Tag: micro fiction

Two Stories by Linda Drach

On By steve cIn flash fictionLeave a comment

TRAVEL & LEISURE

I’d see them in the cardiology waiting room. Not every time, but often. The man, shuffling behind an aluminum walker, his right foot dragging; the woman, slowing her gait to keep pace. Always, her hand rested lightly on his bicep. That was completely unnecessary. A gesture of tenderness, I guess. He looked like my second husband. She looked like the Starbucks barista my husband shacked up with before divorcing me. I’d stare at them until the woman felt me looking and glanced over to where I’d parked myself near the giant aquarium so I could reap the calming benefits of fish swishing. My eyes were flamethrowers that singed her bangs, burned through her skull, and incinerated the smoking cessation poster that hung on the wall behind her. Satisfied, I’d pretend to turn back to Travel & Leisure or Yacht World. 

That was before my doctor shunted me off to hospice.

It was strange. I hated that waiting room. But when the couple appeared I forgot that I was waiting. Suddenly, I had energy and a sense of control, whereas just moments before, I’d had neither. I liked sketching in the details of their lives, imagining the bank statements and what was parked in the driveway. I liked thinking about her slutty lingerie, long abandoned, the elastic going slack in a bottom dresser drawer. I liked thinking about her bitching to her friends over too many glasses of Sauvignon Blanc about the pill bottles crowding her quartz countertops. About the long, tedious nights building puzzles instead of fucking. 

Those were good afternoons for me.

It’s been months since I was there. But sometimes, as I’m staring down the teddy bear the volunteers insist on staging at the foot of my bed, I think of that couple. I wonder if he’s in a wheelchair now. I wonder if she’s gotten fat. I hope she’s gotten fat. These daydreams are necessary; they counteract all this false cheer. I heard one of the nurses talking about me, the only thing keeping that one alive is spite. I’m still listening for rubber wheels rolling down the hallway. To feel a little surge.

THE FARM

Pat calls on a Monday night to tell me my nephew – his son – is dead. 

He never says dead. He says Joel is gone. But I know what he means right away, like I knew when our mom told us Sparky or Boo or Snowflake went to the farm, so they could run freely instead of eking out their short doggy lives in our cramped backyard. 

Gone. That’s all he says. That’s all he can say. 

When I get to the ER, Pat is slumped on a vinyl couch, yowling through clenched fists, like a cat with its tail stuck in a slammed door. The chaplain patting his back looks glad to see me. Five bug-eyed youth silently circle the room, like a school of guppies – stoic little fish, who spend their short lives sucking lines of shit off the bottom of their tank and then spitting them out to try again. Relentless in their efforts to find something delicious. Each time, it’s shit. These are Joel’s 12-Step friends. His goddamn friends, who watched him die.

It’s time to see Joel, but Pat says he can’t – he doesn’t want to see him this way, which is dead. When we were kids, I always took care of the lesser burials. Dozens of goldfish, two turtles, three lizards, and a chinchilla. A grim menagerie interred in our mother’s garden, near the concrete statue of Mother Mary. Our household was rough on living things. This is why I never had children. 

The chaplain leads me through a set of double doors, and there’s Joel, wearing the same flannel shirt he was wearing on Saturday. Our boy needs a haircut. His copper locks, the same shade as mine, are shaggy at his neck and fall haphazardly across the petals of his cheeks. His hand is still warm – only a little bit cooler than my brother’s. Where are you, Joel? I whisper in his ear. The chaplain fidgets. He’s certain Joel is strolling through God’s cosmic vivarium. I shoot him a look and he leaves us alone. Can he tell how much I hate him right now? He knows my type. A lapsed Whatever, with my poems and pop songs and coffee can ashes, making half-assed attempts at the everlasting – when what I want is the farm. 

I tell Joel if believing made it so, I’d make myself believe it. I’d send you to a party that goes on forever and never gets out of hand. Where you could play three-handed pinochle with your mother and grandfather and share a bottle of magic bourbon. The kind that won’t lead to black eyes or scarred livers. I’d make sure you’re happy. That you know you’re enough. I’m crying now, with my head on his chest. Bawling, really, like a motherless calf. I picture the floribunda roses framing my mother’s backyard shrine. Vivid red. Heavenly scent. Climbing the chain link, spilling over in its vigor. Back every year, despite our neglect.

Linda Drach is a poet and writer, public health program manager, and volunteer writing group facilitator for the nonprofit Write Around Portland. Her writing has been published in The Bellingham Review, Cagibi, CALYX, Cathexis Northwest, The Timberline Review, and elsewhere. She studies and teaches at The Writers Studio.

Two Stories by Rachel Lastra

On By steve cIn flash fictionLeave a comment

Poor Cheryl

She’s the one we pile it on like a damn donkey on a tourist trek through the Peruvian mountains, opening up her saddle bags and dumping in all that shit, leaving no room for anything but Yes, okay—and But I—and What if we—and I didn’t mean—and I’m sorry I—and Maybe we could—never let her finish a fucking sentence, though each of us blames the others, says we’re not the ring leader of this particular circus, the guide of this donkey ride winding up the mountainside, thinks we see her, thinks we’re kinder, thinks we’d save her if we could, but we can’t, can only save ourselves, can only keep our eyes open wide in sympathy at Cheryl when we’re sure no one’s looking, thinks this makes it okay that she’s a punching bag-scapegoat-doormat-dupe-sap-pushover-pigeon-victim-sacrifice, because that’s what she is, was born to be, that’s what’s needed to feed a prowl of high school pumas in winged eyeliner and platforms, teeth bared, slinking through the grass, scenting blood, ready to pounce before we can be seen as prey.

Love Me Like a Reptile

The salmon has all been eaten. Only a few half-spears of purple asparagus, picked up just this morning from the farmer’s market, litter the otherwise empty dinner plates. The wine bottle is tapped but our glasses are full, golden in the evening light.

“Whoever came up with the word ‘splurge’ must’ve been a great influencer.” Fred leans back in his chair, and I see him. I do. Square-jaw handsome, perfect hair. “They must’ve been a great influencer,” he repeats. “Because splurge is a horrible word.” 

Fred enjoys these kinds of thought exercises. He’s a data analyst—don’t ask me what that means. I know it pays well. Most days Fred has the personality of wet cardboard, but he has his moments. He calls me his statistically significant other.

I wanted him to go with me to the market this morning, pictured us strolling arm in arm through the aisles, woven market bags in hand, pausing to feed each other samples of honey and twenty-dollar artisanal cheese. We’d linger near a fruit stand and I’d feed him something juicy. I’d push the hair off his forehead and he’d kiss me like he wanted to merge with me, consume me. He’d taste like summer and lust and peaches warmed by the sun.

But Fred had given me a peck on the cheek and said, “Babe, I’m too hungover.” 

And we don’t even have any woven market bags. 

I drag my fork through the olive oil coating my white IKEA dinner plate and don’t snap at Fred’s conversational bait. He keeps talking anyway, between swigs of white wine, pink tongue glistening in his open mouth. I lick the fork tines clean and think of other, more horrible words. Slurp. Fester. Sloppy. Flaccid. Needing. Wanting. Solo.

I look out the screen door onto our balcony. There’s my neighbor out on his, a mirror of ours. If he looks up, he’ll see me. I will him to, thighs clenched. He leans his elbows on the railing and looks down into the courtyard at the balding trees, the small, sun-bleached climbing structure, the pair of swings sagging like bags under the eyes of a sober drunk.

He’s in his 60s, my neighbor. Bearded, long gray ponytail. Snake tattoo. Strong arms bared by a neon yellow muscle shirt. I bet he could lift me, easy. He’s playing music again: Motorhead.

Fred says: “I mean, listen to this. ‘I splurged on a new computer.’ Sounds gross, right?”

I say: “Uh-huh.”

He reaches for the gold ribbon of the white bakery box on the counter. I stand up. Clear the dinner plates. Grab the white World Market dessert plates. Sit back down.

Outside, my neighbor turns and she emerges behind him. Same age, give or take. Dye-black hair slithering down her back in a tail as long as his. Yin to his yang. She runs a hand up his arm, over the softball of his shoulder, curls her nails in. Then their mouths open, tongues bulging in each other’s cheeks like gumballs. Her other hand grips his ponytail—firmly. His hand snakes up her back to do the same. And then they stand like that, wound around each other, tongue-kissing in the open air.

Fred pulls a cream puff from the bakery box and offers it to me. I decline. Flash of white teeth, jaw wide as if he will swallow it whole. Cream splurges from the end of the puff.

“Fred,” I begin.

The neighbors have gone back inside. They drew the blinds only halfway but I can’t see anything. I bet she’s on top.

Cream dots the corners of Fred’s mouth. I could lick him clean with my forked tongue. 

I open my mouth. Close it. Open.

“I want some.”

Rachel Lastra’s stories have appeared in Tiny Molecules, Barrelhouse, Smokelong Quarterly, Apparition Lit, and other places. Her work was highly commended in the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize and a finalist in the Flash Frog flash fiction contest. She is a student in the graduate writing program at Johns Hopkins University and is working on a novel. Find her at rachellastra.com.

Two Stories by Lavina Blossom

On By steve cIn flash fiction1 Comment

Slow Leak

She mounts the first step up from the driveway, hand on the rail. She forgot to leave the front light on but her aging eyes can see well enough from the neighbors’ lights. Wait, had she locked the car door? She depresses the button on the device in her hand, hears the faint unsatisfying click, pushes the button again, a louder click this time. She brings the device up to her face, hits lock and the click is faint, so it’s locked already, right?

But does she have her phone? She rummages in her purse. She can’t feel it in there. Returning to her car, she hits the unlock button. Good, she had locked it. She gets into the driver’s seat and looks in the console. 

She stares out the windshield a moment, weary, then dumps her purse on the passenger seat, shakes it. The phone lands on the pile and she tucks it back into her purse, then adds her wallet, comb, pack of tissues, lipstick, gum, nail file, clippers, the tiny notepad, pencil and pen, a sales slip, her small address book. 

She needs to enter numbers into her phone if she can remember how her grandson said to do it. Every number but Rhonda’s, although yes, she will add that too, and call Jeff, ask how his health has been, although she never cared much for Rhonda’s husband. A pity her friend went first. Up to a year ago, she was full of fun.

Damn, she meant to stop at the gas station. Her son had that gadget to measure air in the tire, but no air pump. Probably a slow leak, he said. But doesn’t that mean she needs a new tire? And which tire was it? She’ll call her son tomorrow, or hell, just look at the tires. It ought to be obvious. Or maybe she will call, talk to the kids if they’ll get on the phone. No, too soon. She has just seen them, only about five minutes before they went to their rooms. 

She rocks herself out of the car, straightens her skirt. Now where are her keys? She leans in and bumps her head on the door frame, sucks her teeth, plucks the keys off the dash. Standing straight, she swipes at her hair that has fallen forward, catching the key ring in a curl. She deep breathes and slowly untangles it. She would get her hair cut really short, but her husband likes it longer. Liked it. Still, when she visits him, she does not want to look different, unfamiliar. He still has some recognition. He seems to know her even if he can’t say who she is.

With the car door closed, she starts up the steps. Did she lock the car? She depresses that doodad thing. A faint click, so unsatisfying. She hits the other button, likes that sound better, being clearer and sharper. She depresses the buttons one after the other, louder click, softer click, louder click, softer click. She decides the final louder click locks.

She wishes she was in bed, but now she can’t recall if she took her umbrella when she left the house. Nearly at her front door, she looks up into the sky. No stars.

There’s a light on her phone, but she can’t remember how to turn it on. She must not fall. Better to live here alone than take one of her grandsons’ bedrooms. They would resent her. It simply cannot happen.

She turns around, looks at the car, shakes her head, turns toward the three remaining steps to the stoop, turns toward the car. She starts to walk down, hating to leave the umbrella in there in case she needs it in the morning. She presses a button, but no click. She’s too far away. Does she have a fresh battery? She walks down farther, testing as she goes, pressing the button with her thumb until she hears a click. She stands a while locking, unlocking, locking, unlocking, matching rhythm to the labored pulse in her throat.

We Wear Suits

They are gray and tailored. We look professional. We look expensive. The women have gray purses, the men, gray wallets. Our shoes match, and our hair. Our teeth are white and straight. I wore braces for a year, but no one here knows this.

We never hurry when walking between our cubicles to speak to one another. We enunciate. We are smart and know where jokes are going, so we don’t need to finish telling them. I used to laugh. Then I smiled. More recently, I grimace.

The curtains are kept closed. I opened them once. I learned that beyond is ripe color. I wonder if our eyes are a betrayal. None are gray. 

I look into the other’s faces. I drop a pencil. No one reacts. I drop a stapler. One person nearby flinches, doesn’t look.

Tomorrow, when I deliver a document, I will touch someone’s hand.

Lavina Blossom is a visual artist and writer. She grew up in rural Michigan and now lives in Southern California. She has written articles on the writing process for the Inlandia Institute and was a poetry editor for the Inlandia Institute’s online journal. Her poems have appeared in various publications, including 3Elements Review, The Paris Review, Poemeleon, Common Ground Review, Gyroscope Review, and Ekphrastic Review.

Marriage by Amber Burke

On By okaydonkey7In flash fictionLeave a comment

Dark Circles

The husband and wife my husband and I met at the dinner party both have undereye circles so dark they are almost purple. Even though they smiled often enough, the dark rings gave the couple a haunted, intimidating air, as if they had glimpsed the end of the world, and we didn’t talk to them much. We talked about them—or rather, their dark circles—later that night in bed. We wondered if the dark circles could have predated the marriage and even sparked the initial attraction between the future husband and wife, causing each to recognize in the other a second self. Or perhaps they came after the marriage and are being caused by the same factor; the meals the husband and wife share could be missing the same important nutrient, or the same city noise or streetlight could be keeping them both awake, or they could be worried about or grieving for the same person. Or perhaps they have caused them in each other—the dark circles arose from whatever they are in the habit of doing together that is keeping them up: fighting, or making love, or reading out loud, or speculating late into the night about couples they hardly know.

A Small Danger Remains

I am no seamstress, but no one would see the rough stitches I was hash-marking in the ripped lining of my husband’s coat pocket, through which he’d lost many things—money, keys, his phone. When I was nearly finished, I lost my needle. I’d set it down to adjust the coat on my lap and when I reached for it, it jumped off the table where it had been resting. I couldn’t see where it went. This is why people have pincushions, I thought, but I didn’t have a pincushion. It was remarkable really that I had a needle and thread that matched the coat well enough.

I thought the needle was likeliest to have landed on the coat itself. I inspected it, then got up and flapped it over the chair where I’d been sitting, in the corner of the living room by the light. Nothing. I inspected the chair, and then the floor under and around it. I didn’t see the needle anywhere.

My first impulse was to get my husband to help me look. But I thought it unlikely that he would find it; his eyes are exactly as bad as mine, and I am usually the one who finds things. I thought it more likely that he would upbraid me for my carelessness; he could sit on the needle, or the dogs could step on it, and was I going to be the one to take them to the vet if they did? If we didn’t find it, from then on, every time we went to the living room, he’d inquire about the needle and lower himself onto the couch with exaggerated wariness. After long enough, it might turn into a joke; wherever he sat, he might say, “Ouch!” and I would laugh but also feel something poking me. I decided to take my chances; if the needle was somewhere I couldn’t find it, perhaps it was also somewhere it wouldn’t hurt anyone. I took another needle, finished my sewing, and this second needle I made sure to put away neatly.

Later that night, when my husband was showering, I looked for the lost needle with the help of a flashlight, to no avail. I put on my reading glasses and crawled around the living room with my nose very close to the floor. No needle. The following week, I expanded my search field, even flipping books over and shaking them and tapping the dirt around potted plants fruitlessly. That was last month. More recently, I’ve checked for the needle in the fruit bowls on the kitchen counter, between the sheets of our bed, and in the cupholders in the car where all manner of things appear, but not the needle. We sat outside on the porch last night, and I caught myself scanning the early spring grass, looking for something sharp.

No one has so far been injured. The days are already lengthening. It will be summer soon, and in the sharper light, the glint of the needle may be easier to see.

Miracle Grow

My husband planted grass seed but would water it only once a week, and then give it only a quick sprinkle, saying it is drought-resistant grass. I too am ambivalent about grass, but I pitied the grass he so carefully planted, which, after the spring rains were over, quickly began yellowing under the hot sun. So I began watering it generously when he was gone, which he was for work, a few nights every week. Now he thinks the drought-resistant grass grows magnificently without water and is sure we do not need to water it even one day a week.

Amber Burke graduated from Yale and the Writing Seminars MFA Program at Johns Hopkins University. She now teaches writing and yoga at UNM-Taos. Her work has been published in in swamp pink, The Sun, Michigan Quarterly Review, Flyway, X-R-A-Y, Quarterly West, and Superstition Review, among other places. She is also a regular contributor to Yoga International and co-author of the yoga ebook, Yoga for Common Conditions.

After His Mother Throws Him Out, Nicky Spends the Night on the High School Roof by Kathryn Kulpa

On By steve cIn flash fictionLeave a comment

This was 1997, before everything sucked. You could wander off school grounds, or back onto them. Life was fluid. It could expand. “A FIDDLER ON A ROOF!” Nicky shouted. His tenth-grade girlfriend had been in that play. She played a grandmother in a babushka: still looked hot. And now, like he’d psychic summoned her, his old girlfriend came walking by. He gave her a hand up. They shared a smoke. Nicky watched moths masquerade as fireflies against the moon. He watched the moon turn shy and hide behind a cloud. Like his ex-girlfriend, it went away sometimes. Sometimes, it came back.

Kathryn Kulpa is the author of For Every Tower, a Princess, just released by Porkbelly Press, and A Map of Lost Places, forthcoming from Gold Line Press. Her stories can be found in Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, BULL, Moon City Review, trampset, and other journals. Find out more at kathrynkulpa.com

Two Micros by Jeffrey Hermann

On By okaydonkey7In flash fiction1 Comment

The Voice of God Gives Up the Act

This was years ago. God stopped speaking from the sky and admitted that there are actually many gods and they all shared the job of the voice of god. It got complicated; they could never agree on anything. Nowadays they ride the bus or go to the mall. They talk too loudly. Voicing their little opinions, all the authority drained out. They’ve become lazy and forgetful. They get distracted by nice weather or their own fingernails. If someone is hogging a public restroom it’s probably them, primping in the mirror when you really need to go. They are vain but there is something sweet there. Maybe because they have no money, or that they aspire to an ideal of love. One time a god came running out of the kitchen to bring me a smoothie but spilled the whole thing on the carpet. The small god started crying, little tears on her cheeks. A glittery river of snot running from her nose. It’s okay, I told her–I’m not mad. She gets upset about storms, too. The darkening sky, how the birds all get quiet. There’s nothing to be scared of, I say. And we sit by the window and take everything in. We listen to the rain on the house, we count between the thunder and the lightning, and we sip the smoothies we remade together because she wanted another chance to make me happy.

If it’s Not One Thing it’s a Million Things

I feel I was born at exactly the right time in history. Every day I wake up and find problems built just for me. There are things I say sorry for and things I try to forgive. I forgive a woman on the news who stole money from her boss. I’m sorry I called so late. What are we doing 400 years from now? I wonder all the time. I’m not young anymore so I don’t think about heartbreak the way I used to. I know there’s not a word for everything. Our dog sleeps in a little bed on the floor while my wife and I watch TV. Sometimes there’s a train whistle in the distance. Our dog looks up when he hears the train whistle in the distance. I look up at my dog when he looks up when he hears the train whistle in the distance. If there’s a heaven I hope it’s me walking in our front door like normal. I hope it’s my kids barely looking up from their phones to say hello. Did you hear the news? The world’s best scientists say they discovered what will come after us and it’s dinosaurs again. They’ll roam the planet like they used to. They’ll hunt and claw and forage. They’ll uncover our bones in the earth and think nothing of it.

Jeffrey Hermann’s poetry and fiction has appeared in Electric Lit, Heavy Feather, HAD, trampset, and other publications. Though less publicized, he finds his work as a father and husband to be rewarding beyond measure.

Teen Angels by Karen Crawford

On By okaydonkey7In flash fiction1 Comment

We always get past the velvet ropes. (Always.) We weave through the crowd. Past the blue-collar and fur collars clambering to be noticed. Waiting to be judged. The three of us, shy of 16 with glammed-up hair, smokey blue eyes, and pink lacquered lips. Our hearts thumping to the beat of black beauties. We separate once inside. Farrah to dance it off on a monster speaker. Jaclyn to tease some shirtless bartender into buying her a Mai Tai. And me, forever Kate (not our real names), heading to the bathroom to pee.

We always check in with each other by the lounge. (Always.) But tonight, I am panic-attacking in the restroom, my heart exploding from the pills that Jaclyn (borrowed) from her mother’s purse. While a guy sexier than a cover girl stares me down in the mirror, applying lipstick like a pro. His eyes are two Fourth of July sparklers. Mine, two moons eclipsed. Girl, he says as he lights up a joint, you really need to breathe.

We always meet up for a toke on the balcony. (Always.) But tonight, I’m sucking in air by myself, trying to turn the beat around, watching the action below. That’s when I spot Jaclyn’s mom?! dancing with a man wearing nothing but a speedo and a peacock feather headdress. Jaclyn’s mom, Jaclyn (not her real name), is a panther in black spandex. A Rockette in red stilettos. Jaclyn’s mom, Jaclyn, is white-hot hot, partying under a moon with a spoon with a man wearing nothing but a speedo and a peacock feather headdress.

We always sniff out trouble. (Always.) But tonight, someone is ninjaing into the seat next to mine. I smell him before I see him, Paco Rabanne, maybe Aramis. Heavy and thick like the gold chain around his neck. Jaclyn’s mom would call him bridge and tunnel. I’m thinking Greased Lightening. He whips out a teeny bottle with a teenier spoon and takes a hit. His friends slide in through the other side. One of them leans over, a spritz of rum and coke in my ear. You know what goes on up here, don’t ya, pretty baby? The disco lights strobe. Black. White. Yellow. Red.

We always get lost in the music and lights. (Always.) But tonight, it’s a madhouse assault on the senses, a twilight zone of faces, glitter, and skin. I try to get up. Greased Lightning pulls me down. Where you going, pretty baby? I just got here. Someone is yelling, Get a load of Catwoman! Greased Lightening thrusts his tongue inside my ear. The disco lights strobe. Black. White. Yellow. Red. Jaclyn’s mom is slinking down the aisle, flexing her claws to the beat of “Devil’s Gun.” Jaclyn and Farrah (teen angels) in tow. I get to my feet, peep toe Candies sticking to the floor. There you are, Jaclyn’s mom purrs. White-Hot-Hot.

Karen Crawford lives and writes in the City of Angels. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was included in Wigleaf‘s Top 50 Longlist 2023. Her work has appeared in Maudlin House, Spry Literary Magazine, Emerge Literary Journal, Cheap Pop, 100 Word Story, and elsewhere. You can find her on twitter @KarenCrawford_ and BlueSky @karenc.bsky.social.

Mollusk by Didi Wood

On By okaydonkey7In flash fiction1 Comment

Content warning: sexual assault.

 

His hands are everywhere, squeezing your shoulders, pinning your arms, grabbing your ass and smashing you against his clammy body so close you feel all his hearts beating beating beating, and you gasp and you say Mr. Mollusk, what—but he’s covering your mouth, your eyes, you can’t move can’t see but you smell, you taste, stench of clams on his breath, tang of brine on his tongue, turn away but he yanks back your head, no, try not to gag, you’ve never liked seafood, or the sea, a bottomless murk hiding things that will topple you, drag you down, you thought you’d bob above it all, safe in your just-say-no boat but there’s so much you don’t understand, a different world populated with cold-blooded triple-hearted aliens that squeeze through cracks and hide in bespoke-suited plain sight and grow back limbs they shed when escaping, and they always escape, don’t they,

wait, he’s your parents’ best friend for god’s sake, Mr. Mollusk on the terrace with a shrimp on a stick and a hey-how-about-a-summer-job, isn’t that nice, oh he’s so nice, something’s burning and your dad hops up to check the grill and your mom hisses say thank you, pull down your shirt, behave yourself, and you know what she’s thinking but this won’t be like last summer behind the counter at Ben & Jerry’s with your friends draped like seaweed over the tables and after your shift that college boy, his mouth a barnacle on yours until your mom pulled up and honked and you shoved him away, laughing, but now,

but now Mr. Mollusk doesn’t care that you’re shoving, you’re sobbing, no, he’s biting your neck and you’re weakening, the surface so far above, wave goodbye to your parents and say thank you and he’s slithering into your mouth, no, prying apart your legs, all the soft moist dank cold salt-steeped parts of him, and that stench, putrid shrimp and something burning, how many arms does this man have,

and the phone rings on your desk, you should get that, it’s your job, your summer job, so nice, it’s ringing, right there yet unreachable, ringing, bobbing, behave, if only you were stronger, louder, if only you had more arms more hearts more sense, if only you knew how to swim, no, if only there was something you could grab hold of, a skewer a stick a pencil, a pencil, that pencil right there right here right—yes.

Didi Wood’s stories appear in SmokeLong Quarterly, Wigleaf, Fractured Lit, Milk Candy Review, and elsewhere. Her work has been chosen for the Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for Best Small Fictions. More at didiwood.com.

The Notes Left Behind on Grandfather’s Desk by Michelangelo Franchini

On By okaydonkey7In flash fictionLeave a comment

Giovanni: son

Marco: grandson curly hair

Giacomo: grandson glasses

Mum: dead

Dad: dead

Olga: wife? Gentle 

In his poem Montale describes the scorching Ligurian landscape as a metaphor for the desolation of life

Wife: where?

White pills are not candies are not don’t give the children don’t eat

Dante’s journey may be a dream but the passages in the text where he says that are too obscure and the scholars are

Paratore: mentor dead

Virgilio: Paratore’s grandson glasses tall

Si quicquam mutis gratum acceptumue sepulcris accidere a nostro Calue dolore potest quo desiderio ueteres renouamus amores 1

Read Cicero

Wife: vacation? Dead

 

1 If the silent grave can receive any pleasure or sweetness at all from our grief Calvus the grief and regret with which we make our old loves live again

Michelangelo Franchini is an Italian author and screenwriter. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in many Italian and English literary zines, such as Carmilla, Pastrengo Rivista, Tuffi Rivista, Isit Magazine, Neuro Logical, the big windows review, Maudlin House, and Sublunary Review.

Two Stories by Hedgie Choi

On By okaydonkey7In flash fictionLeave a comment

Volunteering

At the nursing home, the soft and brittle were flipped twice a day to keep their skin from melding to the bedsheets. As I passed one of the cots, a papery hand grabbed mine and pressed something sticky into it. It’s candy, the old woman said. I opened my hand to look. Some were oozing from their wrappers, some had teeth marks. Some were whole and new. They were from a brand that had gone out of business in my childhood. It’s dementia, a passing nurse explained. No, it’s candy, the old woman said. No, the nurse said, carrying a bucket of human waste out of the room, it’s dementia.

In Some Ways I Have Changed

As a mature and gifted child, I did not often play with my sister, because she was five years younger than me and thus unwaveringly stupider and worse. But when we got a catalogue in the mail—Sears, the local grocery store, American Girl Dolls, any catalogue—I made an exception. I would play with my sister for hours at a game we invented, a game that brought us together, a special game we loved. The game would go like this: we’d hover over the catalogue, each holding a marker. On the count of three, I’d flip open a page and we’d scan the glossy spread for the best thing, the one item we wanted most, and circle it with our markers as quickly as possible. This meant we “got” the item. Each item could only be circled once—we could not, for instance, co-own the Truly Me Western Horse and Saddle Set. Twice, I attacked my sister because she was quicker to circle the thing we both wanted. The things she took from me, or, more accurately, the pictures of things she circled that I wanted to circle, for which I attacked her physically, were a 2002 Toyota Camry and Premium Shredded Turkey Breast.

Hedgie Choi received her MFA in Poetry from The Michener Center for Writers and her MFA in Fiction from The Writing Seminars. Her fiction and poetry can be found in Noon, American Short Fiction, Poetry Magazine, The Hopkins Review, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere.