Six Sentences

Tick vs Tock

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:25:29 -0400

by Steven Lemprière

Tick; Harry, Grandfather’s antique wall-mounted dining-room clock. Tock; Father’s nineteen-sixties General Electric—appropriately named—bedside timepiece. Tick; dinnertime and Harry chimes, summoning family as metronome-like, he conducts us to our traditional Sunday roast. Tock; dawn, beep, beep, beep—the sun rises, as does Father, and therefore, without choice, so do I. Tick; Father has clocked out. Tock; no longer alarmed, I roll over and return to sleep—Zzz-Zzz-Zzz…

6S

Steven Lemprière's work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Drabble, Friday Flash Fiction, 50-Word Stories, 50 Give or Take, Punk Noir Magazine, The Hoolet’s Nook, Literary Garage, Suddenly and Without Warning, and Paragraph Planet. He took a creative writing course while a patient at an Irish psychiatric hospital, and shortly after his discharge, the Cúirt International Festival of Literature shortlisted him for the New Writers Prize. When not writing, he’s seeking the sleep he lost as a child.

Good

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:01:29 -0400

by Wesley Morris

“Good” meant trying hard and helping out and listening and being a devoted friend. It meant only the best news for my parents and being liked. But goodness as a personal policy is strange for a child to have. It’s for grown-ups; not for kids. Teachers like good kids; some teachers prefer them. The kind of goodness I’m talking about is suspicious to other kids.

6S

Wesley Morris has won two Pulitzer Prizes for criticism, including in 2021 for a set of essays that explored the intersection of race and pop culture. His six sentences are excerpted from "My Mustache, My Self."

Revenge

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:29:51 -0400

by Thomas Baron

There’s a crow in the front yard and I’m pretty sure it hates me. Every time I leave, it caws at me and, if I go too close, it pegs juniper berries from the tree and drops them on me. My wife says I must have done something to upset it, that crows are famously vengeful, but I don’t know what I did to deserve this. Maybe it’s mad at me for cutting down that tree in the spring that was already dead, or for being too loud when I pull into the driveway, or maybe it wants me to feed it and is angry that I don’t. Maybe it saw what happened that night in the parking lot behind the Wendy’s and wants me to know that somebody saw and that somebody knows and that the world will remember even if the people forget. Either way, I don’t think I’ll leave the house today—there are more crows out there now, and I don’t know what it’s telling them.

6S

Thomas Baron is a British writer living in Northern Colorado.

Coming of Age

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 17:53:40 -0400

by Victoria Melekian

The women in my family grow wings, big and feathery white, hard to hide and hard to manage when sorrow weighs you down and the wings don’t work and you land in faraway places having to think about narwhals and pollywogs, happy things, until you’re light enough to flap back home, ignoring the houses beneath, the people inside with not enough to eat or enough insulin or enough hope to want to wake up in the morning. Soaring above glimmering grids of light is gorgeous, but maintaining a constant cheeriness as the world below churns—well, I understand why Mom and Grandma gave up their wings years ago. It’s difficult to sustain concern for anything other than staying aloft. I assured Grandma I wanted to care. She clipped my wings using her small sewing scissors. It stung, but now I can feel all of it: despair, outrage, grief, delight, the whole earthbound mess.

6S

Victoria Melekian writes poetry and short fiction. Her poetry collection “The Accidental Courage of Our Lives” is available from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. “Unhoused,” Victoria’s novella-in-flash, won first place in the 2026 Bath Flash Fiction Novella-in-Flash Awards. For more, see her website.

Versions

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:00:00 -0400

by Elodie A. Roy

In some versions of her story, her husband was “a botanist.” In some others, he was “a porter” and “dense.” In yet another, she called him “a good egg.” I never met him. I occasionally wondered whether she had married several men, or only that one who contained several beings, a tangled infinity of lives. And I wondered whether that made her free.

6S

Elodie A. Roy's fiction appears in The Stinging Fly, 3:AM Magazine, Flash Frog, New World Writing, Blink-Ink, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. She is based in Berlin.

Stuffed Shirt

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 06:00:00 -0400

by Marc Nash

My new spouse laid my freshly ironed shirt on the newly made bed. She folded the sleeves onto the shirt's body, cuff resting on cuff, rather than stretched out to the sides. Like a straitjacket. Like a seppuku. Like a burial shroud. I bought drip-dry shirts from then on.

6S

Marc Nash has written five flash fiction collections and seven novels. His 2018 novel, Three Dreams in the Key of G, was short listed for the 2018 Not the Booker Prize. He lives and works in London.

Some Things are Best Left Alone

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:01:03 -0400

by Amy Hernández Matsumoto

Sea foam floats near my feet. I want to lie down in it, play with it, rest in its cumulus shape. My instinct is to interrupt and scatter the innocence of the ocean’s clouds. My mind and hands argue; “stand and admire them only” wins. Carefully, I lunge over the foamy meringue and refuse to look back. This time, I saw the sign: Harmful Algal Blooms.

6S

Amy Hernández Matsumoto is co-owner of a Southern Italian restaurant in Vancouver, WA, and an adjunct instructor at Washington State University, Vancouver. Reading, writing, working in the community, and cuddling with her three Shih Tzus are what bring her peace.

The Divine Tease

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 22:32:42 -0400

by Woody Allen

In the Hamptons he was up and dressed at 6:00 a.m. and enjoyed a walk on the cool white sand. Alone on the endless coastline, the huge dawn sky gray and moody, the vast ocean, up and back in its rhythm signifying only that time moves in one direction, naturally his thoughts turned to the eternal and from there to the religious. It was here, under these conditions, if ever God's plan was meant to become apparent, this was the setting. Staring out into the horizon he awaited some sign. When no message emerged, no sacred instructions to go along with his ineffable intuition of "something greater" materialized and God was a no-show he began to miss the city where intimations of immortality were scarce, but in trouble you could dial 911. So much for the divine tease, a hustle for suckers.

6S

Woody Allen is a writer, director, and actor. His six sentences are excerpted from his first novel, What's with Baum?

Deleting Granny

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:50:12 -0400

by Joseph Manwill

I have to delete something. My neurolink needs the space. Sorry, Granny, there is no need to remember you singing "Happy Birthday" to me at five. Still not enough. I'll remove the rest of your catalogue. I need that space for the hamburger.

6S

Joseph Manwill. He is no good at bios and always makes the same joke, which he just made, about being bad at writing bios. He has no links to share.

The Known Harms of Microplastics

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:23:45 -0400

by Julia Rajagopalan

With a surly, lip-glossed frown, the judgy grocery store cashier scans my cases of bottled water. She glares and tells me about a TikTok she watched about how microplastics appeared in 100% of semen samples. As I hand her the carton of eggs, I ask her about the health effects of microplastics, but she admits she doesn’t know. When I explain I don’t have semen, testicles, or TikTok, she rings a bell for her manager. The island-shirted man, bearded and verbose, tells me I can’t harass the cashiers with words like semen and testicles, and that “she said it first” isn’t a defense. So I get in my car and scream while pounding on my steering wheel, then drive to another store.

6S

Julia Rajagopalan is a writer of speculative fiction who lives just outside of Detroit, Michigan, with her husband and their very grumpy dog. For a list of her publications, check out her website. This piece was originally published in Ink in Thirds.

Drowning in Sleep

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:44:03 -0400

by Brad Rose

I’m paying off my sleep debt, one dream at a time. As it so happens, I’m the invisible man. I sport transparent tattoos. Last night, I had a few choice words with the naval dead and they gave me this submarine sandwich, in case I were to fall overboard. At first, I thought this was funny. But I’m not laughing anymore.

6S

Brad Rose's latest book is I Wouldn’t Say That, Exactly.

Boy

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 20:25:03 -0400

by Maddie King

Every person was a ‘boy’ no matter who it was. A ‘boy’ would take us to Etna, if we asked. Another ‘boy’ could sell us black-rock bracelets from the base; they were cheap, only 15 lira. A certain 'boy' scaled the side of the crater every day to look into its depths and every day would climb back down to tell everyone that the volcano was still dead. This boy’s father had held this job until 1949, when lava had flowed down to Randazzo (“where the allied beetches come”). A few years later, ash clouds spread as far as Libya.

6S

Maddie King is a writer and filmmaker living in Portland, Maine. Her short fiction has been published in HOOT, Fleas on the Dog, and Brilliant Flash Fiction. Once, she had a dream about setting up a palmistry practice by a lake. It didn’t impact the course of her life, but it sometimes amuses her to think about a version in which it had.

Intra-Stellar

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 19:29:18 -0400

by Wim Coleman

It is said that our Hollow Sun holds 1.3 million earths. Just how much those earths resemble our own is purely a theoretical matter, since no information can escape the event horizon of the photosphere. Nevertheless, the laws of physics suggest with a high degree of certainty that there is an earth where coincidences never happen, which itself is an astonishing coincidence. Lent is perpetual on one of these earths, while Carnevale is never-ending on another. There is an earth where everyone's fifteen minutes of fame is divided and subdivided into imperceptible nanoseconds. Most interesting of all to the layperson is an earth where every snowflake has its exact double.

6S

Wim Coleman (he/him) is a playwright, poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer. In a literary culture divided into "highbrow" and "lowbrow," he strives to remain resolutely "brow." (Wim's website)

Sample People

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 13:40:47 -0400

by Patrick Parks

They were a small couple, elegantly dressed, but very small. They looked to me like sample people, something you might see in a shop, a display for the full-sized variety. They were so dainty and so delicate in their movements that I was overcome by the wonder of them and tears sprang to my eyes. It must have been a common reaction. They looked at me with something like pity as they passed. Each raised a tiny hand and gave me a brief, knowing salute.

6S

Patrick Parks authored a novel, Tucumcari (KERNPUNKT Press, 2018), and has had fiction, poetry, reviews and interviews appear or forthcoming in a number of places, most recently The Millions, The Writing Disorder, TYPO, Change Seven, Ocotillo Review, Bridge Eight, Another Chicago Magazine, and Full Stop. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop and lives with his wife near Chicago. For more, visit his website.

Never Boring

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 06:23:06 -0400

by Anonymous

I liked Reddit for a while. I liked reading people’s conversations. There were people from all walks of life talking about what they did. Teachers, nurses, police officers, blue-collar workers. As an immigrant, I found America’s ever-squabbling population fascinating. They can be annoyingly ignorant about the other parts of the world, but they are almost never boring to observe.

6S

Anonymous is an anonymous female. Her six sentences are excerpted from "The Year When My Husband Started to Act Like a Tsundere Teenage Girl to Get My Attention."

Autumn Leaves, Autumn Lives

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 21:21:45 -0400

by Pablo Libedinsky

The old man shuffled along the solitary path, crunching dead leaves under his feet. The cold breeze, the autumn smell, and the spectacle of red, gold, brown, and ochre leaves dancing in the wind made him feel alive. He spotted an empty bench, sat down, leaned back, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. The wind surged, and layer by layer the leaves began to pile on him. When the wind stopped, the man had disappeared, buried under a silent mound of dry foliage. A sudden gust shattered the stillness, blowing the leaves away, leaving a clean, desolate bench.

6S

Pablo Libedinsky is a retired computer programmer living in San Francisco. He wrote a few stories when he was 12 years old and then stopped, later returning to writing as an adult. His stories have been published in Down in the Dirt, Let Me Tell You a Story, The Gorko Gazette, 10x10Flash and CommuterLit.

The Act of Looking Up

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sat, 5 Sep 2026 20:59:42 -0400

by Lili Taylor

I've discovered something interesting about the act of looking up. Try this experiment when you're next out on the street. Stand on the sidewalk, look up, and stay looking up for a good couple of minutes. I guarantee you a fellow human walking by will pass you, pause, and then look up too. I don't know where it comes from, this instinct to look up when another human is looking up. Is it from the way, way old days when scary creatures jumped down on us from the tree branches above?

6S

Lili Taylor is an American actress. Her six sentences are excerpted from Turning to Birds, The Power and Beauty of Noticing.

The Gorge

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 13:01:34 -0400

by Lisa Lahey

When Amos found me, I looked like a wet bundle of rags lying at the bottom of the gorge. My long, brown hair was tangled across my chalk white skin and my glassy brown eyes stared at the clouds, seeing nothing. My legs were splayed in an obscene pose. I’d been thrown into the gorge, not placed there. My long, heavy skirts wrapped around my waist leaving nothing to the imagination. If I wasn’t dead, I’d die of embarrassment.

6S

Lisa Lahey's work has appeared in magazines such as 34th Parallel, Spadina Literary Review, and others.

Unpacking My Heart

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 01:23:09 -0400

by Brigitta Scheib

Every morning before preschool, her hair in braids, silvery eyes wet and lip quivering, I would kiss inside her tiny hand just to get her out the door. Her favorite storybook said pressing this comforting kiss to her cheek would keep me close all day. Thirteen years later, driving over highways, smooth and rough, we arrive at an antiseptic dorm at a university. I unbox cargo and unpack her. There are no soothing pecks to anyone’s palm. When it’s time for me to leave, she flops on the twin bed, her platinum hair fanning around her, and waves, “Bye, Mom.”

6S

Brigitta Scheib lives in Harrisburg, PA with her husband, daughter and three orange cats. She enjoys writing different genres but prefers brevity-flash and micro stories.

The Invasion

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 12:02:37 -0400

by Fred D. White

“Take me to your leader!” It pointed a weapon at my head. I said "Sure, no problem," and we drove to the White House. Once the panicked guards cleared the way for us, we headed to the Oval. It high-fived the President with its scaly hand and said, “Great job setting everything up, big guy! I’ll take over from here.”

6S

Fred D. White's fiction and humor have appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, Chortle, Fictive Dream, The Nonconformist, The Thieving Magpie, and Drunk Monkeys. He lives in Folsom, CA.

The Waking of the Grandfather

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 18:06:50 -0400

by Mel Elizondo

The last chocolate cheesecake pastry at the party no one wanted to be at but had to attend for reasons concerning the imminent time that fell on them lay on the chipped imitation gold plate. It was avoided by all and as a rule was noticed by everyone. After the incident where the door to the kitchen was opened and some of the kitchen and hospitality staff had to descend into the stagnant room where no one moved, one of the workers — new, not accustomed to the party, the past few hours, the occurrence with the clocks — entered. She grabbed the imitation gold plate, noticed the pastry, and, on her way back to the kitchen, popped it into her mouth. At once, there was a striking of the old Grandfather, a return to frenetic motion, a dialing up of the temperature. “Now you’ve done it, Eloise!” was said by one of the workers — and though the incident was later forgotten, buried in human subconscious was the memory of what came at taking the Last Piece Of Pastry at a party — and the waking of the Grandfather that came after.

6S

Mel Elizondo hopes you are well and in good health.

The Risk-Taker

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:51:54 -0400

by Mary Oliver

No one yet has made a list of places where the extraordinary may happen and where it may not. Still, there are indications. Among crowds, in drawing rooms, among easements and comforts and pleasures, it is seldom seen. It likes the out-of-doors, it likes the concentrating mind. It likes solitude. It is more likely to stick to the risk-taker than the ticket-taker.

6S

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was an award-winning American poet known for her hopeful and awe-inspired observations of nature. Her six sentences are excerpted from Blue Pastures.

It’s Conditional, Baby

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:49:36 -0400

by Sarah Gokhale

If it takes 300 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, how many beers will it take to poison the center of my unborn fetus? If I have six beers and two shots a day, resulting in a miscarriage within two weeks, will I be ready to take the LSAT in September? November, at latest? If I write only in conditional statements, will it improve my score? If I score a 175, will my dad get kinder, softer, dare I say proud? If my dad is proud of me, do I still have to be a lawyer?

6S

Sarah Gokhale is a producer from Orange County, California. Her favorite condiment is Trader Joe’s jalapeno sauce. Her dog’s favorite condiment is cream cheese. Her favorite cities are NYC, Albuquerque, and Philly.

Reopen

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:49:42 -0400

by Susan Isla Tepper

My life has never been the same. Do the people who endured the other plagues feel this way or am I a complete loser? Everything I knew and loved was shut down and most didn’t reopen, and I didn’t reopen on some level. Perhaps my heart stitched shut. What reopened tastes different. It looks different, too, do I?

6S

Susan Isla Tepper is the author of seven published books of fiction and poetry. Her most recent is a novella titled GIRL UPSIDE DOWN. She also writes stage plays and is currently in pre-production for a play in Ireland.

Glitch

sixsentences@yahoo.com (Robert McEvily) — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 10:51:59 -0400

by Brad Rose

For eons, I’ve been trying to get next to you, but since that teleportation accident, only one severed leg has gotten through. I’ve re-installed the facial recognition software and even added an industrial-strength fog machine, but so far, no luck. Out on the astroturf, now, I’m mowing my jelly-green plastic lawn. A tidy domestic appearance, I’m told, is a sure sign of well-groomed mateability. If my best friend was having this problem, know what I’d advise him? Get a sharper blade.

6S

Brad Rose's latest book is I Wouldn’t Say That, Exactly.