A Christmas card from Dad’s boss arrived with a picture of his family, all of them gleaming, with the dad and three sons with matching blue-velvet bow ties and straight teeth with no gaps. If my teeth were like theirs, I’d smile for pictures too.… more
Category Archives: FLASH FICTION
JAZZ
FLASH FICTION by Lucas FlattM says this doesn’t seem safe. What do you know about safe? I say. I’m going to go take a hot bath. I’m going to listen to jazz! She says, OK, but why are you already naked?… more
Collections
FLASH FICTION by Christine H. ChenSomehow she’s sneaked into the room and found the bottles I’d hidden under the desk when I still had a job. She’s built her own game, lining the bottles, coalescing them together in a triangle, raising one layer on top of another, a glass pyramid glinting guilt and shame. … more
Two Stories
FLASH FICTION by Luanne CastleBecause the boys on the street beat your skinny ass and called you bastard. Because the man in the suit and stethoscope said he was your dad but only stayed long enough to give your feverish twin sulfa. Because you and your brother fought the street rats with garbage can lids and sticks. Because the Chicago Nazis beat up your brother.… more
A House of Noise
FLASH FICTION by Coleman BigelowThere were only two things louder in our house than my father’s laugh. One was the slam of the bedroom door whenever mom barricaded herself inside and the other was the sound of our rusting station wagon backfiring as it pulled out of the drive.… more
Seeing Red
FLASH FICTION by Kathryn Silver-HajoHer hand grazes something at the bottom of her brother’s tin box of farm toys, something she’s overlooked, but recognizes now. She drops the piglet, falls silent, her nine-year-old heart galloping a fury.… more
The Newly Divorced Guy’s Homestyle Fish Stew
FLASH FICTION by Travis FlattPick a goddamn fish, you’re holding up the line. Just buy whatever’s cheapest. Watch the fishmonger crunch the fish from the ice and plop it on the board to filet. When he asks if he should “bone it,” go ahead and laugh, but say, “No.” Where will you be if you don’t learn to bone a fish? … more
The Heifer
FLASH FICTION by Katie McHughPop handled the calving season better than anyone. He claimed he could smell the fertility in the air, that the scent clung to him like pollen. Each year, the neighbors sought him out as if he were an augur, and he predicted each of their cows’ labors with shocking accuracy.… more
Early Recollections
FLASH FICTION by Karen SchauberWhile everyone else belly laughs at the hullabaloo, and as your father chain smokes another pall mall, you hear his silver lighter flick open and closed, the sharp metallic clank of metal against metal booms over the commotion.… more
Grant at the Lowboy
FLASH FICTION by Chad SullivanWe sit silently awhile, Grant adjusting to having company while I drink my coffee. Other Grants–fake fakes–crowd the door, a half-dozen or more, each well-burnished and impeccably bar-lit, shining like Christmas toys, all backslaps and whiskey breath and haughty wheezing, toasting Galena’s Memorial Day Gold Star Ceremony with platitudes and here-here’s. None of them so much as side-eye Grant at the lowboy, a ghost among ghosts.… more
