Tag: flash fiction

Categories
Fiction

Jim Meirose – Flash fiction

Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo!                                                       

It’s imperative we gain understanding of Beano and Knot, the leader says.

Very hard, though. Where’s their sense?

What? Not our question. No—but wait!

What?

They’re speaking again. Take it down.

Yes.

Pen up ready, go; listen. Scribe.

Ricardo! Odracir!

Beano: That’s okay; what moves? Visit?

Knot: In his suburban home paid for excellently extraordinary elite top position Dell’s shoe store salesman.

Beano: Oh, thanks.

Knot: I may have another.

Beano: Blur dead.

Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo!

Knot: Out neverending transparencies gas, told air whirlin’ n’ seething ‘round him—which, though necessary—impeded.

Beano: Eating alone on second while before reporting after old life.

Knot: Earned it. 

Beano: It’s can’t not ever be late, either.

Knot: But when selling shoes of course, feet.

Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir!

Beano: Stand staring, all’s empty.

Knot: Typically often any bother; something’s still bothering you, he had heard from today.

Beano: Surprisingly, flesh-bloody inspirational Chaplain Ameri-gahh, reared slick shine porcelain inspirationally over-scaled model.

Knot: We.

Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo!

Beano: Meaning-meant tell day, she took charge conversation, because news was much more shattering.

Knot: So once year and one half  f’ back at official meeting’s time go.

Beano: Come?

Knot: Two being gone, popped down her muffins every does, remembered.

Beano: Very good.

Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir!

Knot: Cozy l’lone quiet l’lone.

Beano: Work seemed like other, suddenly; wait—away someplace thought.

Knot: Sirs.

Beano: This’s always true single moment ‘n addition to smell dirty storeroom.

Knot: Are kind.

Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo!

Beano: Stop, no. Just get there.

Knot: Bye.

Beano: Thus ‘cause way, pop my tuna’s broke conscientiousness.

Knot: Slight grin.

Beano: Slow first, thank God rest is free.

Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir!

Knot: The with man.

Beano: Again thinking do, standing across sales counter, talking.

Knot: Hello, welcome.

Beano: Take walk mirror see how look suits us, dear.

—nothing—

—nothing—

Pen down all done, stop; done. Stop scribe.

Get everything?

Nod.

Send it off to the analyticals. Then wait again.

Understood.

Earth shattering, eh?

Yes. Earth shattering.

Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo! Odracir! Ricardo!

Jim Meirose’s work has appeared in numerous venues. His novels include “Sunday Dinner with Father Dwyer”(Optional Books), “Understanding Franklin Thompson”(JEF), “Le Overgivers au Club de la Résurrection”(Mannequin Haus), and “No and Maybe – Maybe and No”(Pski’s Porch). New work “Audio Bookies” is forthcoming from J.New Books. Info:www.jimmeirose.com @jwmeirose

Categories
Fiction

Cynthia Anderson – flash fiction

Witness

Because accidents can happen in an empty room, we brought home lilies in small woven baskets and left them there while we climbed blue mountains, swam oceans and rivers without names. We wanted the room to stay the same, the core newer than the surface. The sun kept blinding and unblinding—we saw past the darkness to the flowers we left behind. If our birthright is being who we are, we have nothing more to say, we did what needed to be done, the baskets are our witness.

 

🍃

 

 

Cynthia Anderson lives in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree National Park. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, and she is the author of nine poetry collections. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She co-edited the anthology A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens. www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com

Categories
Fiction

Ann Christine Tabaka – flash fiction

Abducted

Jim went outside to sit in his yard and enjoy the night. The full moon was bright that night, unusually bright.  Jim sat and watched it with curiosity, as it appeared to grow larger with each passing minute, until it felt as if it enveloped him in its glow.   He fell asleep on the ground.

The next morning Jim awoke in his room, walked over to the window and looked out at a distant blue planet, Earth.  It looked so beautiful and different from the sterile environment that he inhabited. He wondered what it would be like to live there.

 

🍃

 

Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry, has been internationally published, and won poetry awards from numerous publications. She is the author of 9 poetry books.  Christine lives in Delaware, USA.  She loves gardening and cooking.  Chris lives with her husband and three cats. Her most recent credits are: Burningword Literary Journal; Muddy River Poetry Review; The Write Connection; Ethos Literary Journal, North of Oxford, Pomona Valley Review, Page & Spine, West Texas Literary Review, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Foliate Oak Review, Better Than Starbucks!, The Write Launch, The Stray Branch, The McKinley Review, Fourth & Sycamore.
*(a complete list of publications is available upon request)
Categories
Fiction

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois – 2 flash fiction stories

Congenital Defects

1.

My Russian cousin will not tell me what’s happening. He wants to keep me in the dark. He fancies himself Dostoyevsky or the famous magician, Krylov the Fry Pan. He won’t even tell me why they call him that.

He finally got a great girlfriend, really cute, cute as a chipmunk, but he’s thinking of selling her online. He likes the idea of being a Human Trafficker.

Why would you even think of doing something like that, I ask him. He’s a distant cousin, but he’s got my nose, my jaw, my eyes.

He replies: The one who grabs the rat by the tail–he will get the vacuum cleaner.

2.

My son is born with colic and a bad attitude that destroys all babysitters, but worst of all, he has Pupila Duplex, two irises, two corneas, and two retinas on the eyeball of each eye. It’s as if he has four eyes. He’s a freak, but the condition gives him more data than a normal person, and increased focus. As soon as he could talk, he’s telling me what to do.

He tells me: The Chinese emperor Liu Ch’ung had this mutation. The populace fell to their knees in awe and wonder whenever he came within five miles. Sign over your Parenting Card, old man.  I’m in charge now.

 

🍃

 

In the City

Travelling west toward the mountains, Denver is a gritty place, though not as gritty as it used to be. It’s where people go when they’ve finally tired of the hick life. I never tired of it but was cast out by greed and pulverizing machines. Now I’m old and don’t believe in wisdom. I only believe in removing as much crap from my mind as possible. Minimum crap is the best I can do, removing the greed from my heart, and staying lean almost to the point of pain, skirting anorexia.

Anorexia is a road too far into the desert, a road where you stare at a cactus’s spines and feel jealous—but that’s merely another form of greed (greed has a million manifestations). That’s why the Buddha advocated the middle path, with greed tugging at you from both sides, the greed of overconsumption and the greed of self-deprivation. Neither works. Both are ego.

I would return to the hick life if I could, somewhere where people aren’t hardhearted and I’m not continually damaged by pulverizing machines. In the meantime, I’m here in the city.

 

🍃

 

Work by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois appears in magazines worldwide. Nominated for numerous prizes, he was awarded the 2017 Booranga Centre (Australia) Fiction Prize. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and as a print edition. His poetry collection, THE ARREST OF MR. KISSY FACE, published in March 2019 by Pski’s Porch Publications, is available here. Visit his website  to read more of his poetry and flash fiction.

Categories
Fiction

Salvatore Difalco – Fiction

KRAFT

 

I tried to channel Samuel Beckett during an episode on my computer. I call times when I sit there episodes. Like schizophrenic breakdowns, or epileptic seizures. More and more I’ve come to see them as the psychic and hormonal anomalies that they are. For it makes no sense to sit here and pretend to create reality. The only reality: markings on paper. Burn them and that information would cease to exist. And they say information can’t be lost or destroyed. On the other hand, a perfect record of this exists in the hard-drive. Destroy the hard-drive and it would cease to exist.

“Dinner’s ready, man.”

“It is?”

“Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“Who says I’m having fun?”

“It’s an obsession, then.”

My annoying friend, whom I will not name, as this has gotten me pilloried in the past, is correct, to some degree. But to call my thing an obsession seems imprecise. I compare it, more accurately, to eating, or defecating, functions that hardly require obsessions to promote and validate them. I have no choice, plain and simple.

“You’ve painted yourself into an existential corner.”

“You can say that, yes. I’ve nowhere to turn.”

“And yet, it will never sustain you.”

Sustenance, an issue at the end of the day. Anyone can record their silly thoughts and call them art. That doesn’t necessarily make it art. But it also doesn’t negate that possibility. Who’s to say?

“I made lasagna.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Yeah, I am. Made macaroni and cheese.”

“From a box?”

“Of course from a box.”

I can’t go on. I must go on . . .

 

 

🍃

VOYAGEUR 

 

In some respects, the guided tour left much to be desired. I liked discovering things on my own, at my own pace. I had spent a month in Rome when I was a young man, by myself, with the guidance and counsel of no one. And though my Italian was poor, I managed just fine. The man beside me smells like borotalco, not a bad thing on its own, but blended with sweat and fecal matter, upchucking becomes a distinct possibility.

“Stop the bus! Stop the bus!”

“Guy’s green, man.”

“He’s gonna be sick.”

“Get him outa here!”

A thousand hands shove me forward through the tunnel of the bus, into the harsh light of southern France. A Van Gogh field to my right blinds me with its uncanny blaze. A flock of black birds circle in the sky. I smell grape-pressings and sheep’s cheese.

“Another delay.”

“What can we do?”

“I have a suggestion.”

“Shut the fuck up, you old fart.”

The voices grow distant. The painting grows smaller and smaller, the black birds descend.

“There he goes.”

“Down for the count.”

“Someone get water.”

“You stepped on my foot, ass-wipe.”

And then I feel a great peacefulness arrest me. I am breathing evenly, calmly. The earth is warm under my cheek. I hear the bleating of sheep in the distance. I will come, I will come to you, my pretties …

 

🍃

 

Salvatore Difalco