Katya Fisher - HTC, Ohio University

The afternoon’s meeting hadn’t started out with anyone leaning against a wall. Or staring out the frozen window, or storming through hallways, or trudging through a foot of snow. But the afternoon’s meeting also hadn’t started out with the sudden squall of winter weather that hit almost three hours before the local meteorologist had predicted.

Arial Hart - Duke University

There were no sirens. Just blue and red lights fading back and forth, the colors undulating through the blinds onto the wall behind us. I think you noticed first, always more astute between the two of us, but we broke off conversation at the same time.

Victoria Ogunniyi - University of Illinois at Chicago

The television, though unattended by the slumbering woman that lay snoring just a mere few feet from it, drones on, its volume lowered to a near whisper, the monotonous narrator of a nature documentary commenting: “At the end of the queen bee’s reproductive cycle, she is assassinated by the male drones in the colony. It is time for a new queen to replace her.” On the screen, a buzzing cluster of bees piles on top of one another, their restless, yellow-and-black bodies uniting into a violent mass.

Ellen Romious - University of the Incarnate Word

9:54pm, Dr. Maddox blinked at the clock. Rain sloshed against the window of the dark lab. The cool white glow of his desk lamp cast a little island of light over his lonely computer desk. He pushed his thick framed black glasses up on his wide, short nose. His eyes were too small for his round face, which was accentuated by his receding hair line. “I gotta finish this report and get out of here,” he mumbled, but instead he pulled out his cell phone. “Well, one last check won’t hurt,” he opened a dating app. “Heather, 21, Colorado. Swipe Right!”

Eva Lorren - University of Missouri - Kansas City

For my mother: You were a striking woman. Every morning before school I’d come downstairs into our kitchen, all furrowed eyebrows and froth. Unlike me, you were a morning person. There you’d be, in the kitchen doing yoga. Your arms would be raised up way over your head and when you breathed the flowers had a reason to bloom. You were your best self in the morning. You were even more important than the sun.

Ginny Smith - University of Mississippi

Five people stood in the waiting room outside of Cadwallader Smith’s hospital room. Smith was certainly dying; he had been rushed to the hospital only hours before by his screaming wife, who had been crying and rocking by his bedside ever since, holding a noticeably dry monogrammed handkerchief to the side of her cheek. Personally, I think she’s carrying on a bit, Smith had thought in the ambulance, but at that point he had been in too much pain to say anything about it.

Savannah Stutevoss - University of the Incarnate Word

My family would fuss about me being “boarded up in that miserable place” and try and send me “housewarming” gifts. A package or two would come and I would thank the well-meaning sender and remind them that I always kept the heater on in the winter. As much as I joked in real life, my stories tended to be melancholy. I liked it that way. I preferred to live happily and channel my negative emotions into narratives.

Julia Feuerborn - Missouri State University

You waited outside the house in your taxi, your dim headlights a dying fire on the road before you. Night calls were always better than day ones. There was something inherently sadder about people’s day being cut short rather than leaving while everyone was asleep. The former were usually caused by a tragedy, and the latter came on more peaceful terms.

Carley Doktorski - New York University

Wednesday nights were for Neapolitan ice cream, unless Robert said otherwise. Crystal glass, low-fat whipped cream, and a cherry with the stem picked off. She’d be careful to swipe the scooper all the way across the carton, a half-gallon tub. Right to left, vanilla to strawberry, strawberry to chocolate. It was a seamless maneuver, down to a science. Robert hated when there wasn’t enough chocolate.