The Diamond
by Jenny Morelli
I didn’t notice its absence right away.
We were halfway to work and I was mindlessly spinning with my thumb the empty prongs of my engagement ring.
My stomach churned. My breathing shallowed. Vision tunneled into a shard-sharp clarity.
I stopped talking midsentence; tried to recover, to fix my face into some semblance of normal because my husband, cluelessly driving and talking, the man who spent several paychecks’ worth of money on the diamond, could not know about this.
I knew he’d understand it wasn’t my fault.
I knew he’d love me anyway.
I knew he’d forgive me for such a material and superficial loss because that’s what unconditional love is, but still.
I had to find it and searching in our impossibly dark car was not an option. My mind whirled at a dizzying speed of where it could be: the toilet, the sink, the garbage, litterbox, garage floor, car floor, driveway, until we arrived and I leapt from the car with a peck on his cheek and a mumbled ‘I gotta pee’ so he wouldn’t see the look on my face, the fear in my eyes.
Throughout that day, I showed my everyday facets of teacher, colleague, counselor, friend; tenaciously taught as my mind spun and my thumb spun that empty-pronged ring on my finger round and round as if I could spin it back into existence, and that is how I made it through the day and through the drive back home without fazing my husband.
When we pulled up to our house, I bolted from our car to check the driveway and the garbage, the litter, toilet, sink, cursing up a storm before giving up with a huff, admitting defeat as I unpacked my bag of folders and binders, lunch foods and snacks, and there it was.
At the bottom of my pink canvas bag, a brilliant beacon beamed under the grimy glass kitchen light. That damn diamond sat in my bag all day as clueless as my husband of the panic I’d endured from sunrise to sunset, and that was when I vowed to never again wear jewelry outside my house even though, when I told him, he understood it wasn’t my fault.
He promised he’d have loved me anyway. He forgave me for worrying about such a material and superficial loss when our love is unconditional.
Sometimes you don’t notice the absence of a thing, but I’ll always feel the presence of our love.
Jenny Morelli is a NJ high school English teacher who lives with her husband, cat, and myriad yard pets. She seeks inspiration in everything around her. She’s published in several literary magazines including Red Rose Thorns, Spillwords, Scars tv. This is her fourth poetry chapbook with Bottlecap Press. Check out her website for more: JennyMorelliWrites.com
The Family Buddha
by Huina Zheng
In our family safe there was a Maitreya Buddha statue of pure gold, about the size of a kitten. My mother told me that one of our ancestors had served as a eunuch in the imperial palace in the late Qing dynasty. When the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded the Forbidden City, he risked his life to carry the statue out of the palace and bring it home. This Buddha, she said, would bless and protect our family.
I never understood how, if our ancestor was a eunuch, he could have left descendants. Nor did I understand why, if the Buddha protected us, our family had remained so poor generation after generation. What I did know was that the statue had escaped the war with the Japanese, survived the famine, and endured the Cultural Revolution. No matter how hard life became, my grandparents would rather chew tree bark than even consider selling it.
But I was different. I believed this Maitreya Buddha could haul me out of my mud-soaked life. Again and again I urged my mother to sell it so we could move into a bigger place, so we wouldn’t have to set out basins to catch the rain leaking through the roof of our top-floor flat during typhoons. Besides, she needed money for her illness.
Yet even in the final stage of cancer, trembling with pain, she still shook her head.
“This is a family heirloom,” she said. “Take good care of it. One day you must pass it on to your son.”
After she died, I rushed to open the safe and gathered the gleaming Buddha into my arms. At last I would be able to pay off my gambling debts. At last I could live the life of the rich. Immediately I heard, in my ears, the crisp clatter of casino chips. I could turn money into more money and win a fortune.
But when the jeweler took it, he scraped it lightly with a blade. He lifted his eyelids and said expressionlessly, “It’s gilded. Inside it’s copper.”
Huina Zheng is a writer and college essay coach based in Guangzhou, China. Her work appears in Baltimore Review, Variant Literature, Midway Journal, and other journals. She has received multiple nominations, including for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction.
Sundae Morning
by R.S. Nelson
The sun shone brightly in the small southern California town’s blue sky. The fall wine festival was in full swing. A local band plucked their guitar strings and happy couples strolled by, holding wine glasses. Families walked together, enjoying their Sunday family time. Tourists came in and out of the gift shops, carrying bags in different colors and sizes.
A four-year-old sat in her stroller, under the shade of a tree. Her dad pulled off his cap and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. The girl’s six-year-old brother, a stern-looking boy, imitated their father.
“Are you guys ready for lunch?” the dad asked.
“I want ice cream!” yelled the girl.
An elderly woman walking by gave a startled jump.
“I want ice cream too,” whispered the boy.
“Sure, we’ll get it in a bit. But first, we need to eat something. Do you guys want a hamburger?”
“No,” said the girl, crossing her tiny arms over her chest.
“I want a hamburger.”
“You see, your brother wants one,” said the dad, smiling.
The girl frowned in defiance. “I want ice cream!” she screamed from the top of her lungs.
Passersby stared at the trio. A young woman in a tracksuit looked at the girl and wrinkled her nose as if she had smelled something rotten.
The dad sighed and rubbed his forehead. He then saw a dog approaching and smiled. The white, fluffy body was attached to a pink leather leash. Its tiny legs trotted toward them. “Look, the doggie wants to say hi,” he said, stretching a hand to pet the dog, who sniffed his shoes before moving closer to the girl.
She twisted in her seat. “Ahhh.”
“It’s just a little doggie. Isn’t he cute?” the dad asked. But the girl turned away, making her blond curls bounce.
The animal licked the man’s hand while the boy petted the dog’s head, before being pulled away by its owner. The girl’s eyes followed the animal until it became a distant spot.
“I want the doggie,” she said.
“It was cute, right?”
“I want the doggie. I want the doggie. I want the doggie.”
“Stop, sissy!” said the boy, smacking his hands on his lap. “It’s gone.” The girl started crying.
The dad jumped up from his seat. “How about that hamburger, huh? Who wants a hamburger?”
“Me,” said the boy, jumping up from his seat too. The dad gave him two thumbs up. “You got it, buddy.” But the girl’s cries didn’t stop.
“I don’t want a hamburger,” she said, her red lips in a pout.
“But you love hamburgers,” pleaded the dad.
The girl cried even louder.
“Okay, okay,” he said, bending over to be at eye level with her. “What do you want?”
“I want Mommy back,” she whispered.
The dad paled, his hands holding his legs steady. He looked at his son, whose eyes were glued to the ground, and then looked around — at the couples walking by with their wine bottles, the Sunday families passing them by, at the world that keeps on turning. His eyes stopped on the sign across the street, a giant ice cream sundae with a cherry on top.
“Who wants ice cream?” he asked.
R.S. Nelson is a Latina writer who lives and finds inspiration in Southern California. Her work has appeared in over twenty publications, including BULL, Flash Fiction Magazine, SciFiSat, Twin Bird Review, and the podcast "Tales to Terrify." Find more of her work at: rsnelsonwriter.wordpress.com or contact her at rsnelsonwriter.bsky.social
Whiff
by R.K. West
Television taught Della that she smelled bad. Friends were secretly cringing. The problem was her breath, or feet, or some neglected territory in between. She swallowed supplements to dissipate digestive gasses and began using a fiercer soap, body-neutralizing spray, and hair freshener. The house stank, too, and needed several little devices emitting pleasant aromas, plus scented filters for the HVAC system and vacuum cleaner, while the car received fragrant capsules in its air vents. Another way Della made people cringe was her new habit of constantly sneezing and scratching, but fortunately, television told her which allergy pills were fast-acting and non-drowsy.
R.K. West is a former travel blogger who sold everything, spent two years on the road, and now lives next to the mighty Columbia River.
Credit: This story first appeared at Six Sentences
Frozen
by Liz deBeer
Your list says eggs, bread, bananas, milk, but you’ve stopped at the grocery store’s freezer section, grasping a carton of Breyer’s peach ice cream with real peach pieces, then cradling it in your arms like a frosty doll. You’re blinking back tears and pushing down sobs because your mother’s dead and can’t eat her favorite dessert anymore.
You consider buying it anyway, a cold tribute to Mom.
But you prefer chocolate – not peach. So you scrape a heart shape on the icy lid, return the carton to the shelf, then press both hands against the freezer door, sealing it shut.
Liz deBeer is a teacher and writer with Project Write Now, a writing cooperative. Her flash has appeared in BULL, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres and others. A volunteer reader for Flash Fiction Magazine, her debut chapbook Farewell to Emptiness will be published in April 2026 at ThirtyWest.com. Follow Liz at http://www.ldebeerwriter.com or @lizdebeerwriter.bsky.social
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