Noble Gases When the last tank of helium arrived, Ben and I were the only people on the loading dock. We were on our lunch break in our...

See You Again When I return to the lab, the new tanks are the first thing I notice. My colleagues had no details about my daughter’s...

Sans Souci I. He asks, “What brings you to the estate?” and you know that you and your boyfriend are going to say different things....

When God Opens a Door He Closes a Loophole One spring morning, a sinkhole opened up at the far end of the elementary school. It swallowed...

Elevator Pitch She hired a career coach after bombing her twentieth interview. The career coach told her that she must shorten her...

The Airplane Passengers board the plane and sit waiting. In first class, they stretch their legs out, check cell phones for messages they...

Uncle, Uncle! My lament was that a kind of intense beauty that I see given to me by science, is seen by so few others; by few poets and...

Three Legs Are Better than Two Elise was early meeting her son Aaron, thirty-five, for lunch in Manhattan, but she could see through the...

Parrots That’s an animal. When I first heard the sound this morning, I labeled it as another upset alarm and let it dissolve into the...

✧ Winner of the 2020 World's Best Short-Short Story Contest ✧ Selected by Robert Olen Butler Instructions for Lovers Eve lay beneath the...