Latest Issue | The Dribble Drabble Review

It’s only right to invite the whole class by Coleman Bigelow, USA

Cancel the balloon-animal-making clown.
Email the class parents.
Hide the presents.
Take down the decorations. Punch holes in the balloons.
Shut his room door to keep the dog out.
Feed the dog even though you and Susan aren’t eating.
Bring tea to Susan in the bedroom. Keep reminding her you’re there. That there’s someone else in the house. That there’s someone else.
Dump the cake and make way for the meal train.
Stare at his class picture on the refrigerator.
Pray that no one shows up still expecting a party.

Coleman Bigelow's stories have appeared recently in Cleaver, Ghost Parachute, Flash Frontier, Gooseberry Pie and Your Impossible Voice. Find more at: ColemanBigelow.com or follow him on BlueSky: @cbigs.bsky.social

Lviv by Kevin Campbell, Canada

I told you about Kurosawa’s Ikiru, partly because you were copying hiragana characters into a notebook at the bar when we first met. In the film, a dying bureaucrat seeks out legacy. He builds a park to find it. You told me of anxiety over disappearing time and the urgency to experience something other than this war. With enfeebled empathy, I considered my own disappearing time and the idle Western way of wasting it but dared not draw a parallel. Back home in the comfort and bustle, a year has passed. Yet I cannot see past you to the park.

I write to revel, relive and reveal...or at least that's the intention. Other works can be found at https://kvc.carrd.co/

Seeing Clearly by Peter Cashorali, USA

As when we tear our eyes away from the screen

As when a car is parked beneath a fruit tree

As when we notice the gesture a fountain makes

As when a blue delphinium stands among orange rose bushes

As when a deer steps close to the window

As when a stone looks up at us

As when thimbleberries ripe beneath the broad leaves

As when the dragonfly lights and its stained glass wings

As when half inch-long black ants run along the floorboards of the porch

As when clover blooms in the grass, its white flowers simple and

Baffling

Peter Cashorali is a neurodivergent queer psychotherapist. Recent work appears or will in Synkroniciti, Bitter Melon, Soul Forte Journal, Midwest Zen, others.

When Jupiter is Visible by Cara Long Corra, USA

Glen was not interested in stargazing, even though he had promised Ellie that they would. “I'm sorry, El,” he said. “Tonight just isn't a good night. Too much cloud cover.” Ellie went upstairs to her room and laid on her bed in the dark. She plugged her ears to drown out the muffled voice of her father, then imagined that she was hurtling through space. Ellie pictured herself being far away from Earth, so far that she couldn't even recognize it. She unplugged her ears. The house was silent. Through the window, Ellie could see the white-orange glow of Jupiter.

Cara Long Corra has written short fiction on and off—mostly off—for over 15 years. Her collection of short stories, Partly Gone, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2014. She currently lives in Maryland, just outside Washington D.C.

Voices by Karen Crawford, USA

Daddy moves into a studio apartment. It's mostly unfurnished. Not even a TV. Just a side table, and a trundle bed that doubles as a sofa. We're spending the night. None of us says much. My voice puddled up in my throat. My sister's a restless comet stuck under her tongue. Daddy's silenced by the thunder of hunger in his belly. He orders takeout. We sit on the floor, picnic-style. Rain pitter-patters against the window, the moon hiding behind curtains and clouds. Daddy pulls out his guitar. His eyes two crescents swelling up full, giving us all permission to cry.

Karen Crawford lives and writes in the City of Angels. Her work has been included in Best Microfiction Anthology 2025, Gooseberry Pie, Fictive Dream, The Citron Review and elsewhere. She is a multi-Pushcart, and Best of the Net nominee.

Dinner Party by Brandon Daily, USA

“What’s wrong,” she says loudly, though I doubt anyone around us notices—no one looked up or smiled when we walked in—and I don’t answer, not yet, even though her question echoes in my mind, and after a minute’s passed, I lean in and whisper, “I’ll tell you later.”

I’m Forgetting

It started with small moments—a misplaced pen, me patting my pockets, mumbling “I just had it.” But then large swaths of my life have disappeared. My wife turning to me, a blank smile on her face. I don’t know what I’ve just said, and I’ll spend the next hour or day searching for those lost minutes, each time knowing less than before. What if this continues? What if this other version of me (who speaks my voice) takes over completely? What will be left? Will I be killed off? Or will I continue living but in some other where?

This Morning

Birds sing outside. I don’t open my eyes. Not yet. Instead, I listen for your footsteps, the cascade of shower water, your tuneless humming. But there’s only silence.

I go look for you, but the shower’s empty—you aren’t there, and I can’t remember if it’s always been like this.

Brandon Daily is the author of three novels ("A Murder Country," "The Valley," and "Through the Dark") as well as a collection of fiction ("Darkening"). His fiction, nonfiction, plays, and poetry have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. He is a graduate of Lindenwood University's MFA program.

Casks of Ginger by Dimitar Dakovski, Bulgaria

It took her years – sacks of flour, barrels of honey, a hantle of butter and a hoard of eggs. Not to mention the spices: casks of ginger and cinnamon. Now it stood finished. As she smoothed out the icing, she thought about all the sweet, delicious children who would come…

Time and Relative Coffee Taste

It is said coffee is the reason why time travel was invented. Emperor Turso Vipunen of the Superluminal Empire was obsessed with the fabled beverage which, by his time, was extinct for over 17000 years. He first read about coffee from Seyahatnâme, “the book of travels”, presented to him by the esteemed governor of the Earth Asteroid Area. Turso longed to visit a bustling kahvehane and taste the mythical brew among the people of the Ancient Homeland. Some research, experiments, wormholes, and captured black holes later – Turso Vipunen in a crowded Kostantiniyye coffeehouse, Turkish coffee at his lips: “Too bitter…”

Dimitar Dakovski is a software engineer who lives in Sofia, Bulgaria with his wife, son, and two cats. He is enthusiastic about all things fantasy and science fiction and his works have appeared in publications in both English and Bulgarian.

Button the Quail by Andrea Damic, Australia

Injured and frightened, cupped in her hands, a tiny fuzz of soft fur, like the pompoms on her lush slippers. Antiseptic spray for the pecking scars. A quiet room for stress relief. Its mottled plumage blending with her blanket’s pattern. She clipped its wings—trim, trim, trim—as feathers whooshed and swooshed. These stop-gap measures tantamount to clinging creepers on her garden wall. And Button lived like a queen, tethered with love. And ooh-ed and coo-ed during the day, tethered in the garden; at night, tethered in her room. Weeks passed. Then months. Then years. One day, its breath untethered.

Andrea Damic, an artist/writer, living in Sydney, Australia. Her debut hybrid collection of art, poetry, and prose, 'All the Losses', was published in Feb26 through Alien Buddha Press (available on Amazon). She’s also a senior editor at Pictura Journal. In her imaginary free time, she fiddles with her website https://damicandrea.wordpress.com/.

The Weight of Leaves by Scot Ehrhardt, USA

“Listen. He cuts the grass weekly—exactly weekly, all year. In the fall, he mows leaves and bags them. But they’re only the weight of leaves. “And his garage—it’s perfectly empty. Drywall tape and mud lines. Where’s the lawnmower, then? How heavy do they have to be?” An entry is filed, mostly “unknowns,” and unpursued. A body outweighs a thousand names. In the basement, a woman is zip-tied to a support post, lips cracked from thirst. He presses the teeth of a mulching blade against her throat. Her name is featureless and silent. It stretches like a shadow across the grass.

Scot Ehrhardt lives in Baltimore, Maryland. His novel-in-verse The Armillary Papers is a combination novel-in-verse and cursed manuscript. His work has appeared in the museum of americana, Little Patuxent Review, and The Baltimore Anthology. He used to breakdance and create stone sculptures, but now he is old and tired.

On a walk today by Hugh Findlay, USA

I passed a cement yard jockey sporting a green cap,

blue jacket, and white-lipped black face.

One outstretched arm held a small rusted lantern,

illuminating the lawn through dull yellow windows.

Southern paternalism dies slowly, I mused.

Such staunch white purebreds advertising division,

in the green yard of their little pink house,

no less subtle than the ‘stars and bars’

in their pickup’s rear window.

I wondered,

What light is given to those who hope?

What smiling disguise keeps them alive?

As colorful as the South’s reflection may seem,

the road to her front door bleeds as red as ever.

Hugh Findlay’s writing and photography have been published worldwide. In addition to many awards, his nominations include: a Pushcart Prize for poetry 2020, Best of the Net for poetry 2025, Best Microfiction 2024, and Best of the Net for photography 2024. IG: @hughmanfindlay. Web: https://www.hughmanfindlay.com

Security by Laura Fox, England

There’s a child clinging to my leg who isn’t mine. He peeks up at me with rockpool eyes, lips trembling, slap-cheeked.

‘Where did you come from, little bird?’

I scan the security line, hawkish. I must look like your mother.

His dumpling body starts heaving sobs against me. I waver, but reach to stroke his downy hair, wiping away tears with my thumb.

A screech within the crowd. A woman, hook-beaked, shoves through the rabble. Her face is contorted where I’d have worn worry lines. He doesn’t soften at her approach.

My talons extend into your shoulder, and I brace.

Laura is a new short fiction writer residing in Manchester, UK. When not consuming books, she can be found feeding her friends, pounding the streets in running shoes or cuddling her giant cat, Atlas on the sofa.

Violet Devotion by Frances Gapper, England

Nine-year-old Lila adores Parma violet ice cream and milkshakes. Lila’s granny, who pops floral tablets like heart pills and during a trip to Blackpool taught Lila to ‘hover’ above public toilet seats, corrects her: ‘Like things, love people, ADORE God.’ Lila’s imagined pale purple goddess radiates Gran-flavoured rays of light.

Frances Gapper’s work has been published in four Best Microfiction anthologies and lit mags including trampset, Splonk, Wigleaf, Forge, Atlas and Alice, 100-Word Story, Literary Namjooning and Trash Cat. She lives in the UK’s Black Country region.

The Second Estrangement by Michael Germana, USA

She never once saw her husband without a beard, and now he was dead. When she heard herself tell the funeral director to shave his face clean for the showing, she surprised herself a little. But it had been so long since she felt curious about anything that she forgave herself the indulgence. What she expected to find hidden there, she couldn’t say. But when the day arrived and she saw his weak chin, his skin young where it had not been battered by the sun, she realized her mistake. She would now have to mourn this new stranger, too.

Michael Germana is a recovering academic and an emerging writer based in Cornwall, Vermont.

Just a Note of Encouragement by Michael Gigandet, USA

Dear Samantha, “I’d wait a thousand years for you. I’ll write you every day. “If you are successful in their anger management program and try to get along with everybody, you probably won’t have to serve the entire 8 years. I’m healing up pretty good. Good luck darling.

Love, Reggie.

Michael Gigandet is a retired lawyer in Tennessee, USA. His stories have appeared in Bending Genres, Quarencia Press, Great Weather for Media, Palm Sized Press, Pure Slush and The Hong Kong Literary Journal. He is nominated this year for a Pushcart Prize.

The Single Shot 100 by Mel Goldberg, Mexico

A ranger at Kenya’s OI Pejeta Conservancy, I sit quietly overlooking Laikipia Plateau. The sun rises behind me. Through the acacia branches, I see zebras and a white rhino grazing in the early morning. In front of me, waking in his blind, a poacher watches the white rhino, hoping for his “money shot.” He knows wealthy people who will pay thousands for a white rhino trophy. I raise my CZ 500 American Safari Magnum. The crack of my rifle breaks the stillness. The zebras scatter. The poacher’s head explodes. Returning to my cabin, I know lions will eliminate the remains.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, I earned my MA, taught literature and writing in California, Illinois, Arizona, and at Stanground College in Cambridgeshire, England. For seven years, my wife and I lived in a small motor home, traveling the US, Canada, and Mexico.

Faded City by Bronwen Griffiths, England

When the city fades and nothing is left of it but faint notes of music then you know you

have left for something new but what that new is you cannot yet know because you are,

for now, suspended in the haze of sky and water, and the disappeared horizon.

Bronwen Griffiths writes both longform and shortform fiction. Her new novel, Longshore Drift, was published in March 2026. Her flash fiction pieces have been widely published. She lives in East Sussex, UK.

Rescue Worker’s Notes for the “Forever Paws” Animal Shelter by Kathryn Silver-Hajo, USA

- Havanese male with collar and tags. Pulled from collapsed building downtown. Slight injuries to hind legs from falling debris. Requires rehoming.

- Tom cat found wandering amidst rubble and trash in Sidon. Condition: emaciated, confused. Requires gradual reintroduction of food and water to stabilize.

- Tan female mutt. Good condition but hungry. Needs temporary shelter. Surrendered by family of five, living in makeshift tent on Corniche al-Manara until they can safely return to their home in Dahieh suburbs.

- Good news! Twin border collies reunited with owners in Tyre when the family returned home from Beirut during a lull in the air raids.

Kathryn Silver-Hajo’s work appears in Atticus Review, Centaur, CRAFT, Emerge Literary, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, Milk Candy Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, Ruby Literary, TDDR, The Phare, and others. Her award-winning books include flash collection, Wolfsong, and YA novel, Roots of The Banyan Tree. kathrynsilverhajo.com; facebook.com/kathryn.silverhajo; twitter.com/KSilverHajo; @kathrynsilverhajo.bsky.social

On Zillow, I See by Emily Hall, USA

That my great-grandmother’s house is now a used car lot. Outdated SUVs litter the yard like spat-out teeth. In the living room, there’s a deer head leering over a desk teeming with papers. The bedrooms are filled with scuffed cardboard boxes; and in the kitchen, there’s just an electric kettle and coffee gone to dust. I stare until the pain becomes exquisite. Then, like a god, I put it back: the paisley chairs; the squat pot of eternal African violets; the old blue coat, whose pockets are hiding crumpled tissues and a folded plastic bonnet, just in case it rains.

Emily Hall’s prose has appeared, or is forthcoming in places such as Passages North, Cherry Tree, Blood Orange Review, 100 Word Story and Fifty-Word Stories. She lives in NC with her husband.

Red’s Cloak by Kevin Holochwost, USA

Red’s cloak was hewn from wolfskin. Grandma hadn’t been eaten; she’d gone to the beast herself. Some hungers skip a generation. Red grew up with lullabies about moonlight and meat. Her mother watched the woods with wary eyes, but Grandma’s blood sang. On her thirteenth winter, the forest called her. Bones under moss. Scratch marks on birch. The scent of old promises. The wolf waited by the river, with golden eyes. Red shed the cloak and stepped into his shadow. No bared teeth. No screams. Just a girl, and the low growl of welcome. Some girls are meant to devour.

Kevin Holochwost and Anna Varlese are a neurodivergent husband-and-wife writing duo based in Massachusetts. By day, they work on medical device software and artificial intelligence, ensuring the latter stays in check. By night, they craft stories imagining what might happen if their daytime efforts were to fail.

Making Applesauce by Eric Howd, USA

Once the bowlful begins to spoil we spend an hour washing, peeling, chopping and boiling, then mashing. Sometimes the pot isn’t big enough to contain all the dying fruit we have bought and it boils over. The trick to a good sauce is patience and simple ingredients like cinnamon, honeycrisps, and cool water. We don’t talk about wasted purchases, nor the sign that enticed us to bring half a peck home for two. We stay silent as it simmers and offer the peels to the woods out back where we leave the bones and cleaned carcasses we have picked apart.

Eric Machan Howd (Ithaca, NY) is a writer, musician, and educator. Their work has been seen in such publications as Slant, Slab, Caesura, The Scop, and Nimrod. Their seventh collection of poetry, "Myths, Fables, and Philosophies," was published in 2025 by BookLeaf Press.

The Tyranny of Doppelgängers by Anne Howkins, England

Zoe knows there are hundreds, thousands maybe, of versions of herself. She’s there, in the family photo albums, the home movies from her childhood, the family WhatsApp group videos. There she is with her family and friends at birthday parties, weddings, the seaside and zoos. She knows all this stuff happened, but she can’t recall being part of any of it.

She doesn’t know how it felt to be those Zoes. They look happy enough, and there’s always something about their faces that makes her think she enjoyed her childhood, that she was loved, but she can’t be entirely sure.

Anne’s little stories have appeared in print and online. She writes in the time carved out between looking after the finances of a charity, keeping herself fit and being grandmother to a cute, but demanding, toddler.

Heart Transplant by Jing Jing, Canada

I’ve been on the waitlist for a heart transplant for a hundred and sixteen years. It’s around the average wait time for our kind. Robots won’t die without hearts, so humans usually give spare ones to more desperate causes. Good news comes at last. The hospital calls to confirm the surgery date, praising the Robot’s Rights Union for securing the supply. Another call comes shortly after, this time from a human. He shouts, screams, and curses me for wasting a heart that could have gone to his child. I can’t comprehend his sudden outbursts. But after my surgery, I will.

Jing Jing works as a software engineer during the day, writes at night, and volunteers as a film festival programmer somewhere in between. She's Chinese-Canadian and has published in both English and Chinese.

Put Me on the Shelf by Hanna Kelly, USA

I want to get married to a pair of potter’s hands. Be gentle with me. When I break, mold me into the shape of your memory. Close enough.

Just the palms, fingers, and wrists: forget the man that does the breaking, the mouth that says I’m only made for flowers.

Hana Kelly lives in Atlanta and recently graduated from Georgia State University with a B.A. in English. When she is not writing speculative or surreal fiction, she’s reading it. Catch up with her on Instagram @hanamkelly.

Revelations by Kip Knott, USA

Angels tumble from the sky like a plague-storm of locusts right from The Bible. Together, the faithful and the faithless hold each other and grieve. And yet, despite their fervent cries, a steady rain of falling feathers and golden halos does nothing more than prove Newton was right all along.

Kip Knott is a writer, photographer, and part-time art dealer living in Delaware, Ohio. His writing has appeared in Best Microfiction Anthology and The Wigleaf Top 50. His most recent book of stories, Family Haunts, is available from Louisiana Literature Press. You can follow him on Instagram at @kip.knott.

Dirty Laundry by Lynn Kozlowski, USA

The morning after he had returned from the conference, he was unpacking his dirty clothes into the hamper. Amid his white underwear a small lacy black bra appeared. His wife has no black bras. He knew whose it was and that he had not intended to put it in his suitcase. Relieved to be standing there alone, he crammed it into his pocket. He looked through his suitcase and what had dropped into the hamper for any other object that should not be there. He worried now whether this problematic personal artifact had been inadvertently included or very purposefully placed.

Hero’s Journey

Lost. Stymied. Chastened. Childless. Divorced. Guilty. Regretful. Sad. Supported. Parents. Friends. Reflecting. Revising. Relocating. Challenged. Coping. Working. Successful. Recognized. Happy. Free. Expectant. Looking. Planning. Mingling. Risking. Thinking. Testing. Dinners. Movies. Afters. Relating. Retreating. Relaxing. Repeating. This. There. That. Then. Next. Her. Serendipity. Matchless. Bright. Luscious. Welcoming. Requiting. Perfect. Her. Found.

Lynn Kozlowski is in Citron Review, Molecule, Every Day Fiction, 50-Word Stories, The Dribble Drabble Review, Bright Flash Literary Review, The Zodiac Review, The Malahat Review, and The Quarterly. He has a book of short fiction, Historical Markers (Ravenna Books). He is based in the US, but spends time Canada.

Serendipity by Barbara Krasner, USA

I don’t remember how I entered his room, seeing him full-suited on the bed, his hat askew on the table. I don’t remember a burning cigarette in the ashtray, the potted palm propagating in the corner, flimsy yellow curtains opened to the azure color of the sky. I don’t remember my hands clutching a pencil and stabbing him with it as if it were a hatchet of justice. I don’t remember the blood oozing from his chest. I do remember his gallivanting with another woman, the fury raging within me, inciting every jab. I do remember, yes, the birds sang.

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her flash fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, I-70 Review, Flash the Court, Literally Stories, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net and Best Microfiction nominations. She lives and teaches in New Jersey.

Is it all Karma, Little One? By Mark LaMonda, USA

In the future

I am somewhere failing to meet expectations.

The boy who didn’t grow into the shirt.

The dog who was outpaced by the runt.

Writing really bad poems.

Wee little cricket

hiding under my piss-poor couch –

What did you do in the other life

to be here now?

Mark LaMonda is an artist and writer who lives in Santa Clarita California. His work has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Lullwater Review, January House and is forthcoming in Tough Poets Review, Shadow and Sax, and South Florida Poetry Journal.

Spelling Bee by Jan Leary, USA

I hate The Times Spelling Bee but can’t start my day without it, feeling blocked if I don’t push past Genius to Queen Bee. Beatrice Buzzwords, the siren who invites suggestions, cruelly ignores me, rejecting hammam, cavatappi, deckle, patoot, and keloid but allowing garbage words like gotcha, wanna, and gonna.

Jan English Leary is the author of three books: Town and Gown, Skating on the Vertical, and Thicker Than Blood (Fomite Press). Her short fiction has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Inkwell Magazine, and Carve. She received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Same Difference Everyday by Louella Lester, Canada

His hair a brown and yellow patchwork quilt, arms scarred like the concrete, Sammy walks the sidewalk running along the railway tracks each morning, clutching an almost splintered drumstick in each hand, ready to beat tunes on garbage can lids, willing himself to stick to the path—avoid the trains.

Whose Head Will Turn?

A lover stares into the morning sun’s glare through a taxi’s windshield. A husband gazes out and down through the condensation dripping an apartment window. And so on. You are sitting on a bus and you aren’t looking outward, instead you look down at the phone in your hand, in your lap. Your head is filled with words. Words that sigh and mock and laugh and cry. Words that leave welts when they strike like dummy-bullets. Still dreaming of sentences, paragraphs, chapters, a whole story from start to finish—you pick up the phone, tap in a number and wait.

Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks (At Bay Press 2021), contributing editor at New Flash Fiction Review, and is included in Best Microfiction 2024 & 2026. Her writing/photos appear in variety of journals.

Lobotomy by Rachel A Levine, USA

I’m not kidding.

I told my friends;

This birthday there is to be no cake.

I want the operation;

that velvet blade,

that feather that dips and cuts.

I want to love

with sparking gelatin cubes in my head,

quivering like lovers

waiting for the final dip and rub.

I want the operation. I want to dip and rub

without seeing eyes

like cats under cars.

Without hearing voices

like the smack of fish lips,

saying, I want to cry, but it’s been so long.

No joke.

I want the operation,

and a wetness like pinesap between my legs, forever.

The year I was born Albert Einstein died and Disneyland opened. This might explain why the silly and serious have always collided in my work. I began writing poetry at age 11 and had a chapbook published in my 20s. I then attended the MFA fiction program at Brooklyn College. My novel, Brooklyn Valentine, won first prize for popular fiction in the 2011 Independent Publisher's contest.

2000 BCE of Waiting by Zoé Mahfouz, France

The Christmas nativity scene was almost as sad as Baby Jesus’s facial expression. The church had drained itself of its last bipeds. Baby Jesus stared at me. I had to act. I stuffed his clayed body into my Saint Laurent tote bag and ran. My mother laughed heartily, and that made me panic a little. We sped away, like thieves escaping a heist. In this countryside ghost town, we passed a cop, who my mother thought was alerted. He was not. I gently released Baby Jesus in a forest bush. His rosy cheeks smiled at me for the first time.

Zoé Mahfouz is a French bilingual actress, screenwriter, and writer. A London Film School graduate, her work appears in 80+ literary journals worldwide. She is the author of ADHD in D Minor (North Meridian Press, 2026) and Borges Must Be Rolling in His Grave (Dancing Girl Press, 2025).

The Day I Thought We Killed My Sister by Suzanne C Martinez, USA

Mom makes me drag my little sister everywhere. When we play Stretch, she screams, even

though the penknife isn’t close. She watches us climb onto the railing and pull ourselves up

before jumping off the porch roof. We spin before touching the grass and roll down the hill.

Then we play Freeze ignoring her until she yells and jumps off the porch. She thumps onto

the grass. She doesn’t spin. She is motionless. We frantically rub her arms and legs. We

long to hear her cry and do all the things we hate. Finally, she sucks in an enormous breath.

Suzanne C Martinez’s fiction has appeared in Gooseberry Pie Lit Mag, North American Review, Wigleaf, Vestal Review, The Citron Review, and The Broadkill Review, among others, and was nominated for Pushcart Prizes (2019, 2020, 2026), The Best of the Net (2020, 2024), and Best Short Fictions (2022). She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

X: @SuzanneCMartin3 • IG: s.martinez1441 • FB: scm1441 • Bsky: @scmart.bsky.social

Like Maybe She’s More Than Just One of Seven O’Connor Kids Living in a Crappy House by Victoria Melekian, USA

First time, she wasn’t sure, so faint and fleeting was his hand as he brushed past her breast to open her car door, but the following Saturday night she was plenty positive and she could have said, “No” to him, and to his wife, “I’m no longer available to babysit,” but no one had ever looked at her like maybe she’s actually pretty, like maybe she really is somebody. Months later when her mother yelled, “What the hell were you thinking,” she shrugged, now that it was clear she and the baby wouldn’t be invited to move in with them.

Victoria Melekian’s work has appeared in print and online. Her poetry collection “The Accidental Courage of Our Lives” is available from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. Her novella-in-flash “Unhoused” won first place in the 2026 Bath Flash Fiction Novella-in-Flash Awards. For more, see her website: victoriamelekian.com

Usury-R-S Bail Bonds, LLC by Todd Mercer, USA

When desperate motherfuckers of the metropolitan area absolutely, positively can’t get help from anyone else, they reluctantly call me. It’s a non-religious bargain with the devil, but people are willing to condemn their future selves for expedient solutions today. I leave my ringer on since this gig is about availability. I cost more than my competitors. I’m not particularly good at my work. When you need someone with a pulse and working knowledge of the language to answer your call from a place of panic, a state of free-fall… I am listening. I answer, I accept all major credit cards.

Todd Mercer’s short collection, Ingenue, was a winner of the Celery City contest. His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance is available at Right Hand Pointing. Recent work appears in Literary Yard, MacQueen’s Quinterly and Michigan Bards Poetry Anthology.

Footprints in Snow by Aira Midorikawa, Japan

Knowing that alone means my time here had meaning.

That is enough.

Outside, faint snow falls.

My life has always been rain

that never let the earth set.

But tonight it is snow.

For the very first time, on the cold white ground behind me, at last, my footprints remain.

Aira is a Japanese writer whose work explores dislocation, memory, and the fragile boundary between inner and outer worlds. She writes quiet, image-driven fiction that lingers in absence, often tracing the subtle moment when perception shifts and meaning begins to emerge.

Turncoats by Ray Morrison, USA

Sadie was heating soup on the wood stove. “If they find him here, they’ll kill us.”

Elijah nodded. “He’s just a boy. Like our Samuel. If Sammy crawled to a Yankee farmhouse beggin’ for help, should they turn him in to be shot?”

“And when he recovers?”

The crack of Henry rifles drifted through the window.

Elijah looked at the bleeding soldier on their bed. He snatched up the boy’s blue coat, handing it to his wife. “Go out back. Burn this.”

Limping to the wardrobe, Elijah removed his gray Confederate sack coat and tossed it

next to the bed.

Ray Morrison is the author of two short story collections, “In a World of Small Truths,” and “I Hear the Human Noise,” (2020 gold medal IPPY Award winner for Best Southeast Fiction). His stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Ecotone, Beloit Fiction Journal, StorySouth, Fiction Southeast, and Carve Magazine.

The Most Memorable Years of Life by Noora Najafi, USA

Claudette Desrosiers spent “the most memorable years of her life” living at 1812 Second Avenue. Manhattan fit like a glove her Nana knitted her–wool stretching snug over eight fingerslots.

She’d arrived six years ago, chasing a dream of pleasing her mother. Every day, her mom’s voice pulsed in her veins: “Don’t you dare waste your life looking for things you never lost.” “Live free and full! Live in New York!”

So she moved, and traded paper heartbreaks for particleboard walls. But under dimmed lights, clad in Fred the Cat armor, she hunted for a truer story– one all her own.

Noora Najafi is a student who enjoys writing everything from gothic poetry to sci-fi flash fiction. She is honored to be published in Dribble Drabble, and hope to always continue storytelling!

Puzzle by L. Michelle Nichols, USA

My mother gives me a white jigsaw puzzle for my birthday. There aren’t any patterns or colors. The puzzle is plain white, cut into a thousand pieces, the hardest puzzle there is. The kind of gift my mother would buy herself. I smile cautiously even though I hate puzzles, even though I’ve just survived a suicide attempt. Now, I’ll have to lay it out on my dining room table for a year so my mother can gauge whether I’m getting any better by how well I solve her puzzle.

“Isn’t it wonderful,” she asks.

I surprise myself by saying, “No.”

L. Michelle Nichols’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in descant, Juked, PANK, Permafrost, Southwest Review, storySouth, swamp pink and Texas Review. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers, and she lives in rural West Texas.

There is a Luncheon Following the Service by Jennifer Pinto, USA

There are strangers at our father’s funeral dressed in torn jeans, hoodies and leopard print leggings. Legally our step-siblings, yet their names only a bitter taste on the tip of our tongues. Deanna? Darlene? We’re not sure. Dad, our only connection. With his last breath we’re untethered. We swallow our tears as they gulp their cans of Red Bull. Like decantation, the room separates. We hold stories of his youth and ours. They spin unfamiliar tales we can’t bear to hear. Resentment flows like a river, impossible to cross. There is a luncheon following the service. We don’t invite them.

Jennifer Pinto is a clinical psychologist who writes both fiction and creative nonfiction. She enjoys making hand-built pottery and drinking coffee at all hours of the day. Her work has been published in Sundog Lit, The Citron Review, Lunch Ticket, Does It Have Pockets? and The Bluebird Word among others.

The Future of Art by AP Ritchey, USA

“Don’t forget the gallery reception tonight,” my wife said.

“The guy whose paintings supposedly predict the future?”

“You’d have to believe. Just be my handsome date.”

She put on her red raincoat and off we went.

“It’s probably like Nostradamus,” I said. “Simple confirmation bias.”

It started raining as we neared the gallery and, without warning, a car jumped the curb, pinning my wife between the grill and the building.

With her last breath, she pointed across the street.

Through the gallery window, I saw a canvas. A car crumpled against a building. A figure in red pressed against bricks.

AP Ritchey is a professional graphic designer, published board game inventor, multi-instrumentalist and accomplished printmaker. (https://adamritchey.com) His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Zodiac Review, AntipodeanSF, SciFi Shorts, Eye to the Telescope, Rat Bag Lit, Nunum, 4lph4num3r1c, Club Chicxulub, and Frightening Tales, among others.

Nod by Mindela Ruby, USA

Planned for the wedding

a chuppa

the matrimonial tent

Until…

costly, complicated

and de-prioritized,

the ritual Jewish canopy

gets 86’d

Their distress

hearing this decision

shocks

the groom-to-be’s parents

even church-raised Dad

who lectures his first born

about tradition

Wedding day

an elegantly natural

chuppa of

flower and foliage

protectively frames

the marriage party

No Hebraic tapestry

yet a nod to

the dawn of

the groom’s maternal clan

Afterward

the new mother-in-law

frets that

her son and daughter-in-law

merely acted dutifully

without being one with

her people’s storied past

But not much else is missing

therefore

she holds her tongue

Mindela Ruby’s poetry and prose appear in Terrain, Santa Monica Review, Coachella Review, Rivet, and other publications plus the anthology Unmasked. Her works have been Pushcart and Best Of Net nominated. Her novel, Mosh It Up, is a dark comedy about sex addiction. She holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.

We Came Anyway by Tatum Schad, USA

Wind. Terrible and strong.

I studied Papa’s face as he watched the cellar door. We heard stories of dreadful prairie storms when we came west through St. Louis. Crops and homesteads disappearing overnight. We came anyway. The ground shook as a gale screamed through the door slats. “Will it hold, James?” Mama said. Papa twiddled with the brim of his straw hat. “It has to,” he replied. Noise like a freight train passing overhead. Hinges shrieked. Wood split. I gripped Mama’s arm. Papa looked at us, solemn. He never said ‘I love you’. But sometimes I thought he wanted to.

Tatum Schad was born and raised in western Nebraska. He spends his days as a dentist admitting to patients that he doesn’t floss as much as he should either. He resides in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife and daughter.

Safety in the North by Karen Schauber, Canada

We hug the coastline, the water lipping and lapping, squeezing us against the scrub brush and pink granite boulders. Sophie stomps her feet in plops of seafoam eddying in tide pools. We let her play. So much has been lost. But not this. Her innocence glinting in the sunlight, giggles clutching our heartbeats. We safeguard this last remnant, this singular, unsullied, untarnished, vestige. Otherwise, what is it all for? Trudging at night beneath ribbons of greenish-blue light, the auroras coxswaining us toward safety in the northern hinterlands. We press ahead. Agents two days behind at most. Our precious cargo intact.

Karen Schauber’s flash fiction appears in over 100 journals, magazines, and anthologies and have received nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. She is Curator of 'Flash Fiction Writing Tips: Penned By Masterful Flash Writers From Around The Globe', out on Amazon. Read her flash stories at: https://KarenSchauberCreative.weebly.com This story first appeared in The Hoolet’s Nook.

The Scent of Nostalgia by Brigitta Scheib, USA

The green tree, bobbing from a thread underneath my rearview mirror, wafts a clean scent. Supposedly pine, the mossy cardboard awakens ghosts. Like smoke, they billow around me, and I breathe in tendrils of my first kiss, Bon Jovi on the radio and a threadbare blanket in the back seat.

Brigitta Scheib is a teacher that lives in Harrisburg, PA with her husband, daughter and 3 orange cats. Her work can be found at Temple in a City, Flash Phantoms, A Story In 100 Words, Bright Flash Literary Review and Choeofpleirn Press.

Masoned In by Kevin Stonness, Canada

The limestone foundation, quarried by convicts at the Kingston pen, remains eternally cold. In spring the blocks weep, mineral tears of the long since dead. They say this rock absorbs agony, replaying it through the centuries.

Tonight scraping rises through the floorboards. My imagination, or the condemned? I open the cellar door. The incandescent bulb flickers creating impossible shadows. Two steps down, I see them, grey figures with hollow eyes, masonry hammers raised.

The light dies.

Panic settles like silt. The air smells of wet earth and old iron. Footsteps crunch closer. I reach back but the door is gone.

Kevin Stonness is an author from Deseronto, Ontario, specializing in psychological and ecological horror. His micro-fiction has appeared in Flash Phantoms and In Short. He explores themes of isolation and the "unknowable."

At the Intersection by Pippa Storey, USA

The convertible slows, and for a moment he’s right there, close enough to touch, leaning perilously out the passenger side, face lifted exultantly to the warm breeze, grinning broadly as sunlight glares off his wraparound shades, secured with elastic. Then he speeds off again, silken ears flying in the wind.

Pippa Storey grew up in New Zealand, studied in France, and now lives in New Rochelle, New York, where this encounter occurred. For more of her writing, digital artwork and videos, please visit https://sites.google.com/view/pippastorey

dead bird by Eldridge Thomas III, USA

He told her life had gotten so real in his thirties with her sinking, her suffering, and now this, and how he can’t even smile in his own house without guilt ripping his guts in half, and how no one could go on like this, no one, and how she married him knowing, knowing him, knowing very well who he was, knowing what he wanted—taking a boy to Opening Day, walking a girl down the aisle—knowing a dead bird can’t fucking fly, and she said it was fine, just fine, easier than radiation.

Eldridge Thomas III lives and writes in Knoxville, TN, but he's from a swamp in Georgia. He can be reached at eldridgethomas3@gmail.com.

The Tinker by Norman Thomson, Canada

Each April, Emily lingers near her farm lane, hopeful for the approaching jingle of the tinker’s bell. She imagines riding away in his pony cart, fleeing her cloistered loneliness. Her stepmother gentles a bought spool of pink ribbon. Twists Emily’s ear ’til the departing bell sounds as plunging cathedral peal.

The author lives in Ontario, where in his rec moments he riffs Beatles and blues on his Hohner harmonica. He writes micros and flash as an escape, a quest, a diversion, an ordering.

M.R.S. by Chelsea Utecht, Bosnia

“You’re not getting any younger,” Mother had said pityingly the fall of my Senior year.

Worriedly my Junior.

Encouragingly my Sophomore.

My Freshman year she – and everyone else who had the chance – joked that I was perusing my M.R.S.

That feels an eternity ago, but here’s an actual eternity, offered with a promise but no ring. “After I graduate,” he says with no mention of my own graduation. My friends have already dropped out and my mother would be relieved and it would be so easy.

He smiles because he thinks I’ll say yes. I smile because I know better.

Chelsea Utecht lives in Sarajevo, Bosnia with her husband, two sons, and former street dog/current princess. Her work has appeared in Bluestem, Shooter Literary Magazine, The Gravity of the Thing, Thirteen Bridges Review, and more. Info about her writing can be found at chelseautecht.com.

Fleeing by Kristina Warlen, USA

Midsummer stretched long across the playground. Abigail ran through grass, flower crown slipping as she chased fireflies.

“My shadow!” another girl cried.

Across the yard shadows peeled from children’s feet and drifted toward the trees.

Abigail’s alone remained.

It rose beside her and fled for the trees, Abigail close behind.

Kristina Warlen writes literary and speculative fiction exploring memory, grief, intimacy, and transformation, with work published in a variety of literary magazines and online platforms.

Menu Planning by R.K. West, USA

Sharla suggested saving time and money by feeding Monkey Chow to our husbands. After all, men and monkeys are all primates, and they can easily digest the same food. The guys aren’t really paying attention, anyway. I was doubtful, until I realized that it would add some crunch to meatloaf.

Sunbeam

At the thrift store, Jaylene was horrified to suddenly spot an old Sunbeam Mixmaster, like the one her mother used to have. As a curious toddler in 1986, Jaylene had tried, when Mama was distracted by the phone, to scoop a bit of fluffy pink frosting out of the bowl while the mixer whirled. Now, as her body flooded with the hot pain of memory, she screamed and used her mangled right hand to shove the damned thing out of sight and off the shelf. It hit the concrete floor with a metallic thud and exploded into a hundred pieces.

R.K. West is a former travel blogger who sold everything, spent two years on the road, and now lives next to the mighty Columbia River. West’s work has appeared in Johnny America, Mobius, Sudden Flash, and others.

Search Party by Sheri White, USA

My squad trudges through the snow, in a grid, searching for clues, items of clothing, a shoe, a strand of hair, bloodstains. Anything to find the young woman missing since New Year’s Eve. Hoping to discover her just cold and hurt, but thankfully alive.

They won’t.

She’s in my basement.

Sheri White lives in Maryland with her husband, their dog Josie, and two black cats. She has been published in many anthologies and magazines.

Embers Beneath the Surface by Atlas Wilder, Canada

Cracks hide behind a steady gaze, pretending the pain doesn’t consume him, while darkness claws beneath his skin. Because to show it would unravel everything he’s desperately trying to hold together. Every smile is a mask, every word measured, every night a battle with the silence that fills the space where his son should be. The world demands he carry on, but inside, he’s dying too—screaming without sound, breaking without release, loving without end. Yet, beneath the weight of grief, a flicker remains—a fragile ember of hope that whispers, there is still light worth seeking beyond the darkness.

Atlas Wilder is an emerging writer from Canada who writes in Psychological horror and many close genres. His work has appeared in "Drift" by Polar Expressions Publishing and received an Honourable mention in Glossy Planet Magazine. He spends his days writing and cuddling his Saint Bernards.

Food for Thought by Tina Wingham, Australia

Darkness creeps across my battered body as the stone walls entomb me. The long-forgotten bones of travellers past dig into me, scratching at my bruised and torn skin. Gaping wounds leave a slippery trail for the insects to creep closer, eagerly awaiting their chance at a different type of meal.

Tina Wingham is an Australian horror and dark fiction author known for her emotionally charged

storytelling and unsettling, atmospheric worlds. Drawn to the shadows of human nature, she explores fear, grief, survival and the fragile line between reality and nightmare.

2027 Best

of the Net

Nominee

2027 Best

of the Net

Nominee

Authors in this issue represent the U.S., Australia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canada, England, France, Japan and Mexico.

TDDR

Webby Award honoree for Best Cultural Website
& OTHER ATTABOYS

Welcome to Our
Summer Deep-Dive
Issue XII

A Proud Member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses

Welcome to Our Summer Deep-Dive Issue XII

A Proud Member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses

Welcome to Our
Summer Deep-Dive
Issue XII