Daniel Krieger

Fiction in @havehadhavehad @MaudlinHouse @BendingGenres @flashficmag @MISTERBULLBULL @NecessaryFic @scaffoldlitmag and longlisted for 2026 Wigleaf Top 50

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

Thank you to @malsmart at @MaudlinHouse for running my first piece of fiction, which was longlisted for the 2026 @Wigleaf Top 50 https://t.co/WULJ1VhfKm

[Steve Gergley @GergleySteve]

On @scaffoldlitmag today, we've got a great new micro by @daniel_krieger. This one is really funny and creative, so take a read here!
https://t.co/DhsNmjRk1O

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

Thank you @scaffoldlitmag for running my story!

[scaffold literary magazine @scaffoldlitmag]

scaffold #238 is out now, so take a read of this fun and interesting monologue story by @daniel_krieger. this one is great, so don't miss it!
https://t.co/Hdzp2crVBD

[TrashCatLit @TrashCatLit]

aaaaand we're off!
The Trashcan Generator is ready to receive your Trashie selections and deliver prompts back to you 🦝
We have a handful of new prompts in among those bins.
Get prompted before 8pm on 6th August.
Look out for Swapsies Day on the 4th.

https://t.co/dyRoOGsWeY

[Mythic Picnic @MythicPicnic]

Subs close 7/24! ⬇️

Pays $25

Questions? Ask @NathanBorn2010

[New Yorker Fiction @NYerFiction]

"How generous his mother was to some people—but was she?"

This week's Flash Fiction piece is "Why Would That Help?" by Diane Williams. https://t.co/zmFVEWNdbC

[New Yorker Fiction @NYerFiction]

The first piece in our summer Flash Fiction series is "Broken" by Rabih Alammeddine. https://t.co/mxuKdjpFp5

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

This book is hilarious and on point. Instead of cliché positivity affirmations, it is a collection of sarcastic and realistic affirmations.

Here are 10 of my favorites:

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

Can book collecting be vice? How much is too much?

“Of all the vices, I find books to be the least dangerous.”

https://t.co/OzhaUGBo9V

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

My latest story -- thank you @MISTERBULLBULL for running it!

[BULL @MISTERBULLBULL]

"I was trying to get an erection, but in a stranger’s chilly bathroom with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and the pressure to perform, the odds were against me." @daniel_krieger https://t.co/3vqPCkCrDq

[Wigleaf @Wigleaf]

What’s better than the ghost of Twitter? The Wigleaf Top 50 [Very] Short Fictions 2026, edited by Andrew Porter 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

I have to admit, I’m not much a basketball fan, but I’ve been stricken with Knick’s fever and somehow it makes me feel like more of a New Yorker than ever. https://t.co/jLaZRdMrKK

[Mythic Picnic @MythicPicnic]

MASTHEAD v2

Mythic Micros from @GergleySteve @RelphJp @EricScotTryon @emilyrinkema @Christopher_All @moranpress @obaer @DelGeo14 @TommyDeanWriter @iaminfoian @gritvanwinkle & @AuthorJmcm

Curated by @NathanBorn2010 / Nathan Pettigrew

#MythicPicnicTweetStory

===
===

We wanted to do a MASTHEAD series to celebrate the magazines and small presses — and the great people behind them — helping to create literature with little or no hope of compensation beyond the love of words and magazines and books. Because of them we’ve found new writers. And new friends.

In this issue of MASTHEAD we have some of the people behind @scaffoldlitmag @TrashCatLit @flashfroglitmag @SmokeLong @moranpress Cthulhu Sex Magazine @rawlitmag @FracturedLit @uncharted_mag_ @fffict @CowboyJamboree & @frazzledlitmag — thank you all for what you do.

===
===

Insomnia

by Steve Gergley / @GergleySteve
.

For six-hundred days I couldn’t sleep, so I passed each night in my father’s armchair in the attic. There I listened to the rain clatter against the gambrel roof of the house. I watched the fuzzy dust motes tumble and twirl in the moonlight. I sunk into the slabs of soft leather and smelled the muddy musk of my sweat. Months later, on the hottest morning of the summer, as a glacier towered over the tops of the oaks and slowly carved a path through the cul-de-sac, I set up a camcorder on a tripod, returned to my father’s armchair, and beckoned my wife to the attic with a text. For the next year we sat sandwiched on the armchair together, grooming each other like cats, and watching the glacier through the tiny screen of the camcorder. Our clothes only survived six months. Our skin fused to the leather after eight. We invented a new language through touch and discovered staggering frontiers of bodily intimacy. I didn’t sleep. The glacier scratched closer to the house. The summer seemed to last forever.
.

Steve Gergley is the author of a bunch of books and a lot of weird writings of an indeterminate nature. His most recent book, There Are Some Floors Missing, was published by Bullshit Lit on February 20th, 2026.

His fiction can be found at: stevegergleyauthor . wordpress . com.

He's also the editor of scaffold literary magazine / @scaffoldlitmag

===
===

My Daddy Became a Demonologist After Seeing Jesus in a Coffee Stain on His First Sobriety Chip

by JP Relph / @RelphJp
.

He said it was God’s call. Started collecting fusty, leatherbound books with tanned pages. Learned to speak Latin. Hunkered in the den; reading, reciting. He didn’t have a bottle, didn’t stink up the place like a cheap bar – yet he still missed meals and baths, stayed up ‘til dawn. Little changed for us but blocking out rants in a foreign tongue.

Daddy built an exorcist’s kit in a thrift store briefcase, wore black, collected water from churchyard puddles. He took me on his Godfearing missions: folks revered a small pigtailed child, whispering emphatically over a coiled rosary, didn’t question the veracity of the service Daddy purported to provide.

We attended mansions, brownstones, farmhouses, trailer parks. Daddy said the devil’s acolytes disregarded status, sought weakness anywhere. Everywhere. With each exorcism, he become stubbled and strained in washed-grey, his voice growing heavy as rain-soaked earth, eyes dulling.

I never believed anyone was possessed by anything unholy. Nobody burned when the puddle water splashed them. Folks growled, spat, vomited, cursed, but I only saw anguish. Desperation. For someone to see their pain. Hold their hand, kiss their forehead. Still, Daddy sent their demons somewhere. Left them weeping, hugging, promising change. Even as his own clawed him apart. Even as God let it.

A cold, clear evil ever sloshed, bedeviled from liquor store doorways. Daddy never got the second chip. He emptied himself with his thirty-eight, spilling infernal red into the bathtub.

The case was heavy at first, the Latin tongue-twisting. I don’t see God anywhere – not in mansions or trailers in weed-filled lots. I do see Daddy. In every washed-grey face, every dulled eye. I scream at demons with a little girl’s rage, fighting one that tears at my heart – because I saw, but didn’t how to exorcise.
.

JP Relph is a writer from Northwest England and editor of Trash Cat Lit (@TrashCatLit), a magazine dedicated to short fiction. She is hindered in all things by two cats and a thrifting addiction. Tea helps, milk first.

JP has three short fiction collections and a co-authored novella in the wild. Her stories have been on the Wigleaf longlist and recommended in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror list. Best not to ask about The Novel, her eyes will roll right out her head.

===
===

What I Want to Tell You the First Time You Mention Divorce in Front of Our Children

by Eric Scot Tryon / @EricScotTryon
.

Tell me what you know about dismemberment. The tearing apart. The pull until something gives. Ligaments like piano wire. Tendons like the first memory of your father. Things that snap and break. And once detached there is no mending. No coming back together. Not like how clouds pull apart like taffy then reunite with shifting winds. Not like how water poured into water is water. The permanence of dismemberment doesn’t leave scars, it leaves large gaping cavities. Sink holes that swallow trees and houses and people like after-dinner mints. It is so much more than the mere separation of flesh.
.

Eric Scot Tryon is the Editor-in-Chief of Flash Frog (@flashfroglitmag). His debut novel I’m the Undertow drops this May.

===
===

The Great Butter Baby Championship

by Emily Rinkema / @emilyrinkema
.

She sits in a room full of women turning blocks of butter into babies. She works carefully, molding, dipping, kneading, wrapping until there is a baby-ish shape; cutting, squeezing, pinching, pressing until there is one fat little thigh, and then another; scraping, cupping, pushing, adding until the soft shoulders dip just right and the chin rests, barely, on the chest; brushing, smoothing, tweezing, etching until the tiny nose tips up at the end and the eyelashes separate into impossibly pale hairs.

And then she loses, just like they said she would. Like they had told her from the start, like she had so many times before.

They say stop crying, it’s okay, there’s always next year. They say, it just isn’t your time.

She says, yeah, no, it’s fine, don’t worry, I’m fine, really, I’m fine, and she leaves her butter baby on the table like they tell her to. She climbs the stairs of the cold basement, so tired, counting each step, each one a foot taller than the one before until she’s crawling over the last step, pulling herself over the edge into the heat, way too hot for a butter baby, and I’m fine, fine, she says, leave me alone, she says to someone, maybe them, as she crawls across the parking lot, butter on her palms, under her fingernails, on her breasts where she had wiped her hands.
.

Emily Rinkema lives in Vermont. She is the assistant editor at Flash Frog (@flashfroglitmag), and her stories have been selected for Wigleaf Top 50, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Nonrequired.

===
===

Falling Man

by Christopher Allen / @Christopher_All
.

In the voice of your husband looking down from the cliff: I could have saved you if we’d both had Velcro hands. In the voice of James Earl Jones: If only you’d been a different man on a different path with a different husband. In the voice of a thousand crickets slowed and remixed to sound like a Lutheran choir lulling you, just one more falling man, into a delusive sense of drifting: Impact’s just a bump at the end of a light and lengthy phrase.

In the voice of the countless stars: A Gemini and a Leo? Did you really think he’d save you? You should have married an Aries. In the voice of your stocky physics professor raging at the sky: An 18-wheeler passing the hospital during this man’s birth pulled more on him than any of you ever did! In the voice of Sally Field playing Sybil playing Sid: Everyone has their cliff to fall from, everyone their rock below.

In the voice of a Veteran’s Day parade reechoing the angry cries of your father: If I’d known you were on that cliff, I’d have rushed there to unweight the world. In the voice of your mother cramming the wrong breast into your mouth, in the voice of Reason, in the voice of a doctor’s stinging hand, in the voice of ambiguity, in the voice of dynamite, in the voice of Ah-hah! In your own stilly words, even if you’ve found them a second too late: I’m sorry, Father, that I didn’t call. But you couldn’t have wrested me from this world.
.

Christopher Allen is the author of the flash collection Other Household Toxins and the satire Conversations with S. Teri O'Type. Allen, a nomad, is the owner and editor-in-chief of SmokeLong Quarterly / @SmokeLong

===
===

DARKNESS

by Stephen Moran / @moranpress
.

George woke later than usual, the morning sun pouring through the windows into his eyes. Rolling off the bed, he hurriedly pulled on pants before walking on stiff legs into the living room. He began his morning routine with practiced movements, one hand clutching the television remote, the other running water for coffee. George made breakfast as a newsman intoned reports of a looming global war.

America declares war on Iran and several former allies… but George was no longer listening and clicked off the television, his attention drawn to the windows overlooking the street.

Moving closer for a better view, his mouth dropped open, the sky was filled with fluttering black objects. Opening the front door, he bound down the steps and saw piles of black rose petals. He picked one off the ground, feeling the softness against his palm as he traced a finger over it. The neighbors stood chatting on porches and pedestrians walked unconcerned on the sidewalks, not one of whom gave a sign of noticing the phenomenon. At a café across the street, a man stood in a doorway smoking a pipe.

“Do you not see the rose petals?” George asked the man.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re crazy.”

Dark ominous clouds suddenly filled the sky, petals falling in greater numbers and intensity. George watched the man with pipe pointing at the sky, finally aware something important was happening, his cries bringing several café employees onto the sidewalk.

George lifted a hand above his head to shield himself, the pile of rose petals at his feet growing, the light of early afternoon a faded memory. A great darkness descended from the heavens, covering the entire sky with terrible speed. He heard, first singular and then with greater frequency, screams piercing the air, moments before a blinding flash of light and deafening roar shattered the horizon.
.

Stephen Moran is an author, publisher, and bookbinder.

===
===

DARK TOUCH

by Oliver Baer / @obaer
.

I was called to a sight today that gave me pause. A pause that sends chills up one’s spines (not sure why I believe I once had multiple spines) and makes one wish for another line of work. There was a report of a disturbance at the corner of Houston Street and 2nd Avenue. As I approached the site, there was a large explosion followed by an unearthly scream and a loud thump as something hit my windshield. It was a head. I cursed, hit the brakes and called for backup. Upon arriving on the scene, I saw only rubble and among it pieces of what I thought were twisted metal. I tried to question people in the area as to the source of the explosion. No one seemed to know as they saw no one go into the structure and no one come out. As I started to pick my way through the rubble, I saw that what I thought were pieces of twisted metal were not metal at all. They were pieces of human beings shaped into supporting structures and strengthened in much the same way as carbonized steel. There was a shift in the rubble near me and a shadow stretched forth towards me. As it touched me, I felt a clamminess and a fell whispering in my mind. I jerked myself away and stumbled over the rubble towards my car as fast as I could.

I cannot tell you what horrors it related to me in that moment. But I swear it is still around looking for a way to make itself whole. Looking for something that will complete it. Looking for a place that it can hole up until it can enact its terrible revenge. Perhaps I should warn my informant his fears are true.
.

Oliver Baer was the editor for Cthulhu Sex Magazine and Two Backed Books. Now, he edits roleplaying game manuals for gaming companies. He writes dark poetry and horror stories. He has two books out, Letters to the Editor of Cthulhu Sex Magazine and Baer Soul.

His website: https:// tentacularity . wordpress . com

===
===

Ava’s Nine Lives

by Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos / @DelGeo14
.

She lost the first to the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck as she turned blue and voiceless and no amount of butt-slapping could have saved her had the doctor not reacted fast enough and cut off the snake strangling her.

She lost the second to a pond. A stupid pond that turned out to be deeper than her toddler’s brain. Her screams drowned underwater until a stranger’s hand reached for her sleeve and pulled her out.

She lost the third being young and finally free to be loud and happy and an idiot.

She lost the fourth to faulty brakes, tired tires, and Sahara sand covering a muddy-rained on road. She screamed when she regained control just short of hitting the pavement and a couple of passers-by.

She lost the fifth during her third surgery that almost went wrong but then didn’t and she’d signed all the waivers and her waking up might have been a dream or might not and she had no idea so she chose to forget the whole thing.

She lost the sixth to bacteria. And she will never forget how much mayhem those tiny non-creatures created, or the silent pain that made her groan.

She lost the seventh somewhere along with her heart, when her ‘broken’ got so hurtful she started eating and drinking her feelings to keep them quiet.

She lost the eighth to polyps invading her insides and throwing a bloody party all around. She got to take a look at them once they were out, and swore never to eat chicken liver again—just the thought makes her gag.

She gets worried about the ninth, so she quits smoking, coffee, binging, and starts exercising. But while she squats and pushes up, she hears her grandmother’s clock ticking and knows no amount of ‘healthy’ will stop it from chirping. Cuckoo.
.

Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos is the founder & EIC of Raw Lit @rawlitmag & co-founder of The Pride Roars @PrideRoars94731. Her debut historical novel, Laundry Day, was a Novel Fair runner-up. She lives in Athens, Greece.
https:// delphinegg . weebly . com/

===
===

In High Places, We Tremble

by Tommy Dean / @TommyDeanWriter
.

Repairing the roof was a nightmare. Each piece of shingling a cost he couldn’t compute. His wife suggested he do it by himself. How hard could it be? He had never told her about his fear of heights, of being dangled off a hotel balcony, his feet kicking in the air.

He owed money, gambling as a teenager and as a man. Their finances in ruins.

He ordered the shingles. A ladder. A nail gun. All on credit.

She left for the weekend. A trip to her parents. Leaving him with the ghosts of his mistakes.

On the roof, shadowed.
.

Tommy Dean

Literary Agent, Rosecliff Literary

EIC, Fractured Lit & Uncharted / @FracturedLit / @uncharted_mag_

===
===

Regime Change

by Ryan Deysher
.

The first mayor of the village had no head, limbs, or body. It was just a pile of hair. The village was peaceful and prosperous during the pile of hair’s reign, so the mayor was considered judicious.

This all changed on a night many years ago. A swift wind blew from the mountainside and shifted the pile of hair slightly off-kilter, thus creating a new hairstyle. Almost immediately, the village’s luck turned. At the very least, the villagers noticed a vague sense of cultural erosion, alongside a feeling of unease.

The villagers spoke privately in hushed tones about their struggles. They came to the conclusion that their woes were the result of a tyrannical turn the pile of hair had recently taken, coinciding with the swift wind that blew its follicles slightly askew. A new era of unrest had begun.

One day, in the throes of the village’s unrestful period, a farmer’s pig escaped from its pen. For days, the pig wantonly rooted around the village, symbolic of the chaos. Eventually, the pig made its way to the residence of the mayor. The animal promptly gobbled up the pile of hair, in an event remembered for its violence.

It was a revolution—a time of great change. The villagers were overjoyed at the demise of the dictatorial mayor, but were at a loss with what to do with the pig and the farmer that owned him. The laws of the village dictated that the murder of the mayor was the highest possible treason.

It was an unprecedented case—one that required the guidance of experts. As such, the villagers brought the case to the Hall of Adjudicators, located atop the same mountain where the dark wind that had blown the mayor to evil originated.

The Adjudicators were locked in deliberation for what seemed like an eon. Eventually, they descended the mountain to give their orders.

It was determined that the pig would be given leniency, on account of the mayor’s unwitting evil. In a sense, the pig’s act was one of heroism, made all the more heroic by the fact that the pig was completely unaware of itself. One of the two cardinal truths as laid out by the Adjudicators was that the truest form of heroism is unwitting heroism.

The caveat was that the pig’s owner had to be executed. His pig’s escape was a minor mistake and ultimately beneficial, but was brought on by unwittingness. The second of the two cardinals truths as laid out by the Adjudicators was that the truest form of evil is unwitting evil.

This marked the end of the period of unrest. The villagers were satisfied with the clean conclusion of the case. The pig was elected mayor. It ruled peacefully for years, until a sudden cascade of water descended the mountainside, drowning the village. In an instant, the whole of history was erased.

Years later, a new village was erected atop the remnants of the old village. The story about the pig developed alongside the new village, until the tale became a local legend. If asked, the villagers will recite it by heart with poetic gusto. It is quite the cultural experience. However, I implore you to leave it at that. Don’t you dare ask the locals for the meaning of the pig story. They don’t know and they don’t want to know. Neither do I. And why would you?

Previously published in Free Flash Fiction / @fffict

Selected and edited by Ian Rushton of Free Flash Fiction / @iaminfoian
.

Ryan Deysher is a writer living in Wilmington, DE. His work can be found in Beaver Magazine, Misery Tourism, and The Oakland Arts Review. @ hollywood . deysh

===
===

Hobo Postcard

by Adam Van Winkle / @gritvanwinkle
.

Seasick Steve loves Boxcar Bertha, but Boxcar Bertha loves Mississippi Bones and his caboose. They all love Joe Hill and his hardknocks. None know Utah Phillips but got all his problems and passions. No one seen where Woody went.

Round the yard ain’t none of ‘em will batter, buzz, bum, cage, mooch, pan, panhandle, sell pencils, or touch hearts. Most just lookin’ to twist a dream at the end of something that looks like a work day. Some may head to the peanut farm, the pogey, but then that ain’t trampin’, ramblin’, vagabondin’ or wanderin’. You need train smoke and sweat with your cigarette and a bindle to tramp.

Dinner gets cooked in a banjo and then comes the bull rush. Bulls from the Dope. Bulls from Foul Water & Dirty Cars. Bulls from the Horned Toad. Bulls from The Bum’s Own. Bulls bustin’ freeriders with All Tramps Sent Free. Bulls with buzzers from the buzzard’s roost. Bulls bust even mud chickens with yard jobs. Bulls bust even Mr. Block, no matter how good he thinks he is. Bulls got saps. Bulls is dicks and pussyfooters.

Mushfakers. Jackrollers. Hashers. Lakers. Organ Grinders. Mop Marys. Jacks and Molls all. All on the hog. All on the hummer.

No, no, not yet. A hobo’s work is never done.
.

Adam Van Winkle was born and raised in Texoma and named for the oldest Cartwright son on Bonanza. He now lives with his wife and two sons in South Carolina. He is the founder and editor of Cowboy Jamboree Press and Magazine / @CowboyJamboree

In addition to publishing his fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction online and in print at places like Revolution John, Pithead Chapel, Cheap Pop!, BULL, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Roi Faineant, and Red Dirt Forum, he has published several novels and plays with Red Dirt Press, Cowboy Jamboree Press, and LEFTOVER Books. His most recent book, Count the Dust, a radio play novel, was published by LEFTOVER in December 2025.

===
===

The Greatest Short Story Ever Written

by Jennifer McMahon / @AuthorJmcm / @frazzledlitmag
.

The greatest short story ever written was squeezed from the fertile imagination of Private Simon Durant, US Army Rangers, in Germany in late December 1944. He wrote it with a blunt pencil, in the tiniest of writing, on the cardboard of a torn-open pack of cigarettes, before bedding down for the night with his platoon in the ruins of a church.

The next morning, in a brief skirmish with a crack Waffen SS unit, Private Durant was killed by a stray enemy bullet that struck him in the heart, passing through the breast pocket of his tunic, wherein he had placed the story. His blood obliterated all but the closing paragraph:

‘As the bullet cut through flesh and bone, as it shredded Dawson’s aorta, his final thought, in the very brief moment before he expired, was not of his fiancé back home in Maryland who’d prayed for his safe return. He thought only of the greatest short story ever written, and how no one would ever get to read it.’

Years later, the blood-stained slip of cardboard was sold at auction in Baltimore for one hundred thousand dollars, to a wealthy stockbroker named John Reynolds. Stopping at a liquor store to buy a celebratory bottle of champagne, John was shot in the chest by a stray bullet, a bystander in a robbery of the store.

John’s final thoughts, in the moment before he expired, were not of his wife and two small children. He thought only of the greatest short story ever written, and how he would never get the opportunity to decipher its true meaning.

The young man arrested and charged at the scene had this to say: ‘Bullets don’t discriminate. Sometimes you find them, and sometimes they find you. All that really matters, when the smoke clears away, is that your story is over and no one’s ever going to hear it.’

It might have given Reynolds some comfort had he known that these were precisely the words Private Durant had used in the opening lines of the greatest short story ever written.
.

Jennifer McMahon won the 2024 AIS Creative Writing Award, the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair in 2023, has been shortlisted for Short Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards (2023), the Bridport Short Story Prize and many other notable awards. She was also a second-place winner of the Oxford Prize (winter 2023), and was twice longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award. Her work appears in Crannog (2023 and 2025), HOWL, The Irish Independent, The Galway Review, and many other places.

===
end
===

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

I've got a new story up at @flashficmag - https://t.co/SnqcG9gfsL

[Robert Vaughan @rgvaughan]

All new @BendingGenres Issue 49 is now live! Our Jan/ Feb 2026 issue is filled with fantastic hybrid flash, poetry and CNF, an amazing issue! Congratulations to all editors and writers! Happy Publication Day!!! #Writer #writerslift #writerscommunity

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

Thank you @BendingGenres for publishing my latest story, One Bad Idea After Another https://t.co/caRlysqUP2

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

@emilyrinkema I love your work. Every story is such a delight to read. Your prolific output is phenomenal!

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

This story, by the wonderful @emilyrinkema, innovatively scrambles chronology and creates something more impactful by accumulation than what a simple chronological narrative would have.

[Wigleaf @Wigleaf]

new new: "Things That Happened at or Around My Cousin Kelly's Funeral, in No Particular Order," by Emily Rinkema: https://t.co/Ri55QdRrFW

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

@neonpajamas That has always been my favorite Massive Attack song, maybe in part because Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins is singing

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

@NathanBorn2010 @MythicPicnic And thanks for having me!

[Daniel Krieger @daniel_krieger]

New sandwich-related story in the really entertaining prompt-based @MythicPicnic

[Mythic Picnic @MythicPicnic]

One Sandwich Short

Mythic Micros by @tammy_blakley @merlinflower @MEProctor3 @daniel_krieger @Lydiasta @DChrisBader @JohnTures2 @KennethMGRAY2 @Madeleine_write @KA_Harrington @ScottMacLe59594 & @keithroysdon

Curated by @NathanBorn2010 / Nathan Pettigrew

#MythicPicnicTweetStory

===
===

That Boy Ain’t Right

by Tammy Blakley / @tammy_blakley
.

“That boy ain’t right.” Emma Sue sat on the tailgate of her pickup truck next to her sister, Nelly, eating a pimento cheese sandwich. She took a bite and shook her head.

“You hush up.” Nelly smacked Emma’s arm. “He’s a good boy, out here helpin’ his grandma out.”

The two women watched Cletus, Nelly’s son, climb around on the roof of their mother’s house, taking down Christmas lights.

“When he put ‘em up, he fell through the roof.”

“That wasn’t his fault. You know that roof’s older’n you are, Emma.”

“He stepped on the tarp that was coverin’ up the hole from where he fell through the roof the first time he went up there to fix a leak. He’s the one who put the tarp on there. For god’s sake, Nelly, the ER wanted to give him a punch card so his next visit’s free.”

Nelly sighed, knowing Emma was right. Cletus was a good boy, but he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the string.

They watched him yank a strand of lights from around the chimney, windmill his arms as he lost his balance, slide down the pitch of the roof hanging onto the lights until the wire snapped and he splatted on the grass outside the front window.

Emma tossed the crusts of her sandwich on the ground and hopped off the tailgate, pulling the keys out of her pocket. “Shoulda got that punch card.”
.

Tammy Blakley lives in the Pacific Northwest and writes without any formal training or adult supervision. Find her work in Stone’s Throw, Pistol Jim Press, Punk Noir Magazine, and Urban Pigs or on Twitter @tammy_blakley

===
===

Boy, That Sucks

by Merlin Flower / @merlinflower
.

Hands on cheeks, the man looked lost inside the glass chamber.

‘Let’s improvise, Norris,’ said Caleb, from outside the recording room. With reluctance, Norris got up like a man on the death penalty awaiting the lethal injection. Closing his eyes, he changed the lower notes of his singing.

‘Take a breath and dwell on the ‘la’ for a sharp millisec more, buddy,’ said Caleb. ‘Sustain it.’

‘Shut up, man. I’ve been upping the ‘ta’ and lowering the ‘la’ for hours now,’ said Norris who raised his hand but didn’t show the finger he wanted to. However, his bracelet thrust forward looking like many Jupiters strung together around the wrist.

‘I am done…That’s it I am going to gas my face,’ blasted Norris, throwing away his earphone. He stormed off the room, cursing like a fishwife.

‘Gassing the face?’ Caleb looked at Norris as if he was a sandwich short of a picnic.

‘Haven’t you heard? They put all these micronutrients in the gas and spread it across your face. Apparently, it’s a powerful antidote,’ said the assistant music director, gazing at the retreating form of Norris.

‘Why would anyone do that? The air is full of carbon, protein, nitrogen and dust. I was in Delhi last week and swear I could smell the air. Why, he just needs to hop on a plane and get lost,’ fumed Caleb.

‘We need him for the song, HERE,’ the assistant pointed out. ‘Anyway, he’ll return.’

‘What do I know, cat after cat, dog after dog…’

‘Song after song, tune after tune…’ added his assistant.

‘Scoot, haul that idiot back. He can gas his face day after tomorrow,’ said Caleb.

‘Let’s wait,’ shrugged the assistant, ‘gassing is quick as a wink…five mins and done. The parlour is but minutes from here. Let him scratch that itch… I mean, you should try too, it’s brilliant.’

‘Thanks, I’ll pass’, said Caleb.

Few moments later, and a bit more, Norris arrived with his ‘ta’s and ‘la’s seemingly dripping off his face.
.

Merlin flower is an independent artist.

===
===

Crawlies

by M.E. Proctor / @MEProctor3
.

“You can’t be serious. You’re not really going to eat that!”

“Why not?” Luke said. “It’s a perfectly fine sandwich.”

I had visions of people swallowing bees, being stung, throat swelling, dying of asphyxiation. Pesky wasps buzzed around, but they weren’t what made me recoil when Luke opened the picnic basket. Fire ants had snuck in there. They must have found a hole and marched in, disciplined and single-minded, while we splashed in the river. The freaky little bastards were efficient.

“They haven’t gotten into the tuna salad and the crackers. We won’t go hungry.”

“I hate waste.”

“Jesus, Luke, it’s just bread and peanut butter. Fifty cents worth of it. Nothing to weep over.”

He laughed. “What do you think they taste like?”

“You want me to google the nutrition value? Serving size: one thousand. A slight lemony flavor. Formic acid is supposed to be good for rheumatisms. I’ve never heard of rheumatism of the tongue. You’re such an idiot.”

I grabbed a napkin and reached for a can of soda, carefully. The entire basket swarmed with ants. I had to wipe at least fifty of them off my drink. I sat at a safe distance. The mean critters were vindictive. They might come after me for daring to enter their newly conquered territory.

Luke grabbed the peanut butter sandwich. I shouldn’t have worried about what might happen to his mouth, because in no time thousands of bugs were all over his hand and arm, and he was running to the river yelling like a man possessed.

I went to the car for the first aid kit.

Why I bother with this doofus, I don’t know.
.

M.E. Proctor writes the Declan Shaw PI series, Love You Till Tuesday and Catch Me on a Blue Day. She’s the author of two short story collections, Family and Other Ailments and A Book to Live By, and the co-author of a retro-noir novella, Bop City Swing. She’s a Derringer and Shamus award short story nominee.

===
===

A Sandwich in Excess of a Picnic

by Daniel Krieger / @daniel_krieger
.

“How would you describe yourself?” my date asks with a flirty smile, her hand on my thigh as candlelight flickers across her face. I dramatically clear my throat, take a sip of Merlot, lean in and say: “I’m the type of guy who bucks convention. I march to the beat of my own drum. I write my own rules. For instance, everyone puts on their pants before their shoes, right? But I do the opposite because I'm not confined by prescriptive thinking. You eat your slice of pizza starting at the point of the triangle, without ever having giving it a second thought, but me—I begin at the crust. I wear my left shoe on my right foot, my right shoe on my left and do the same with gloves. I eat dessert before the main course and died before I was born. You might be thinking, ‘this guy just does everything backwards, what gives?’ But there’s more to it. I blaze new pathways where others haven’t tread. You might think I’m a sandwich short of a picnic. But in fact, I’ve split my sandwich in two, doubling my sandwich count. So I am a sandwich in excess of a picnic. And by the way, for the picnic I’ll bring along a bottle of Cab, red grapes and a wheel of triple-cream brie with Ritz crackers. We can cuddle on a plush blanket watching the clouds drift across the sky, or whatever you like. And another thing about me is I don’t see time as linear. With my ultra wide perspective, I see the past, present and future all happening simultaneously. So now that I’ve answered your question, it's my turn to ask about you—and what you think about me. Would you describe me as a sandwich short of a picnic or a sandwich in excess of a picnic? Be honest!”
.

Read more at danielkrieger . net

===
===

The Number He Couldn’t Hold

by Lydia Psaradelli / @Lydiasta
.

The mistake was small enough to forgive, which is why it frightened him.

Elias noticed it at 8:42 a.m., balancing a column of figures he had balanced a thousand times before. The total came out wrong—not wildly, not embarrassingly—just slightly. A hairline fracture in certainty. He recalculated. Same result. He checked the input. Clean. Logical. Obedient.

Something was missing.

Not a digit. Not a decimal. Something else. A number that should have been there, but wasn’t.

For the rest of the day, Elias felt it like an itch under the skin of his thoughts. Every calculation leaned subtly away from truth. He compensated instinctively, adding margins, second-guessing himself, but the gap followed him home and into sleep.

By the end of the week, he realized the problem wasn’t mathematical.

He could count objects, money, days. But when he tried to recall certain quantities—how many students had been in his first classroom, how many names were on an old birthday card—his mind slipped. Not blank. Redirected. As if a single value had been erased, and everything depending on it had quietly adjusted.

People started noticing him noticing. Colleagues joked that Elias was a sandwich short of a picnic—never asking which part of the picnic was missing. His sister said it more gently. His doctor didn’t say it at all.

Then one night, sorting through old tax files, Elias found a document he didn’t remember: a dependency claim, years old, crossed out in his own handwriting. The name beneath it was smudged beyond recognition, overwritten again, as though he had tried to erase it by force.

Attached was a hospital invoice. Pediatric. Final.

The total was wrong.

He understood then—not the number itself, but why it could not be held. The mind, he realized, could forgive many things, but not precise loss. So it removed the unit entirely. Reduced the sum. Balanced the world by being slightly incorrect forever.

The next morning, his calculations were flawless again.

Only now, when he counted, he always stopped one short—

and never noticed.
.

Lydia Psaradelli finds meaning in unseen moments.

===
===

Bridger, Wyoming

by D. Christopher Bader / @DChrisBader
.

Wait, did those two dogs just walk into that bar?

Lucy Bradshaw shook her head. The long drive from Casper had her seeing things. She spotted the sign for the Buffalo Belle Hotel and glanced toward the western edge of town, where snowcapped mountains loomed closer than expected.

Maybe this move would work out after all.

She’d stay the night at the Belle, grab her key from the realtor in the morning, then head to new-teacher orientation. Classes started Monday. She’d have to hit the ground running, but she had the weekend to get her bearings.

Up early on Friday, Lucy checked out, grabbed breakfast, then headed to the realtor’s office. Key in hand, she followed a hand-drawn map to her bungalow off Cheyenne. One step inside, and she knew she’d made the right call. She texted the address to the movers, then headed to orientation.

Saturday, Lucy wandered Cheyenne and saw the two dogs from the other night. The Boston Terriers ambled down the sidewalk side by side. No leashes. No owner. They stopped at the corner, waited as a pickup rolled past, then crossed together.

“They’re Beans and Cheddar,” a local said from behind her. “They’ll get where they’re going.”

The pair waited for someone to open the door to the bar, then trotted inside.

Lucy stood there a moment, then kept walking.

On Sunday, she ate breakfast at Gran-Gran’s Diner. At the counter, a wild-haired man sat with two old ranchers. Lucy caught fragments of their conversation. It sounded like a bad X-Files recap. No one at the restaurant seemed concerned.

Lucy was getting the vibe that something was off with this town. She told herself she was reading too much into things. New places always felt strange.

Monday morning, the principal welcomed her and listened as she mentioned the dogs and the UFO conversation at Gran-Gran’s.

“You’ll hear folks say Bridger’s a sandwich short of a picnic,” the principal said kindly. “They usually don’t stay long enough to find the missing sandwich.”

Lucy smiled, wondering if she would stick around for the picnic.
.

D. Christopher Bader writes rural noir, Wyoming weirdness, and the sort of stories that keep folks checking the sagebrush at night.

===
===

The Panuozzo

by John Tures / @JohnTures2
.

“Gentlemen, here’s one Cuzzetiello for Mr. Bianchi….”

“Grazie.”

The delivery boy continued. “And the Tramezzino for Mr. Rossi…”

The man grunted as he started in on his sandwich bites.

“Mr. Giallo, your New York Style.”

The big man swiped it from him. “Di Nineti,” he snapped.

“Your Muffaletta, Mr. Nera.”

The dark-suited figure glared at the college kid, then tore at the wrapper.

“And the Panuozzo….”

The kid from Mazzili’s Sub Shop froze in fear. The favorite of Don Marrone, with pizza dough, mozzarella, zucchini, arugula, and sausage, which he personally double-baked, had disappeared.

Just like Guido Verdi last year.

“Hey Paulie,” Mr. Bianchi laughed at the college kid whose skin now matched the inside of a Ciabatta roll. “Looks like you’re one sandwich short of a picnic!”

The others laughed.

The head of the five families squirmed out of his chair and waddled over to the deliverer of deli.

“Looks like you’re gonna be swimmin’ with the fishes instead of slinging subs, Paulie,” Mr. Giallo guffawed.

Don Marrone swung his arm around Paulie. “Kid, let’s take a walk.”

While heading to the door, Paulie saw Mr. Nera make the sign of the cross, while Mr. Rossi drew a finger across his neck.

Outside the door, Paulie started blubbering. “I’m sorry M-Mr. M-Marrone. I musta been thinkin’ about my date with Becky tonight…I work two jobs an’ classes an’ all…Please don’ make me suffer…”

Don Marrone puffed on a cigar. “It’s okay, Paulie. You didn’ forget the Panuozzo.”

“I…didn’?”

“Nah. Bernardo snuck it out whilst you called Becky. He also slipped in a few special ingredients to the other subs.”

Audible sounds of choking and gasping now came from behind the door.

“It was time to clean house, Paulie,” Marrone sighed. “The others bin’ sellin’ out to the Russians.”

He pulled a huge wad of cash from his pocket. “Go git Becky a cute corsage an’ all for tonight.”

“Uh…thanks, Mr. Marrone….” Paulie stammered.

“Be smart…don’ work at Mazzili’s no more…else you really will be a sandwich short of a picnic.”
.

John A. Tures
LaGrange College

===
===

Art is in the Eye

by Kenneth M. Gray / @KennethMGRAY2
.

After a dozen boilermakers each and a fistfight over the jukebox, the girls left the bar ready to rescue Lucy from Gumdrop Melvin. Teresa 'Twitch' McBride, one sandwich short of a picnic, and Big Ass Betty, not the sharpest spoon in the drawer, headed down the street, sharing a pint of Jack they stole from behind the bar, kicking over trash cans, and singing "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks.

Gumdrop Melvin sounded like a cartoon character; in reality, he was the meanest son of a bitch on the planet. He considered himself an artist with a sawed-off, taking his time to reposition brain chunks, bone, and the occasional eyeball until the splatter pleased his artistic sensibility. He was not a man to owe money to.

Twitch and Big Ass Betty, filled with liquid courage and little of the good sense God gave a frog, threw a discarded air conditioner through the glass entrance, ran up several flights, and kicked in Melvin's door.

"Hey, Prickasshole, we're here for Lucy."

Melvin rolled a lemon drop to the other side of his mouth.

"The fucking hamster?"

"That's right."

"If you have my money, you can have your rat back."

"We lost it playing pool."

Melvin bit down on the lemon drop. "You silly bitches, come at me? With no guns?"

"Shit."

"And no backup?"

"Double shit."

"For a hamster?" Gumdrop racked his sawed-off.

"I'm feeling extra inspired today," Melvin said and fired.

Big Ass Betty drove through the blast, taking her and Melvin through the window and down to the street.

Teresa found Betty battered and bleeding on top of Melvin. Teresa pulled Betty up from the remains of Gumdrop Melvin and asked, "What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't."

Teresa handed Lucy to Betty, picked up the shotgun, and blasted Melvin in the face.

"Let's go, girls."

"Wait." Betty handed Lucy back, picked up a stick, moved an eyeball and some brain chunks around, until she made a smiley face in the gore.

“I'm no artist, but I know what I like."
.

X- @KennethMGRAY2

Instagram- @graykennethm Bluesky-@kennethmgray. bsky. Social

===
===

An Eejit Man in New Cross

by Madeleine Armstrong / @Madeleine_write
.

I was puttering through South London in my knackered old van, singing along to Englishman in New York, when Alan piped up from the passenger seat.

“I think you’ll find it’s a little alien.”

“It’s a legal alien, moron,” I muttered.

It was meant to be an easy job. Grab the girl on the way home from her fancy art college, head to the rendezvous and await instructions. No one would get hurt and we’d get a fat slice of the ransom.

But I was starting to have second thoughts about Alan. More face than brains, that one.

I pulled up in the quiet side street we’d reconned earlier. Alan got out and loitered against a graffiti’d wall; I kept singing, dreaming of a holiday to New York, or anywhere.

Soon, a grunt and a slam told me he’d got her in the back of the van. I drove away slowly, careful not to draw any unwanted attention.

Five minutes later, she was still screaming. Fuck’s sake. He was supposed to put tape over her mouth; keep her quiet; knock her out if necessary. He should’ve been able to manage it: she was about as hefty as Ariana Grande.

“Keep it down!” I shouted.

A crack split the air.

The ringing in my ears drowned out the radio.

A car backfiring?

Surely not a gun. Alan, with a gun? God help us.

The girl had stopped screaming.

I pulled over, jumped out into the drizzle. When I opened the back of the van it looked like The Shining and smelled like an abattoir. The girl lay in the mess of blood while Alan stared, a glint of metal in his hand.

I leaned over the body, forgetting any plans for a holiday, any plans for a life.

A pale face, newly vacated. Nothing like the photo of our mark. She wasn’t even the right colour.

“Who the fuck is this?”

Whoever she was, Alan – the stupid bastard – had killed her.
.

Madeleine is a Pushcart Prize-nominated author who has won the Hammond House short story prize, and been published in mags including BULL, Bunker Squirrel, Hooghly Review, Literary Garage, Micromance, Punk Noir, Trash Cat, Underbelly, Waffle Fried and WestWord. She’s a journalist and runner, and lives in London. Twitter/X @Madeleine_write; Bluesky @madeleinewrite. bsky . social

===
===

Like Crazy

by Karen Harrington / @KA_Harrington
.

Will is a sucker for the fake retro band t-shirts he buys at Target. He’s a poser. Well, he was. My mind is still going to refer to him in the present tense, as in, he’s still alive and breathing and, fatal mistake, texting other girls.

He said, “Bitch, you had my password?”

Please.

I tap my fingers against the mini-van steering wheel. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Me, driving back solo. Him, dead near a ravine, buried as good as a five-foot two girl can bury. What will I say when I return with Will’s van, but with no Will? If they don’t find the body, easy.

I’d dared him to call me a bitch one more time. “Say it again, Will.”

He pushed back. “Stop punching me!”

Please. I only hit him. A little tap. And it was his fault.

I keep pressing my brain for an explanation. His parents will ask a million questions. “What, he wandered off? Why didn’t you report it? Why didn’t you call us?”

God, they are annoying.

Then it hits me. I’m crazy. Temporarily insane. Traumatized. The only thing I knew to do was drive a well-worn path back to the beautiful familiar. I can sell that.

Will always said I was an actress in search of a stage.

His life is so boring without me.

Was.

He was always annoyed by my texts. I mean, 30 texts in a couple hours is no big deal. I’m the drama queen? Please. He blew things out of proportion.

“Whaddaya think of me now, William? You’d never find anyone better than me.”

Brake lights ahead. All lanes converging. I don’t like that the traffic has slowed enough for people to see inside the van. Someone might remember me later. “There she was, rapping her fingers along the steering wheel, tearing at her hair.” Wait, that’s my alibi! I want someone to see my performance. I roll down my window and scream-sing the radio song.

Like crazy.
.

Like many people, Karen Harrington still has her childhood unicycle.

Out Now! - "The Mysterious Disappearance of Jason Whetstone" in Best American Mystery & Suspense 2024

www . karenharringtonbooks . com

===
===

Good Crazy

by Scott MacLeod / @ScottMacLe59594
.

“He was one shy of a full deck. Like that night after nickel beers at the Barn. When he threw up down into the roof gears in my brand-new convertible.”

“Said he must’ve got a bad clam.”

They all laughed.

Whenever they gathered, since high school, years ago, the stories about Artie always flowed. Legendary.

“We should write a movie,” they always would say.

“He was a few fries short of a Happy Meal, that’s for sure. Remember the time he needed a ride in Vegas and there were no cabs. Couldn’t rent a car with his credit. He called a tow-truck and said, ‘pretend I have a car, tow me to the airport’.”

Laughs all around.

“He was one beer short of a six pack, no doubt. When he got called in to see the head partner, scariest man on earth, right before noon one day for a new assignment, and he showed up with his overcoat on.”

“Meaning, ‘I’m headed to lunch bro, make it snappy’.”

“Classic.”

Another long pause.

“Definitely one brick short of a load. Who can forget that night at the fancy club, with the giant bowl of potato chips. He ‘fell’ in.”

“Swam around screaming, ‘I’m in the chips, I’m in the chips!’”

Seemed odd without him there to share in the fun. One of them said so.

It got quiet.

They looked to the front of the church. Everybody else, long gone. Priest too.

But there he was. Artie. Front and center. In the box. Lid closed.

“One sandwich short of a picnic. No doubt about it.”

More silence.

Finally, “Yup. How else do you explain running into a burning nursery school?”
.

Scott MacLeod is a father of two who writes in Central Florida. His work has appeared recently in various publications, with more forthcoming. His Son of Ugly weekly flash fiction newsletter can be found on Substack at scottmacleod1 dot substack dot com on Instagram @scottmacleod478, on X @ScottMacLe59594
and at www . facebook . com/scott.Macleod.334

===
===

Zip It

by Keith Roysdon / @keithroysdon
.

“Oh my god! That guy just flashed me!”

Tyler watched the man run away, in a zig-zag pattern across the quad, and sadly shook his head. “That’s Cletus. He’s the campus flasher.”

“You know his name?” Deborah asked.

“Yeah,” Tyler said, taking another bite of sandwich from their picnic lunch on the grass in front of the administration building. “He’s a campus legend.”

“Don’t you care that he exposed himself to me?” she asked.

Tyler nodded toward the receding figure. “He’s not very smart, so he’s a problem that always resolves itself. Watch.”

Cletus – Deborah couldn’t believe she was thinking of the pervert by name – had stopped and, back to them, appeared to be stuffing himself back in his pants.

“But …”

“Seriously, just watch,” Tyler said.

Even from a distance, Deborah could figure out what happened next: In his haste, Cletus had zipped himself up in his zipper.

Deborah and Tyler could hear his squeal of pain from where they sat.

“Well, that’s funny, but is that enough to keep him from doing it again?” she asked.

Tyler shrugged.

While they watched, a campus police car sped along the street. Over the speaker, the cop inside said, “Cletus! Stay right there!”

“The cops know him and he still does this?” Deborah asked.

Tyler nodded toward the officer, who now approached Cletus on foot. “Told ya, it’s a problem that takes care of itself.”

Cletus, hunched over and cursing in pain with every step, ran from the cop.

“Takes care of itself, huh?” Deborah asked.

“Usually,” Tyler said, shrugging.

Lights flashing and sirens blaring, another campus cop car sped up on the adjacent street.

The cop didn’t see Cletus and Cletus didn’t see the cop car.

The two collided and, not surprisingly, the cop car won that showdown. Cletus was catapulted half a block.

While Tyler winced, Deborah sat back on the blanket.

“You were right. Problem taken care of.”
.

Keith Roysdon is the author of THAT OCTOBER and SEVEN ANGELS (coming summer 2026.)

===
end 🥪
===