Wait

In the bare branches of the hedge outside my window sits a cardinal, his handsome red coat fluffed
against the winds and flakes of snow that drift from a clouded sky. We are huddled in defense against
the cold, he with his vibrant feathers, me with my cup of tea. He breathes the frigid air in and out again
as we wait. We are connected in our anticipation, sustained by out shared hope that spring will return to
soothe our aching limbs and renew our fragile hearts with purpose. But until then, we focus on
breathing. Once more, and again.

-Alisa Wiliams was born and raised in Michigan and now lives in South Bend, Indiana, with a demanding
husky and three nearly identical ginger cats.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taste me and You die

In the natural world, yellow and black together mean danger. I'm stripped like a bumblebee for the
Halloween party when this Freddy Krueger won't take my brushoffs. He thinks I'm the prey. But I'm not a
bumblebee. I'm a cinnabar caterpillar. The larvae absorb alkaloids and become toxic. But some are
foolish enough to ignore the signs for their own pleasure, only to die with a belly full of caterpillar.
Despite no encouraging signals, he moves closer to kiss me. I wonder if he can smell the poison on my
breath.

- Chelsea Stickle is the author of Everything's Changing (Thirty West Publishing) and Breaking Points
( Black Lawrence Press).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inheritance

I think of my father taking me to see Batman opening night. Teaching me poker at the cabin.
Demonstrating the slick footwork for moonwalk. I think of his hitching laughter drifting up through the
vents, intruding on my sleep. His fractured conversations. The hushed sobbing. I think of the shine on the
hospital floors. His rough beard worn like a muzzle. The smell of Lysol and shit. HIs glassy eyes, wet like
fishbowls. I think of how people say we look alike. That depression runs in the family. How tomrrow I'll
be older than he was when he jumped.

- Keith J. Powell writes fiction, CNF, reviews, and plays. He is a founding editor of Your Impossible Voice
and occasionally tweets @KeithJ_Powell. He has recent or forthcoming wor in Lunch Ticket, Cloves
Literary, Schuylkill VAlley Journal, Bending Genres, and New World Writing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Darling at Dinner

The waiter was starting at Darling, not me.

When Darling admitted she wasn't 18, he left her wine glass anyway. He took mine immediately,
probably mistaking me for 12. Our parents didn't protest. My sister sipped the red expertly. He gave
them complimentary limoncello. He purded next to Darling, learning towards the precious fallen
mascara clumps under her lashes.

Darling smiled at me.

The waiter watched her by the kitchen. Every time she swallowed.

In the car, she showed me the crumpled paper. The number scrawled hastily, a condescending grin and
wide eyes.

I snatched the paper and swallowed it.

- Ellie Prusko is a 22-year-old noverlist working towards her Master in Fiction at Emerson College.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Talking Flash with Nancy Stohlman: Exercises in Cross-Pollination

Nancy Stohlman is drawn to the performative in life and fiction, which means her words don't seem to
live just on the page. The tend to always be looking for a stage.

She recently published Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction, which won the 2021 Reader Views
Award for nonfiction, so we talked with her about how the short stuff-"cupcakes,"as she calls flash
fiction-feed her performative soul.

Nancy's other books include Madam Velvet's Cabaret of Oddities, The Monster Opera, and The Vixen
Scream and Other Bible Stories, and her fiction has been anthologized widely, appearing in the W.W.
Norton New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, Macmillan's The Practice of Fiction, and The Best Small
Fiction 2019, as well as adapted for the stage and screen.

She teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder and around the world. Find out more at
www.nancystohnman.com.

Tell us about your journey as an author. When do you first remember deciding that you were a writer?

Like many writers, I took refuge in books early. I grew up tin the military and most of my early childhood
was spent overseas in Germany and Spain, so I did't have long-term friendships and I was living in
places where I didn't speak the language. Not to mention many long, transatlantic flights in military
cargo planes (think no windows and having to wear earplugs).

As soon as I realized books could be my constant companions through all this moving aroung, and as
soon as I discovered there was a wonderful invention called the library where I could borrow books for
free, I was hooked. I started volunteering at the base library at age of 9, and Iwrote my first screenplay,
Superman: The musical, when I was 10.
What draws you to short shorts?

I love the precision and delicacy of short shorts. After years writing trational novels, I find the boundaries
conforting. There's an inherent discipline that happens inside those walls- it's very hard to be self-
indulgent. Flash fiction forces the focus off the writer and puts it back where it belongs: on the story.

What is the shortest story you've ever written?

Glad you asked!

A One-Word Story

Chlamydia

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo Story: Taco Truck

Dad's lastest between-jobs hobby was circling ads with orange highlighter. Imagine, love! An RV!
Airstream?Converted bus? Nothing we needed, still less could afford.Dad didn't drive, but he'd rattle on
until Mum relented to look at least.

The taco truck was his undoing , 50 miles away down a potholed dead end. Dad buddied with the owner,
trading pie-eyed dreams. The truck's roof was ripe, menu boards fossilized. A reek like wrestler-sweat
swamped my nostrils. Mum sly-eyed me, brandished a check.

"You emnarrassed me," Dad muttered as we drove away. Mum shifted up a gear. Put her foot down
again.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Gaps Between

They announced on the radio that Freddie was dead. I picked up the phone.

"Come over,"he said.

We mourned over Australian Shiraz, vintage vinyls spinning, tearful voices joined in remembered lyrics.

I told him about my divorce, the sadness of the end. Didn't say that I'd married the wrong man.

He told me about her, how she needed him, relied on him. Never mentioned love.

As dawn rose pink over the city skyline, we crawled out of his bedsit window. Side by side, we gazed
across silent rooftops.

Into the sharp November air, Freddie sang to us about love.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. And I have never seen such savage delight since

1. Long ago, we drove in the woods.

2. It was light. My mother was at the wheel, the headlights conjuring shape-shifting wraiths drifting in
the darkness.

3. Something flashed like a curse. We stopped.

4. My mother walked in front of the car.

5. I watched through the windshield.

6. It started with her ears. Twitching and lengthening.

The back, bowed and bent and balled. The hair, swallowing her bare skin, her arms, her legs, her head,
and her whole body, everything shrinking and shaking and shining.

7.She looked back at me, eyes mad and wild and alive.