crumbs

The ocean was blue all around Miguel. Even the blood rushing out from his
body, and those of his four friends, could not change that.

Burning chunks of boat bobbed on wavetops, already sinking or dispersing. Soon there would be no trace of what had happened here.

The drone retreated into soft, white clouds above.

Enzo had warned him that if he didn’t give up his fishing spot, he’d
report them to the americanos as drug runners. But Miguel was raised to
stand up to bullies. He hoped his boys would understand that and remember
when they grew into men.

Michael Wever is a part-time writer and occasional observer of the world around himself. This story muscled its way into his mind during a morning shower and refused to leave until it had been written down.

A Moment in Aftermath was the winner of our Annual Drabble contest to capture the year that was 2025 in 100 words.

The Pardoner rode high in the saddle; reins loosely wrapped around the horn. The horse knew where he was going. The Pardoner’s little fingers weaved patterns in the air that only he
could see.

The sun broke out from behind the clouds and bounced off his weathered face throwing a warning miasma of orange into the sky. The Preacher, in the steeple of his church, alerted the good people of Camelot.

The Pardoner stopped in front of the jail. Waving a document above his head, the doors of the jail opened, and all the desperados of the West danced out.

Kenneth M. Kapp lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, writing late into the night in his man-cave.

The Pardoner was a finalist in our Annual Drabble contest to capture the year that was 2025 in 100 words.

A water bottle squashed in his hands, driblets against the inferno, he closed
his eyes.

He removed the hat from his head, held it against his chest with a silent
prayer. He could feel the embers chewing at his fat, and knew it was only a
matter of time. What a fool he was to not heed his own advice.

But you cannot prevent death, can you, Smokey?

You can only hope that the concrete jungle fairs better than the desert.
Maybe your last memory will be of water from above, or maybe you'll get
remade into a Deep Fake.

Samantha tries to write, but the radio is just a little too loud.

Smokey was a finalist in our Annual Drabble contest to capture the year that was 2025 in 100 words.

In a navy suit tailored for broadcast seriousness, shoulders rigid with ambition and face slick with perspiration, he stands at the podium as a red Breaking News banner crawls across the screen. He opens by acknowledging “concerns” and assuring the public that safety is the top priority. Reporters clamber forward and begin shouting questions: the death toll of the toxic frog plague in West Texas; the Secretary of Domestic Security’s posts depicting the destruction of Latvia; confirmation that the North American Vampire Coven is real. He only replies, “Who’s to say? We’ll keep you informed. Thank you, and God bless.”

Grace Crouthamel is a queer writer from Northern Appalachia, fond of strange stories, living with two dogs, a lizard.

As Always, We’ll Keep You Informed was a finalist in our Annual Drabble contest to capture the year that was 2025 in 100 words.

The crackling snap of shattered wood was troubling, though most of those folks had been dead for decades; beds, tables and beams quietly surrendered to the blaze.

It was the screaming palms that pierced the heartwood. In firestorm winds their long spines arched backward, heads crowned with flaming fronds, each tree a torch passing fire to the next.

But we knobcone pines have dropped our cones. The heat has burst them open,
scattering winged seeds to ride the wind.

We were shaped for fire. Our children will rise from the ash.

Ali McLafferty is a writer and artist who would like to be a tree.

A Knobcone Pine in the Palisades Fire was a finalist in our Annual Drabble contest to capture the year that was 2025 in 100 words.

I meet him in a liquidation store in Lansing, Iowa, a town that lost its bridge to the mainland. Everything in here is leftover, discontinued. He's holding a whisk.

We drive forty minutes for grapefruit and sliced almonds, highway empty, fields still frozen. His hand on the dial, looking for weather.

February is short. It knows.

At the grocery store, the cashier hovers. Re-scans. When I say have a good night her mouth opens around the shape of can I come with you.

Back at the inn, the kitchen smells of radiator heat and someone else's lavender. He spreads batter with a rubber spatula, thinner, thinner. You have to be able to see through it, he says.

Then slides the tray into the oven. Heat exhales.

The cookies come out brittle as first frost. Almond and air. We eat them with grapefruit slices, juice running down wrists, oolong steaming between us.

I bite through and see light. I bite through and there he is, on the other side.

February ends. The bridge stays missing.

But the holes remain. In the batter, in the sieve. In the moon.

I swipe my hand across my plate, collecting bread crumbs. I greedily lick my fingers, drawing a pop from each as they leave my mouth.

Across the table, William’s eyes are wide.

“Oh, so sorry, Miss Manners. Does eating with my hands make me a Neanderthal?”

Defiantly, I grab the entree with my bare hands. “But I’m not the only one with dining etiquette issues, am I?” Twisting, I rend apart the bones of the roast.

“Let’s not forget—until very recently, you would put your elbows on the table.” I chuckle, pointing an ulna at what is left of him.

After the first successful transfer, technicians considered the assortment of partial memories that resisted upload. They were scents disconnected from origin, voices untethered from familiarity, and unrealized dreams from long, long ago.

A lifetime was recorded, reformatted, categorized, and tidily saved for future reference.

But fragments remained.

“Do we delete them?” one asked.

“Absolutely not. They’re all important, right?” another said.

“No—if they were, they’d have been uploaded. That’s just clutter,” a third argued.

They ultimately agreed to keep the data, but to store it locally. It was left to collect digital dust—slowly forgotten like all it contained.