He had arranged date after date in the last few months. This was the twelfth. Out of them, three didn’t show, seven had been dull and one had been average. If he was being honest with himself, this one was pretty awful.

She was much younger than him and jabbered through dinner. Grace, that was her name. He knew all about her, and she knew nothing about him, apart from being a good listener. She didn’t even ask why he was still here?

“Let’s get together again,” she giggled in a breathless voice, one that was full of air and sounded like wind chimes. “I really enjoyed talking with you about, you know, stuff.”

Ugh, Langston’s heart flopped and fell all the way to the bottom of his stomach. Did she stay stuff? That really was the last straw for him.

“Listen, Grace, I don’t think I am up for that.”

Her face fell, and she stared down at the table, finally running out of things to say.

He left the restaurant alone, making a mental note to be pickier about birth dates. The age gap with Grace was too much. They were decades apart and had nothing in common. It just wasn’t possible to find that thread that wove through both of their lives, something to tie them together.

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He took the long way home because walking gave him clarity, left him floating. He looked up at the brick buildings as he travelled along the crowded sidewalk until his eyes unfocused. He was so engrossed in his dating debacle that he almost bumped into a woman holding the hand of a flaxen-haired girl, who shivered as he passed. How could he find a partner when he always chose wrong?

When he got home, he climbed the steps to his attic apartment, each board creaking as he ascended. He flopped onto his sofa, positioning himself around the spots where the fabric had worn thin, his body leaving no indentation, and dozed off.

He awakened to a loud banging. He slowly opened his eyes just as the metallic crashing from the floors below stopped. His felt hollow as he looked around the empty room. He really hated being lonely. There had to be someone out there for him.

“Langston, you can do this,” he said to the frosty space.

In that moment, he resolved that he could. His iPad felt light in his fingers when he picked it up. He logged into the Spiritual World app and watched the logo flash on the screen, Ghosts Meeting Ghosts in the in Between. His matches loaded, landing in his inbox one by one. He began swiping, hoping he could be luckier in love now than he had been in life.

Brigitta Scheib is a teacher that lives in Harrisburg, PA with her husband, daughter and 3 orange cats. Her work can be found at Temple in a City, Flash Phantoms, A Story In 100 Words, Bright Flash Literary Review and Choeofpleirn Press.

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But I can never remember to use a napkin so I wipe my hands on my jeans or on my socks and that way my clothes are always dirtier than everyone else’s

I am nice to everyone I talk to, no matter what, but I am cruel to people I talk about, which is technically still good manners because they’ll never hear it from me

Even if you are well mannered, and your parents are rich, and you’re a pretty decent dancer, you might still watch good things slipping through your fingers like a whole lot of water

I’m not a very hard worker, except on things I care about and I haven’t cared about anything in a while so. I’m not a very hard worker

I’m sort of clever, but I’m polite, remember, and if you’re only sort of clever then you have to at least be mysterious for it to get you places

I am a mystery to no one but myself

Dream life exercise: married, separate bedrooms but only for when we’re fighting, though it is possible we fight a lot. Set of twins, NO breastfeeding, just don’t wanna. It’s not weird, obviously it is not weird, but to me, sorry for me, it is. House in the woods and house on the beach and house in the city. My car from high school, not just the same make and model, but the exact same car. 38 years old. Bigger lips that just got that way overnight and no one knows how, flattest stomach ever seen on a woman, medically. All of the friends I have right now plus the ones I used to have and new ones if they’re a perfect fit. Ugly little dog and big beautiful dog and for my cat to live forever. Die holding hands with someone so I’m not scared.

Is that so much to ask as a well mannered six foot bottle brunette with poor work ethic a mean streak and a little bit of wit?

It’s not called life exercise, it’s called dream life exercise.

Hannah Wakefield is unemployed in New York City. She spends every day alone and every night at a party. She earned her degree in Philosophy and Critical Theory from Occidental College and one day she will be incredibly famous.

Uncle Sam and Old Glory come July,
Ghosts and ghouls in October,

The entire North Pole for Christmas.

I am perpetually annoyed as tubes
and pumps bring their grinning forms to life,
swaying and pulsing garish lights
late into the night.

Only in their deflated state,
a graveyard of spent cheer,
do I feel any kinship;
for I too know what it is to have
the wind knocked out, to be brought
low to the ground, only to flip
a switch the next day, to smile
and wave as if all is okay.

Kellie Brown is a violinist, conductor, and music educator. As a writer and poet, she explores themes of place, material culture, and healing journeys. Her words have appeared in Writerly, Amethyst Review, Psaltery & Lyre, Galway Review, and others.

The ground is shiny the ground is wet and shiny and glittering like from a summer rain I remember the way that smells

Well no

I remember that I love the way that it smells earthy and dirty and warm but I can’t really smell it right now not actually

I can only ever hold the memory of the thing but never the thing itself

Are other people holding the thing itself?

Doesn’t matter because it didn’t rain it snowed again

And again and again and winter is forever this year

This year is not cold and dark, not actually, it’s actually very bright and very white it’s actually beautiful but I actually I hate it

When I go outside I pretend that everything is green and the breeze is moving my hair but only a little and in my wild fantasy I am smiling no teeth but in the real world I am just looking out into the distance with no expression at all

Hannah Wakefield is unemployed in New York City. She spends every day alone and every night at a party. She earned her degree in Philosophy and Critical Theory from Occidental College and one day she will be incredibly famous.

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Only after the pop and puff that carried the pellet from its chamber did I see Big Steve’s hand over his eye. His Reebok pumps untied, mouth agape. Maria and I waited for a cry that never came. Big Steve shook like he was dancing to the silence.

Skinny Steve decided to run. We ran, too, to Maria’s house.

We sat at her kitchen table eating pickles from a jar, slurping the juice off our fingers after every grab, no mention of the Steves. We heard sirens from a distance that then became louder.

Maria’s mother walked outside and stood on the porch until all the mothers were outside, exchanging the same look of concern. A shared narrative of speculation between all the mothers except Big Steve’s and Skinny Steve’s.

Later that night, long after Big Steve was loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher, the mothers convened at a driveway with handheld coolers and folding chairs, waiting for news. Maria and I ran through a curtain of clustered mosquitoes to Skinny Steve’s bedroom window, our blackened feet cleansed from a bath of sunset dew while we called his name. Maria threw a handful of pebbles at the glass.

When he appeared at the window, Skinny Steve’s face was reddened, but not from the summer sun. He looked at us for a few moments, hand pressed against the glass, then turned and walked away. We left when his bedroom went dark.

The street, it was empty. A house phone echoed like a dinner bell. Abandoned lawn chairs and lipstick-stained wine cooler bottles in the driveway. The mothers inside, holding their babies tight.

Erin Dawkins (she/her) received her MA in English with a specialty in Creative Writing from Wayne State University. Her work has has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine, Sky Island Journal, Blood+Honey Literary Magazine, Mouthful of Salt, WestWord Journal, and others. Read more at erindawkins.com.

Maybe there was a Pete “Maverick” Mitchell lookalike contest in the basement of the Y on Harrison next to Harry’s Hair Store and that burned-down doggy daycare. Maybe there wasn’t but I was blasting “Take My Breath Away” anyway going 80 down 580 on my way when a cop lit me up.

“Who do you think you are, Tom Cruise?” he said through the window. I laughed. He didn’t.

“I just watched Top Gun,” I said over my aviators.

“I hate that movie,” he said down his nose. “How old are you, son?”

I hiccuped.

He took me back to the station and called my dad, so I slept in a cell with my hands stained black.

In the morning, I woke up and forgot my aviators. I drove home slow. I scrubbed and scrubbed my hands, but I couldn’t get them clean.

Keith Gaboury earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. American Poetry Systems published “Monetized Happiness” (2025), Falkenberg Press published “Still Human” (2025), Kelsay Books published “The Cosmos is Alive” (2023), and The Pedestrian Press published “Oakland, I’m Not Dead” (2020). Find more of Keith’s work at keithgaboury.com.

Click to Submit your microfiction, creative nonfiction or poetry (up to 500 words) to Aperture. Send up to three pieces on the same form. Submissions read on a rolling basis. Emerging writers encouraged.

Silent screams can fill the car;
if allowed voice they might shatter
windshields, scar vocal cords.

Silent screams can echo with
ghostly reverb through family trees,
a trauma crescendo embedded in DNA.

Silent screams are surprisingly loud;
just ask Munch’s painted figure,
who never hears his own screams,
yet needs both hands to shield his ears.

Kellie Brown is a violinist, conductor, and music educator. As a writer and poet, she explores themes of place, material culture, and healing journeys. Her words have appeared in Writerly, Amethyst Review, Psaltery & Lyre, Galway Review, and others.

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