In Short – Issue 4 (Winter 2026)

January 31, 2026

Image credit: Kara E Riggleman

Beach Day Escape

By JR Fenn

Headed out of town with our sunglasses on, we smell salt air ahead where seagrasses billow, birds whittering for seeds. At a stoplight, a blue flashing erupts from the dash of the car behind us. A plainclothesman comes to the window: You girls pull over there—he gestures to the underpass, buttresses obscuring parts of it from sight—He ain’t no cop, someone calls from the car beside us. The light turns. We gun it, checking the rearview through roundabouts and into the pine barrens, where sunrays flicker through the trees: you are safe, safe, you are safe, for now.

JR Fenn’s writing has appeared in Boston Review, Gulf Coast, DIAGRAM, Split Lip, 100 Word Story, and more. She’s the winner of the 59th Annual New Millennium Award for Flash Fiction and The Masters Review Chapbook Open. Her chapbook, Tiny Vessels, is forthcoming in February 2026. More at www.jrfenn.com.