At age fifty, after three decades of rejection, Eldon marries an onion. Before the onion, Eldon had fallen in love with hundreds of women. They were always young, slender, and charming. The first woman he ever proposed to was named Lita, she had red hair and wore a pointy bra under pink angora. He saidRead more…
Archive for the ‘Flash’ Category
On the River
| by R.S. Bohn |
Well, I said, pull that river barge up. Let me come up. Up, up. Out of the city, off the cement docks, the wharfs. Let me up there, and I swear, I’ll help you clean this river. River barge captains are notorious bargainers. Sure, he said, sure. You can ride for free, but you’ll haveRead more…
The Capture of Snake-Eyed Sue
| by David Washburn |
Sheriff Max Steele stepped out into the dark, dusty street. Looking at The Wild Horse Saloon, he fixed his eyes on the light shining from the door. “Shame to have to ruin such a peaceful day, but a man has to do his job.”
Continue reading...»Change
| by Greg Schwartz |
She trapped me with her jaundiced eye, and I couldn’t look away. Her tattered clothes and dirty skin seemed out of place here, an anomaly on Light Street among the tailored suits and eighty dollar haircuts. “Got any change, mister?” Her wrinkled face looked up at me imploringly from where she sat, a mass ofRead more…
On the Edge of Breathing
| by Mari Ness |
“Rina.” He has never called her by her full name. She does not ask or wonder why. She knows. He places a tray of silver apples near her hands. Silver, not red. She dreams of peaches in the summer sky. “Come,” he whispers. She shakes her head, half weeps. “You know I cannot.” “You willRead more…
Gnomesick
| by Brian Dolton |
Hermann Humpfmeier was not having a good day. It had been three months, now, since he had had a good day. Three months, since he had been kidnapped from his comfortable place in Frau Fassbinder’s front garden. Since then, he had traveled on twelve different airplanes (freezing in the baggage compartment every time; wrapped upRead more…
Sundowning
| by K.S. Conlon |
Her mind was slipping. Beneath her cobweb hair and paper skin, I imagined shuddering cogs and pistons that were losing steam. It was that quiet slipping that took her away from us. The others were fragile in their own ways. They had clouded eyes and muted ears. Their stiff limbs relied on wheels and sticksRead more…
Lethe and Love
| by Michelle Muenzler |
Rose dipped her toes into the water. “It’s just a little forgetfulness. Enough to make me forget how long I’ve waited.” “But how do you know he’ll come?” asked the woman sitting beside her. She pushed back the gray hairs from her face; her hands had the crisp edges of the newly dead. Rose rememberedRead more…
Enter the Sky Man
| by Cheryl Holland |
The wagons and caravans, their once bright colours cracked and faded, stood in a neat circle behind tents that had also seen better days. Posts marked a perimeter, linked together with string hung with ribbons. They fluttered listlessly in the breeze that stirred the dry topsoil. Jason shielded his eyes and looked up at theRead more…
Waiting for Spring
| by Len Bains |
She stands in a quiet corner of the necropolis, waiting for Spring. All the corners are quiet at Pere Lachaise. One hundred acres stand packed with the dead, faded cheek by dusty jowl, mausoleum by tomb, grave neighbouring cenotaph, sepulchre tight against monument. A high wall seals away urban Paris. On one side Citroens vieRead more…
Hoops
| by Doug Goodman |
loops like a fugue. It is confusing, not knowing where I have been. Raven screeches at me from his empyrean atop a trashcan on the gray sidewalk. Hozho, harmony in the universe, must have been upset. Carelessness destroys it. Ripple effects. Religious chaos theory before it sprouted butterfly wings and became popular. Anything in myRead more…
Temporary Buzzkill
| by Stacey Janssen |
Buzz. Stop. Buzz. Stop. If I had to pinpoint the exact moment when it happened, I think it would have to be that one, right there. Buzz. Stop. Buzz. Stop. Now, I’m not saying that it happened all at once–at any exact moment–but whatever had been building inside me until that point had been sortRead more…
Picking Up the Pieces
| by Jeanne K. Svensson |
Ruth came stamping down the back steps into her father’s kitchen, her hair frizzed out from her normally tight bun, the top button of her housecoat sticking up alone above the unironed lace collar. “Dad, have you been upstairs?”
Dry Season
| by Nora Wall |
Dove shaded her eyes against the sun and surveyed the street. Walnut looked much like it did twenty-six years ago. Once kids played in the street and parents didn’t give it a second thought. No one does that anywhere now.
Responsible
| by Eric Bailey |
Billy Callahan, thirteen years old, stood quite intently on the edge of the bridge, staring straight down between his sneakers at the water rushing underneath. Dirty Pig Creek was running pretty low this season; he could see the tops of large rocks jutting through the torrent. He never felt the rain pitter-pattering his dark headRead more…
Hollow-bellied Jack
| by Tom Conoboy |
Jack is a farmer, an Irish poet who has never written a poem. His farm, little more than a few fields with a house and a byre, is down a track that no-one walks but Jack. It is a ghost road, some say, a bridge between the us and the them, and Jack, in theRead more…