'What Floated Back' by Meg Pokrass

The boy was there when the sun rose but he wasn’t there in the evening. The boy was there when the sun rose but she didn’t remember his name. When she listened to music, he was back, and only then did she know how much she had missed him. Again, she was a young woman sitting on her sofa listening to lute and guitar as the boy floated back to her. It was morning again, the sun was rising, but the curtains were drawn. The boy was a boy, and she was an old woman and this is how things were. None of it mattered anymore because everything mattered too much. It was if she could take a chance and win the boy back if she really wanted. She remembered all of this now—how he was too many things to her at once, and she had to let him go. --- Meg Pokrass has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including New England Review, Wigleaf, Electric Literature, Five Points, and other places. She has published 10 books of fiction and prose poetry. Her newest full collection First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories is from Dzanc Books. First published in Rawhead.

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NFFD 2026 Prompt #12: Heron

   Prompt #12: Heron Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2026 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of Bridges. Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one prompt every hours from 00:00 until midnight (BST), for a total of 25 prompts in all.  You have until 23:59 BST on Sunday to submit your responses for possible publication here at the Write-In over the course of the next week. * Take a close look at Joanna Campbell's painting, 'Heron'. The painting features cool, watery teals and a lone bird standing amidst textured, shifting tides. Write a story centred on a moment of profound stillness, patience, or solitary observation.  To make this extra challenging, we ask you to avoid the following topics entirely: grief, mourning, illness, or dementia. Instead, lean into themes of discovery, anticipation, or quiet contentment. * If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 12: Heron You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 14 June 2026 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In. You can claim the badge for this prompt by visiting our badges page. --- Artwork by Joanna Campbell.

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'The Texan' by Bronwen Griffiths

I lose my heart to a Texan guy who says he has no name but calls me Sweetheart and Pepper and he holds my hand and takes me to the desert to look at the stars and he laughs louder than anyone I have ever known and he was born in Dallas and is big like a bear and his eyes are brown, his eyes are full of shit, this is what his father said, but to me they are like some kind of deep river you can’t be sure of getting to the bottom of and he wears a silver bracelet on his left wrist and a silver and turquoise ring on one finger and this makes me blue for a guy I once knew but all the time I am around the Texan guy I am together happy and sad but there’s never going to be a together with this Texan even though for a while we are close as we can be in this big lost country which is all dust and unknown plants with strange habits like his own. When I leave, forever leave, I am lost and found and lost again but I do not forget the places of dust, stars and strange plants or the Texan who still creeps into my heart and will always be trouble to any woman coming his way.   --- Bronwen Griffiths writes longform and shortform fiction. Her latest novel, Longshore Drift, was published in March 2026, and her flash pieces have appeared all over the world. She lives in East Sussex, UK. 'The Texan' was first published by Ellipsis Zine in 2020. 

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'Dinomum' by Zoë Davis

My son is watching TV, using a chair in all the wrong ways, legs kicking at the ceiling while his tender body lies at right angles on crisp-crumbed carpet. He is five and a Tupperware box full of beloved things.  He is telling me the names of all the dinosaurs, not just his favourite ones but all of them, as all of them are the best and they lived a really long time ago and some of them ate leaves but some of them ate each other, which is gross but they didn’t have anyone to cook them dinner so it’s okay. No one knows why dinosaurs aren’t around anymore, but some people think that a big meteor hit the Earth and that smashed them all to bits but as we have the moon now, meteors aren’t so much of a problem. Bits of dinosaur can still be found to this day. They are called fossils and there are curly ones and big ones like at the museum and ones that can be found at the beach. Can we go to the beach? It doesn’t matter if it’s raining. Or that we live in Reading. Dinosaurs could have lived in our house once. Dinosaur means terrible lizard or great lizard, which doesn’t make any sense.  I pick him up with tiny arms. Lift him high. We roar together, for as long as he lets me hold him.  --- Zoë Davis is a writer from Sheffield, England, who loves exploring the mythical within the mundane. Forward Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work can be found in publications such as Frazzled Lit, Roi Fainéant, and Citywide Lunch. As a stubborn FND sufferer, Zoë balances her creative life with playing wheelchair rugby league. Follow her on X @MeanerHarker, where she’s always happy to have a virtual coffee and a chat.  

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'Still Life' by Nora Nadjarian

Mum has ketchup on her finger, she’s been painting on empty plates again.  Bobbi and I, elbows on the table, wait for her promises to sizzle, to pop. The kitchen smells of fried and crispy nothing balls and in the TV ad some kids are licking colours, chewing Gummy Bears, their tongues all rainbowy. It’s all an illusion, this life thing, Mum says. But still. Bobbi’s eyes water, my mouth too. The plate is a pizza is a plate. The plate is a pizza and it breaks when Dad kicks the table. Mum has ketchup on her finger.  --- Nora Nadjarian is a poet and writer from Cyprus. Her short fiction has been published in journals including Milk Candy Review, Ghost Parachute, Fractured Lit and was chosen for Wigleaf‘s Top 50 (selected by Kathy Fish). She placed third in the Welkin Writing Prize in 2025.  

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'Mbele' by Anselm Eme

He sleeps beneath the closed bank, counting breaths like coins.  Yesterday he wore a suit and signed approvals;  Today the city erases him.  When the cough came, the guards stepped back.  He remembers his mother’s room, the smell of soap, the promise that roofs endure.  At dawn, a woman kneels, not to judge, but to listen.  She offers tea and a form with his real name.  Sirens fade.  He signs slowly.  The street loosens its grip.  Home, he learns, can begin as a chair, a cup, a witness.  Behind them, winter waits, patient, counting failures, watching who disappears. --- Anselm Eme, a banker, financial consultant, and author, blends expertise with creativity in works like Whiskers, Our Kids And Us, Awake Africa!, and Sages In Pursuit. Through captivating storytelling, he explores societal themes, inspiring readers with thought-provoking insights.  

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Debut Flash: 'The Visitor at Blackthorn Station' by Yolanda Lynn Sheppard

The train arrived at half past midnight, though no train was scheduled at that hour. The fog was so thick it seemed to breathe, curling around the iron rails like something alive. The lanterns along the platform flickered awake one by one, startled from their sleep.  Clara had not meant to be there. She had wandered from the inn after a dream she could not shake — a voice calling her name, a promise whispered in the dark.  The station was deserted, the ticket booth shuttered, the clock frozen at twelve. Yet the train waited, humming softly, as though it had been expecting her. The doors opened with a hiss. A rush of cold air spilled out, carrying the scent of roses and old stone. No passengers stepped off. No conductor called for boarding. Only silence — and then a voice. “You’re late.”  Clara turned. A man stood in the doorway of the nearest carriage, tall and elegant, his coat sweeping the floor. His face was shadowed beneath a wide‑brimmed hat, but his eyes gleamed like polished obsidian. “I don’t know you,” she said. He smiled faintly. “No. But you knew me once.” The fog thickened, wrapping around her ankles like affectionate hands. The train’s lights pulsed, silver and soft, illuminating the name etched on the side of the carriage: The Blackthorn Line. Her breath caught. “That line was closed years ago.” “Not for me,” he said. “Not for us.” He extended a gloved hand. “Your family made a promise. A vow sealed in blood and moonlight. You carry their name — and their debt.” Clara stepped back, but the train seemed to move forward, its hum deepening to a heartbeat. “I don’t understand.”  “You will,” he murmured. “When you remember.” He removed his hat. His face was pale, beautiful, and tragic — the kind of beauty that hurt to look at. His eyes were endless night, and his expression was not cruel but longing. “I waited,” he said softly. “Through fire, through ruin, through every century that forgot us. I waited for you.”  Clara’s pulse stuttered. “For me?”  “For the one who would return.” He reached into his coat and drew out a silver locket, tarnished and old. Inside was a miniature portrait — her face, painted in delicate strokes, wearing a dress she had never owned. “I painted this,” he said. “The night you left me.”  The fog trembled. The lanterns dimmed. Clara felt the world tilt, memory flooding back in flashes — a ballroom lit by candlelight, a waltz that never ended, a kiss beneath the clock tower, and a promise whispered against her throat: I will find you again. Her knees weakened. “You died.”  He nodded. “And so did you.”  The train’s whistle cried — low, mournful, like grief given sound. The man stepped closer, his hand still outstretched. “Come,” he said. “The journey is short, but the destination is eternal.”  Clara hesitated. The platform beneath her feet felt less solid, the fog rising higher, swallowing the world. She looked into his eyes — and saw not death, but devotion. A love that had refused to fade. She took his hand. The train doors closed behind her. The lanterns went out. And when morning came, Blackthorn Station was empty again — except for a single silver locket lying on the platform, its portrait newly painted.  --- Yolanda Lynn Sheppard is a writer from Maryland whose work explores memory, atmosphere, and the quiet tensions that shape everyday life. She is a single parent to a 14‑year‑old son  

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'Three Cows: Midsummer Reflections in the Up-Meadow' by S A Greene

‘… anyway, all they did was get their house broken into by a little girl. Why is that so special?’,’ asks Buttercup. ‘Must we go through this again?’  ‘I’m only saying…’ ‘ Yeah, yeah… “Three Bears”, “The Three Musketeers”, why not “The Three Amazing Cows”… yadda yadda…’ says Elaine.   ‘Well? Why not?’ ‘We haven’t done anything.’ ‘We chew cud.’ Elaine looks unimpressed. Buttercup raises the stakes. ‘And we fart.’ Bang on cue, two hikers appear. Elaine and Buttercup saunter across the field and turn so their rumps are facing the footpath. As the hikers approach they lift their tails and break wind.  The sun comes out. A Belted Galloway lollops towards them. ‘Morning, Cheryl!’ they call. ‘Glorious day!’ says Cheryl.  ‘What’s glorious about it?’ asks Buttercup. ‘Oh, this sunshine! These poppies! The three of us here together… Oh, this… this Life!’ Buttercup wanders off to investigate someone else’s cowpat. ‘Anyway, you’ll never guess where I’ve been!’ says Cheryl. ‘Next field.’ ‘How do you know?’ Elaine gestures at the open gate. ‘Wild guess.’ A bull swaggers into the field opposite. ‘Phwaaorr’ says Elaine. Cheryl humps her for a bit and then makes a suggestion:  ‘Let’s trample someone to death! A dog!’  ‘Whatever for?’  ‘Might be fun. Inflicting pain. Got to be more to life than farting.’ ‘Sounds pretty sadistic to me,’ says Buttercup, who’s rejoined them. ‘Count me in.’ ‘Buttercup...’ says Elaine.  ‘It would make us famous! “The Three Bad Cows”… “Three Dog-Murdering Cows” – even better…’ ‘Buttercup!!’ ‘Please don’t judge me, Elaine. A cow needs her dreams. And anyway, one man’s meat... as you’re always saying.’ ‘Fair point. Sorry, Buttercup. You kill whoever you like.’ ‘No worries. Let’s eat.’ The cows lower their heads and ruminate. The poppies dance and glow. A skylark sings.    ‘What’s meat?’ asks Cheryl, after a while. --- S A Greene's stories feature wombats, tables (kitchen, picnic, dining), homesick capybaras, a foetus with dodgy political views, duplicitous eels, a musical vagina, the Last Man on Earth, and a blue sponge.

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'How to Prevent a Breakdown' by Katherine Garrison

Barrelling down I-80 on the way to pick up your sister, you’re wondering if she’s going to give you shit about how you got arrested for punching a guy a few months ago. Her life always looks seamless. You don’t often get to see behind the facade until on this visit you make a spontaneous midnight McDonald’s run where she kicks your tires and says, they’re bald.  In the parking lot, shovelling fries into your mouths, you tell her I think the man I’m dating might be the one.  She likes how he treats you with respect. For a while she worried that she’d have to come home one year and prise you from the grasp of some asshole. You’d probably be able to punch someone like that out yourself, though.  You’re simultaneously offended and flattered.  She tells you, I’ve been worried about my sister-in-law dying and leaving behind her kids. The ‘all clear’ felt like deflation—in a good way. Why didn’t you tell me? She smiles faintly. What could you have done from 3000 miles away?  She’s right, the only time you’ve directly dealt with death was your grandma when you were ten. There’s nothing you could have done except listen. Obviously, she has other people that fulfil that need for her. You can’t help feeling a little jealous. You’ve always wanted to be closer. But maybe this, right here, right now, is closeness. Your strange brand of it.  We’ll get them changed tomorrow. You both laugh at how baldness of all things causes potential danger. Some kind of living on the edge. But you agree, and it prevents you from having any sort of breakdown, car or otherwise, on the side of I-80.  --- Katherine Garrison writes short fiction and poetry often exploring themes through nature, food, and the weird. Her work has appeared in foofaraw, Elegant Literature, Baubles from Bones, Superlative Literary Journal, Variety Pack, Wordfire Press, and January House Literary Journal. She was nominated for Best Microfiction 2026. Bluesky: @katherinegarrison.bsky.social  

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'Mr Shem' by Jude Mason

Rosalie was the oldest of seven sisters, and got the prettiest name. She got the prettiest face too, but she turned down all the men who came asking. She said they were all too independent-minded to be good husbands. Finally, when all her sisters were married and Rosalie still wasn’t, she said she’d make a husband for herself. Next day, Mister Shem came to call. Mr Shem was tall and well-built and a nice sort of red-earth colour, and he wore a carnation on his lapel and had his hair down almost over his eyes. Rosalie took him in to meet her daddy and said this is Mister Shem, and he’s new in town and he’s a good worker and he wants to marry me. Isn’t that right, Mister Shem? Rosalie’s daddy knew what was what, and he said you tell me Rosalie, is this man here a golem, and did you make him yourself? Rosalie frowned and her daddy said, babygirl, you can’t just make a person, that’s not right. And Mister Shem, how do you feel about all of this? But Mister Shem only blinked and looked at him, and Rosalie said I want a man who’ll do what he’s told, and what I’m telling you both is we’re going to get married this weekend. So that was that. There weren’t any children, of course, but they had a big old house and a nice garden. Mister Shem did everything Rosalie said, and maybe they were happy together, and maybe they weren’t. When she died, everyone thought Mister Shem would crumble. But instead he left town in the middle of the night, and was last seen by Alberto Rosencrantz boarding a train to San Francisco, with a light in his eyes like no-one had ever seen.   --- Jude Mason is a Yorkshire-based writer who is convinced most problems can be solved by spending more time talking to cats. 

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'A Brief History of Atomic Time' by Fiona McKay

In the staffroom, Kate plugs in a fan which swings from side to side, moving the stale air around. Beside her, a physics textbook is open, and she reads – An atomic second is defined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a caesium-133 atom. There is an orange on her desk and she peels it, inhales the bright, sweet scent. She reads about the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of this atom. She is in transition between breaktime supervision and her final year French students. This atom must be at rest, at zero degrees Kelvin. Her foot taps as she refreshes her email; refreshes again. There are sixty seconds in one earth minute. Sixty of those in an hour. Twenty four hours in a full spin of the globe. One hundred and sixty eight (she imagines this in the voice of a darts commentator) hours in the space between one weekend and the next. Between an interview, and a possibility. The orange drips juice and her fingers are sticky on her phone as she calculates the number of seconds in a week. The app refuses to multiply the 604,800 seconds by the oscillations she’d read in the textbook. She agrees. Whatever it is, it’s too many to contemplate. She feels every single oscillation. Balances the needs of her students, and her desire for a promotion. Other factors: what her ex will have to say about it; are her children happy; does she need to worry about her pension or will the world have ended? She goes back and forth. The effect of waiting on the passage of time should be studied. Maybe it has been, she doesn’t know. Maybe it becomes quantum time. An oscillation of a caesium-133 atom, under observation, approaches infinity. She checks her email again. --- Fiona McKay is the author of the novellas-in-flash, The Lives of the Dead and The Top Road, and the collection Drawn and Quartered. Her flash fiction is in The Forge, Gone Lawn, Ghost Parachute, trampset, Peatsmoke, Fractured Lit and others. She lives in Dublin.  

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NFFD 2026 Prompt #13: River's Edge

  Prompt #13: River's Edge Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2026 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of Bridges. Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one prompt every hours from 00:00 until midnight (BST), for a total of 25 prompts in all.  You have until 23:59 BST on Sunday to submit your responses for possible publication here at the Write-In over the course of the next week. * Write a story set entirely on the banks of a river. Include two or more characters who interact in some way, but avoid using any dialogue, direct or reported.  Focus heavily on the sensory details of the environment: the smell of the silt, the sound of the tide, the texture of the mud.  Use this sensory detail to help with the storytelling.... * If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 13: River's Edge. You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 14 June 2026 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In. You can claim the badge for this prompt by visiting our badges page. --- Photograph by Mikhail Nilov via pexels.

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'I Miss Smoking' by Cath Holland

Cellophane crackle. Pop open packet. Cardboard-paper sigh. Lips wrap around filtered tip. Pink matchstick scratches sandpaper. Zippo click, roar and FIRE. Hot electric orange glow. Smoke tickles back of throat. Flick-flick ash. A sensual ceremony bonding outcast rebels with a cause to ask ‘anyone got a light?’ Wendy at school nicks your dinner money turns into your bestie at break and short years later your CEO is call me Dave for the length of time it takes to smoke a beautiful white cigarette, the love of all our lives. Still – pack it in eventually or die. You give up everything but dirty yellow fingers. No whiffs. No butts. Grieve for a friend who is no such thing. But it was good while it lasted, weren’t it. And even after all this time sometimes walking down the street a snifter of ciggie smoke floating tickles tastebuds. Takes all the self-respect you own not to snatch the rollup out of that stranger’s hand. And suck on it. Hard. Cheeks turned inside out. Second hand-me-down smoke. What a drag. Not even your favourite brand. But you’ll take it. Inhale deep. In and out, and again. Taking time. Dreaming. Recalling when all possibilities were eternal, endless. Then you walk on. Leave it. Get on with your day.   --- Cath Holland is a writer of fiction and fact based on Merseyside, published by Mslexia, Deak Ink Books, Fictive Dream, Arachne Press.  

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'Fingernails' by Gessica Sakamoto Martini

Your mother asks if you feel them in your heart. She repeats the question for years, until you learn to say, “What should I feel?” instead of, “What do I feel?” Your mother answers your question on the last day. “My fingernails,” she says. “I hid them in your heart.” Your mother has scrubbed many floors, but you now realize she has also scrubbed away something else. The hands that made bread are long gone. Her hands smell of bleach, and they brush, brush, brush. A scraping feeling carves its way through your heart. You bring offerings to it; there is nothing else to do. Your heart is gleaming. Your heart is as white as the tiles of the man’s house your mother has worked in her entire life.     --- Gessica Sakamoto Martini’s work has been nominated for Best of the Net and appears or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast Journal, Whale Road Review, HAD, DMQ Review, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from Durham University (UK) and is the Editor-in-Chief of Orion’s Belt magazine.

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'Talking About Potatoes' by Ronald J Greig

“Have you tried any British Queens?” asked Da, with no hint of irony. I sipped a glass of bitter wine. “I’m sure I probably have.” His knuckles were swollen red as he struggled with the scraper. I offered to peel the potatoes for him. I weighed their cool heaviness in the palm of my hand, their thin skin speckled with the memory of peaty Irish earth. “That one’s a bit bad.” Da said with disappointment as he supervised my work. Under the creamy shaved skin, a bruise had surfaced. “Throw it out.”  Later, as we ate, potatoes were discussed and rated. King Edwards. Maris Piper. Anything but Ma’s empty seat. Or worse.  After dinner and another bottle of wine, I grew brave. “You know… don’t you? About me.” “Of course I know.” His eyes wouldn’t meet mine. “We’ll get through Christmas, and then you can go.” He struggled to his feet pressing hands on his knees to lift himself and made for the drink’s cabinet by the tree. “Don’t come back.”  I blocked his path. “Don’t be daft.” I reached out to embrace him, but he pushed me away. “Okay, I’ll just leave now then.” He poured a whiskey, drained it and stared at the empty glass. “I said it without thinking. Take no notice, son.” He looked at me and his eyes were bright blue, glittering with reflected fairy lights.  “I never did.”  And then he hugged me, without hesitation.  I felt gnarly fingers dig into my back and the cool uncertainty of his love. --- Ronald J Greig grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland but has spent the last 30 years in London. He has an enduring love for ghost stories, science fiction, and tales of the macabre, especially those with a modern or queer twist. Ronald has had three previous short stories published.  

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'Magnolia' by Emily Devane

The magnolia comes into the room and asks me what I’ve done with her new shoes.  I shake my head, because no, I haven’t seen the magnolia’s new shoes and just how many shoes does a tree need, and do they have laces or buckles, and is there a specialist shop for that? The questions keep coming until the magnolia scratches her crown and flounces out of the room, trailing petals in her wake.  I feel bad when that happens, because the magnolia’s blossom is so lovely. Each flower is an elegant pink cup, the shape of a champagne flute, tall and proud, and when they fall, the flowers resemble tears, and the magnolia’s limbs look naked. I follow the trail of petals, picking them up as I go, and I place them in the fruit bowl. I lay them out delicately, so that they resemble a living thing once again, and the magnolia, who is sulking by the kitchen door, acknowledges my effort.  ‘It was silly really, buying shoes,’ she says.  ‘Not at all,’ I reply. ‘Together, we’ll find them. They’re probably in the cupboard under the stairs. Everything ends up there.’  The magnolia nods. ‘I can sense the wind,’ she says. ‘My petals are almost gone.’ I discern her mouth and eyes in the twisted bark of her trunk. She smiles sadly. This flowering is short, always too short. I wish I could pause time, somehow, but I know she must leave. When she goes, the magnolia casts a shadow that stretches across the rest of the afternoon, covering everything.  Later, I find the shoes were in the garden where the magnolia used to stand. I try them on, but they do not fit. --- Emily Devane is a writer from West Yorkshire. She has won prizes, including the Bath Flash Fiction Award, a Northern Writers' Award and a Word Factory apprenticeship. Emily teaches creative writing and works at The Grove Bookshop in Ilkley, where she runs the writing group and helps with events. 

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Bourbon Penn 38

Stories by Thomas Ha, Cody Goodfellow, Michael Kelly, Charity Ogechi, Jan Stinchcomb, Josh Pearce, Salini Vineeth, and Jim Marino. Cover art by Lix North.

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