Peace With Honor

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

R.K. West

Granddad lives with us because Mom worries about what would happen if he had another stroke. She put a TV in his room so he could yell at the news with the door closed. Sometimes I stop by his room after school, when he is playing music from his old vinyl record collection on a turntable player he keeps on the bureau. When I told him we were studying the Vietnam War in history class, he took a sharp breath and squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “Well, fuck me,” he said. Then: “Sorry, kid, language, but Jesus Christ, couldn’t they at least wait until we’re all dead?”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Credit: This first appeared at Six Sentences.

R.K. West's work has appeared at Johnny America, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Surely, and others.

 

An Imperial Message

Photo by mk. s on Unsplash

by Franz Kafka
Translation by Ian Johnston

Now and then, we publish vintage stories from historic authors. This was originally published in 1919.

The Emperor—so they say—has sent a message, directly from his deathbed, to you alone, his pathetic subject, a tiny shadow which has taken refuge at the furthest distance from the imperial sun. He ordered the herald to kneel down beside his death bed and whispered the message to him. He thought it was so important that he had the herald repeat it back to him. He confirmed the accuracy of the verbal message by nodding his head. And in front of the entire crowd of those who have come to witness his death—all the obstructing walls have been broken down and all the great ones of his empire are standing in a circle on the broad and high soaring flights of stairs—in front of all of them he dispatched his herald. The messenger started off at once, a powerful, tireless man. Sticking one arm out and then another, he makes his way through the crowd. If he runs into resistance, he points to his breast where there is a sign of the sun. So he moves forward easily, unlike anyone else. But the crowd is so huge; its dwelling places are infinite. If there were an open field, how he would fly along, and soon you would hear the marvellous pounding of his fist on your door. But instead of that, how futile are all his efforts. He is still forcing his way through the private rooms of the innermost palace. He will never win his way through. And if he did manage that, nothing would have been achieved. He would have to fight his way down the steps, and, if he managed to do that, nothing would have been achieved. He would have to stride through the courtyards, and after the courtyards the second palace encircling the first, and, then again, stairs and courtyards, and then, once again, a palace, and so on for thousands of years. And if he finally did burst through the outermost door—but that can never, never happen—the royal capital city, the centre of the world, is still there in front of him, piled high and full of sediment. No one pushes his way through here, certainly not with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window and dream to yourself of that message when evening comes.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Franz Kafka (1883 – 1924) was a German-language Jewish Czech writer and novelist born in Prague. Widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature, his work typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surreal predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. The term Kafkaesque has entered the lexicon to describe situations like those depicted in his writings. His best-known works include the novella The Metamorphosis (1915) and the novels The Trial (1924) and The Castle (1926). His work has widely influenced artists, philosophers, composers, filmmakers, literary historians, religious scholars, cultural theorists.

 

May 20, 2026

The New Food
Stephen Leacock

1-2-3
Judith Taburet

Words, Like People, Fly
Annalisa Crawford

Monopoly Money
R.K. West

 

Monopoly Money

Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash

by R.K. West

Once again, Juan tried explaining cryptocurrency to his father.

“If it isn’t backed by a government treasury or physical assets,” Dad asked, “where does it get its value?”

Juan had answered this many times before, but he summoned all his patience and said, “It’s based on people’s attraction and faith in the product, and a consensus among investors, like the stock market.”

“So I can just create my own imaginary coin and it will be valuable because everyone agrees I’m a great guy?”

“Sure,” Juan responded, “but you’ll need to hire developers to start your blockchain,” immediately wanting to slap himself for blurting out “blockchain,” thus inviting more questions.

That night, he dreamed that they were DadCoin billionaires

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
R.K. West is a Canadian-American writer who specializes in extremely short stories.

Credit: This piece originally appeared at Six Sentences.

 

1-2-3

Photo by Judith Taburet

by Judith Taburet

1-2-3
I polish my calloused palms with grease and soap.
The keys still echo Bach in my fingertips.
The faint moonlight whispers back to the kitchen.

My mother’s eyes measure my worth in foreign currency.
Veiled in soot, frying oil, and imported perfume,
I stand.
My sister’s laughter—diamond-cut,
the rich one, my shadow in childhood,
the clever one who catches a stranger like a boar in a net.
I listen.

Seventeen—I carry a rolled diploma,
the muscle memory of waltzes.
On the piano,
I play.
1-2-3

None of it pays the rent. None of it paints the crumbling walls.
I teach little girls to dance on cracked tiles,
telling them to hold their heads high,
even as my own dips under the weight of uncertainty.

The music swells at dusk.
1-2-3—

And I imagine another country, one not for sale,
where a girl can breathe
without selling her name to the highest bidder;
where my hands, trained on piano keys, not on a stranger’s chest

where a mother’s pride is not swollen
by the men her daughters attract,
but by the songs, the heart’s sigh—
1-2-3

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Judith Taburet is a writer and photographer hailing from Madagascar, now based in France. Drawing from a rich legacy of advocacy, she infuses her art with a sense of purpose. Inspired by her father, an influential writer who courgeously fought against prejudice and racism in their homeland . Judy T channels her creative voice to shed light on women's stories and Malagasy culture. Her work, both in prose and photography, delves into strong experiences, ensuring they are told with unflinching honesty and strength.

 

Words, Like People, Fly

Photo by Kiril Dobrev on Unsplash

by Annalisa Crawford

She walks her dog in the dog-walking field every day. It’s not a field, really. It’s a cross-hatch of muddy paths and farmland given over to nature, with views across two wide, docile rivers, and a dense copse in the hollows harbouring birds and squirrels and rabbits within its knitted branches.

As she passes hedgerows with tangled branches dangling over the path, she crumbles the bark beneath her fingers as if to reassure herself it’s real. She climbs a gate and stands on the penultimate rung, shins pressed against the metal to balance herself, and exclaims, “Isn’t it beautiful?”, to anyone who passes.

On sunny days, her voice is calm and ambient; on windy days, it bounces across the fields and estuary like a leaf and can’t be caught. When it rains, her face is dewy and flushed, and the words trickle from her lips. When it’s foggy, they’re caught, entangled in the viscosity while she vanishes from view.

She always stops, always smiles with serene satisfaction; always inhales the fresh air which seems to lift her high above the gate, far above the fields. Arms stretched wide, eyes closed, buffeted by the current.

Today her smile is dampened on the drizzle. Her joyfulness mislaid; she gazes listlessly across the bleak valley. River mist hangs like cobwebs.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I venture, unsure my words carry the same credence as hers.

They don’t travel far; they cluster around my ankles like puppies waiting for treats. They edge nervously towards her, nipping her hand until she absently bats them away. But they persist, these words of mine, jumping up at her with puckish charm.

She nods her acknowledgement, but her countenance is lacklustre. Her knuckles turn white as her grip on the gate intensifies.

“We’re so lucky to live here,” I say.

“Yes,” she replies, wistfully. “To be alive here.”

She stares in my direction, but not at me. Her smile is silky, and she releases her rigid grip on the gate. Her feet drift from the metal bars and, with arms spread wide, she rises— simultaneously enraptured by her destiny and stunned at the heights she’s achieving.

I reach out—to drag her back or to be swept along with her, I have no idea which I’d prefer—but she’s already a dot in the cloud-dappled sky.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Annalisa Crawford writes dark contemporary fiction with a hint of paranormal. Annalisa has earned numerous accolades in various competitions and awards including the Wishing Shelf Book Awards, the Rubery Book Award and the Costa Short Story Award. She is a novelist and short story writer. Website: annalisacrawford.com