Asphalt Flower
by Khedaren Perumal
Morning gathers in the bus window.
A little girl sits with her schoolbag in her lap,
a crimson ribbon threaded through her hair.
Rain drifts across the glass,
softening the highway into streaks of silver and grey.
The engine hums beneath her feet.
Streetlights blink out one by one.
Her reflection hovers faintly in the pane,
small and still.
Then she sees it.
Between the shoulder and the road,
where gravel gives way to cracked asphalt,
a single yellow flower stands upright.
Dew clings to its petals.
Each passing car bends it,
but it does not break.
She presses her palm to the window.
For a moment,
the flower and the child face one another
through the thin skin of glass:
two quiet lives
rooted in different worlds,
each carrying more fragility than either can know.
The bus moves on.
The flower slips behind them,
perhaps crushed by the next set of wheels,
perhaps still standing in the rain.
She tightens her hand around the strap of her bag.
All morning,
without understanding why,
she carries the warmth of that small defiance—
a bright thing
rising where it was never meant to grow.
About the Author
Khedaren Perumal is a 22-year-old writer from Mauritius and an engineering student. His work has appeared in literary journals, and his poetry explores themes of perception, memory, and quiet forms of separation through a restrained, image-driven style.
The Dead
by Patrick Johnston
We, the dead
Walk quietly
So as not to wake you
As you go about your busy slumber
About the Author
Patrick Johnston is an Anglo-Australian writer and former professor of psychology and neuroscience. His work appears in Washington Square Review, The Louisville Review, Chautauqua, Eastern Iowa Review, Litro Magazine USA, and South Florida Poetry Journal, among others, and has received a Pushcart Prize nomination. He is the author of the completed novel The Gaps Between the Stories.
(posted Nov. 11, 2026)
Pie Day
by Jordan Reeves
None of them knows what they’re doing! None of them knows why! Nothing makes any goddamned sense!
The man at the next table was shouting, and the woman across from him was no shrinking violet either. She replied:
What I don’t get is why our orders aren’t being updated in the system.
They were both fuming. Neither seemed to notice me, and I tried to make it look as though I wasn’t interested.
Feels like we’ve totally lost control.
Something’s gotta give.
We wasted so much time on that mission statement.
As if it’s going to make a difference for someone like Brad… or Colleen!
No accountability.
We should fire their asses. I told you what Colleen said?
A wholesale re-org is what we need. A model to save the vision. Not the other way around.
I told you what Colleen and Brad said about us?
It was mid-morning. I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. In fact, I had chosen that café for no particular reason. I didn’t even know it was “pie day.” I just walked in, ordered and chose a table pretty much at random.
Later, back out on the pavement with hands in my pockets, I was minding my own business under a gloomy sky when I noticed another pair coming toward me.
It might have been the way they were walking, the woman’s handbag casually bumping against the man’s forearm as if they were familiar with one another. Yet unlike a couple long used to one another, their gestures and facial expressions were inflamed in solidarity.
Out of nowhere, it dawned on me that the woman was Colleen, the one I had heard about in the café. Sure enough, she was wearing heavy make-up, and I remembered hearing about a meltdown she’d had the day her cosmetics bag was confiscated at the airport. Another comment was about unauthorized leave during a trip to India, and I realized that the woman in front of me now was wearing gold jhumka earrings. There was no doubt about it. Without any effort on my part, these and other details pieced themselves together before my eyes, and I was confident that she was, in fact, the Colleen I had just heard about.
It did not take much to deduce that the man beside her was the infamous Brad. Brad in his pro-tech golf pants and gum-rubber sole sneakers, no socks, close-cropped hair, fine-lined pallid skin. Quite frankly, he looked the type who was into “looksmaxxing,” and I commiserated with some of the griping I had overheard back in the café.
All in all, it was too much happenstance to ignore. On a whim, I called their names.
“Colleen, Brad!”
I could see each of them trying to place me.
“Crazy running into you like this,” I said enthused. “There is really no explanation I can think of. Certainly, not one that any of us would be able to understand in the broader sense. Not for what I am about to tell you. Let’s just say I’ve got information. Something you will be able to use.”
Do we know you?
Encouraged by the fact that I now had their attention and sensing they might not give me much time, I continued hurriedly:
“Your bosses Doug and Carole are under a lot of pressure. There are big changes afoot. The world is at a tipping point. You know what I mean. We all feel anxious. Each and every day is getting worse. If I were you, I would take the bull by the horns. I know something about management, you see. I used to work in corporate. I know that each of you have your teams to worry about. I know that you need them to come through for you, that you need to keep them happy, keep things running in familiar ways. No one likes change, after all. Not after so many years. But sometimes it’s important to align yourself with the girls and boys upstairs. Especially at times like this. Now, your teams, they won’t like it. Some will lose their jobs. But the best you can do right now is make the first move. Best not to force the hand of management. Best to get ahead of the curve.”
I’m sorry. Just one moment. You need to tell us who you are.
The request struck me as irrelevant, and I continued:
“It’s not all doom and gloom. You’re in the right place at the right time. This new technology will transform everything it touches. Many will be sidelined, swept aside. Lives will be shattered. The planet won’t be able to carry all of us for much longer. But there will also be a circle of winners in this country. If you play your cards right, you’ll soon be among the new moguls of industry. So, it’s up to you. An existential moment, the kind that comes along once in a career. I’m telling you, I can’t really explain better than this. I had my chance a long time ago but foolishly let it go. It’s too late for me, but not for you. Consider it lucky that you came across me, or maybe just providence.”
When I had finished, I felt I was getting through to them, which is not to say they were happy. I could see that they appreciated the criticality of what I was saying.
Then I left them.
A few blocks down the street, the sun came out from behind gunmetal clouds. It blazed like a slurry of orange creamsicles down the wet streets and over the cars.
It had been raining for weeks. Of the millions of moments the sun could have come out to warm my face, it chose that particular one. It was as if the mountains across the harbour had suddenly materialized where there had been nothing before. It was like magic. I felt high on a hill with a lonely goat herd. I did not care that my laughing was making people around me uncomfortable. I could not stop beaming at the thought of Colleen and Brad, at the look on their faces.
However, there came a point when I had to force myself to take a few deep breaths. Let’s just say the arbitrary nature of the universe has not been kind to me. Over the years, I was forced to change. I became the kind of man who goes to different cafes not in search of new experiences, but to avoid being recognized.
Now, squinting into that long absent sun, I could see the great design. Brad and Colleen would save their careers. The company’s share price would quadruple. The entire nation would prosper as a result of my humble intervention.
I would never know for sure, of course, and no one would ever give me credit. But it was pie day. The only thing I had ever wanted was a sign.
About the Author
Jordan Reeves is a Vancouver-based writer. A former editor of Adbusters magazine and freelance journalist, he recently completed The Writer’s Studio program at Simon Fraser University for speculative fiction and his work appeared in emerge25.
(posted Nov 5, 2026)
the loiterer’s time
by Dan Berick
But the thing that really gets me about time – the big thing, the main thing – is how it just keeps eating away at everything. Just eats it all up, everything, non-stop. Everything good. Everything bad too, I guess, but who cares. And not like when you’re eating something really good, and you’re thinking, wow this is awesome, I’m thinking about each bite, and yeah it’s gonna be gone in a few but right now who cares because I’m enjoying this so much and it’s amazing. Savoring it. And then, when it’s all gone, okay, it’s done but man. Man. That was worth it. Time is more like, you’re doing stuff and maybe eating a bag of something at the same time, maybe some chips or nuts or something, and you’re not thinking about the bag or the chips or the goddam nuts or whatever or how much is left in the bag, you’re just eating them and doing whatever the other thing is, and then you reach in the bag and somehow it’s empty. Okay, maybe there’s salt or some crumbs left or whatever. But basically it’s gone, it’s done, and you weren’t even thinking about what was in the bag, or how much was left, or even what it tasted like. You were just eating it while you were doing some other thing. And then it’s empty. And that’s the thing about time. That’s what really gets me. It’s like eating a bag of some dumb snacks while you’re doing some other crap and then the bag’s empty and the whole time you weren’t even thinking about what you were eating. And then all you have is an empty bag.
About the Author
Dan Berick is a writer in Cleveland Ohio, and a husband, a father, and a lawyer. Dan is a graduate of Columbia University and The University of Chicago and his short fiction and poetry have been included in journals published in the USA, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Australia. (posted Nov. 3, 2026)
The Crystal Blooms of Mount Jade
by Yi-Jung Chen
The midsummer rain arrived without warning, washing the mossy roots of the ancient hemlocks. Deep within the shadow of Mount Jade, a cluster of Indian pipe flowers—the ghostly “crystal blooms”—emerged from the dark soil, their petals turning glass-like beneath the downpour.
Ethan knelt in the damp mud, his trembling fingers hovering over the transparent petals.
“Don’t touch them with bare hands,” a raspy voice called through the mist.
Ethan turned. Auntie Lian stood beneath a wide bamboo hat, her apron stained with red cinnabar and dark herbal dust. She was the one who had kept his family’s century-old incense shop alive after Ethan fled to the city five years ago.
“They only bloom when the mountain mourns,” she said, stepping closer and handing him a small brass mortar. “Your mother spent her last autumn searching for these. She swore that grinding crystal bloom into the Mesona incense powder was the only way to appease the spirits during the Ghost Month.”
Ethan swallowed hard, avoiding her sharp gaze. “I didn’t come back to inherit the shop, Lian.”
“Then why carry your father’s heavy incense-shaping frame in your pack?” She pointed a gnarled, ash-dusted finger at his bag, a cool smile touching her lips. “You thought running to a textile factory in the city would erase the debt your family owes to the altars?”
Ethan rolled up his right sleeve. Beneath his skin, the faint, skull-shaped birthmark—the ancestral mark borne by every incense master in his lineage—pulled tight.
“She waited for you every dusk, Ethan,” Lian whispered, pressing a block of dried fairy-herb incense into his palm. Her rough fingers brushed his, hot with the friction of freshly rolled sandalwood. “The charcoal in the drying room is cold. But the gods are still waiting for their scent.”
Ethan looked at the translucent petal dissolving into his palm, its bitter, earthy fragrance rising through the rain. He looked up at Lian, then down at the worn wooden sign of the shop visible through the valley’s fog.
“Show me how to blend the powder,” Ethan said.
Lian nodded, turning back toward the wooden doorway where a thin wisp of aromatic smoke drifted into the rain.
About the Author
Yi-Jung Chen is a Taiwanese writer and educator. Writing across Taiwanese, Hakka, and Mandarin, her work explores local heritage, memory, and human vulnerability. She won 3rd Place in the 2026 Ministry of Education Taiwanese & Hakka Literature Awards for modern poetry. Her prose appears in various international journals.
(posted Oct. 30 2029)
Aspens and Cottonwoods
by Frances Garrett Connell
Boulder, Colorado 2023
I don’t know the word for that motion
when the wind settles in an aspen’s dry leaves
plays each gold-spun leaf like a trombone’s peal,
sets each fragile stem spinning,
until, the whole tree ablaze with silent tinkling music,
the wind moves on to set another tree to dance.
I think of hummingbird wings beating rapidly in fragile flight
the brown coated rabbits furtively munching dandelion weeds
brazenly claiming the shaded backyard as their own
I don’t know the word for the concert of clouds
above dun-colored mountains
the name of foothills stretched out and sharp,
disconnected artist palettes rendering their shapes and sizes
each painting echoing rivers, dust,
sun-strewn whiteness, strong cotton threads
I can’t learn the words for his absence,
a phantom craved, a touch I can not reach.
Lacking the words, the company
I fumble in my pack, a straw bread bag,
seeking sweet crumbs.
But out here cottonwoods lean over clear streams,
tower into the clouds
Inside their furrowed gray bark
tiny knobby stems hide a red star
a triangular heart passed on to generations.
About the Author
Frances Garrett Connell’s poems have appeared in some four dozen magazines, and she has published novels, novellas, travelogues, oral histories, volumes of poetry, and work on Afghanistan where she taught in the 70’s. She’s traveled in eighty-three countries, has worked with refugees and taught at four universities, and currently lives in New York, and spends half of each year in France’s Dordogne region.
(posted Oct.27)
When Life Hands you Lemons…
by Paul Burgess
When given lemons by your life,
reveal you’ve got a gun or knife,
and say you plan to cut or shoot
unless you get some sweeter fruit.
About the Author
Paul Burgess has undergraduate degrees in English and Spanish and an M.A. in English with a concentration in the Renaissance. An experienced scholar and teacher of language, he is the sole proprietor of a business in Lexington, Kentucky that offers ESL classes in addition to English, Japanese, and Spanish-language translation and interpretation services. He began actively writing and submitting work in late 2024 and has recently contributed work to Blue Unicorn, The Road Not Taken, Light, The Orchards, Snakeskin, Pulsebeat, Lighten Up Online, Apricity, Star*Line, Asses of Parnassus, The New Verse News, Form in Formless Times, and many other publications.
(posted October 25)
Every Human Expression is a Coping Mechanism
by Evgeniya Dineva
May said the place you become yourself is in the north. She then taught me what “gurglede” was. In Norwegian it means happy dread. Like when you are about to start a new job, or go somewhere you may never come back from. In her language it meant something beyond that.
May said this place was quieter than the afternoons you spend sitting on the bathroom floor until your butt cheeks went numb but you couldn’t do anything about it.
“It’s so cold your neurons begin shutting down, like stars going off. Going outside is just like looking at galaxy above you – only you can see the whole of it. Sometimes that makes it hard to breathe. “
If your mouth freezes, you’ll have to learn to speak all over again but most people never remember words like “mother” or “thank you.” You don’t really eat much there but May stopped eating last October anyway. It was the same with reading.
“Reading is just too much.” She would say I never asked what too much was.
I called her at 1 am one Tuesday because I’d fought with my sister. I called May for New Year’s, then to tell her things were going well. She reacted the same way every time.
“That’s because most behaviors are learned,” May explained, “But not there. You don’t have to follow those rules.”
Nothing grows there; no trees, no black dogs, no claws or wired fences. Because all nightmares still come true in a single body. Yours.
About the Author
Evgeniya Dineva is a poet from Bulgaria. Her poetry appears in Oxford Poetry Library, The Hong Kong Review, Ethel, Asian Cha and others. Evgeniya is a fellow of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation for Creative Writing and the recipient of the Traduki Writer Grant, Tirana 2025. She reads poetry for Rawhead.
(posted 10-22-2026)
Willing
by Rebeka Goodman
I am writing my will
on a Tuesday,
dividing nothing among no one,
my greatest asset
being the audacity
to think I own anything
that won’t outlive me.
To my sister: my good intentions.
To my mother: my unreturned calls.
To my father: proof
that I was listening
all along.
I leave my regrets
to the wind
may they scatter
like dandelion seeds,
take root somewhere new.
The rest
can go to Goodwill.
My last will and testament:
I was here.
I willed myself visible
for exactly this long.
About the Author
Rebeka Goodman writes about fragile bodies and words that misbehave. A linguist by training and a poet by compulsion, she is fascinated by the moment an abstract idea becomes physical: when language acquires a body, memory develops a structure, or naming changes what can be seen. When she isn’t working on her chapbooks, she’s gardening, reading classics, or trying to convince her bookshelf to stop multiplying.
Posted 10-20
Ossifying Shadows
by Serenay Özkan
From my home between twin concretes,
I watch the red pines slice the night like a knife.
Into the baked night, from my window,
I recite prayers to the raw graves.
The creak of aged wooden walls has enveloped my home,
Yet still, I read my prayers!
Shallow shadows have cloaked my cold rooms,
And through these ossifying shadows,
The woman at the window with white flowers watched
The concrete homes stacked one upon the other.
The garden’s loveliest blooming flowers—
The purple hyacinths, the carnations
Of the blue wall she never saw—
Piled up, one upon another.
From their homes encased in twin concretes, neighbors watched
The ossifying shadows piling up in their gardens.
Posted 10-18
About the Author
Serenay Özkan is an Istanbul based poet and author. Following the publication of her debut poetry collection, Viata, in 2019, her literary work has been featured in prominent publications including Şiirden Dergisi and Lacivert Öykü ve Şiir Dergisi. In 2025, she published her award-inning short story collection, Farklı Bir Mehtap. She is currently pursuing her degree at Istanbul University’s Faculty of Letters.
In Control
by Lucy Carr Icard
My dashboard clock shows 5:53. Tara is late. She gets out of work at 5 p.m. She only needs 20 minutes to get home. I give her 30 because of the evening traffic. But this is outrageous; 23 minutes late. My neck tightens. Who was she with? I sink down in my car seat when she drives past.
Tara flicks her key fob before the parking gate. The cream-colored gates open, and her car disappears beneath the apartment complex.
My heart pounds. I can taste copper at the back of my throat. Calm, get under control. I know if I confront her on it, she’ll lie. If I’m guileful. I’ll get it out of her.
When my hands stop trembling, I step out of my car. I monitor her fourth-floor apartment. She opens the windows. Ok, I’ll just go up like normal. I grab the six-pack of Bud out of the backseat and lock my car. I’m in control.
She walks past the window. Is she on the phone? I check mine – No calls. Who is she talking to? My neck tightens.
Squeals resonate from the pool, then a splash. Chlorine permeates the air. I’ll get to the bottom of this, then we can go hang out. I squeeze the Budweiser to my ribs. Its coldness bleeds into my T-shirt. Sweat drips down the side of my face. I wipe it off with my free hand.
I stand in the shade and buzz the door intercom.
Her voice is staticky: “George?”
“Yep, it’s me, I say. Who else would it be?
“Come on up.” The door clicks open. She is smooth. She acts like nothing is going on.
The elevator door snaps behind me. I kick it. I shouldn’t kick with Birkenstocks. My toe stings. I study myself in the mirror. Calm, cool. I lick my palm and run it over the top of my head where my hair frizzes. The strands stick together, then spring back up like mini shock absorbers. The elevator door hisses when it opens. I spit on it. The mucous glob slides to the floor and quivers as I step over it.
I take a deep breath. I am in control.
Tara opens her door. She must have heard the elevator. She smiles and leans over to kiss me. I push my mouth into hers, searching for answers. I slide my tongue between her lips and swish it like a swab. It detects spearmint. I find a ball of gum wedged between her molars and her cheek.
“George!” Tara pulls back. “The neighbors!” I follow her gaze to apartment 4C. I can feel an eye boring through the tiny peephole. My muscles contract.
She steps back, letting me in. I inhale; my nostrils flare and suck in every possible scent: ammonia and soap. Is there something else there? Is that sandalwood? I set the beer on the table and pull her in for a hug. I plunge my nose into her hair. It smells like shampoo.
A burning sensation churns in my gut. I know something is going on.
“Was Mrs. Finny late again to pick up little Johnny?” I ask. I’m clever.
“Johnny was absent today, chicken pox.”
Tara pops open a beer and takes a sip. “Ah, this is a great idea.” She sets it down and smiles.
My fists clench. I picture myself wiping that fake smile off her face. Oh, she is good.
“I see,” I say. I don’t see. I push my top teeth hard into my bottom lip.
That is when I notice her dress. It is pink, high cut at the legs and low-cut at her chest. The tissue barely envelopes her breasts. If she bends down, everything will be exposed. My groin shoots an electric charge to my gut. I grind my teeth.
“What the hell, Tara?” My voice is steady, but I shouldn’t have said “hell.”
Tara freezes.
I push my top teeth harder into my bottom lip, forcing a smile.
Tara exhales.
“I just didn’t know it was whore day at kindergarten,” the words topple off my tongue before I can stop them. I’m in control. I push out a laugh so she will know I’m just playing with her. It sounds more like a grunt.
“I thought you would like my new dress.” Tara scowls and pulls at the hem so it covers her thighs.
“Like it. I like it alright,” my voice cracks. “I’m sure everybody likes it.” I open and close my fingers. I want to rip that dress off her right then and there. Let her have what she is asking for. Where was she for 23 minutes in that dress? My erection rubs against the seam of my jeans.
I’m in control. I reach past Tara and grab a beer.
Tara flinches.
I crack it open. It snaps like a firing pin. I shoot the cold liquid down my throat. It explodes in my stomach. I wrestle back a belch. I’m in control.
“I didn’t wear it to work,” Tara croaks. She backs herself up, nearly to the door.
I conjure up the details of her driving in. Was that pink I saw?
“Bitch.” The word fires from my lips.
“George, no,” Tara glances at the door.
I beat her to it.
I press my back into the wood; the doorknob thrusts itself into my vertebrae. I kick back with my heel.
“I bought the dress today,” Tara says. Her eyes are humid.
An acrid odor fills the air.
“You didn’t work today?” My body stiffens. She is ready to break. Ready to tell me what is going on.
“I worked. Just ask Jesse.”
Jesse? Right, that tramp she works with.
“There’s a sale at Cora’s. I stopped on my way home.” Tara’s bottom lip trembles.
My tongue thickens. Truth? Lie? She’s good.
I turn the doorknob. My fingers throb. The door shoves me out.
Tara whimpers.
My chest constricts.
I’ll go buy flowers –just like last time.
Posted 10/16
About the Author
Lucy Carr Icard is an MFA student at Southern New Hampshire University. Her stories have been published in The Penmen Review, October Hill Magazine, Flash Phantoms Magazine, Blinker Lit, The Grande Dame Literary & Art Journal, and The Nunum Anthology. Icard’s work is influenced by her adulthood in France, her childhood in Maine, and her zealous imagination.
Church Bell
by Sal Morano
Ramon was seven when
he grabbed the long rope
and rang the church bell
ecstatically in mid-afternoon.
A priest came charging
to see what was going on and
caught the wildly laughing kid.
He thumped both his ears
till they were good and red.
At home Ramon’s mom asked
what was happening at church.
He said he didn’t know, then
snuck out to the neighbor’s yard.
Ringing the bell
was the most fun
he ever had aside from
kissing the little Mexican girl next door
under a brightly colored blanket
her two sisters would toss over them
while they lay on the cool grass.
Their mother, preparing dinner
that included sizzling carnitas
had no idea about the kissing game
being played between two
children in her backyard,
one being the friendly Filipina neighbor’s son,
and the other being her eldest daughter.
She couldn’t care less
about the church bell.
(posted 10-14)
About the Author
Sal Morano is a retired public librarian in Corona, California. He was born in Southern California and attended Catholic school there till the sixth grade before going to the Philippines, where he competed high school and college. His writing has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Harrow House Journal, and Down in the Dirt Magazine. His poem, “Church Bell,” is based on an actual experience he had while attending Holy Family Grammar School in Wilmington, California.
Survival and Support
by Leigh A. Schmidt
After dinner, Marge and I pulled up beneath the bridge overpass, stopping, powering down my passenger side window. That’s when we saw her hesitantly emerge from the darkness, the shadows below the bridge supports.
She was clothed in a hoodie hiding most of her facial features. Dirt, grime darkening her exposed chin and nose disguising what remained visible. A clump of blond hair, unwashed, protruding from the hood opening. The oversized hoodie itself ragged around her face. Her dingy sweatshirt, sweatpants on what appeared to be a gaunt body hidden beneath, based upon the bagginess we could make out, having difficulty moving. Twice she appeared to lose her balance as she half-slid down the slope toward the walk. Her obviously oversized tennis shoes picking up loose gravel before reaching the sidewalk beside us.
Through my window opening as I extended the two white ‘take-home’ boxes, each containing a good half of our restaurant dinners, her approach toward us stalled momentarily. It appeared to us she was evaluating our offer, whether genuine or a ruse, as if she’d been stiffed before as part of a mean joke. Timidly hopeful now that our offering would provide her with some desperately needed nourishment, she stepped forward. Half cautiously, half gingerly upon the gravel caught between her feet, the thin soles of her shoes. Still uncertain as to our offer she hesitated briefly once more. Approaching slowly, apprehensive, within her arm’s reach to take the boxes. She grasped them quickly snatching them away, escaping toward the safety of the shadows, returning to the deep darkness beneath the bridge supports. While I powered up the window, riding on to our destination.
About the Author
Leigh A. Schmidt – A seventy-nine year old man leaving the world of being owned for becoming free. A few college degrees, teaching, entrepreneur creating a mid-west winery in the past. Now celebrating the freedom he has earned by keeping ahead of the effects of old age. So now he writes.
We Do This All the Time
by Megan Zalkan
The old ones watch us from beneath their thin blankets, pleated eyelids staring as we shake the crumbs from their sheets, open the blinds, flip their pillows, and, if we like them, bring them a hot facecloth unasked. We inquire about how they slept, whether they’re hungry, if they have families, if their sons are finally coming to visit. Oh no, they say, they’re always so busy, they work so hard. The sons will come this weekend, maybe. They point to pictures on the wall, their families lined up and smiling with white, straight teeth and pale eyes.
We ask what hurts today: their backs, their broken arms, their swollen knees, their metal hips and shoulders, their hopes, their quavering, temperamental hearts. We offer a new, soft gown, a cooler pillow, an empty bedpan, our ears for the same three stories. In return, they assess us, comparing the smoothness of our cheeks, the quantity of lines below our eyes, whether our hips look childbearing, how many molecules of melanin we possess, slotting us neatly into place. If our skins are darker than theirs, we know they will tell the next lighter person who comes in that they don’t understand us; our accents are impenetrable; don’t we have any white girls to help them?
Don’t take it personally, our supervisors say. They have lost all their inhibitions; their pain is worse; they couldn’t poop; they pooped all night; they couldn’t sleep; they couldn’t wake up; they argued with a loved one; their loved one just passed away. We already know all of this. What the old ones don’t realize is that we are watching them in turn. We note if their smiles waver when we enter, if they look away from our smiles, if their faces light up with relief when our white counterparts step into the room. We hold our breaths and clock their pitying miens as we help them roll over so we can wash them clean where they are soiled.
This is so embarrassing, they tell us, ashamed by their helplessness. We hate that you must do this for us. We wish our daughters could help. We wish we could do it ourselves, that we were home, that we were anywhere but here.
We make sympathetic noises, hands busy with tasks we don’t have to think about, hearts safely sealed away, thinking about how people are so often confused about what to be ashamed of. Don’t worry, we say. It’s nothing to us. We do this all the time.
About the Author
Megan Zalkan has an MA in professional writing from Carnegie Mellon, worked as a tech writer, and is now an occupational therapist in geriatrics, where she delights in hearing the stories people are still retelling at the end of their lives. She lives in Seattle, WA. Her first novel was published in 2025.
I Don’t Want to Leave
by Favour Agiande
I don’t want to leave.
Do you take out the painting of a former lover left in your bedroom when you are ready to start over?
Do you like all of them in the temperature of your coffee?
Please don’t move me under the stairway of your life,
You no longer use there.
I don’t want to leave. Ever.
keep me on your windowsill like a potted plant, where sunlight or you will smile at me each morning.
I have not thought of my life without you in it. I won’t.
So
I am keeping pebbles in my worn out jeans;
They’re cool and smooth.
I’ll be too heavy for you to lift by next year.
About the Author
Favour Agiande is a writer and visual artist from Obudu in Cross River State, Nigeria. Being the youngest child meant playing by herself a lot and running errands, which helped shape her imagination and gave her a knack for figuring things out — now she uses that to write about social and environmental issues, her relationships and life as she sees it. She studied Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Calabar and has participated in several group exhibitions and has several art publications. When she’s not writing or making art, she’s singing and playing guitar.
The Price I Pay
by Meghan Schwend
My sister hates me. Even before I was born. After all, it is my fault we’re in this rundown orphanage in the New York City slum of Five Points. That she’s forced to sell corn on the street corners. That our mother is dead. How is this my doing? The answer is simple: the fact I even exist. When my mother became pregnant with me, the man she lived with threw her and my sister to the streets. This forced my mother to turn to prostitution. During that time, I recall my sister’s words about me. For some reason, I remember her words to our mother: “‘Carrying that spawn got us thrown out!’” Truth be told, I was quite aware of the goings on outside the womb. I’m certain this is because I live a cursed existence. People may see me as a small boy, but I harbor a monster. Despite the pain it causes me, its powers are sometimes useful.
Injuries heal quickly. No matter how I try to die, it refuses to let me. I can survive for long periods without eating. Drugs and alcohol don’t affect me. For the work I do to support my sister, I wish the drugs and alcohol were effective, at least then I could be unaware. Inebriated to the point of not having any recollection of what happens to me. But, of course, this is the price I pay to keep my sister from being forced to whore herself out. I didn’t have a choice when the bad men came to the orphanage. Searching for new, untouched prey. When they asked for my sister, I offered myself up I her stead. I was happy to do it. I don’t regret my choice.
I spared her her greatest fear! I had thought.
I hoped I could earn my sister’s love, given the steep price it required. I’ve suffered every day for her. I brought back what money I could so she had enough food and wouldn’t have to sell corn on the Five Point streets, scavenge in harsh weather, or take on seedy ‘seamstress’ work that could put her at even more risk. But no. My sister, despite knowing I get taken by the most vile and powerful people, still doesn’t care about me. She still loathes me, perhaps even more now. She has made no secret of what she sees when she looks at me: The reason she’s not still living with her father, the man who threw her and our mother away. I have a different father, the one my mother truly loved, as my sister put it. Despite all that, I just want my sister to acknowledge my pain. Acknowledge how much I love her, how much she means to me. That I sacrificed myself for her sake, that I never wanted to hurt her. If I could, I’d take back my very existence. If it meant she could be happy, I would make sure my mother never met my father.
About the Author
Meghan Schwend is an MFA graduate, novelist, and avid bird enthusiast. In her spare time when she is not taking classes to earn yet another degree, she can be found gaming, writing, watching anime, or learning German and Japanese. She lives in Montana with her husband, pet birds, and spiders and hopes to return to Japan in the near future.
The Weight
by Magnus Briar
Three in the morning, February, the furnace ticking through its cheap religion,
and I come up out of sleep into a body that will take no orders.
Eyes yes. Everything below the eyes, a house with power cut.
The old stories kept a name for her. Somewhere I learned to salt the sill.
I looked her up once, filed her under paralysis, hypnagogia, brainstem,
the tidy clinical words, and they helped me not at all,
because she is on my chest now, and science is a book shut in another room,
and she has the heft of every winter this city has ever dropped on a roof.
She settles on the sternum and takes stock of me like a house she means to save.
I try to say a name, the one you save for a night like this,
when the dark gets teeth, and my mouth is a drawer painted shut.
The one I want sleeps in a city eight hours east and would come if the call could leave my throat.
My own ribs bolt the door, and the burglar takes her time.
She leans down. She smells of basement and church basement and the space
behind the drywall where the cold gets in. She has all night. She is in no rush.
She is the part of me that suspects I deserve her.
Then the furnace shudders, or a bus groans past on Osborne, or nothing,
and my hand comes back to me, one finger, then the fist,
and I sit up in the ordinary dark with my heart going like a boot in a dryer,
alive, unrobbed, faintly embarrassed, reaching for the lamp.
I salt the windowsill before I sleep again.
The science is correct and the salt is correct and I use both.
About the Author
Magnus Briar Magnus Briar (they/them) is a poet based in Winnipeg, Canada. They write about queerness, faith and doubt, recovery, folklore, and the strangeness of inhabiting a body. Drawing on mixed Arab, Jewish, and South African heritage, their work moves between the tender, the funny, and the genuinely unsettling.
When Deemed Necessary by a Cat
by Wen Gu
The white porcelain lamp had been in Thea’s apartment for half an hour when she figured it out.
It was scared.
The first time she pressed the switch, nothing happened. The second time, a pale gold flicker rose inside the bulb and tucked itself away. The third time, Pixie reached across the desk and placed one paw on Thea’s wrist.
“So, you’re in charge of lamp therapy now?” Thea said.
Pixie gave no answer. She curled her tail beside the cord and sat very still, guarding it like a small bird just brought home.
The lamp had come after the rain.
Thea’s online order had been delivered to a blue door. Her building had a black door. She carried Pixie downstairs, and when they passed the old shoe repair shop on the corner, Pixie meowed.
The shoe repair shop was lit.
The faded Back Soon sign was gone. Above the rain-washed door hung a wooden sign: Hazel’s Lamps & Repairs. Google Maps still insisted it was a shoe repair shop, with the confidence of a New York landlord refusing to fix the heat.
Pixie tapped the door. The bell rang by itself. Under the sign, in smaller letters Thea could only read once she stepped closer:
“After rain. After moving. When deemed necessary by a cat.”
Inside, the shop was full of lamps: green glass, brass-legged, shell-shaped, little mushroom lamps. None were fully lit or completely dark. They looked like light sleepers waking because a cat had knocked.
Behind the counter, a woman with cropped silver-grey hair was mending a ceramic rabbit night-light. Pencils and tiny screwdrivers filled her apron pocket.
“Don’t bother with the blue-door lamp,” she said. “It has decided to become a hallway lamp.”
Thea stopped. “How do you know about the blue door?”
“People who have just moved smell like tape, cardboard, and failed deliveries.” The woman adjusted the rabbit’s ear. “I’m Hazel. Most days.”
Thea looked at the cat, then at the half-awake lamps, and decided to stay practical. “I need a desk lamp. Warm enough to read by. Nothing too expensive. Nothing that makes my apartment look like it’s interrogating me.”
“Reasonable,” Hazel said.
Pixie had already jumped onto the counter and settled beside a small white porcelain lamp with a milk-colored lampshade, a fine gold rim, and a little round base.
Hazel looked at Pixie. “She chose well.”
“She’s just a cat.”
“Cats are rarely just cats.”
The white lamp gave a tiny flash, less a glow than a blink.
Hazel lifted it with both hands. “It lost its room.”
Thea looked down at the lamp. “Lamps can lose rooms?”
“People move. Houses sell. Tables get thrown out. Nights change owners. Most lamps keep shining. Some don’t.” Hazel straightened the lampshade. “This one isn’t broken. It just doesn’t know whether the next room will feel safe.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t stare at it waiting for it to shine,” Hazel said. “Shy lamps hate being expected to perform.”
Pixie touched the base with one paw. A seed of warm light appeared under the lampshade, then hid again.
Hazel tied a small sage-green tag to the cord. In neat handwriting, it read: White porcelain desk lamp. Warm bulb. Do not hurry.
Then she slipped the lamp into a paper bag. “Take it home. The cat will teach it the rest.”
Now the lamp stood on Thea’s old desk and offered no light. The apartment smelled faintly of cardboard and rain. Thea let go of the switch and sat back.
“All right,” she said. “I won’t rush you.”
The lamp stayed dark, though the base warmed under Pixie’s chin. Pixie rested her head beside it and closed her eyes.
The next evening, Thea cleaned the desk. Laptop, book, notebook, mug. Each object in its place. Her job was turning mess into order; she was good at making things look ready.
The lamp did nothing.
Pixie dragged a ball of yarn under the desk, then pulled an unfolded sweater onto the chair.
“Is this your design concept?” Thea asked.
Beside the sweater, the lamp gave a small glow, as if it had glanced over before it could stop itself.
Thea stared. Pixie sat on the sweater, looking deeply modest and completely fake.
That night, the lamp never truly came on. It only sent a little light over the handle of a pale green mug. A torn bit of packing tape still clung to it. She meant to wash it again. Then she didn’t.
A little warmth gathered under the lampshade.
On the third night, at 11:47, a work message appeared.
Could you take a quick look before morning?
Her thumb moved toward an apology before she had decided to answer. Sorry, yes, she almost typed, with toothpaste still sharp in her mouth.
It would only be a quick look. She opened her laptop and worked for thirty-eight minutes.
When she closed it, the lamp had gone cold.
Pixie watched her, tail tapping the desk.
“I know,” Thea said.
She didn’t, really. She only knew that for thirty-eight minutes, the room had belonged to the message.
She turned off the overhead light. The apartment went dark. After a while, the lamp leaked one thread of light under its lampshade, just enough to touch Pixie’s paw. Pixie tucked the paw in, then stretched it out again.
On Friday, it rained again.
Thea made grilled cheese. Cheddar melted over sourdough, and tomato soup bubbled in a small pot. Pixie smelled the butter and abandoned the rain.
The lamp stood by the desk. It did not glow, though it no longer seemed to hide.
The soup was just beginning to boil when Thea’s phone rang.
The name on the screen was one she knew without reading it. Her hand moved before thought, quick as muscle memory. Her voice was already smoothing itself out.
The warmth under the lampshade vanished.
Pixie jumped onto the table and batted the phone. It slid into the gap between the sofa and a stack of boxes. The ringing muffled, then stopped. The soup spilled over. The sandwich hissed in the pan, cheese leaking at the edge.
Thea turned off the stove and wiped the burner. By the time she finished, the phone lit up from the dark gap.
Call me when you have a minute.
She crouched down, her hand already on the sofa. The sofa was light. The boxes were light. She could move them, grab the phone, call back, soothe, and reheat dinner afterward. She knew that order by heart.
Pixie meowed from beside the table.
Thea looked at the phone, then at the soup.
“Dinner first,” she said.
It came out quietly, as if she were only trying to save the sandwich.
She poured the soup into a bowl and cut the grilled cheese in half. The sandwich was hot enough to threaten her dignity. Pixie sniffed the butter, then refused to eat any. The phone stayed in the gap, like a small stone at the bottom of dark water.
It was still there. So was she.
After dinner, Thea did not wash the bowl. She put it in the sink and let the soup stay there until morning. Pixie crawled into the clean towels and curled herself into a gray bagel.
“You can apologize to the towels tomorrow,” Thea said.
She turned off the overhead light. The room went dark.
A few seconds later, the white porcelain lamp came on.
The light was small at first, peeking out from under the lampshade like a little creature finally poking its head out of a box. It reached the desk, the pale green mug, the bowl in the sink, and Pixie’s paw. Then it spread and rested on Thea’s hand.
It wasn’t very bright.
It was just enough for a room to know it wasn’t empty.
Thea didn’t move. Pixie opened one eye, looked at the lamp, and closed it again.
The next day, the corner was a shoe repair shop again. Back Soon sat behind the glass, its letters curled at one edge from the rain. Pixie didn’t look.
Thea didn’t stop.
That evening, she left the overhead light off. She opened her book on the desk, and the lamp came on by itself, lighting one small circle: the book, the mug, a little cat hair, and her hand. The sage-green tag Hazel had tied to the cord turned once in the warm air. Do not hurry.
Thea thought, suddenly, that tomorrow she might buy a pretty plate. No one was coming over. No one needed proof. The plate would be for soup, or toast, or whatever later decided to become.
Next to a lamp willing to stay, there should be a little room for later.
The lamp glowed quietly on the desk.
Pixie purred.
About the Author
Wen Gu is an emerging curator and writer based in New York. Originally from China, her art writing has appeared in DailyArt Magazine. She writes about memory, intimate spaces, and ordinary objects that seem to know more than they should.