Mean To Say

Dave has a long apology worked out in his head. All the ways he knows he's been a lousy boyfriend. Too focused on what he wants, not willing to compromise or, even worse, listen to Samantha's side. His inability to show empathy and instead trying to solve every one of her problems the way he'd go about it. Most importantly, just saying that he's sorry.

By the time he works up the courage to put his thoughts into actual words, Samantha has already left him alone in the café. Her last words were, "I never want to see you again."

Anytime Anywhere

Dave and Heather sat in cafe and looked at their phones. There was a lot David wanted to say, but the place was crowded and he didn't want to be overheard.

He texted her instead.

I'm sorry.

For what?

Everything.

It's not an apology if you don't acknowledge what you did wrong.

Why'd she have to be so difficult?

I wasn't the one who broke her promise.

Still not an apology.

Heather set her phone on the table and looked out the window. Before the screenlock came on, David noticed she was looking at flight times.

So much for promises.

Reflections In The Rain

Amid labyrinthine alleys and neon-lit streets, a small cafe beckons. Inside, a lone figure cradles a lukewarm coffee, eyes weary yet searching. Across, a young couple laughs—a fleeting yet beautiful symphony of joy.

The cafe hums: baristas call orders, chatter blends into a comforting buzz. Inside him, a yearning tide—echoes of a once-ablaze love, now scattered like dead autumn leaves. Rain taps a melancholy rhythm, each drop a plea.

The coffee, bitter; the rain, demanding. He catches someone staring back—unspoken stories, quiet regrets. He reaches to comfort the other, feeling only glass. No one searches but himself.

From Guest Contributor Chinmayi Goyal

A Routine

The morning light was still dim, but the streetlamp sufficiently illuminated the permanent marker slipping down the glass door of my cafe like eels: STOP EATING DOGS.

I felt my fingers dig into my palm, pressure building between my clenched teeth. I looked around—no cameras, as usual. I kept reminding myself to get one but I never did.

A heavy sigh fogged the glass as I unlocked the door and tramped to where the cleaning supplies were kept. “The fact that I’m Asian doesn’t make me a dog-eater,” I muttered, but once again, there was no one to hear me.

From Guest Contributor Rina Olsen

Rina is a Korean-American teen writer living on Guam. Her work has either appeared in or is forthcoming in Jellyfish Review, Dreams and Nightmares, 101 Words, Nano Fiction, Friday Flash Fiction, and Mobius: A Journal of Social Change, among other places.

Cafe Shi

I had just gotten an invitation to a special meal at Cafe Shi. For those who do not know it. Look it up. Best readers, writers, thinkers in the multiverse, a place to eat and listen to stories that would make your hair curl.

I got there as a Mandela effect meeting was finishing up. Those poor souls all crying about the coming thermonuclear war and what to do about it.

I listened as a lady I knew from a prior life spoke about Colorado radiation levels and burning sulfur rain.

Seemed rather odd a thermonuclear war would end humanity.

From Guest Contributor Clinton Siegle

Drought’s End

It was almost dark and he pulled into his driveway a happy man.

He had planned to be home in time for lunch, or at least to be at home at lunchtime, home in time for his favorite talking heads to read him the news he’d missed in the morning while he showered so as to make himself presentable at his favorite café, his best black journal open, crying out for him not to allow yet another eight-day lapse without so much as a single penstroke.

It was almost dark and he was happy to have generated three whole sentences.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

A Man Among Ferns

He remembers waking up—ages ago—amid ferns, with neither a plan nor any desire to ever be waking up again at all, least of all amid ferns, which he had considered to be beautiful before he wandered into them and disappeared, hoping to disappear forever.

Now, almost a half-century later, he endures his almost unendurable insomnia in the broadest daylight his personal December has to offer. He sits with his journal at his favorite café table by the window, attempting to capture any fragment of last night’s dreams, but is sadly reminded—again—that not all attempts are successful.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

Reduction

He sat alone.

He watched her scrape the painted letters from the window; watched FINE ARTS CAFE become FINE ART, then FINE and finally FIN.

She took a break.

He couldn’t bear to watch anymore anyway, imagined Painting becoming mere Paint, then Pain; Lessons, Less.

Having finished his coffee, he talked to the café owner about her plans now that she’d finally served up her last cup.

He knew he’d go soon too.

He mentally counted out the other empty storefronts, some of the buildings invisible from where he sat, their windows staring out at a rapidly fading Main Street.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

Last-Minute Shoppers

“Wrapping paper! Ha, ha!”

Shoppers passed by clutching rolls of it.

“Fancy spending Christmas Eve wrapping presents!” Ian thought, reflecting on how he’d finished his yesterday.

“My God, they’re fighting over chocolates,” he sneered, observing a couple of housewives tugging the ends of a Milk Tray box in Howell’s Department Store.

He resolved to have a latte in Starbucks to fully savour the spectacle before the shops finally closed.

“Chocolates?!...Christ, I forgot the wife’s chocolates!”

Ian rushed out of the café.

“Where the hell can I find some now?” he thought, seeing the doors of Howell’s snap shut.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

Roswell Café

Occupants of the flying saucer are being chased by their archenemy. Desperately looking for a safe place to hide.

Radar shows a habitable planet nearby. After scanning the surface they decide to land in a town called Roswell. They wait until late at night, create a thick fog, and then land the spacecraft. They scan the Internet and soon have the information they need. As the fog clears one of the aliens puts a sign on the front hatch that reads “Opening Soon.”

Billy and Betty Simms drive past the saucer. “Looks like another new restaurant,” Betty says to Billy.

From Guest Contributor Denny E. Marshall