“Just throw it in the pot.”

“Throw what in the pot?” I ask Frank.

“Everything.” He answers. “Your hopes, dreams, hell, even throw in a dash of your fears.”

I stare at him expectantly. Where is he going with this?

“That’s how my grandmother did it, and hers turned out great.”

I look from Frank to the fridge. “Are we still talking about chili?”

“Chili?”

“For dinner.”

“Oh, I dunno, whatever you want.”

I consider my options carefully before taking his advice.

I throw everything into the pot–including Frank.

He was right, it just needed a little spice of life.

K.A. Vargas often talks to the voices in her head. Sometimes they talk back, and she turns them into stories.

“There.” Sheriff Young pointed his deputies to the park entrance.

Tire tracks. Last sighting. Where the dogs lost track in the mud.

“Someone impersonating a deputy stopped Arielle last week. Now this.”

A man drove his pickup past the sheriff’s huddle, parked, and joined the volunteer searcher line creeping across a wet field.

“Find anything?” he asked.

“Nope.”

At twilight, searchers drudged to the parking lot.

The man pulled a silver shield from his breast pocket and smeared dried mud specks into nothing with his thumb. He smoothed the tarp, tug-tested the bungee cords.

Nope. Nothing to find out there.

Joan Sosin lives, learns, and writes in sunny (hot and humid) Florida.

She believed in creation the way others believed in prayer.

So I came to the garden. Worked the soil endlessly, prying loose stones, carving out pockets of possibility. My hands darkened with mud. Hers always clean.

If only for a single season, I would give her the flowers she desired. She would praise me for the blossoms, then blame me when the roots failed. I accepted that burden. Every time.

But this land was never meant for growing. How couldn't she see that?

When we ended things, it was in the garden of all places.

Every bloom was borrowed time.

Kelsey Flaherty is a writer and photographer living in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Grandma loved to tell this one. ... Forever ago, Dog barked up the OG elements: EARTH, WIND, and FIRE. It was totally dope. One day a baller thief unstrung the fibrous cords from Dog's throat. No elements? Not cool. Hades pinged her socials and caught lil' homie in the hollow earth plucking away, cords stretched over a big-ass chasm. But he dug the beats and decided they should stay. Then Dog's bad bitch Cat pulled up and the after-party started bumpin...' Anyway, that's where earthquakes come from. After she finished talking, Grandma would spit bars. She loved that old school shit.

Nicholas De Marino is a neurodivergent rhyparographer. More at foofaraw and nicholasdemarino.blogspot.com.

Keith Haring, now a bespectacled ghost, sprays ectoplasm diluted with dirty water onto the cold walls of Heaven.

They freeze into grimy ice sculptures of flying saucers, big babies and antic fornicating gay men.

Hell doesn’t consider this art. Demons rise up to destroy his work, melt it down with flame throwers.

But just as the first spark ignites a mud-spattered baby’s rump, a flutter of angels swoops down and banishes the fiends back to their fiery home.

“Why?” yowls one demon. “He’s defacing your Heaven!”

Arms crossed, one angel says smugly, “But God and the American ghosts like it.”

Lorraine Schein has published in Strange Horizons, Scientific American, and the anthologies Wild Women and Tragedy Queens. Her latest book is The Lady Anarchist Cafe, available from Autonomedia and Amazon.

We are pleased to announce that submissions for our third themed writing contest are now open!

The theme for June's drabble contest is...

OPEN TO ALL GENRES FOR JUNE'S CONTEST AND SUBMISSIONS ARE FREE
(one per person)

Emma and I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Winners are will be published in August and awarded:

• Miette d'Or: $15
• Bouchée du Benêt: $10
• Three Les Brisures: $5

It is time to announce the winners of our second CRUMBS drabble writing contest!

As a reminder, the theme for April was...

And here are the winners:

Les Brisures

• Kelsey Flaherty
• Lorraine Schein
• Nicholas De Marino

Bouchée du Benêt

• Joan Sosin

Miette d'Or

• K.A. Vargas

We will be publishing their stories over the first five days of June!