There was no oasis. No needles. Only mirages. Like the imaginary tar pit that turned his bebop jaunt into a slog. And the swarm of bees that punctured him with empty stingers. Even the music came to life in the form of a fanged-beak, blood-red buzzard that circled overhead.… more
Category Archives: FLASH FICTION
What You Don’t Fix
FLASH FICTION by Bethany BrunoThe garage still smelled like her. Motor oil and lavender detergent. She used to change the oil in both trucks. Said she liked the quiet under the chassis. Said it made her feel like a mechanic and not just someone’s wife.… more
Obituary / Bryant Farmer (1975-2025)
FLASH FICTION by Delphine Gauthier-GeorgakopoulosAs her non-existent father figure, Gwyneth shall mourn him for what could have been rather than what was.… more
Two Stories
FLASH FICTION by Kim MagowanMy wife says I need to give a shit. I say I never understood that expression. Who would want to be given shit? She agrees that it’s a peculiar expression, but that’s beside the point.… more
Your Feature Presentation Will Begin Momentarily
FLASH FICTION by Mike McHoneInstead of sitting in my mother’s living room, thirty-one, drunk, and jobless, I would be twenty-one, sober, and doing something responsible and worthwhile and American, like fighting in a war somewhere, and everything would look like a 1940s comic book… more
Still Life with Brass Section and Sea Creatures as Mixed Metaphors
FLASH FICTION by Jenny StalterYour body is a dead and rusty brass section. French-horn shoulders and cornet forearms, tuba torso, your head a trumpet that cannot sing of how you’ve come to be this funky metal. When you speak, it’s all screeching off-pitch.… more
Two Stories
FLASH FICTION by Abbie DollWe die, he says. Utters that last syllable bombastically—spits it out with firework freshness, so much so that I swear I can see the concept of death colliding with his premature psyche, making its meteoric crater in the smooth terrain of his young and innocent mind.… more
Soundtrack
FLASH FICTION by Tom WilliamsWhat forty-three-year-old husband with a teen who just passed her written driver’s test and has only liberal arts colleges on her list to visit should be thinking about changing careers? And who is he to think any of this rumination will get him anywhere?… more
Smart-Ass Epistemologies
FLASH FICTION by Patricia GilaAfter her daughter was accepted into the top-ranked university in the country, my sister-in-law—ex-sister-in-law—took up the habit of disagreeing with me about things I wasn’t even trying to agree on.… more
Anamorphosis: From Hero to Zero and Backwards
FLASH FICTION by Ramiz GaralovIt would not be a stretch to say that Sabir Khalilov was the sole architect of his own downfall. Known as much for his brazen antics as for his paintings, Khalilov had finally and spectacularly lost the plot.… more
