Editors' Choice:
John Dorroh, “Just Checkin’ Up on Ya”
Runner-ups:
Virginia E. Taylor, My Favorite M
Jo Freitag, Love-Hate Cicadas (2024)
Isabel Fontes, No Straight Lines
James Garry, The Sounding of the Sike
Jeannette Geib, Receipt
Frank Haberle, Waiting in a Parking Lot
Maggie Hart, Our Arrangement
Matt McGee, Kayla Marie, Kid Dodger
Christopher Owen, Barmaid
Keith Parker, Socks in the Aquarium
Shahminee Selvakannu, Disappear
Craig This, Carnations
Gerald Yelle, I Always Knew
Micro-Prose cover art by Amanda Yskamp
“Just Checkin’ Up on Ya”
Prose Poem • John Dorroh
They asked me in the Mississippi Delta if I knew what I was getting into, did I have a sense of direction in the absence of cell service. Did I know when the oil is hot enough to drop catfish filets and if I knew which way to lay them in the big black kettle in order to avoid second-degree burns. Should the hushpuppies have jalapenos and just enough beer to make them airy and rise in the humid air to the surface like Gothic ghosts. Could I survive without red wine in dried out towns with names like Alligator, Marigold, and Hot Coffee. Would I be offended when I saw fields of cotton and busted out windows in almost every school. Do I pray enough in a day, where do I attend church, and do I mean it when I say Bless her heart. Do I know what to do when I meet a stranded truck on the side of the gravel road. And do I really have enough raw in me to understand the blues.
John Dorroh's poetry and nonfiction have appeared in over 125 journals. Six of his poems were nominated for Best of the Net. He seems to be a workshop junkie, having attended in-person and on-line gatherings for the last 10 years. He lives near St. Louis.
No Straight Lines
Fiction • Isabel Fontes
On the first morning of university, I stepped straight into my future: oil on my hands, steel in my voice, certainty under my feet. Mechanical Engineering at King’s was mine. Precision had always been my comfort — the place where things made sense, where the world obeyed a plan.
Daniel’s world bent the other way. He studied Early Childhood Education: paper crowns, lullabies, the soft chaos of crayons and patience. He was seventeen, all gentleness; I was nearly nineteen, already trained to think in straight lines and solutions.
People frowned. We made no sense together.
I drove too fast and shouted too loudly at Arsenal matches. Daniel danced with a grace that made it seem easy to move through life without collision. I built diagrams of force; he built trust and calm.
Yet when I held his hand, the world slowed down. The noise in me quieted.
They called me too much and him not enough, but together we were enough.
Love didn’t ask us to trade places or rewrite ourselves. It simply asked that we stay, side by side, writing something new: a grammar of our own, where the only rule was to be us.
Isabel Fontes is a Lisbon-born, London-based writer and author of several published books. Her fiction has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies internationally, including SREDA. She received Third Place and an Honourable Mention in HollowPoint Press’s The 300 Project and was nominated for the 2027 Best of the Net Awards.
Love-Hate Cicadas (2024)
Nonfiction • Jo Freitag
In June, the cicadas emerged, climbing up tree trunks, shedding butterscotch shrimp shells. They rasped. They bombinated, fanning orange-veined wings over fat black and olive striped abdomens. Red holly berry eyes unblinking, they crept to sun-warmed pavement where end to end, they copulated.
“Ecological enigmas,” they rose up from tree roots after years of sipping sap. They aerated our clay-hardened soils. They were food for animals. We stuggled to appreciate their wonder, as they swarmed our porches, our bodies. With needling orange legs, they crashed into our arms and necks. And constantly, constantly they sang their deafening buzz-saw chorus.
So, we cowered. We cringed. We cried out. We covered our ears, shielding from their awful cacophony. And just when we could take no more, they laid their eggs and died, carcasses and crispy wings littering the lawn.
Then, then we ventured out to cottonwood fluff floating languidly, songs of warblers, chatter of squirrels, whispers of wind. Now we felt an emptiness. And we secretly longed for them to rise again, to give us one more chance to see their bulk clinging to burdock, to feel their prickly pounce, to hear their inscrutable, sonorous cicada song.
Jo Freitag writes literary fiction, nonfiction essays and poetry, emphasizing midwestern stories. She spent her 40-year career working as a writer, starting as a journalist and retiring as a business development leader. Her story, “27 Jars of Mustard,” was published in the 2019 Writer’s Digest Short Short Story collection.
The Sounding of the Sike
Fiction • James Garry
Calum knelt at the spring and put his bare palm on the water.
The note rose instantly — a pure fifth, vibrating up through his arm, settling behind his sternum like a second heartbeat. It sounded as though it had always been there.
He thought of his cottage. Quiet now. Mairi's mug gone from the window sill. A notebook full of grid references describing a place he barely knew at all.
"Calum?" Robbie had dropped the digger to idle. "Everything alright? You're going to freeze your hand."
He didn't look back. "Robbie, can you hear that?"
Robbie tilted his head toward the wind, the idling engine, water dripping off the spruces.
"Hear what? The digger?"
The note kept ringing, humming in the back of Calum's teeth.
"Nothing," he said. "Just the burn."
He lifted his hand. The sound cut out — a silence so sudden it felt like a drop in pressure.
He took out his marker pen and moved the dam line two hundred yards down the hill, away from the spring.
James Garry is a Scottish folklorist and writer based in Edinburgh, working as Assistant Director of the Cockburn Association. He begins a PhD at the University of the Highlands and Islands this October, researching Scottish ghostlore and paranormal communities.
Receipt
Fiction • Jeannette Geib
Today, the receipt in his pocket is for two coffees.
Am I a voyeur if the information is handed to me, tucked into suit pockets? Everything must be removed before the garments are cleaned. So what if I read… keep…file them?
Most suits arrive via weary, brown-skinned women. But Mr. Dimitrov — Leon — brings his own. He has three: one he’s wearing, one he’s handing to me, one for tomorrow.
Leon parks on Walnut Street: $6.75. Walks up Main. Stops for coffee: Americano, $4.80. Continues to the bank. I have his nametag: “Loan Officer.”
Thursdays, he holds his suit out to me with both hands like handing off a sleeping baby. It smells musty from repeated wear, faintly of frying onions. I love that smell, a refuge from the chemicals.
I have collected three years of Thursdays.
I can picture her, Ms. Vanilla Latté, a new girl from the teller window, tossing her blonde hair. Leon! Headed my way?
He’s emboldened by her smile, the swish of her narrow hips.
Two coffees: $10.40
Next Thursday will be burgers for two. Then dinners. Then something wrapped in velvet I won’t see.
I smooth the receipt against the counter.
File it away.
Jeannette Geib is a writer, actor, and programmer in Morgantown, West Virginia where she hides the secret talisman that holds back the blight of cynicism creeping at the periphery.
Waiting in a Parking Lot
Fiction • Frank Haberle
I was 12 and you, Little Brother, were 10. We sat in a car outside a bar as daylight poured itself out of the summer sky. Mom and Dad were inside the bar. We climbed out of the car and entered the woods. The sun burst through the branches, like it was daytime again. You pointed to a faint trail and we followed it. As we walked up this trail, you became a little boy. You reached out and held my hand. You jumped with excitement when a frog jumped into a puddle. Ahead, through the trees, I saw the edges of mountains. You, little brother, were now a toddler. I had to carry you. Your little fingers were clasped around my neck. I could feel your breath. Your voice trailed off, like you fell asleep. You grew lighter and lighter and your grip grew softer around my neck. We came out of the woods, on the edge of a lake. I looked down into the water, leaning over the edge. I could see myself clearly, and a ring of snowy peaks; but you, dear brother, had disappeared altogether. Then Mom and Dad came out of the bar.
Frank Haberle is the author of two novels: Shufflers (Flexible Press, Minneapolis, 2021), a story of transients moving through minimum-wage jobs in the 1980s; and Downlanders (Flexible Press, 2023), following five lost souls into a fictional wilderness. Frank lives in Brooklyn, New York and works in The Bronx. frankhaberle.com
Our Arrangement
Fiction • Maggie Hart
Sometimes I wish selling my dirty underwear for money had become my full-time job, rather than something I did for a few months for one guy who was bashful when he asked if I’d consider selling him the underwear I had on, his voice so whispery I had to ask him to repeat himself, which, to him, was probably worse than me just saying no. I’d never have to buy another pair of underwear for myself, and I’d never have to choose one. The clients would have requests: a specific amount of lace, a particular print. What a relief it would be to be free of this daily decision. I’d buy a house and airplane tickets and clothes not made in sweatshops with the exorbitant amount of money men are willing to pay for fabric that has spent time pressed against skin that sees no sunlight. If only he’d never told me how our arrangement made him feel close to me. If only I’d never stopped to think about what type of closeness that was, or ways we exploited each other. If only it could’ve stayed simple, just thongs and money, just lace and paper.
Maggie Hart is a writer, traveler, and leukemia survivor from Colorado. She's currently pursuing a PhD in Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication at the University of Minnesota, where she also teaches undergraduate writing courses. Her work has been published in Off Assignment, Narratively, Citron Review, Phoebe, and The Audacity, among others. Instagram: @maggie.hart maggie-hart.com
Kayla Marie, Kid Dodger
Fiction • Matt McGee
She took the waitressing job to avoid her fiancée. An honorably discharged shore patrolman and newly minted cop, Connor felt overdue for a family. Kayla still had a few miles on her bartop odometer.
She wore the requisite stretch pants to the sports bar interview. The other girls saw her figure coming, flashed politely murderous smiles, but it was Lexi who gave Kayla her survival list.
“Card anyone remotely under thirty. Drinks first, food last. Never give out your number. Most of all, duck and dodge. This place’ll fill up with families. Kids will kneecap you. Just BAM crash straight in. When they’re here? Walk on your toes.”
Her third shift, the local Little League held Awards Night. 120 parents and kids. On toes she reminded herself. She sloshed drinks, delivered ketchup by the quart, cleared unfinished tator tots. The screech and howls, the fake-tear wails and giggles of pure joy echoed as she drove home, smiling.
She undressed, showered, and met Connor in bed.
“OK,” she said, “I’m ready.”
Matt McGee writes in the Los Angeles area. His new one-act “Girls on Film” opened at Hollywood's Hobgoblin Theatre February 20, 2026. In 2025 his work appeared in Zyzzx, Four Feathers and the Non-Binary Review. When not typing he drives around in rented cars and plays goalie in local hockey leagues.
Barmaid
Fiction • Christoper Owen
You, with your faraway look in your eyes. You’ve got to work until eleven tonight. Your feet might ache, but it’s the job you’ve got to do, sweetheart. Oh, you could be at home, your flat off Baker Street, you and the lad, his floppy hair at the front, his legs in your bed, his bad breath in the morning, hey! He’s ok. Sunday tomorrow, there’ll be coffee in the kitchen, the pub at lunch. Him and you, hey! You and him.
But. But you got to work. Be nice, lady, be sweet. Keep the gentlemen happy, you on your feet, the beat of the band in the background, bang, bang, bang. Here we go, baby face, nice smile, here’s a gent. A bottle of champagne? A bottle of bass. What a gas. He’s flirting, baby lady. He’s passing the time.
He’ll have had a few by the time you go off to the lad, you and him in your bed, him with his long legs, in the flat off Baker Street.
Christopher Owen was an actor for about 60 years. His stories have been published in literary journals and anthologies. Looking For Joan and Other Stories was published in 2024. America Awaits, My Lovely and Other Stories was published in 2021.
Socks in the Aquariuam
Fiction • Keith Parker
For their first date they went to a dinner party at a Chinese restaurant with huge fish tanks. Halfway through, Calvin removed his shoes and socks, then dropped his socks into the aquarium.
Nina, who’d been arranging and rearranging the salt and pepper shakers, stared quizzically. One sock was crimson, the other white.
“What the—” she said, chuckling.
“The koi,” he said. “Their fins are cold.”
No one else chuckled: they stared with high-society horror.
Six months later, Calvin, wearing clashing plaids, proposed in the produce aisle of an organic greengrocer. Nina’s shoulders sagged.
“I can’t,” she said.
Calvin’s voice broke. “But—?”
“You know I love you,” she said. “But you’re a tornado, and I’m a girl who alphabetizes spices.”
Calvin pocketed the ring and slumped to the floor beside the pears.
That’s when Nina saw his socks: a matching pair of practical wool hiking socks. She sat down next to him and pulled him close.
“Ask me again.”
“Huh?”
She poked him. “Ask me again.”
“Will you marry me?”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
“What changed?”
“Your socks.”
At their wedding, they had a koi-shaped wedding cake. No one knew why.
Keith Parker is an award-winning speculative fiction writer who’s been published in Hawkeye Magazine, Velvet Tarantula, Switch Microfiction, Four Tulips, Illustrated Worlds, SciFanSat, Flash Phantoms, Suddenly & Without Warning, 10x10 Flash and Six Sentences. He works at NASA (yes, really) and is married to his college sweetheart, with whom he studied beer and billiards.
Disappear
Fiction • Shahminee Selvakannu
All the fuss on their walk home from school escalates as she pushes the front door open.
“No more dhal, Amma!” he says. “I want mac and cheese —” he stops, “— and chicken nuggets!”
The six-year-old kicks off his school shoes and drops his winter coat in the hallway.
“Your coat,” she says, closing the door behind her.
He turns round, cocks his head, and tramples all over it with his eyes locked on hers.
Half way up the stairs he cries, “No more curries, for, the, rest, of, my, life!”
She yells back, “And I wish you’d just dis-ap-pear!” and then quickly regrets it after recalling her grandma’s advice back in her home-country: Words cannot be taken back once spoken. They have great power.
She turns and sighs loudly. She picks up the coat and sets it on the radiator to dry. She makes the mac and cheese, and chicken nuggets. The cooking steadies her nerves.
“Dinner,” she announces, hoping that the boy has calmed down too.
“Boy! Dinner is ready,” she calls again. “Boy?”
A touch.
She turns.
“Boy?”
A grip around her right wrist, then, on her left.
Tighter, and tighter.
She couldn’t see him.
Shahminee Selvakannu is a Malaysian writer based in Belfast. Her work explores the complexities of migrant lives living in Northern Ireland.
My Favorite M
Fiction • Virginia E. Taylor
When she spoke, my whole body listened.
We were just two women on a bench by the river, strangers technically, but learning things meant for lovers. The water kept throwing little flashes on her cheekbone every time she turned toward me, like the river was trying to underline her.
I got caught on the way her lips pressed together around every m, how she held her breath right before she said something that mattered. Her eyes would close when she mentioned a dream she once had that felt too real, and I sat there pretending I was only being polite while I memorized every detail of her mouth.
Between us, our hands rested on the splintered wood, close enough that the heat of her skin brushed the side of mine whenever she gestured. When she laughed, her knee bumped mine, just once, like an accident. She didn ’t move it back, and suddenly the whole river went loud in my ears.
It was something that happened by chance—an empty bench, a free afternoon. No numbers shared. Just the long, quiet ache of knowing I once held a conversation with a woman who will always be my favorite m.
As a Tennessee "country woman," cancer survivor and mother, Virginia E. Taylor is drawn to the quiet intensity of survival stories and women learning to belong fully to themselves. She is also a published poet.
Carnations
Fiction • Craig This
The bucket of red carnations sits wilting in the oppressive heat of an August afternoon. Behind it sits Elias, holding a sign: Flowers — $1 donation.
Adding donation was Bud’s idea. It will make them more likely to give, said Bud. It hasn’t helped. If a legless man sitting in a wheelchair won’t make them give willingly, nothing will.
He doesn’t mind.
He sits. He waits. He hopes. He prays.
He doesn’t mind those who pull up to the intersection and stare. He doesn’t mind those who drive by and shout insults. Like those who stop and offer money, a bottle of water, or a simple hello, their reactions let him know he exists. He is noticed.
It’s the driving past without looking—without noticing—that hurts the most.
Well, almost.
A car pulls alongside him, waiting for the light to change. Surprisingly, its windows are down in the oppressive heat.
From the back seat comes a small voice. “Daddy, what’s that man doing?”
The response is swift. The windows roll up, sealing Elias outside. Elias and the child can only stare at each other.
The light changes.
The car begins to pull away.
The child waves goodbye.
Craig This is the Director of Institutional Research at Xavier University and a veteran history instructor. His scholarship analyzes American comic books as cultural texts, focusing on trauma, identity, and historical memory.
I Always Knew
Fiction • Gerald Yelle
He was a character. He didn’t like it when anyone talked about him. He didn’t want to be on your radar. If you sat next to him, he moved. He’d ghost you and you’d ghost back. That’s the way it was until he called. He said he didn’t want to be alone anymore. Not so totally alone anyway. He’d come to terms with his phobias, his allergies and his squeamishness, not to mention his childhood and the parts that continued to haunt him. It wouldn’t come between him and the world anymore. He was tired of feeling disconnected. We talked about it, and he said the world was changing and attitudes he had when he was young no longer had any relevance. I said it was true that people persecuted for centuries no longer were. At least not in the same way. But things keep changing. Maybe it would go the other way again. I felt I was saying the wrong thing. No worries, he said. He knew what I meant. He wouldn’t let me drive his car, but I could live in it if I wanted.
Gerald Yelle has an MFA from UMASS, Amherst. He has worked in restaurants, factories, schools and offices. His books include Love Bomb, Evolution for the Hell of It, the bored and The Holyoke Diaries. His chapbooks include No Place I Would Rather Be and A Box of Rooms. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.