s okay,” Gina said. She was reading a really interesting New York Times article. Besides, Sam was always

TICK by J. Eagleson

March 17, 2025

You are a tick. You fly through the air on an arc of static electricity, in hopes of landing on something alive and real. Your travel is always a courtesy of others, or an unexpected spark of nature. Purgatory for you is a blade of grass or a dark sock that renders you a shadow in the night as you crawl towards your heaven of soft flesh. You latch onto the shadow of her ankle, monosyllabic in name and purpose. People around here tend to wear socks — she does not. A waft of odor floats up from her shoes,

“I’LL DO” by Sacha Francis

March 14, 2025

“I’m not doing a reading for you.” “You do have the cards, though,” Drew sneered. He was laying the deck out in four piles – the way he shuffled Magic. “Yeah,” I said, “but only ‘cause they’re dads.” “And you know how to do it.” He conjoined the sets, his thumbs bending around the feathered edges at first, joking like he wanted to riffle them. I shot him evils and he shot back worse, his nose and eyes scrunching up to mock me. He was like a girl. “Sort of,” I said. I’d never done it for anyone but myself.

CLUSTER by Katherine Plumhoff

February 28, 2025

People say they see their dead moms in blue jays and buttercups, robins and rhododendrons, but mine told me she’d never come back as something so abominably dull, and to keep an eye out for spiders. It’s a bright spring day and mown grass, cut by a neighbor, foams at the edges of the yard like a fresh-pulled pint. I am crouched in the corner of the patio, sifting through a 50L sack of soil that’s been slumped here since she lost the strength to stand. Digging for arachnids and coming up short. Two trowels deep. Late and making us

IDLE ANIMATION by Ryan Petersen

February 7, 2025

I made sure never to start the day. Abstained from True Conscious Hours. And yet, somehow, it went on without me. The sweat underneath my upper thighs became my five o’clock work whistle, an inarguable sign that the day was already over, before it had ever begun. Weeks went by like this. So smooth and easy that I hardly took notice. For I was a junkie, refreshing my feed with abandon, in willful avoidance of the aforementioned True Conscious Hours. YouTube was where I found the good stuff. I let the algorithm swaddle me tight, held in close by its

HOUSE FLY by Megan Nichols

February 6, 2025

Superstition slipped in with the last of the September flies. My hands were full and I couldn’t get the door shut fast enough behind me. There was a clog in the bathroom sink where drain flies had nested. Something about my slowness made me wonder if we didn’t deserve it. Jake said to get hot vinegar if I was too damn scared of store bought bug killer. The sour smell drove him out all afternoon and when he came back he saw I had let the vinegar boil out. He headed upstairs with a bottle of bleach but found the

she transmogrified in my bed by Rylie Farr

January 27, 2025

My girlfriend has started a new regiment this week. She told me after coming home yesterday from work. Supposedly, this is supposed to help her achieve her “ideal form.” Every night now she is supposed to take these fluorescent green pills with her dinner. I don’t mind it too much. She becomes so sleepy afterwards, so I tuck her in our bed before sitting out on the couch for a couple of hours. Our flat is now quieter than usual. It seems the side effects are starting to take place in her body. This morning, she woke up before me

THE SLEEPING BANKER by Matthew Binder

January 20, 2025

The factory closed the week before Christmas. The owner had moved his operations to Bangladesh. Emanuel had spent eleven years on the assembly line. It was the only job he knew. Marta, his wife, could no longer cut hair. Her condition made her hands tremble to the point that her clients had begun to complain about nicks on their necks and ears. They were three months behind on rent, the electricity was shut off. Their kids were eating crackers and trekking through the snow with holes in their shoes. Emanuel had once had luck betting on football matches. That ended,