The sixty-year-old woman is sleeping at the moment, so I sit on a worn brown couch in the family waiting room down the hall from Shirley. It’s not too far from the intensive care ward where she lays on the white, white sheets, connected in too many ways to the machines that keep her alive or that measure whether she is, or is not. This windowless refuge gives no hints about day or night, winter or summer. Two half-done jigsaw puzzles await completion on small tables. There is a television, but it isn’t on. Shelves … Continue reading By Shirley’s Side by Peter Wallace→
Mark didn’t want to go to Jackie and Jonathan’s—he had too much studying to do before the end of the semester—but Marci insisted. “You can’t study all the time,” she said, but he was the only one of the four of them in graduate school, and was under pressures they weren’t. “Can we at least leave right after we eat?” he asked. “No walks in the woods this time?” Marci gave him a sideways glance. Getting back to Boston from the North Shore on a Sunday was never an easy drive, and the later you … Continue reading Cheesecake by Con Chapman→
X/@/20X÷ Today the puppeteer cut my strings. Then he left without a word. It feels strange to move my arms on my own. I opened every plastic pickle jar in the dollhouse, just to try them out. The pickles inside were frozen in clear acrylic. I always imagined it being liquid. My body is mine for the first time, but it doesn’t feel like it yet. Tomorrow, I’ll get scissors and a dotted line painted all down my arms. That way if anyone else ever wants to string me up again, they know I’ll … Continue reading Puppet and Master by Karris Rae→
Lissy is already dressed, her dolls arranged next to the bed in the space that is sometimes a boat, sometimes a park, and often a doctor’s office. The toys are all hues, different nationalities, from newborn to school-age, with sizes that don’t really make sense when placed next to each other. The two Barbies, who were inexpertly gifted to my daughter, live in the closet. Their boo-zooms, career ensembles, and matching footwear are of no interest to the kindergartner. “Hello, little girl!” I say. “Hello, little mother,” she smiles. “Whoa, why does Susan have all … Continue reading Complicity—A True Fiction Of Now by Erika Raskin→
“There’s something you should know,” was how he would put it. He would say this while she was doing something else—years later, in a Solana Beach cottage two blocks from the Pacific, Annie could still remember exactly where she’d been, what she’d been doing, the way one does looking back at a national tragedy. These were not national tragedies but at once less and more, news that struck to the bone, altering her immediate world more than a presidential assassination. What Andrew remembered was how she stopped what she was doing and turned her … Continue reading Grater by Debby Mayer→
Tim Collyer is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight‘s 2025 Flash Fiction Contest Career Day smells of bleach and gravy. Wrong and familiar at once, like medicine in birthday cake. Margaret sits on a child’s blue chair, jaw still tender from yesterday’s biopsy. The scarf over her scalp isn’t a statement, just warm. Emma twists her book bag strap round and round, marking time with what they don’t discuss. A builder talks about bricks. A paramedic shows a stethoscope and every child leans forward. Margaret once wrote columns about the sound of crisp pastry giving way, about wine that tasted of … Continue reading The Taste of Copper Pennies by Tim Collyer Flash Fiction→
So, pretty much every old saw about old age is 100% true. There’s crepitus (the medical onomatopoeia-ous description of creaky joints), and the inevitable geriatric bitch sessions where individualized assaults on the body are compared in groups of two or more, (except, of course for the unmentionable issues which are unmentionable for a reason); and the whole-scale disappearance of words from mental dictionaries (though, thankfully adjacent synonyms seem to hang on longer.) There also seems to be a universal consideration of undertaking the massive Swedish Death Cleaning to free heirs from the unpleasant chore down-road. … Continue reading Night, Night Sleepy Heathen by Erika Raskin→
Christine Wilcox is the 1st place winner of Streetlight‘s 2025 Flash Fiction Contest “I’m not doubting you,” the Angel said to the Demon. “But why can’t you just resubmit the application? Surely if she’s as bad as you claim—” “Look!” the Demon said. “She’s melting even more cheese on her pizza.” The Angel watched the woman drop a handful of shredded cheese into the air fryer, where she’d placed a leftover slice of pizza. “Hmm,” he said. “She’s taken care of her body otherwise, though.” He paged through the papers on his clipboard. “Is she lactose intolerant?” … Continue reading A Special Place in Hell by Christine Wilcox→
Years ago, before I decided to bite the bullet and embrace the soul crushing rejection that often goes with Being A Writer, I decided to try my hand at substitute teaching. I realized my mistake almost immediately. Part of the problem was Miss T., a school secretary who’d call before the sun rose to line-up her fill-ins. She scared the hell out of me. And not just because she carried herself like a linebacker. Shed done an on-the-spot personality assessment to determine how best to keep me in her stable—correctly settling on a combo of … Continue reading The Wrong Turn On My Career Path, From Which I’m Still Recovering A Quarter Century Later by Erika Raskin→
I am back in Seoul after a fourteen-hour flight, fresh off the airport shuttle and into the city center, at the Nine Tree Hotel check-in desk. It’s a square area on the fifth floor of the building, with moon jars balancing stems of white orchids, their swirling shapes reflected on the marble floors. I had left my condo, a haven of peace in Montreal, frantically clutching my iPhone. For two weeks, I had waited for a message or a call from Jun. But he’d ghosted me. Once I parked the carry-on in the tall, walnut-panelled wardrobe, … Continue reading The Secret Garden by Irina Moga→
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