Synkroniciti is honored to announce the winner of our Expectations Flash Contest, The Unbearable Weight of Nothing by Nina Morgan. Our runner‑up is Timothy Collyer’s clever existential tale, Mouse Contemplating Mortality, in which a rodent’s dream twists into nightmare. We received a number of striking and intriguing entries and several will find homes in future issues.
Nina offers a deeply introspective story as a woman confronts the aftermath of miscarriage. The grieving narrator is engulfed by mortality and wounded by an inability to meet expectations and fulfill a role that feels inseparable from her identity. Nina’s voice, imagery, and atmosphere move in seamless concert, creating an organic, fully inhabited exterior and interior landscape. We feel the emptiness viscerally. Nothing is extraneous, ornamental, or sentimental. In just 369 words, she builds a world that is utterly believable and achingly personal. We don’t frequently hear about the pain women endure when pregnancies fail, and this is an unflinching, yet tender portrait of that reality. I’ll share more, including an excerpt, in Nina’s Artist Feature this summer.
Expectations is available for pre-order at Purchase Individual Issues – synkroniciti and will debut online on June 15, 2026.
Nina Morgan is a North Carolina-born author who draws from her background in clinical social work to craft human stories across multiple genres. She has a particular love for elevated horror, speculative fiction, and romance. She has a particular disdain for inaccurately written southern tropes.