Yellow Mama E zine
Issue #114
Winding Up: Micro Fiction by Hillary Lyon
Art by Hillary Lyon © 2026
Winding Up
by Hillary Lyon
I wound the key on the bottom of the snow globe. A tinkly “I Will Always Love You” played as the miniature bride and groom rotated inside. Cheesy, but my now-deceased grandparents gave us this for our wedding.
With nothing else to do, I continued unboxing keepsakes. Barry was attending his company's employee-appreciation party alone, like always. Waste too much time to come get you, he’d say. I’ll miss the best part of the party.
Like I didn’t know the best part of the party for him was Colleen, his secretary. Thrice divorced, Botox'd Colleen. She of the spray-on tan and too-tight sweaters.
I heard his car roar into the driveway. Stumbling through the kitchen door, Barry threw his coat on the table, over the keepsakes I’d carefully sorted.
“You still up?” he said with more drunken irritation than husbandly concern. I see pink lipstick smeared on his cheek.
“I wanted to go through our collection of keepsakes and—”
“And I want a drink,” he muttered. Grabbing his coat, he managed to slide all the keepsakes off the table in one clumsy move. The snow globe shattered on the floor.
As he lumbered toward the little bar in our den, I donned a pair of yellow rubber gloves, cleaned up slivers of glass and tiny bits of wet glitter. I picked up the snow globe base, noting a blade of jagged glass was still attached. I wound the key.
“I’m going to visit my folks for a bit,” I said, approaching him.
Turning toward me, he raised his tumbler of scotch. “Stay as looooong as you—” he began, but didn’t finish, because I slashed him across the throat with that glass shard.
The tinkly, romantic music played long after his heart wound down.
Hillary Lyon founded and for 20 years acted as senior editor for the independent poetry publisher, Subsynchronous Press. Her stories have appeared lately in 365tomorrows, Black Petals, Sirens Call, Night to Dawn, 50 Word Stories, Legends of Night drabble series anthology, and Revelations drabble series anthology. She’s the Art Director for Black Petals and is also an illustrator for horror & pulp fiction magazines.