Flash No. 22 – Marcelo Castro Salinas
I see the man’s face on the back wall of the shower. Empty-minded, I stare as the water splashes on the crown of my head. Continue reading Flash No. 22 – Marcelo Castro Salinas
Category: Flash Fiction
Flash No. 21 – Nayt Rundquist
Nayt Rundquist (they/them) is the Managing Editor of New Rivers Press and teaches publishing, creative writing, and literature courses at Minnesota State University Moorhead. Their writing can be found in The Citron Review, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, Up North Lit, Etchings, and anthologized in Unbound: Composing Home. They live just outside of space and time with their artist-jeweler wife and their fifth-dimensional dogs. Continue reading Flash No. 21 – Nayt Rundquist
Flash No. 20 – Anna Stolley Persky
Anna Stolley Persky, a lawyer and award-winning journalist, lives in Northern Virginia. She’s pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at George Mason University. Her fiction has been published in Mystery Tribune, The Satirist, Bright Flash Literary Review, and The Plentitudes. Her poetry has been published in the Washington Writers’ Publishing House, Sad Girls Club Literary Blog, and The Closed Eye Open. Her creative nonfiction has been published in Pithead Chapel. Continue reading Flash No. 20 – Anna Stolley Persky
Flash No. 19 -Catherine Martinez Torigian
Catherine Martinez Torigian (she/her/hers) is a native of Brooklyn, NY, where she lives with her husband, teenage daughter, and mini-dachshund Olivier. She began writing fiction after earning a Ph.D. in Classics at Brown University and has taught Latin and ancient Greek in four of the five boroughs of New York City. Her fiction has appeared in Bellowing Ark and Digging Through The Fat. Continue reading Flash No. 19 -Catherine Martinez Torigian
Flash No. 26 – Jannitt Ark
Before I met you, we went to the same party, but I don’t remember seeing you there. I like to pretend I was strangely compelled by the sight of you staggering around in a threadbare coat and loosened tie, your lips red from the bottle of wine you clutched, its green neck peeking halfway out of a paper bag. Continue reading Flash No. 26 – Jannitt Ark
Flash No. 25 – Jason Arment
A car’s life can be hard to imagine, but maybe not so difficult when the automobile comes back home one last time. Like most objects in the physical universe we occupy, it’s not hard to see when a car is going to wear out. Continue reading Flash No. 25 – Jason Arment
Flash No. 24 – Lúa Margita Brau
There once was a girl who lived in a little house in a pine wood. The pines were tall and thick with needles, and above them was a clear deep blue sky with large white clouds in it, solid-seeming white clouds that moved swiftly on a brisk wind, like boats on their way to some place or another. Continue reading Flash No. 24 – Lúa Margita Brau
Flash No. 23 – Rich Ives
I cannot rehearse the pathways of smoke, but I spend my entire life on the journey, my one particular part, small, wingless, and flattened. You would not guess it when meeting me alone and my host can be nearly gone, emaciated. I place my eggs upon her hair. But there’s a second host and more further south. I could migrate and release my benefactor. I could trade in my habitat. But in this way deceptive birds might find me sailing. Continue reading Flash No. 23 – Rich Ives
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Flash No. 22 – Richard Krause
Penn State University would periodically send down these studies on dairy cows. The farmers would have to implement them whether they liked it or not, but it was always the cause of ridicule, of mockery, that the scientists at Penn State hadn’t gotten close to the udders of a single cow, had never been kicked by one, never saw the mastitis their directives were meant to clear up,… Continue reading Flash No. 22 – Richard Krause
Flash No. 21 – Josh Dale
You go to flip the omelet over, and it breaks. Ever so gently a turn, like you always do, and it still breaks. The innards are exposed. The eggs will continue to harden and soon burn. Continue reading Flash No. 21 – Josh Dale
Flash No. 20 – KP Vogell
The author confesses that this story has been written entirely by mistake. It begins with the mistake of an alarm clock opening and keeps piling them on: a stereotypical main character, a two-dimensional significant other, an unconvincing villain. Continue reading Flash No. 20 – KP Vogell
Flash No. 19 – JP Infante
In a brothel outside of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, an English archaeologist finds a clay tablet with Latin writings. After careful study, historians believe it is the reproduction of a letter written by John the Apostle. Continue reading Flash No. 19 – JP Infante
Flash No. 18 – Denise Tolan
Read the Medication Guide that comes with AMBIEN before you begin taking the pill, or unless you can’t sleep. Which is ironic. Continue reading Flash No. 18 – Denise Tolan
Flash No. 17 – Sue Mell
I am folding my mom’s fancy clothes. Bright patterned dresses and diaphanous floral blouses from Bloomingdale’s. Bespoke wool pants, now impossibly baggy, from a shop on Madison. All the finery she once wore to Broadway plays and opera at the Met, to museums and lunches at upscale Manhattan restaurants. Continue reading Flash No. 17 – Sue Mell
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Flash No. 16 – Taylor V. Card
One day (which we must all understand to mean many years ago now) a girl in her mother’s kitchen cuts a lock of her shiny hair, sets it in resin, and promises to live forever. When she is ninety-three and dying, she calls grey loved ones into the room to give these instructions: Continue reading Flash No. 16 – Taylor V. Card
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Flash No. 15 – Peter Gregg Slater
A Tale of Two Maps By Peter Gregg Slater Knowing how I love maps, the owner of a bookstore in Washington, D.C. brought out two for me to look over during a 2019 visit. The first, a world map from 1578, displayed the surrealistic continents and islands characteristic of the period’s cartography. Tiny ships bravely sailed its seas, a few ominously heading towards waters marked: … Continue reading Flash No. 15 – Peter Gregg Slater
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Flash No. 14 – Katie Mauro Zeigler
Stroke
By Katie Mauro Zeigler
If I could talk, I would tell you that I used to have sex with the windows open and the moonlight and a man’s hands at the small of my back. I would tell you how it felt to bring a baby into the world and how my first period came at twelve. Continue reading Flash No. 14 – Katie Mauro Zeigler
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Flash No. 13 – Peter F. Crowley
Fomorians By Peter F. Crowley You’re a piss reminder of an everlasting hotel. She spoke in a fiery tone. The man waddled side-to-side and began patting a penguin. He glanced to a chalkboard behind the penguin, where were written the words: We’ve broken glass, crushed marigold eyes, dethroned coughing cathedrals, driven Zambonis over subterranean rinks, planted flowers that scratch out esophagi – and now … Continue reading Flash No. 13 – Peter F. Crowley
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Flash No. 12 – Gary Singh
Reunited in the Fourth House By Gary Singh After leaving the BART station, I visit my Berkeley astrologer at her spooky wooden house near Rose and Milvia, where paint-peeled steps take me to a porch milieu of hanging plants, ancient wicker sectionals, and apathetic cats. Soon enough, the door opens, revealing those same clear eyes of a clairvoyant nature I remember from morning Tarot … Continue reading Flash No. 12 – Gary Singh
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Flash No. 11 – Benjamin Davis
Slow Motion Man By Benjamin Davis His name was Eam. Reality shot him in slow motion. He worked in Spain, Salamanca, a bar called ‘El Submarino,’ the second bar, up the stairs. When he snapped open a beer, it took a minute. When he mixed a drink, it took ten. But, people waited, people watched. I waited. I watched. His eyes found me; eyes … Continue reading Flash No. 11 – Benjamin Davis
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Flash No. 10 – Soramimi Hanarejima
Toward Non-Volatile Memory By Soramimi Hanarejima Once again, you take us on “a short detour to see a memory”—meaning we’re going to visit some event in your past. So, I take a nap. To give you some privacy and get some respite from the strain time travel subjects the body to. I recline the time machine’s co-pilot seat (really more of a glorified passenger … Continue reading Flash No. 10 – Soramimi Hanarejima
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Flash No. 9 – Catherine Martinez Torigian
Drag Racing By Catherine Martinez Torigian The last time I heard that sound I was a girl of fifteen, give or take a year. But it was only this morning that I realized it what it was, like a flash of heat lightning on a summer’s day, baffling until the thunder came. A man and woman from the new building on the corner walked … Continue reading Flash No. 9 – Catherine Martinez Torigian
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Flash No. 8 – Ben Umayam
Kapre Down Under By Ben Umayam Aspen trees proliferate primarily through root sprouts. Whole colonies can be traced to one gargantuan underground sprout. The colonies can extend from the Colorado Rockies to the Canadian ones. Aspen trees are like clones. They share identical characteristics from the single root structure. When they die, it’s almost like they don’t, another tree sprouts from the massive underground formation. … Continue reading Flash No. 8 – Ben Umayam
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Flash No. 7 – David Joseph
Morning Sun By David Joseph I remember the first time I saw “Morning Sun” by Edward Hopper. I was on a school trip from our high school in Cleveland. It was only a two hour drive down to the Columbus Museum of Art and, truth be told, I was more interested in spending the afternoon making out with my boyfriend than staring at art. Museums … Continue reading Flash No. 7 – David Joseph
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Flash No. 6 – John Nicholson
The Missing Years By John Nicholson The engine idles as a wounded soldier recovers on the ground, holding his abdomen. Another soldier leans against the car. The smoke from his cigarette vanishes into the snowy canopy. The wounded man chokes as he recounts what happened to him. I. A Roadway in the Woods “It was just the two of us. I couldn’t.” The standing soldier … Continue reading Flash No. 6 – John Nicholson
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Flash No. 5 – Lucía Orellana Damacela
Brief Encounter By Lucía Orellana Damacela It’s dark under the house, the smell of the sea —less than one mile downhill— expands my nostrils like desert flowers. From this underbelly, this rocky refuge, as I pass by, a sudden shimmer calls me in. I am wearing white cotton socks and plastic sandals that screech as I walk. Two small green-yellow lights are suspended in front … Continue reading Flash No. 5 – Lucía Orellana Damacela
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Flash No. 4 – Elizabeth Kirschner
The End Which Envelopes the End, a Bramble, a Rose By Elizabeth Kirschner Lonely, like a coffee mug on the shelf, I slow roll into the empty spot on the bed where we shed the best skin of our lives. We were a thing of beauty, weren’t we? A thing of beauty, us, this, before that man—not you!—shoved my face into the weeds. I can … Continue reading Flash No. 4 – Elizabeth Kirschner
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Flash No. 3 – Christine Kendall
A Gift By Christine Kendall Lourdes sat, thirsty, in her son’s old Mercedes sandwiched between delivery vans on East Seventy-Ninth Street. She studied the license plates of passing cars; all local—New York. “I’ll only be a minute, Mama.” That’s what he’d said before taking his tools and disappearing into one of the limestone apartment buildings. Lourdes smoothed her blouse at the neck and watched a … Continue reading Flash No. 3 – Christine Kendall
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Flash No. 2 – Ana Hein
Conversation By Ana Hein It is dark when they talk. “You don’t have to do th–” “–I know.” “Okay… Maybe some other–” “–It’s alright.” “But–” “–Trust me.” “I do, but–” “–Aren’t you happy?” “I am, b–” “–Then what’s the problem?” “I’m not really su–” “–I think you’re going to like this.” “You–” “–Come on, I know what I’m doing.” “That’s not–” “–It’s not a big … Continue reading Flash No. 2 – Ana Hein
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Flash No. 1 – Rachel Werner
Brown Girl Blues By Rachel Werner “Yes. I cut myself.” “And NO, I am not white.” “But YES, my mother is.” These sentences I have said aloud. But the monologue I’ve pieced together for my own ears is: Everybody is a little bit crazy. So that’s WHY I am ‘crazy.’ Being alive is h-a-r-d; ‘though if I was walking around pretending like it wasn’t, … Continue reading Flash No. 1 – Rachel Werner