Avital Gad-Cykman

January 2026 | fiction

Clockwise

Quite late into my pregnancy, the day I eventually did pregnancy tests and all three came out positive (Surprise! I’m here!), my husband said he’d always yearned to be a father, (Have I developed something new? These are voices outside!), a statement of desired fatherhood that came as a shock, or, let’s say, a seven-degree alarm on a scale of zero to ten, (Water, water, wateeerrrr, swimming in a blister) because my husband used to say it’s crazy to bring a baby to this world, and I believed  he understood my point and accepted my decision, though he always beamed at babies and said to fathers they were lucky, so I guess  (she says: I will change diapers, will hear a baby cry, will be like my tired girl friends), his huge capacity of devotion had been seeking a route, which didn’t pass solely through me, (Here I am! Feel me. I’ll kick a little, see? Again! Again! Happy?), or maybe not at all through me or anyone, yet, because in his youth, my husband credited people with more generosity than they actually had, lost his family in a war and that pain squandered his capacity for love (A head against my kicking leg. Father! A hand over my head. Mother!) or so he thought, but his love for our child grew high and bright like wheat in the following months, and after all he did trust my contribution to his child, and this grew into a plant of love between us too, and I was afraid to lose it when the baby came out, so I wanted to turn the clock back (something’s wrong, what’s wrong, I’ll see you soon, Mother, Father, I promise! I’ll be yours, I want out.), but when the baby was born, and light I didn’t know existed within me burst out too, there we were, the three of us, and the clock, for all I cared, could go on and never stop.

Avital Gad-Cykman

Avital Gad-Cykman is the author of the story collections Light Reflection Over Blues (Ravenna Press) and Life In, Life Out (Matter Press). She is the winner of Margaret Atwood Studies Magazine Prize and The Hawthorne Citation Short Story Contest. Her stories appear in The Dr. Eckleburg Review, Iron Horse Review, Prairie Schooner, Ambit, McSweeney’s Quarterly, and Michigan Quarterly, among others. They have been included twice in Best Short Fictions, W.W. Norton’s Flash Fiction International anthology, and Best Microfiction 2025. She lives in Brazil and holds a PhD in English Literature, focused on minorities, gender, and trauma.

Francine Witte

January 2026 | fiction

Test

This is a test. A heartbeat test. A bloodbeat test. My doctor tells me I’m going to die. This is certain. I want to tell the doctor it’s OK

My doctor is a quack. Quick homemade remedies — everything to cure halitosis and eczema. You can’t leave his office without buying.

****

My husband is in love with another woman. This is not a test. My heartbeat knows it.  My bloodbeat knows it. My husband is going to leave me. This is certain I want to tell my husband it’s OK

My husband is a jerk. Quick homemade remedies of stink flowers and empty promises. You can’t leave an argument without buying.

***

I’m heading into loveless now and lifeless now. I am almost not a patient I am almost not a wife. There is no test for this, I just know it. There is nothing I can buy that will change anything. I want to tell myself it’s OK.

Francine Witte

Francine Witte is a flash fiction writer and poet, and the author of the flash collection RADIO WATER. Her newest poetry book, Some Distant Pin of Light, has just been published by Cervena Barva Press. Her work has been widely published, and she is a recent recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She lives in New York City. Please visit her website francinewitte.com. She can be found on social media @francinewitte.