Robert Vaughan is the author of 6 books, newest is ASKEW. He is also the EIC of Bending Genres.
Saturday, 13 June 2026
'Wrestling with Genetics' by Robert Vaughan
The sports gene I get from my dead father. He returns to me now as a scent. Water-logged leaves. He’s the tetherball attached to my pole, the flying trapeze of my soul. He runs a bar tab higher than a cloud then turns to me and says let’s hit the road, son. And when I argue with him about the keys, he says that’s a bunch of horseshit. But then I bluff: I can see his ailing pickled heart sitting in a laboratory glass jar on a top shelf too high to reach. I wrestle him to the ground, grab the keys, load Dad into the back seat. And for once, just this time, he won’t barrel down a back road at one hundred miles an hour, straight into the side of a quarrelsome train.
'Ọwu Mịni Rẹma' by Meredith Chiwenkpe Asuru
My grandpa is telling my daddy, my mummy's sickness is not ordinary, he should stop wasting money on hospital, but my daddy is not listening, instead, he frown, and tell him one doctor say he can help, but my grandpa laugh and remind him that since my mummy fell sick, whenever he close his eyes, he dream where my grandma is tying a female goat to a tree, but my daddy say it’s malaria dream, and beg him to stay with us, that he is going to collect debt to complete treatment money, even if he know grandpa will start telling my mummy to mourn grandma well, to do the Ọwu mịni rẹma ritual, and he say it and continue until my mummy turn her head slow-slow, look us with water eyes, and point her purse, only for grandpa to collect it and rush out, but he no take long before he return with a big goat and many women from my mummy family, even my mummy cousin, who always quarrel my daddy because he no let my mummy do the ritual, come, but she no sit outside like the others, she enter kitchen to cook the goat, and serve them to eat and talk good-good things about grandma, until night when my daddy return, and chase them away, shouting for grandpa, and entering the house to carry my mummy to the hospital, but grandpa say nothing, just enter room to sleep, only for him to wake after small time and start singing, say he no dream the dream again, my mother is well now, and that he will seat outside and wait for my daddy to return with good news, and true-true, when my daddy return, he come with news, news say my mummy has gone to visit grandma.
Meredith Chiwenkpe Asuru is a writer and epidemiologist of Ikwerre descent. He is the lead moderator of microtalks—an offline group of readers invested in exploring flash fiction from across the globe. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in 101 words, Five Minutes, Spillwords Press, Brittle Paper, and elsewhere
'My Neighbor is My Future' by Stephen D. Gibson
Bent in half, he hobbles, looks like he’s a hundred, and is a widower now. Visitors are rare. He used to yell, “I’m home!” into his empty apartment, every time he crossed the threshold. A baritone, maybe? He stops the delivery people and tries to talk to them. I could go over, but the weather is all we have in common.
When I am as indifferent as his sons, I don’t want to hear his voice. But late at night, solitary for all the wrong reasons, I’m happy to hear him singing, loudly and alone.
The weather might be enough.
Stephen D. Gibson’s short fiction has appeared in The Citron Review, Vestal Review, 100WordStory, Wigleaf, Fractured Lit, and The Ekphrastic Review. His work has been nominated twice for both the Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction. More brief prose can be found at stephendgibson.com.
'Thaw' by Tracy Royce
On her first anniversary, Amanda defrosted her ambition. The bridal guides—she had to remind herself the word wasn’t spelled “bridle”—had advised wrapping it in something precious to minimize freezer burn. She’d used the pages of her thesis, on deep freeze since the wedding. Now she pushed aside the frozen protein shakes her husband had forgotten to pack when he’d moved out. There you are. She ran her hand across the frost. The ice crystals were delicate, like feathers. And then they melted, a rivulet of water spilling between her fingers.
Tracy Royce is a writer and poet with work appearing in 100 Word Story, The Mackinaw, ONE ART, and forthcoming in Best Microfiction (2026). Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Southern California, where she enjoys hiking. Find her on Bluesky.
Debut Flash: 'Centaurus A' by Olivia Woodcox
His eyes haven’t moved once from the star. He’s laid up like a corpse, dropping empty beer cans carelessly in the pool. They float but don’t make ripples. LED lights warm the bottoms of our feet. The colors change smoothly like cutting through jello. “They’re beaming me up.”
I’m in one of those plastic donuts that crush your knees to your chest so I have to push off the wall to reach the cooler. I grab myself an IPA. “You know where you’re going?” He doesn’t answer, so I assume not. I grab his raft to keep it from drifting off. When I put my head next to his we’re sharing the same sky. “...looks like Centaurus A.”
“Is that a good one?”
“Nah, man. Their sun’s a black hole.” I crack the can open and offer him a sip he doesn’t take. His clothes have mostly dried but there’s a puddle in the center of the raft trying to seep into the back of his t-shirt. “Shit’s gonna destroy itself. You seen any aliens yet?” He doesn’t respond so I splash him to make him move. “Well? C’mon man, what do they want with you?”
For a while he stays silent. His eyes get wide and wet and he makes a sort of choking sound. I take my hand off the raft and squeeze his shoulder. “They wanted to show me...” Snot trickles down his face. I see the constellations reflected back through him. Words are finite, useless things in space. The breadth of his silence tells me everything I needed to know. I climb off my donut and float on my back for a while, the chlorine in my ears muddying his sobs as my brother mourns a world lightyears away.
Olivia Woodcox was born and raised in Indiana with a perpetual fear of alligators (who are not native to Indiana, which Olivia considers to be a win). When she's not writing, she works in a children's library scrambling to keep plastic objects out of kids' mouths.
'Schrödinger’s Marriage' by Melissa Flores Anderson
Duct tape the corner where the cardboard is frayed. Tie a ribbon around the flap that threatens to bend back. Apply super glue to the seams and blow it dry carefully with pursed lips, the way you used to blow a kiss across the room to someone you were sure loved you and always would.
Don’t shake the box. Don’t listen too closely. Don’t peak inside. Never open it.
Melissa Flores Anderson has published work in swamp pink, Chapter House, HAD and Best Small Fictions 2025. Her debut short story collection All and Then None of You is out now from Cowboy Jamboree Press.
'Initial Reactions' by Jane Claire Jackson
Wake to hedge-trimming. Thrumming echoes inside my skull’s desiccated cavern. Tongue glued to mouth’s roof. Stomach churning. Flickering flashbacks flit behind shuttered eyes.
Rake tangles from hair. Crawl into shower, scald myself, droplets slowly soaking into skin, recovering some strength. Slip on jumper, joggings. Collapse onto couch, trying to recollect.
Jake! He dumped me! At the party, in front of everybody, he ended our engagement, turned around, walked away. Left me stranded, a fool.
Take a walk to clear head. Paracetamol kicking in, easing physical pain. Emotional heartache remains. No quick remedy there.
Lake glistening in morning light. Toffee trots faithfully alongside. Water rippling, reflecting, refracting. I drown in memories of a wasted four-year relationship.
Fake smile as I pass the postwoman. Hurry inside, triple lock the door. Stumble through hallway, everything blurred. Feed Toffee mechanically.
Bake potato for lunch. Not hungry but know I must eat. Watch butter melting, don’t bother with tuna or beans. Promise myself I'll do better for tea. I mustn't give up. I'm worth more than this.
Make phone call to my best-friend who's full of support. Call names, vent feelings, bitch, curse and rant. Finish up laughing, tissues drying on the ground, planning girly nights out, retail therapy days.
Hake and chips from the chippie. Still not healthy - who cares? Red wine and Netflix, the choice all mine. I'm better without him. I'm going to be fine.
Cake for breakfast, no-one will know. Not the best night's sleep, cracks are still there, held together with sugar-paste, they'll harden with time. My new life starts here, I refuse to look back. If he phones, I'll hang up. If he texts, I'll delete. I deserve much better. Meanwhile, there’s Toffee, friends, family and work.
Just forget him, move on, for goodness’ sake!
Rake tangles from hair. Crawl into shower, scald myself, droplets slowly soaking into skin, recovering some strength. Slip on jumper, joggings. Collapse onto couch, trying to recollect.
Jake! He dumped me! At the party, in front of everybody, he ended our engagement, turned around, walked away. Left me stranded, a fool.
Take a walk to clear head. Paracetamol kicking in, easing physical pain. Emotional heartache remains. No quick remedy there.
Lake glistening in morning light. Toffee trots faithfully alongside. Water rippling, reflecting, refracting. I drown in memories of a wasted four-year relationship.
Fake smile as I pass the postwoman. Hurry inside, triple lock the door. Stumble through hallway, everything blurred. Feed Toffee mechanically.
Bake potato for lunch. Not hungry but know I must eat. Watch butter melting, don’t bother with tuna or beans. Promise myself I'll do better for tea. I mustn't give up. I'm worth more than this.
Make phone call to my best-friend who's full of support. Call names, vent feelings, bitch, curse and rant. Finish up laughing, tissues drying on the ground, planning girly nights out, retail therapy days.
Hake and chips from the chippie. Still not healthy - who cares? Red wine and Netflix, the choice all mine. I'm better without him. I'm going to be fine.
Cake for breakfast, no-one will know. Not the best night's sleep, cracks are still there, held together with sugar-paste, they'll harden with time. My new life starts here, I refuse to look back. If he phones, I'll hang up. If he texts, I'll delete. I deserve much better. Meanwhile, there’s Toffee, friends, family and work.
Just forget him, move on, for goodness’ sake!
Jane Claire Jackson is a Welsh writer who now lives in Normandy. Her Substack posts are entitled ‘Joyful Jottings at the Haven’. Her writing has appeared online with Voidspace Zine, NFFD, AWC’s Furious Fiction, CafeLit, Paragraph Planet, 101Words and printed in The Zest of the Lemon (Vols 1-4).
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