A quiet train ride to Milan sounds like the perfect chance to rest after a difficult week of mountain adventures. But when a friendly, talkative couple joins the narrator's compartment, solitude quickly becomes a thing of the past.

As Susie shares stories, asks questions, and discovers an unexpected connection to the narrator's family history, the conversation takes an awkward turn—and some things are better left unsaid.

Today, we're opening a door in Fiction Hall that hasn't been opened in almost thirty years.

Inside, we find a story written when I was in high school, an English assignment to take a well-known story and tell it from a different perspective. I chose The Wizard of Oz and told part of the story through the eyes of the Yellow Brick Road.

I didn't know it at the time, but this little story would become the beginning of my love for short stories and flash fiction.

So today, we're stepping back in time to revisit the story that started it all.

A normal Tuesday at the laundromat takes an unexpected turn when an armed stranger walks through the door and suddenly everyone inside becomes a hostage. As fear takes over and the police gather outside, an unlikely sound from inside the room may change everything. A quirky flash fiction story about fear, survival, and the unexpected ways people come together.