“These things we do for the dead — all this witnessing of objects and memory, all the listening we do for clues as to who our loved ones really were — we would have done for them when they were living, if allowed.” A piece of flash fiction about a woman in an attic, among the belongings of her dead mother.

“But here the Martian was crying just like anybody. He turned away from the wall; he turned to face me.” A short story from UK-based novelist and journalist Richard Smyth.

“What would’ve happened if the girl who was a story who was a myth who was a fiction who was a woman who emerged from the salt, pristine and broken because all of you had become a terrible, trembling blue ruin?” A piece of fiction from a story collection by Felicia Sullivan at love.life.eat.

“I read your journal, she finally said. I read the part where you questioned whether you had chosen the right twin? Where you wondered if we made love in the same way?” In this tale of dating and relationships, David at What Happens to Us writes about a man torn between two twin sisters, Kara and Kendra.

From lime to vanilla, Allie Marini Batts’ short story about an aspiring chef going through an abrupt breakup covers a full spectrum of flavors — and emotions.

Flash fiction from Hannah Sears at Vers Les Etoiles: “I knew what real pain felt like — watching Mama waste away until there was nothing left but beeping machines and bills nobody paid. But this was different, somehow. I didn’t think anyone could hurt me again after losing Mama. Maybe one day I’d learn how often I’m dead wrong.”

“I don’t know what it’s like elsewhere in the world, but here, in my village, suffering seems to find its way into all of us.” A piece of fiction from the All Walks of Life short story collection by Matthew Small.

But it wasn’t long after I got home and it dawned on me that I’d made a terrible mistake. The freezing night was still trapped in the fabric somewhere. I could smell it. It smelt of the hospital. It smelt of the past and the future all at the same time.

“It was depressing, this real world. Living in it was not unlike being surrounded by Facebook friends. No honor. All for one but not one for all.” A piece of fiction on friendship and music from Monte Dutton.

“Daddy never really looked at me ’til after I’d died. I think if it’d been her that was with me when I died I wouldn’t have died. I’m not blaming, though. It wasn’t daddy’s fault.” In this short story by ML Candelario, the young narrator — who has traveled to the “other side of the curtain” — reflects on dying.

“For what I wanted to really tell granny was that, the blood that spilled out of her veins when she slit her wrists, in an effort to cleanse herself, was never really Shazia’s. It was mine.” A piece of fiction from Sumedh Natu on love, tradition, and religion.

A snippet of fiction from Serpent Box: “It had been many years since he’d been back to the bottle. How long had it been? He wondered. Twenty-five years? Thirty? It looked old now, but everything looked old now, even the things that were young.”

Fiction from Kim Magowan at JMWW: “Yes, I would like to show you the snow globes…. They seem to shed light on one’s character. What kind of person is attracted to sealed domes? The half-circle, not even whole, not a globe after all, that sits in your palm? Who would display them in a perfect row?”