“Dying’s only the beginning for muleys,” he said. “Field dressing’s next. Then cooling. Then supper.”

Oliver Cubillos is a writer and filmmaker from Los Angeles, California. He holds a BFA in Media Arts Production with a minor in literature from Emerson College. His work is published or forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, BULL Magazine, Free Flash Fiction, and elsewhere.

She smoothed wrinkled hands over her mother’s gingham apron as softly as if saying a childhood prayer.

This, almost certainly, would be her year.

Erin Gilmore has to imagine the stories her grandparents never told her.

She tossed the NO into a jar to compost down with the NAYs and NOTs – aerated with her sighs, moistened with her sweat – until an idea landed, cracked open and extended roots into the loam.

A shoot, a stalk and then a YES bloomed.

Joanna Norland is a playwright and a writing coach who treats rejections as a badge of honour.

Leroy moans, “I killed Ted Stone.” Describes a bloody sidewalk.

Next day, you get home, find nobody there. Leroy on the lam. Mom too.

Later, you learn Ted Stone’s not dead.

No matter. You’re alone anyway.

Nick Di Carlo heard a person in a PTSD group say, “High School traumatized all of us.” Someone responded, “Things weren’t much better at home.” A third participant chimed in, “Then they drafted you.”

Nick nodded and said, “Amen, brother. Amen.”

JR Walsh is the Online Editor at The Citron Review. He teaches creative writing at SUNY Oswego. Find his writing on itsjrwalsh.com.

At pickup time
after his last day of 8th grade
at the same school,
Jason was at the very top
of that big tree
in the schoolyard.

Trevor’s fiction and non-fiction have appeared it print and digital publications since the 1970s. He’s a mononymous, multiple award-winning, full-time entertainer who likes hyphens. See more at trevorthegamesman.com

Vigil by Paul D’Arcy

Phil W. Bayles read the phrase “cognitive debt” in an article recently and found it utterly terrifying.

Has for nine years. Every dinner, every work lunch, every birthday where someone else chose the restaurant.

At home, she eats standing at the counter while her family sleeps.

Not much. Not nothing.

Only enough to keep the number she carries in her head from changing.

Paul D’Arcy tells stories. All real. Most brief. You can read more at pauldrc.com.

Chris Dolan works in the automotive industry and is the founding editor of One Fall Review. He is angry about the nitrate levels in Iowa’s drinking water. Reader at Black Fox Literary Magazine and Flash Fiction Magazine. Chris’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Maudlin House, and The Disappointed Housewife. Find him on Bluesky @mcdolan.bsky.social or at dolanchris.com.