‘Change of Life’ by JA Logwood

Something New

From Pulp Literature Issue 49, find an excerpt from the Honourable Mention of the 2025 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize, ‘Change of Life’ by JA Logwood, below. To read this story in full, be sure to pick up a copy of Issue 49, Winter 2026.

Selected by Finnian Burnett, the Hummingbird’s final judge called ‘Change of Life’ “a delightful story with a relatable narrator and a great dose of humour.”

For those hoping to catch the eye of our talented judge, this year’s Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize is now open to entries. Get your stories in before May 15th to take advantage of our reduced Earlybird entry rate! You can find all of the details here.

Change of Life

by JA Logwood

Doris didn’t see who’d hung the flyer, it just appeared halfway through the morning, its garish rainbow font shouting from the library’s Community Happenings board. Aerial acrobatics: All ages and experience levels welcome. Fridays at 7 p.m., Howard Wilson Community Centre. An illustration of an older woman suspended in flight, silk twining her limbs, filled the lower half — not a lithe young thing but a solid, matronly figure. It unsettled her.

So Doris did what she always did with unsettling things. She ignored it. She avoided it while arranging the restocking cart, and paid it no mind while fanning herself through a hot flash with a fistful of overdue notices. And yet, without her permission, her attention returned again and again to the flyer. By the time she turned the lights off and locked the door behind her, every word was burned into her brain.

At home, Doris pulled a package labelled ‘Thursday’ from the freezer and popped it in the microwave. The smell of chicken à la King filled her small apartment as she pondered the pull of the odd advertisement.

She couldn’t recall a latent penchant for circus performances. Quiet and order were her hallmarks. A girlhood of bookish plainness and meagre means curbed any extravagant ambitions. Life was simply not the stuff of stories, and she’d resigned herself to plucking out every wild hair before it sprouted. Still, the words aerial acrobatics wormed their way past her staunch practicality. She blamed menopause, and the cloud of dissatisfaction that had descended with it.

Tossing and turning in bed that night, the image of the weightless woman sailed across the backs of her eyelids. Something like hunger took root behind Doris’s breastbone. As she drifted off, a sensation of weightlessness crept over her. She dreamt of soaring.

At six forty-five the next evening, she sat in the parking lot of the Howard Wilson Community Centre, eyeing the squat, bland exterior. It betrayed no hint of an unexpected interior, though as a librarian she supposed she should know better than to judge a book by its cover. Mustering her courage, she grabbed her duffel bag and marched into the building.

A sea of toned youth met her when she entered the studio. Betrayal, sharp and prickly, wedged itself in her stomach. What was I thinking? She briefly contemplated leaving, but the instructor spotted her and waved her towards two Spandex-clad senior citizens giggling in the corner. She hurried to claim the station next to them, gratefully.

Find the full story in Pulp Literature Issue 49, Winter 2026

Have a winning story to share? The 2026 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize is now open to entries! Find the guidelines and our entry form here.

JA Logwood can be found lurking in the woods of New England, where she’s raising feral children and friendly goats with her wife. She adores speculative fiction, cosies of any genre, and all things queer. Her work has appeared in A Coup of Owls and TrashLight.