Public Notice of Removal

Salena Casha

In the fall of 2020, they only fought at night in the park, and, because of that, Biz realized she was a light sleeper. It wasn’t like she didn’t try: earplugs, white noise, copious amounts of weed. All futile when they started hurling insults against the tree trunks and concrete benches. From them, she learned the neighborhood had bad acoustics and closed shelters. It’d go on until the cops came with their car doors that barked shut. The uneasy, muttered silence they brought was what she came to hate the most, her imagination clicking into black and white scenes of 60’s dogs and firehoses.

She should have moved as far from them as she could while staying indoors, but instead, she crept closer. First, the right side of her bed. Then, the kitchen chair. Next, the balcony door. The night she made it out onto the tiled veranda that overlooked the park, something had changed. During the in between of Biz’s waking and sleeping, the canopy of oak trees had been razed to the ground. The benches, removed.

The people, gone.

In the twilight, the twisted figure of a wolf, planted squarely on the remaining matted grass made her freeze. It did not howl, just stared out from oiled pupils and it took her minutes to realize it was plastic, the kind she’d seen on the Esplanade to ward off geese. Later, when she closed her eyes and chased sleep, all she could see was its snarling, silent face.


Author: Salena Casha’s work has appeared in over 100 publications in the last decade. Her most recent work can be found on HAD, Flash Frog, and Ghost Parachute. She survives New England winters on good beer and black coffee. Subscribe to her substack at salenacasha.substack.com

Lost in Time

Julian Cadman

One thirty in the morning. The world to ourselves. Just you, me, and our forever hug.

A full moon sends slivers of silvery light through the kitchen window blinds. But the truth in your eyes reflects the darkness of this moment. From nurturing you to nursing you, life’s rollercoaster is flat lining. But then… did I see you blink?

As the curtain comes down on our famous final scene, is there one more encore?

No… my lying eyes are taunting me, as yours fade like footprints in melting snow.

I hug you tighter still. Like the harder I hold will prevent you from slipping through my fingers towards memory.

But then… did I hear you sigh?

Or was it a wheeze, like the sound of an old set of bellows?

Now my ears join my eyes in cruel sensory acts of betrayal.

Your loss about to become my lost.

So, it’s time for the unrehearsed final speech; the epilogue to our life story. But the words get caught in my throat, losing their fight to escape against a tsunami of guttural sobs. I lean forward in your basket to do ‘noses’ one last time. Yours is cold like a winter’s morn, mine snivelling like a child having had its favourite toy confiscated.

One thirty-five in the morning. The world to ourselves. You, me, and your final breath hanging in the air like a bubble about to burst.

One thirty-six.

Just me.

And a personal apocalypse.


Author: Julian lives and works in Hampshire and took up Creative Writing as a hobby eight years ago. He particularly enjoys writing flash fiction and short stories.

How to Mend a Man with a Cover like Bark

Stephanie Percival

They stretcher him across oceans of muddy battlefield; discarded flotsam.

Around him, everything, even blood and bone merge to mud, clagging his torn nostrils, his ripped mouth. Trees, their bark blackened; branch and trunk split, observe him. Quagmire of limbs, trunks, torsos. Man and nature, shattered.

He wakes in a hospital bed. Light pricking through bandages over his face. His breath comes in stutters. The torture of battle, irritates like crawling insects beneath his skin. The bed creaks as he moves, or perhaps his bones do. His bruised body triggers memories of falling from a tree as a child. Nineteen now, he’s child no more.

As bandages are removed, people turn away. In the mirror he comes face-to-face with the bogeyman. His eyes sting, hot tears dripping down the scarred pulp of what had been handsome features. He curls in on himself, a hibernating animal seeking escape.

The mask-maker comes to him. A vision emerging from shafts of light. She’s young, aproned in white. Her fingers tremble as they touch his crevassed face, tendrils seeking out the grain of the youth he’d been.

After she’s gone, he sleeps; dreams of running through woods.


She ties the wooden mask with care, making sure the edges don’t chafe. Her touch is sunlight. In the mirror his reflection raises a shaking hand to the mask. He caresses the gleaming wood, smooth under his touch, contouring cheek bone. A protective plaque covering his scars.

Half man, half tree. Able to face the world.


Author: Stephanie began writing after being shortlisted for the BBC End of Story competition. She enjoys writing in different styles and genres, and has been short, long-listed and won several writing competitions. In 2020 her novel, ‘All the Trees in the Wood,’ was short-listed in the Agora, Work in Progress Prize.

This story won First Prize in the January 2024 Monthly Micro competition.

Image: American Red Cross, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Home. Work.

John Holmes

He can’t see me from where he’s standing. I’m in the perfect position, hidden behind the laminated table menu.

His blue striped shirt, which I washed and ironed yesterday, is sticking to his chest, the top three buttons all undone.

A flame theatrically explodes and lights up the kitchen area. He laughs; loud enough for everyone in the café to hear.

“Laughing,” I mouth to myself, as if speaking into a hidden microphone. I really can’t recall the last time I heard him doing that.

I lift my head and watch him twirl round, wiggling his shoulders and performing a couple of synchronised dance steps with a young barista.

I feel my lips move again: “Dancing!”

A new song starts up, asking who’s letting the dogs out? He holds a spoon in front of his lips and barks along to the tune. The young girl at the cash desk is also yapping, like an unleashed groupie. I catch myself grimacing, but manage to suppress the urge to growl.

He’s bouncing up and down now, waving his hands in the air, wagging an imaginary tail.

I slip a fiver under the mug and sneak away, unnoticed.

“How was work?” I ask.

“Boring,” he replies.

Pointing the remote at the TV, he settles deep into his armchair.

I let out a private sigh, switch on the small table light, open my book and stare down at the words.

We won’t speak again until it’s time for our hot chocolate.


Author: John Holmes’ work has recently appeared in Paragraph Planet, 101 Words, People’s Friend, Fragmented Voices, Pen to Print, Glittery Literature, Globe Soup, Drabble, Ellipsis Zine. Winner of The Times short story award. He likes to cycle and write – but not at the same time.

For Sale – vacant possession upon completion, many original features

Jane Broughton

I pushed the door open. The house released stale air with a sigh. It was empty but not silent. Silverfish swam and swarmed behind wisteria wallpaper. Tiny claws scrabbled behind skirting boards. The scratched wooden floor stretched before me. I remembered the times I’d teetered out on ridiculous heels. I’d imagined making an entrance somewhere, heads turning, people noticing me.

I walked into the front room and ran a finger over the mantelpiece. Sunlight flowed through the stained glass panels and made tapestries of the threadbare rugs. Crimson roses and turquoise diamonds glowed briefly until extinguished by passing clouds. I drew a heart in the dust. A faint scent of bluebells welcomed me and I breathed in the familiar sweetness. Memory gifted me my mother’s smile as she sprayed me with cologne. I heard again her laughter as I sneezed.

Reluctantly I turned around to face the stairs. There it was. I could feel it in my chest, the reverberation of heavy thuds shaking the house as he tumbled. The scent of bluebells faded; replaced by the sour tang of beer and the echo of old Charlie’s frantic barking. A large tartan slipper caught my eye. It was still wedged between two broken spindles. Fragments of the past, muted and blurry but insistent as moths, buffeted against my face. Then the sound of a hesitant cough shattered the spell.

“Saying goodbye?” asked the woman with the clipboard.

“Laying a few ghosts,” I replied. I walked past her, into the sunlight.


Author: Jane won Beaconlit Festival’s 2019 flash fiction prize. Her stories have been published in a variety of magazines, and online by FreeFlashFiction and Reflex Fiction. She’s been a LISP and Edinburgh Flash Fiction Award finalist and had pieces shortlisted by Retreat West, Writing Magazine and Flash500. She tweets @janeb323.

Excess Pruning

Geraldine McCarthy

Let me tell you the story of a woman who uprooted herself from that God-forsaken town, from people with small minds and even smaller ambitions. Worked day and night, juggling study and bar-tending, balancing books and babysitting drunks. By twenty-five, she had transplanted herself into the silky, dark soil of the corporate world. By thirty, she owned her own company, had three hundred people working beneath her in various branches.

Success made her grow taller, closer to the sun. Yet, no matter how beautiful her natural foliage, she knew she could look better. She plucked her velvety green leaves and exchanged them for silver ones. She even added a few gold leaflets, which glinted like coins in the morning light. When her mother died, she had to go back to that half-horse town and meet the little people with their humdrum lives. She couldn’t understand why no one spoke to her. She sat alone at the wake; resplendent, but outcast. People passed her sandwiches out of politeness, smiled shyly, but didn’t engage in small talk.

Little did she know, it wasn’t because they had anything against her. They meant no harm at all. They didn’t speak because they simply didn’t recognise her.

Let me tell you a story of heart rot setting in. A wound in a bark is no small thing.


Author: Geraldine McCarthy lives in West Cork. She writes flash fiction, short stories and poems. Geansaithe Móra, her flash fiction collection, is published by LeabhairCOMHAR.