REVIEW: “This is What Mouths Are For” by Parker M. O’Neill

Review of Parker M. O’Neill, “This is What Mouths Are For,” Flash Fiction Online 145 (October 2025): 24-26 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There are four mouths in this story — Guiltymouth, Anxiousmouth, Bittermouth, and Haughtymouth. All four mouths do what you’d expect mouths to do, and what I love about horror as a genre is how it provides space for the ordinary, everyday to twist into the macabre. O’Neill pulls this off excellently: About four paragraphs before the end I suddenly went “oh god,” as I figured how it was all going to end.