Category: flash fiction
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we lasted through winter.
i was sideways, asleep, or thought i was, between them, worried what if i would never feel this way again. morning just starting to peak. wouldn’t make its way through those blinds for a good bit, no use for the future. just an indication seeping in through kitchen windows. catastrophic gold. in love, two times…
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final night.
Once they were certain the security guard was well into his skinny mag, the dolls came to life, met in the middle of the warehouse. Stood in a semicircle under a pool of tar-stained light. Various dresses, shapes, sizes, finger lengths, eye colors, even skin colors, because there had been changes over the past few…
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Further South Than Dakota.
didn’t matter the mileage; i had set my footsteps so far into South Dakota that even the Badlands bled away. nothing but circumference in the shape of parched surroundings, you live in a disc now, Lucky. blue skies with one raging eye, reminding me that water was a thing of the past, and the shirt…
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smile.
I took a moment, on my way to work, to stare at an anthill. Close to 11 in the AM, so my shortcut through the park should have been free from the rampaging sneakers of tireless children; chasing squirrels, undersized soccer balls, or one another. Their interchanging directions switching from one interest to the next.…
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you were welcomed.
So you heard of a place called New Orleans. And you were welcomed. Free license to walk the streets, a thousand or so back pocket pamphlets. You helped yourself to the food, possibly undertipped. Complained while complimenting. Took the tours, some of you without any intention of learning. Spoke the word “plantation” with a wistful…
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wonderland.
Manny lost his thumb while carving initials into a Sunset Park sycamore on Christmas day. He had run from his house, boots crushing through a fresh snowfall north towards the hill. Streets empty, storefronts shuttered. Occasional fire hydrant peeking out from the drift, curious snouts wondering where the world went. From within his red skully,…
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sometimes they listen.
The evening played out in timestamps. Front lawn embedded with individual flat rocks, leading up to closed eyes, her fingers tensing, slick with grease, firm grip worried that if she didn’t dig in with her thumbnail, the present might pass. She thought about the kitchen, husband rolling his eyes and telling her that thyme was…
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one more time, blood moon.
made a head count tonight, and it turns out i have 75 secrets. only one of them concerns the blood moon. a fitting number, considering what’s waiting for us all this morning. sadly, as the definition for secret goes, this story is not for sale. although, far as circumstances go, i can reveal what’s good…
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at the gates.
sat myself outside. red steps. back against a closed door. cigarette. Jack Daniel’s. music still bumping, catching a row of bikes parked against the fairground fence. and what was on my mind… 6:25, here’s how the air feels on a perfect day, taste of a willow tree. sun at a lower level, some 71 degrees.…
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maytwentyeighteen.
standing at gulf’s edge, watching emerald waves roll in with the latest news, spread themselves at my feet, sediment for sandpipers, sun with an afternoon glare that sends cat paw clouds towards the horizon, where storms ring warning bells; still too far for thunder, replaced by the hungry reminder of jet engines, twin fighters that…
notes from a never-was. 