"My momma always told me, 'Son, you ain’t no good.' Just like that. No sugar, no salt—but somehow, it was almost as sweet as warm honey apple pie, fresh from the oven. 'Now, it ain’t your fault,' she's say. 'Your daddy was no good either.'" - Adrien Weston mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"Dead men, dead rats, dead trees out on the ridge. As I ran, I shouted at God, gods, any goddamned god who’d made the world we lived in at that moment. Dead mothers, children with napalm-sizzled skin. I screamed fuck at God." - Ken Rodgers mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"Goddamn football stadium & the streets filled with ads & flags supporting future brain damage survivors & NFL flunkies. Never mind fact all that brain injury makes them into sad, violent, adult children." -Wade Harris mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"'Buck up, Slim' was his catchphrase. It was the kind of catchphrase that stuck. The kind that gets hung on you like a life sentence in a show that started in black and white and went technicolor in season 2." - Rick Byrne mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

“‘Come on, Mahesh, what are you, thirteen? You need to have worked a strategy out by now, bro.’” “‘I mean, Luke, my issue is more how to be a man.’” @pleomorphic2.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

My story "Ice Man" is up at @mrbullbull.bsky.social today. It's about mothers, memories, miracles, and why you shouldn't stow away in the landing gear of an airplane. Many thanks to BULL for publishing it:

"What he remembered was the earth unwinding below him like a bedsheet, patched in yellow & green. All intoxication blown away by the killing wind. He saw it clearly. The world was vaster & more various than anyone knew." @grnpointer.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"Obviously I couldn’t have his baby because he was who he was but also because the idea of existing in the world as a pregnant man made me sick to my stomach & I’d been on testosterone for so many years it could cripple the tiny, growing thing." - Drew Scott mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

( ...the shortlist 2/2) Omar El Akkad in Blood in the Machine (from @bcmerchant.bsky.social) Shobasakthi in @lunchticket.bsky.social Madeleine Armstrong @madeleinewrite.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social

The fab @pleomorphic2.bsky.social is on 🔥 in @mrbullbull.bsky.social The VOICE & teen angst in this one. Smell the pubescent insecurity. "His calves were like chicken drumsticks, bulging with muscle. Mine had just the amount of skin required to cover my tibia and fibula. I looked like a flamingo."

"I wanted stories with working-class people fed up with the daily grind, waking up to the idea our economic system is built for a fraction of people & the American Dream is a lullaby sung to us to keep us showing up to work." CW Blackwell by @frank212.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/the-...

"Life is a fucking roo and you’ve got to punch it in the dick before it knocks you out." - Sumitra Singam @pleomorphic2.bsky.social from "The Third Less-Hot Hemsworth mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Knock knock! Who's there? This story by @christinaltudor.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social ! #flashfiction mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"He’s been dead maybe ten minutes. Maybe thirty. Long enough for the ice in his Jameson-and-ginger to turn thin, to drift apart, their edges fraying into the map of something broken." - Michael Anthony Ranfone mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"And—in that moment—she thought she was happy, but really, she was just drunk." - J S Khan mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

New year, new fiction in @mrbullbull.bsky.social Originally drafted in @smokelong.bsky.social march micro marathon. Take a break from doomscrolling to read some killer knock knock jokes!

"Knock, knock, you said. What? I said. You said, You’re supposed to say who’s there. Oh, I said, sorry, go again. No, you ruined it." @christinaltudor.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"The Chief Reactor Dynamics Analyst for the Molten Chloride Fast Reactor Prototype Unit at Idaho National Laboratory is a prudent man. He's a hardworking & fastidious man. He's not the sort of man who should be dreaming the dreams he’s dreaming." - Eric Kong Angal mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"The arm snakes through the window, cuts a 90-degree turn at the elbow, palm open in salutation. I only see forearm: freckled, hardworking, like it belongs to an all-around good chap. It’s been waving a while. Now it’s waving at me." Nancy S. Koven mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Frank is the last guy to ever ask for help, but he's going through it right now and could really use your help. He's a killer writer and a great great dude. Please consider throwing a few bucks his way.

"He twirls me around & lifts me on the kitchen counter, starts singing loudly in his broken English. I shush him but he doesn’t stop. He dances in circles while the pan catches on fire & the smoke of burnt chicken fills up my nostrils." @rsnelsonwriter.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

This one came out in December: mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas... Thank you @mrbullbull.bsky.social for giving this story a home 🙏

Here's another banger by @patriciaqbidar.bsky.social in Pardon Me For Moonwalking, originally published in @mrbullbull.bsky.social #flashfiction mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"The decoupaged cadaver sprawled on its back on the couch. The thing tried to win him over with a gaze in a fine print. A series of Frankenstein scars on a paper on its face. Mark was just a few steps away from barebacking its broken heart." - Nikola J Milosavljevic mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"I wanted to shout, I got shot, but no one would’ve cared, and then after all that travel and hustle I got home and the silence crashed in on me like a wave." - J. Malcolm Garcia mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

Beach Sloth is having a renaissance on bluesky!

"No one lets you in on the secret that when a loved dies, you have to relive it with each retelling. At this point, I’ve detached the meaning from it. Just a bedtime story I never forget to tell myself. Me, an ongoing audience of one." Jack P. Consiglio Jr. mrbullbull.com/newbull/crea...

"I'm in love with Veronica. I don’t mean the child in front of me you pervert. I’m in love with the idea of her, of a holy connectedness that could exist between people & the divine source of it, of all the human experience in microcosm." @charliekondek.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

Please check out this brilliant little piece from @beachsloth.bsky.social beachsloth.substack.com/p/a-phone-ca... about "A Phone Call with my Siter" by Macy Craig mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"Ghosts are severely misunderstood. Like we are all evil out to terrify humans. As if humans don’t terrify humans. As if we can haunt humans better than other humans can." - Priyanuj Mazumdar mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

“I’d assumed he was referring to the aesthetic aspect of my skeletal structure, perhaps complimenting me on high cheekbones or a soft jawline, without directly saying so. But then one day he asked …” @jekwriter.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

I found the right home for a wrestling micro at @mrbullbull.bsky.social. Check it out for a heel turn! mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Check out my spooky winter story at @mrbullbull.bsky.social!

"I tumbled back into the past, into those moments I’ve relived so many times. Knee-deep in icy water, my numb hands submerged. Reaching, grabbing, pulling. Screams echoing around me, mingling with the cries of seagulls." @madeleinewrite.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"Last week of summer. A hurricane was supposed to be there that weekend. You didn’t need to watch the news, it was in the air. The impending violence of it, almost sweet smelling, like a burgeoning romance. Korey and his family would stay." - XC Atkins mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

Thanks, @mrbullbull.bsky.social, for publishing my story!!

"My ex, Ray, claimed he could see my bones. I’d assumed he was complimenting me on high cheekbones or a soft jawline. But then one day he asked why I didn’t have the cavity in my left molar fixed. Soon he became concerned with my arthritis." @jekwriter.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Merry Christmas from BULL. Here's a story about a 24-hour boner from Salvatore Difalco. mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"Chinni chuckles softly, then begs, then resorts to Reiki for transmuting her unspent libido while you bury all your helplessness at the clinic, filling the plastic cup & praying for at least one or two to get up, do the work." @sridharviji.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"On his walk, he sees ink insulation hanging like guts from the cavernous chest cavity of the dumpster. Flies crowding a flattened squirrel with something green leaking from one eye. They scatter at his approach, the buzzing a soft warning." Susan Flint mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"The fact he tells these stories tells me he wants to keep on breathing. He hasn’t given up yet. And when he sits outside staring at the sky, I see him gripping the wheel, turning down a back road, big wheels kicking up a hurricane of mud." @seanthomasd.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Closing out 2025 with this lil short story from BULL. Happy holidays!

@cbwell.bsky.social is a hell of a writer who you should stop and read right now. His collection, NOTHING GOOD HAPPENS IN A FLYOVER STATE, is one of my all-time favorites. Really excited for this story.

"On his way out Dad bent down & told me that I was man of the house now & I would be taking care of Mom. None of the other 12-year-olds on my block had a job to do like this. Maybe, I thought, this would prepare me for 6th grade." - Colin Brightwell mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"I figured I’d wasted enough time & money & went back to look for funny bangs girl and that’s how I ended up watching slip-&-slide bikini lady hit the bump & take a dive through the crocodile mile of drunken former frat boys’ cheers." @fissuresofmen.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"If marriage taught Arthur anything, it was that he knew when his wife was upset. His problem, however, was that he never knew what she was upset about." - Peter Hannon mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"He hates this about Beardy Man, always making plans without him. These decisions need careful planning. Not only that. They are best friends. Supposed to do things together. And here he is, making big decisions. So independent, so annoying." - Ya-Ting Yu mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

So happy to have had this piece published by @mrbullbull.bsky.social 😊 #writerslife

"It appeared on Toma’s shirt on a Monday so ordinary it was making his teeth hurt. The extra button was identical to all the others in everything except for one thing: it had no corresponding buttonhole. This fact bothered Toma the most." @amadolaila.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

I've taken the reins for this month's #Mondettes - it's my end-of-year round-up of some of my favourites from 2025, also known as the MAFFIAS!!! mondettes.substack.com/p/december-2...