Submissions open for “Sweet Hereafter”

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Submissions are open for issue #20 of Shooter Literary Magazine, with the theme of “Sweet Hereafter”.

We’re looking for stories, essays, memoir and poetry to do with afterlives: life after death, life after work, life after having a baby, life after divorce… Anything to do with what follows a major change in life, when someone or something ends and significant adjustment occurs. Pieces that treat heavy subject matter – grief, heartbreak, loss, bereavement, ageing, death – with a light or humorous touch would be especially welcome. A positive (or wild, or bizarre, or comic) spin on what comes after a difficult ending or change would be in keeping with both parts of the theme.

The theme is open to wide interpretation, but please adhere to the submission guidelines. In addition to thematic relevance, we seek engaging, elegant writing that maintains a high literary standard.

Writers should send short stories and non-fiction of 2,000-6,000 words and/or up to three poems by the deadline of June 22, 2025. Please submit according to the guidelines at https://shooterlitmag.com/submissions.

Shooter Flash: “Thursday’s Dresden’s” by Jacksón Smith

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Twenty minutes past my reservation. I’m late for a meeting. My foot taps; I check emails. The Barber – thick beard, leather apron – rolls up his sleeves. One-man shop. Too late to go anywhere else. 

Last week my new manager said I looked like a highland cattle. I had to Google it. Turns out: majorly insulting, and a brag about his Scottish whisky tour with the Board. Clean it up, he said, pointing his toothpick at my hair, or quit and go back to hacky sacking with your pals. 

Finally, the Barber’s done sweeping the last guy’s hair. The bell rings. In comes an old bald man. Tall-faced and sorta droopy, with delicate wireframes and a beige cardigan.

The Barber clasps the man’s shoulders and escorts him into the well-worn chair. 

What a way to run a freaking business. I stand and hold up my iPhone. “I have a reservation.”

The Barber’s face screws. “With who?”

“What do you mean with who?”

He points with his scissors at the clock. “Twelve thirty on Thursday’s always Dresden’s.”

“For what?” I point at the man, who is bald. 

“Well, oh.” The old man adjusts his glasses. “It’s not – well, yes. You’re right.”

“Ritual,” Barber says. His voice is mirthful, different than before. “Thursdays we have fun. Dresden gets The Works.” 

“Oh come on, I made a reservation online.”

The Barber taps his scissors on his beard like he’s thinking. “Huh, online!” He snaps the bib around the man’s neck. 

And what the hell do you say to that? 

So I sit, arms crossed. Make them feel bad for making me late. 

The Works: steaming towel, oil lather, peppermint, huge calloused hands massaging his scalp, the both of them talking, laughing (giggling, even), on and on. Twelve-inch feather dusters, leaky urethras, son-in-laws, thin mints (the Barber’s daughter is a Girl Scout). 

Emails buzz my pocket. I ignore them; my foot stills. The Barber’s cheeks flush (a joke about sauerkraut), and then he hands Dresden a mirror. Jesus, does he really need to examine his – but I catch myself. It doesn’t matter, his baldness.  

I rub my temples. I have a strange, beautiful image in my mind of a bunch of cattle playing hacky sack. The crisp sound of beans on a hoof.

I tried, boss. I tried to don the tie, to be a businessman, to have a nice framed photo on Mom’s mantel, just like my brother’s, but go ahead, mock me, fire me, because, well, I guess Thursday’s Dresden’s for Christ’s sake. 

“Hey,” I lean forward. “Do you have another order form? I love thin mints.”

*

Jacksón Smith is a writer based in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in G20, Diplomatic Courier, Childhood Education, and The Golden Antlers. He studied PPE and Creative Writing at Claremont McKenna College. His fiction explores the tension between logic and absurdity, the surreal within the mundane, and the strange ways people collide with their pasts.

Shooter Flash: “River Without Current” by Thomas McEvoy

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In Mama’s last letter, she wrote that there’s no opportunity at the Napo River Lodge, where Papa works. She warned that if I continued to live with Papa, I would end up like Yolanda, chopping vegetables in the kitchen, or Maria, who cleans rooms every day. She even asked him what future our girl has at the lodge.

When Papa finished reading the letter, he crumpled it and threw it into the bin. I had to flatten it and read it alone. I wanted to talk to Papa, to ask him when I could go and join Mama, but I was afraid. I’d seen the look on his face as he read it, and I didn’t want to see that again.

The Napo River is all Papa knows. He wouldn’t leave because there’s nothing else for him.

That night, I used a flashlight and cocooned myself under the bedsheets, going over every word about Mama’s city, imagining the hotel she worked at and the school I’d go to. Papa had homeschooled me all my life, but I yearned to be part of what Mama described. I fell asleep thinking of the capital’s smooth, asphalted roads.

The next day, I told Papa we should go out searching for caimans, just the two of us, like we used to when I was younger. I figured that way I could talk to him, convince him to let me go and join Mama.

“We’ll go another time,” Papa said. He’d been out all day bird-watching with a group of Americans. Americans are the most demanding clients, but they tip the most, so Papa makes an extra effort with them. 

Then I lost the letter. I’d kept it under my mattress so nobody could find it. I’d read it every night, thinking that if I did, I would dream of the city. It was my way of bringing what I desired into existence. The letter was gone. I wondered if Maria had found it. I didn’t want to say anything in case she read it or told Papa. Instead, I tried to remember the letter, word by word.

One evening, Papa finished dinner with the Americans and looked for me.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re going caiman searching.”

I didn’t feel like going anymore.

“You wanted to, right?” Papa said. “Fetch your light.”

My flashlight was a prized possession. It was silver and looked out of place in the jungle. That’s why I liked it. It was a gift from a Dutch tourist, one of many who pass by for a couple of days, never to be seen again.

We set out in the canoe without a word. We knew the right spot. As we approached, we lifted our oars and shut off our flashlights. We floated on the river without a current, bathed in total darkness. At night, the Amazon comes to life. You hear the loud and constant buzz of cicadas, the croaks of frogs, and the howling of monkeys deep in the jungle.

Papa believes caimans are stoic. I didn’t know what that word meant until he explained. Caimans like to stay close to the shore, partly submerged in the river, motionless. Usually, the crest of their head, spine, and tail is visible. If you make a sudden movement or sound that scares them, they will lash or disappear quietly in an instant. The trick is to mirror them and relax. Papa showed me. If you do, they’re happy to lie still as you shine on them, their eyes blazing like marbles of fire.

“Papa—”

He turned on his flashlight. “There they are, look.”

Two caimans huddled together by the bank. The distance from their orange eyes to the tips of their long tails showed just how large they were. We illuminated their leather bodies, staring into their unblinking bright eyes. It was a game we used to play: shining on the caimans to see how long they’d stay.

We kept our lights steady, trying not to frighten them. After a couple of minutes, the bigger caiman went under without a sound, like a silent submarine. We focused on the remaining caiman, trying to extend the moment. The canoe ebbed side to side, mimicking Papa’s slow and deep breaths. Then the second caiman left.

“They’re gone,” I said, disappointed.

Papa closed his large hand around mine, placing a worn piece of paper in my palm. The weight told me what it was: Mama’s letter. It wasn’t Maria who had taken it from under my bed. It was him. He knew I’d been reading it.

“I wanted you to have it back,” Papa said quietly. His voice sounded like the creak of the canoe, something old and strained.

I berated myself, feeling as though my nightly rituals with the letter had sealed my fate. Holding it again, the city’s pull faded, replaced by guilt. 

“It’s time,” Papa said softly, as he picked up the oar. 

A man of few words, I knew this was how he let me go. I placed the flashlight in front of me, but I didn’t switch it on, not wanting him to see my face. I grabbed my oar to help us back. I opened my mouth to speak, but the jungle drowned me out.

*

Thomas McEvoy is a Paraguayan-born British writer who has lived in Panama, Honduras, Ecuador, Japan, Canada, Spain, and England. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Liverpool. His fiction has appeared in J Journal: New Writing for Justice, Scoundrel Time, and Collateral Journal.

Shooter Flash: “Lisa’s Little Lie” by Steven Bays

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The wheels of the gurney squeaked as an aide moved Lisa to recovery. Half asleep, she stirred, then moaned and curled into a fetal position. She pulled the sheets over her shoulder and stuck one foot out from under. When she saw the blue hospital sock, she remembered where she was. A feeling of nausea overcame her and she cupped her hand under her chin. A nurse noticed and held a small kidney-shaped bowl, just in time for Lisa to vomit.  

“It’s the anesthesia,” a nurse said. “It’ll pass. Drink this.” She gave her some apple juice. Lisa tried drinking but the nausea came back. She closed her eyes. “Could I have some ice chips instead, please?” she asked. 

Lisa did better with those. They soothed her thirst and she no longer felt sick.

The nurse asked, “Are you ready for a visitor?”

Lisa nodded, and her boyfriend Peter came in. He sat on the edge of her bed. 

“You okay?” he asked. “You don’t look so good.”

Lisa nodded. “Yeah, just a little nauseous.” 

Peter waived his hand. “What smells?”

“I puked. Sorry.” 

“How do you feel?”   

“Like I was out drinking all night.”

Peter waited until the nurse stepped far enough away that she couldn’t hear. 

“No, I mean now that it’s over. Any regrets?”  

“Peter, not now.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just having a hard time with this.”

The nurse came back to check on Lisa.  

“When can she leave?” Peter asked. 

“As soon as she can keep something down, use the bathroom. Won’t be too long.”

Peter had always been good to Lisa. She knew that someday he would ask her to marry him. Even now, after what she’d put him through. He’d brooded about her indiscretion for days but he forgave her. Still, he didn’t want her to have the procedure. She remembered the argument.  

“It’s not right. It’s a sin. We’re Catholic for Christ’s sake. I don’t care if it ain’t mine. We’ll get married, and I’ll adopt it.”

Lisa knew she wasn’t ready to be a mother and doubted Peter would make a good husband.

“Who’s the father?” he’d demanded.

“Does it matter? I made a mistake, I’m sorry. Can we leave it at that?”

“I know the guy. Is that it?”

“No, you don’t. And it’s better if it stays that way.”

“Can you at least tell me how many times you cheated?”

“Once.”

“Once?” 

“Yeah, imagine my luck.” 

“Does the father know?” 

“No. And I’m not telling him.” 

The nurse brought some apple juice and asked, “You feeling better yet hon?”  

Lisa smiled yes. As soon as the nurse stepped away, Peter asked, “Are we still going to Brian’s?” 

“Yes.”

“Why? Do we have to?” 

“It’s close by and I can rest. Don’t worry, he’s working. I have his key.”

“I’d rather take you home.” 

“Are you kidding?” She whispered so no one would hear. “You want me to sit on that train for a freaking hour? My mother will flip out when she sees me like this. What do I tell her? Oh, I skipped work to have an abortion? No. Take me to Brian’s.”  

“Is he the father?”

“Keep your voice down. No. Just a friend.”

They were silent for a bit. Peter worried whether he could ever trust her again. Lisa’s guilt about what she’d done to him made her wonder if she’d made the right decision.

The nurse broke the silence. “Do you think you could use the ladies’ room?”

Lisa said yes, and the nurse walked her to the bathroom.  

After being discharged, they took a cab to Brian’s.

“I’m gonna take a nap,” she said. Lisa went to the bedroom and climbed into Brian’s bed.   

Peter watched TV in the living room. After a while, he stuck his head into the bedroom. Seeing Lisa awake, he asked, “Are you okay?” 

“I could use some Tylenol,” she said. 

Peter checked the bathroom. “None in here. Guess I’ll run out and buy some.”

“Look in the kitchen.”

Peter did as she suggested. He looked in the cupboards, shuffling things around, searching behind cereal boxes and cans. Utensils rattled as a drawer opened, then slammed shut. The noise stopped, and Lisa heard the tap running. Peter walked into the bedroom holding a bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water. 

“Here.” He handed it to her. Lisa took two pills and then gave back the empty glass.  

“I thought you said you’d never been here before.” He stood with his arms folded in front of his chest. “How’d you know where he kept the Tylenol?”  

Lisa frowned. “I didn’t. It was a guess. Don’t your folks keep any meds in the kitchen?”

“I don’t know if I can believe anything you say.”

“Look, I’m not lying. I’ve never been here before. And Brian, first, he’s not the father, and second, he’s just a good friend from work.”

They started arguing again. The same argument they’d had when she first told him of her infidelity, only more heated. 

“Yeah, you’ve been fucking Brian,” Peter said. “Who knows how many other guys you’re screwing behind my back.”

Stung by his accusations, she decided to tell him the truth. At this point, Lisa didn’t care if she hurt his feelings.

“I wasn’t going to tell you who the father was, because,” she hesitated. “Well. I figured keeping it a secret from you would be the best thing to do. So, I lied. I never cheated on you. The baby was yours. If you knew you were the father, you’d never let me have the abortion.”

Peter raised his hand to strike her. Lisa stared at him, daring him. He froze for a moment, then dropped his arm and stormed out of the apartment. 

*

Steven Bays was born in Greece but at the age of two immigrated to the US, where he was raised in Brooklyn, New York. He always dabbled in writing but took it seriously after retiring from a thirty-five-year career in telecommunications. He enjoys long walks, listening to music, working out at the gym, and playing guitar in a rock-and-roll cover band. His stories have appeared in various online magazines.

Shooter Flash: “If, Man, Son” by Al Crow

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And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! – “If” by Rudyard Kipling

Pint up, contents down, and I’m up, down the corridor. Drink then piss. Same old drill for an old soul. No need to spell it out. Quite a walk actually, for an ageing gent like me who’s really, really got to go, but I get there fine. In time. Double take on the sign. Notice the rhyme. Didn’t notice the sign before though. A little horseman with an oversized sombrero and a machine gun on the door of the gents. Supposed to be funny. So little effort in the rest of what goes for a boozer in this Monopoly-board railway station and there this six inch gun-toting Mexican lad on the bogs. They must be making sure the really leathered blokes still get the right place. Well, I’m not that gone. Not by halves. I push. Pull the next one, and it gives me four urinals, a sink and a single cubical with the door shut. Quite the drinker’s vista. Two gentlemen already there. One in the crapper. Pair of jeans resting on lime green trainers. Some old rocker at the far wall-mounted john. Leathers, raggedy beard, and a steely stare towards the poster at his front, which is adverting erectile disfunction. 

A man like me. A place like this. All these ifs in my head. 

You can try and drink away the ifs, but they’ll get you in the pisser. That’s the actual pisser, I think. When the ifs come for you in the pisser. 

The raggedy rocker nods a hard-arse glare my direction. Spurs me into life. I take the second lane, so there’s one slot between this half-price Slash’s slash and me, while I’m not so bang up against the sink that this will turn into a problem. Not that anyone here is going to wash their hands, but thems the rules. Decorum, anyway. Me and the rocker, we’re both hoping no-one else comes in and has to tuck in between us, but we’re okay. For now. So, I hunt out my Johnson in these tight arse pants I got from Amazon about a month before the sixty seconds that I’m drinking so shit hard not to think about happened. 

I yank a boxer leg up first, which is too long to get myself under, so I try to unfathom the intricacies of a knob-tunnel system that’s more impenetrable than the Tora Bora caves. This might be taking a while, but I’m gazing forward. Always look forward in the gents. Golden rule, and the poster at my eye level blurs into focus. It’s goading me to Be The Best, and I realise I’m far from the best, so far from my best. Haven’t been the best in me for so long. Don’t need an ad to tell me that. I got sucked into something for my boy. He was infinite. Perpetual. So much life in those gleaming eyes that it didn’t seem possible that he could be anything but there – couldn’t be anything by twenty and sharp and charming, always catching a ball or a cute girl’s eye – and I didn’t encourage him. He found that path himself. 

Sure, he was playing up to his old man. Sure, there were footsteps. Boots to fill. An apple and a tree. Sure, he was imitating, emulating, coating himself in what he thought was the very best of me, only I never said he should go down that route. I never told him the person he should be. 

In the pisser, here I am, playing that card as if it’s a get out of jail free. 

Ha. There it is again. I’m a poet and I know it. A poet like all those messed up word-wankers that went before me with their drinks and their England. Take Kipling, my mirror. He wrote all that clap about being a man, then he bluffed his short-sighted son passed a medical and square into a cavalry charge, gifted the blundering vole the once in a lifetime opportunity to have a jog at a gun post. The national treasure never forgave himself. Funny that you learn that one at school. Funny, not funny. 

“This country grinds you down.” 

It’s the rocker speaking, breaking the rule of not talking to strangers in the gents. He’s pressing the dispenser as if he genuinely believes there might be some soap in there and it’s like time has slipped. I didn’t notice him move from the urinal and the thought strikes me that perhaps he’s God and Jesus is taking a dump above the lime-green trainers in trap two. 

I wipe a stray tear. Guess that’s a more logical explanation of why he’s talking at me. 

“Too fucking right,” I say. 

As I do, the room is filled with the sound of the toilet flushing. It echoes about the bare-walls until it feels like the place is going to be filled, and I imagine drowning in there. I picture myself floating above the urinals and the sink, being washed higher until my head knocks on the ceiling and I smile at the rocker and take a last breath, which allows me a few moments under the tear and bog water, before the air seeps from my lungs and the darkness comes into my head, pushing away all the ifs with its milky-black ooze. 

“Well, you have a good afternoon Buddy,” the rocker says. “Perhaps go a little easier on the sauce.”

I smile.

I’m about to say something when the cubical door opens, and the kid who comes out is about twenty, blond hair, slightly foppish, and one of those smiles. For a moment, I think it might be him. My boy. I think it might, and he looks across. Those eyes unchanged. For a moment, I’m flooded, dragged further beneath that boat load of ifs.

*

Al Crow works across fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry, exploring this challenged world and human fragility. Recent work is featured in The Last Song, Words for Frightened Rabbit; Masculinity: an anthology of modern voices; Last Light, an anthology of Apocalypse Poetry; Lighthouse and The London Magazine.

Social isolation connects winners of 2024 Short Story Competition

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Dilys Lovell has won the 2024 Shooter Short Story Competition with her remote island tale, “The Bunker”, while Richard Garcka has come runner-up with his crime fiction, “Sphinx Wheels Fright”. While Lovell’s story revolves around a girl struggling with her beautiful yet isolated existence, Garcia’s protagonist is set apart on the mental plane by his unusual aptitude for numbers.

Shooter’s readers and contest judge, editor Melanie Sykes-White, appreciated Lovell’s vivid description of her setting and handling of the central conundrum for her main character, who is torn between safety and experience of the wider world. Lovell, a teacher living in Glasgow, has previously published short fiction and poetry in Passages North, Carve Magazine, Rust & Moth, Scribble, Potato Soup Journal, and elsewhere. Her short story collection Moon over Water will be published in 2025. 

Garcka achieved second place in the competition with “Sphinx Wheels Fright”, a police detective fiction revolving around an intriguing battle of wits. Garcka, a retiree who writes across various genres, has had short stories published by AudioArcadia, Arts Quarter Books, Michael Terrance Publishing, Cranked Anvil, Bandit Fiction and Spellbinder.

In addition to the contest winners, three shortlisted writers gained honourable mentions: Ronan Ryan for “I Have Never Complained About Pain”, Matthew Hurt for “Bubbles”, and Sofie De Smyter for “Q&A”.

Both “The Bunker” and “Sphinx Wheels Fright” are available to read on Shooter’s website, while Lovell’s story also appears in the Autumn/Winter 2024 issue of Shooter, which is themed “Coming of Age”. Print copies of the magazine can be ordered at the Subscriptions page.

The 2025 Shooter Poetry Competition is now open to submissions, while the 2025 Shooter Short Story Competition will open mid-year. Until then, prose writers are welcome to submit flash fiction and non-fiction to the monthly Shooter Flash contest on a rolling basis. General submissions for Shooter’s Spring/Summer 2025 issue will open to all in the new year.

In the meantime, happy reading, and happy holidays from Shooter Literary Magazine!

Shooter Flash: “Trash” by Bethany Swett

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Marg got used to the smell after her first week on the job. Slinging the slick black garbage sacks into the oily maw of the truck all morning, she got so steeped in the stench that she ceased to notice it. It was like water: once you were in it, you were wet. The smells, like drenching rain, only bothered you if you had something to keep nice in the first place.

She tied up her waist-length dreads after Cal, the jerk-off, pretended to feed them into the chomper on her first day. Jack, who drove the truck, more kindly suggested she might want to consider restyling if she didn’t want to end up processed like meat through a grinder. But her dreads were the product of years, connecting her way back to Burning Mans (Men?) of yore. Another life. She’d rather chop off a leg.

The loose bags sagging into each other on the sidewalk she tossed straight into the chomper. Trash cans and recycling got slotted into the mechanical arms and lugged in a big metallic hug into the bowels of the truck, then dumped back down again, like a kid too big to get picked up for long.

Marg hustled to the next set of bins on the worn-out street, its townhouses faded from lack of care and grayed-out by a drizzle of rain. The buildings were mostly brick with concrete stoops; sometimes old people shuffled around out front and hobos, towing errant shopping carts, rooted through the trash. Anyone looking like they had a job tended to scurry in and out like mice after cheese, wearing the cheap suits of office drudgery. Marg knew they looked down on her, if they looked at all, yet she wouldn’t trade places. She didn’t like sitting still, feeling pinned down.

She set a can into the last empty slot on the truck and hit the lift button. As the arms hauled up their load and dumped the contents, something clinked out onto the sidewalk near Marg’s boots. Its glint caught her eye, and she bent to pick it up: a silver ring set with a small diamond. Marg turned it over awkwardly with her thick padded gloves. She looked up at the nearest house, which had a matt-black door and window-frames, recently painted, not peeling like most of the others. No-one was racing out after a missing ring, anyway.

“Come on bird nest, let’s move it,” Cal yelled as the truck lumbered up the street, leaving Marg in its wake, gawking.

Quickly she tugged off her glove and shoved the ring in her pocket, fumbling with the zipper to yank it closed before hustling on up the street to catch the blundering truck, which was gassing and steaming like an old bull elephant.

Later, when Marg returned to the high-rise apartment she’d occupied for the last three years, she sat down and pulled the ring out of her pocket. It winked at her weakly in the dim light. She tried to slide it on. It was too small for her ring finger, but it fit on her pinkie. She twirled it there for a moment, then pulled it off and sank back into the sofa, opening up her phone.

She swiped and tapped to a familiar profile, bracing for the usual self-flagellating burn that came from scrolling his photos: the man she’d loved with the woman he’d left her for, living their best lives. The woman who, in fact, he’d been with before he did Marg the courtesy of leaving. She’d got better lately at resisting the urge to torture herself, but the ring had reminded her, and lured her back.

To her disappointment, though, his feed hadn’t been updated much for several months. Taking time… said one of his posts, captioning a mountainscape with a trail of hug emojis and hang in there buddy comments – and one saying, girls come and go but beer is always there!

With a crackle of anticipation Marg sat up and clicked through to the girlfriend’s profile page. She saw, among her numerous public pictures, the woman draped around the shoulders, torso, and assorted other body parts of a bronzed, toned, tall, and very much different man.

“Wow,” she exhaled to herself, flopping back into the cushions. She felt giddy, but also oddly queasy. Marg realised she was still in her work clothes, faintly off-gassing the morning’s garbage, and headed for the shower, scooping up the diamond ring from the table.

In the bathroom she shucked off her clothes and rummaged in a drawer, coming up with a thin silver chain. She slid off the cheap charm that had swung from it and replaced it with the ring. Squinting down at herself, she attached the chain around her neck, and looked up at the mirror, at the person standing amid the rising steam, bare but for a glint of light resting just above her heart.

One woman’s trash… Marg thought, fingering the ring. Maybe the saying would prove true for one man’s trash, too.

*

Bethany Swett works for a tech company by day and writes fiction the rest of the time. She has published short stories in Lilith, Quick Fiction, Bayou Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, and elsewhere. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her dog Sushi.

Shooter Flash: “Drift” by Sammi LaBue

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Alex wore her half of our heart necklace long after high school, but when they found her across the bay, she wasn’t wearing jewelry. Just her long hair around her neck like a noose of wet string. 

She finally moved to New York from Tampa two years after I had. She lived in Queens and I lived in Brooklyn, but we made Beach Day an official weekly holiday, no matter the weather, to remind us of home, and I got her a job at the bar where I worked.

She found me in the walk-in refrigerator during the shifts we shared. I’d mix cheap vodka with cranberry juice and slices of lemon, our seventeen-dollar happy-hour cocktail, and she’d talk about her new friends, her roommates, her artsy kind of sadness. The refrigerator’s vacuum seal suctioned us in behind her, as if to preserve us. 

*

We’d walk down the beach warp-powered by the Adderall she brought. I thought of our purse of shells and treasures, our iPhones and keys left behind, thinly veiled by faded bath towels. But she’d say, Let’s never go back, smiling. 

Days would slip by without a whisper from Alex. “Sometimes friends drift apart,” Mom said when I called her instead. Then Alex would be back again, our teeth hard-set against the cold of the walk-in. Her voice sounding more and more like the silent void of her voicemail.

Want an adderall, a xanax, anything else? The sand-stained coin purse started to fill with chalky blue-and-white pills – nothing like sea glass. 

*

Still on for Beach Day?

Is it going to rain?

Meet at DD, right?

Im Here

?

I waited outside of Dunkin Donuts flipping between my doppler app and messages and back again. A green mass crept across the screen pixel by pixel.

When the smell of rain had washed over the roasted nuts cart and the car exhaust, Alex appeared with her hands shoved into the pockets of her leather jacket. I was getting worried. She wasn’t wearing her necklace. Where’s your bag?

After the intersection, she threw a laugh over her shoulder then ran across the boardwalk and down to the beach. I chased after her, rain needling my skin.

She dropped her clothes in the sand. The metallic reflection of the waves striped her skin, her hair melted out across the water’s surface as she waded deeper. 

Alone on the beach, time expanded as she pushed out and out. 

I remembered bike races to the beach back home and how you could eat the heavy evening heat right out of the air. 

I remembered her theory about being adopted, even with her mother’s round, clamshell eyes, those straight eyelashes, the scattered sand freckles across her nose. 

I remembered the first day she showed up to work drunk, when she breezed past the walk-in window.

The storm faded as fast as it arrived, and then so did she. I could see her. I could see her, until I couldn’t. Like a star stared at too long in the night sky, she flickered out as the lifeguard’s whistle blared. 

* * *

Sammi LaBue is a Brooklyn-based writer and educator. She founded Fledgling Writing Workshops (Best Workshop in NYC, Timeout 2019) and is the author of Words in Progress (DK 2020), a creative writer’s guided journal. Her writing can be found in Literary Hub, Glamour, The Offing, Mutha Magazine, Hobart, and Sonora Review, among others. She received her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, is The Penn Review’s 2024 Poetry Prize winner, and has recently finished a dual memoir written in collaboration with her mom.

Shooter Flash: “Red Light Green Light” by Johanna Bernhuber

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Mornings were always rushed, but Angie was particularly antic today – racing around, playing, not getting dressed when asked for the twentieth time. Susan had ten minutes to get her to school and she wasn’t even dressed yet herself.

“Come on!” she bellowed, as Angie tore past wielding a set of streamers like the Olympic torch. “Get dressed now!” And before she could push it away: You little shit, she thought. 

Delete, delete, delete, she thought frantically and froze. She could hear nothing but the sound of Angie playing, still not getting dressed.

Susan hurried to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, peering closely into her eyes. Her heart seized when she perceived, deep within the right pupil, a speck, not of green, but of red.

She ran into Angie’s room, where the child was finally struggling into her sweatshirt. Susan grabbed her slim, warm body and hugged her tightly. “I love you,” she said. “I love you so, so much.”

“Mom!” Angie protested, squirming. “I’m trying to get dressed!” But her little face was smiling, and when she finished pushing her arms through the sleeves, she threw them around her mother’s waist and returned her hug.

Maybe it’s alright, Susan thought, stroking Angie’s smooth hair and dropping a kiss upon her head. It was just a small blip. Maybe nothing will happen.

“Come on,” she said gently, kissing her one last time. “We’re going to be late.”

Together they got up and got ready to leave, Susan gathering Angie’s backpack, water bottle and jacket while Angie strapped on her shoes. She threw on a long coat over her pyjamas. The house looked like a hurricane had hit it, but Susan resolved to tackle the mess later, once Angie was safely in school.

They reached the door, opened it, and were halted by a man dressed in gray on the doorstep.

“No,” Susan gasped, clutching Angie. 

“Mrs Harber,” the man said. “We received an alert of a verbal infraction.”

“No,” Susan gabbled, “it was nothing. I was just trying to get Angie dressed and now she is, you see, and we have to get to school. She’s late as it is. We must get going, will you please let us by?”

“Verbal infractions need to be followed up,” the man said, waving forward a woman, also in gray, who waited behind him. “Let’s have a little chat.”

The woman held out her hand to Angie. Susan hung on.

“You musn’t,” Susan gasped. “She’s very well looked after. I look after her, all the time, every day. I love her, you mustn’t take her.”

“We just need to speak with your mom,” the woman said to Angie, ignoring Susan. “You come with me. I’ll get you a special treat, would you like that? But come now otherwise you might get into trouble, and you don’t want that.”

Angie looked up at Susan. Her hazel eyes, always so beautifully clear, shone with worry. Her mouth quivered. “Don’t worry Mom,” she whispered. “It will be ok.” She eased from Susan’s arms and went with the beckoning woman, who led her to a van parked on the street in front of the house.

Susan tried to go after her, but the man in gray blocked her path.

“Shall we?” he said, gesturing into the house.

Susan sobbed, Angie having melted from view, and turned helplessly to retreat into the house, collapsing on the nearest sofa. The man perched on a neighboring armchair and leaned forward.

“Mrs Harber, I am Agent Blain,” he said. “Do you know why I’m here?”

“Yes,” Susan said, miserably. “But it was only a split second, a careless moment. I was frustrated. It didn’t mean anything. I love my child, more than anything. It was just a moment.”

“Mrs Harber,” the agent said, “life is made up of moments.” He paused. “That’s why moments are important. Do you feel unable to perform the day-to-day duties of motherhood?”

Susan shook her head vigorously. 

“No, not at all. I mean, I’m fine – I’m in control. I’m happy.” She smiled awkwardly, against the tears. 

“You may think it’s just one thought, but our research shows that actions – negative actions – don’t occur without the negative thoughts that precede them. With right thinking, right actions follow.”

Susan nodded, kneading her hands in her lap.

“It won’t happen again,” she said hoarsely. “It’s never happened before.” Forcefully, she pushed I’m not lying I’m not lying across her brain.

“It’s true this is your first infraction,” said Agent Blain, standing up and adjusting his jacket – the one all agents wore, with the high, circular collar. “And as such we will return your child to you, with a warning. But we will, you understand, have to take some precautions. Including placing you under elevated watch.” He moved to the door and, as he opened it, Susan could see the woman in gray leading Angie back up the path to the house. 

“You’d better get this one to school,” the woman said, releasing her with a pat on the back.

“Yes of course,” Susan said, flooded with relief. “Right away. Thank you.” She knelt down to hug her daughter close, but felt Angie stiffen.

“Are you ok?” she asked, pulling back to look at her. In the background, the agents’ van pulled away from the kerb. Angie looked slightly dazed.

“Why did you think that?” she whispered.

“Oh sweetheart,” Susan said, feeling stabbed through the heart. “It wasn’t about you, it wasn’t. It was just – you weren’t cooperating, and I felt stressed. I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t something I said.”

“But you thought it.” Angie’s voice rose.

“That’s not the same. You can’t always control your thoughts.” She hesitated, then added, “But we do have to try.”

“That’s what the lady said.” Angie looked up, frowning, and met Susan’s gaze. Looking into her eyes, Susan caught her breath.

Deep within Angie’s right pupil, surrounded by the soft flecked gold of her iris, glowed a bright speck of green.

Which then, within Angie’s accusatory face, abruptly flicked to red.

* 

Johanna Bernhuber is a psychologist who has written for the Chicago Sun-Times, and has published short fiction and non-fiction in Whitefish Review, Ginosko and Denver Quarterly. She has three children and lives in Illinois with her husband, one dog, and too many books.

Shooter Flash: “Pool Wolf” by Robin Dennis

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I pull the handle and the door nearly comes off in my hand. I take a plate as thin as a sucked Polo, thin enough to crack over your knee. Just the weight of it puts me off my dinner. 

Dad’s busy at the sink like all this is normal. Maybe it is normal for him now. But if it’s normal now, then it must’ve been normal before; you can’t just change who you are. All that time he must have been pretending, hiding the fact that he can live like this. 

He turns to me, then turns back without speaking, like I’m miles away. There’s barely enough of him to dry up the dishes. 

*

He takes me to his room in the attic. He shows me the banister over the stairs. He puts my finger on a groove in the wood. He asks what I think made it, the groove in the wood. 

We sit at the table, and I can’t leave until I eat. In Africa, kids are starving. They lie with flies in their eyes, bored as horses. I guess it’s normal for them. 

*

Wednesday’s swimming, so we go to the pool. Dad pays us in and sits on a fold-out bench with his fists on his knees. 

I bob in the water, swim to and fro. The wolf doesn’t seem to be here today. I ask someone if he is, and he says no. Underwater, I open my eyes wide enough to check the grates, blood beating in my ears.  

*

In bed I watch Steven Seagal put holes in people and roll their bodies off his boat. I can hear him in the attic, the man who was here before. I can see him on the stairs, a rope round his throat – perfectly still, as though he’s floating. The plates are his. The plates and pretty much everything else. He made the marks and the rips on the lino, broke the cupboard door. My dad just came and took it all. 

*

The wolf’s back on Wednesday, walking on hind legs and running his claws along the walls – plaster crumbling, wires pissing sparks. One’s dancing like a snake, shooting fire across the tiles, and I wonder what’d happen if it went in the water. Sparks falling like upside-down fireworks, glutting the bottom with gold. 

He takes a woman’s head off and her girl starts to cry. She’s young, maybe five. He takes a bite and drops it, then disappears round the corner to the little pool, through the footbath that connects the two. I look to my dad, but his bench is empty, folded up. A lifeguard’s already coming over with a bucket and mop. 

* * *

Robin Dennis is from the East Midlands, and teaches English in southern Germany. His writing has previously appeared in Stimulus Respond.