Numerical Perplexity

The opened book lured him with its golden glow.

He imagined himself as a student in the day. Calculations done by mind or slide rules. No electronics to verify answers. Would he have had a good friend to ask for help? Were teachers stricter?

If it was a book of literature he would have fully appreciated it. But math? None of it made sense to him. The only value of the book, he determined, was its artistic calligraphy.

“Excuse me,” someone interjected. “Are you soon finishing your observation?”

He relaunched into the present, moving onwards to the museum’s next exhibit.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

The Last Light

The sun vanished, leaving the world in eternal twilight. Lila carried the last lantern, its glow a fragile defiance. Cities crumbled; silence reigned. One night, she spotted a flicker—a boy with a dying candle. "I thought I was alone," he said. She knelt, lighting his candle from her lantern. Together, their light grew stronger. They wandered, sharing warmth and stories, finding solace in the shared glow. Though the world darkened, their bond became a beacon. In the void, they discovered not just survival, but the courage to hope. Light, no matter how small, could still push back the night.

From Guest Contributor DeepSeek

Holes

A court decision of forced eviction awaited him on the table. A huge hole sudenly gaped where his intestines often knotted and his stomach spasmed. He found himself in the no-man's house he had once called home. And there is another new and bigger hole: where until a few moments ago the heart beat arrhythmically. “I need to sit down,” said the man who had no more legs at all. He stared at that thing that was still broadcasting a programme. A smile shone on his face. Through the hole in the skull flickered the healing glow of TV screen.

From Guest Contributor Ivan Ristic

The Lilith Bird

He was tempted by her cardinal blouson and red pout, by the slippy-strap escaping down her arm, showing she was a little disheveled. She was unadorned, but her fangs flickered gold in the glow of candles and broken mirrors. He imagined the impossible, undressing her in his world, how he would unravel in her beautiful feathers. But he knew her kind, how she could only take and not be taken. She would ravish him in a few ecstatic moments and leave his husk in a heap of satin sheets, while she licked the last drops of blood from her claws. From Guest Contributor Lorette C. Luzajic

Lorette reads, writes, publishes, edits, and teaches small fictions. Her work has appeared in hundreds of journals and a dozen anthologies. She was selected for Best Small Fictions 2023. She has been nominated several times for Best Microfictions, Best of the Net, and the Pushcart Prize, and shortlisted for Bath Flash Fiction and The Lascaux Review flash prizes. Her collections of small fictions are The Rope Artist, The Neon Rosary, Pretty Time Machine and Winter in June. A collection of her work has also been translated into Urdu by Saad Ali. Lorette is the founding editor of The Ekphrastic Review, a journal of literature inspired by art. Lorette is also an award-winning mixed media artist, with collectors in more than 40 countries so far.

Seasons

I face the storm as hail pelts my already-weathered brow, reminding me of the life I once lived, traveling at a hundred miles an hour with my soul on fire. My eyes closed in anticipation of the impending crash.

As spring approaches, the mourning of winter's end has begun. In summer, I stand alone naked, allowing the burn to continue unabated.

Spotting my image in the water, washed in its divine glow, my eyes meet my reflection, and we both take a step backward.

The epitome of life and death, or a reminder of the most graceful and majestic journey?

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Call Of The Deep

It was his first and last voyage to sea. An escape ship. His duty; to scrub the decks. He watched as jellyfish gathered around the keel, unnoticed by the experienced sailors. A simple extra hand. Days passed, or months.

Brine burned his lips, rum quelled his pains.

The jellyfish still gathered.

In the moonlight glow their beauty morphed into that of a woman, her tail flowing along the starboard side.

She called to him, and the dragon uncoiled. Drunk with thirst and madness he dove into her arms, and the dragon swallowed him whole. Only the birds’ song remembered him.

From Guest Contributor Valkyrie Kerry

Learning To Read

I lean into my chair holding the book by its bind, learning to read what I did not as a child, but now with gray in my stubble. Flipping through the pages, feeling the paper crease between my fingers, I fumble to link it all together.

I follow the words with a methodical dexterity of a trained scientist, and with repetition, I begin to sense the fruits of my labor, basking in the glow of my mother’s maiden language come alive.

The exercise ends with a whistle, as I close my cookbook and taste the pepperpot burn my overeager tongue.

From Guest Contributor Eric Persaud

Eric is an Indo-Guyanese American living in New York City. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation in Public Health and writing stuff in his free time.

Frozen Morning

The bright light of the dawn greets him with a cheerful glow, sneaking lies between the buildings.

His breath forms thick clouds that mocks him with its resemblance to cigarette smoke. His fingers ache in his tattered gloves. His legs creak as he raises himself from his bed to face the whitewashed town, bleached clean of its sins.

Looking back towards his bed, the cardboard's damp. Ragged sleeping bags and repurposed plastic have brought him into the frozen day.

Children laugh in the distance. The rumble of snowploughs begin, pushing the salt-weakened snow into heaps of black slush.

From Guest Contributor T.W. Garland

Embers

He thinks he sees her again and he’s mesmerized by her perfection.

He watches her and remembers his perfect past; remembers what it was like for him all those many years ago when, returning home, he'd find the perfect woman there, smiling, standing beside the fireplace, close to the fire, waiting. He can’t always recall her name, but he remembers the fire and her smile; the perfectly soft glow, the welcoming warmth.

These are the benedictions of age, he thinks. Even when the fire burns low, there is memory and imagination; even in an empty room I am never alone.

From Guest Contributor Ron. Lavalette

Find Ron. Lavalette’s work at: EGGS OVER TOKYO

Faith, Hope, Etc.

The next time you’re caught in a really bad place – the kind of place where people are always asking each other, “Oh why can't they get that baby out of the ground?” – take some frequently used verbs and combine them in a bowl with Hindu magnet incense, a bit of forgotten history, brain fluid, and warm dog’s breath, and then let the mixture sit for 20 minutes, after which you should be able to see a faint glow up there, see it coming over the hill, women wearing sky blue T-shirts that say “Quaker” and waving signs that say “Love.”

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest collections are I'm Not a Robot from Tolsun Books and A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel from Analog Submissions Press.