Daily Flash Fiction Stories
By Nancy Wade
Julie wasn’t sure about her decision, but she knew things were about to change. She gathered Adam and Alice, ignoring their crying and squabbling.
“There, there, we’re going for a nice ride.”
She fastened the lower belt and the upper so that Alice and the car seat were one. Adam was easier to latch—happier, calmer, excited about this great expedition. For Adam, going in the car was always an adventure. He kept saying, “See Daddy.”
By Mel King
I see her standing on the crest of a bare hill. Her long hair, the color of wheat, flies up in the wind and falls soft on the nape of her neck. She is wearing rumpled jeans and my yellow plaid shirt, and I think that she has never looked as beautiful as she does now. Her frame, gently curved, is casting shadows across my face. All I want is to wrap her in my arms and protect her from the landscape below.
On her way to Rittenhouse Square that morning, she notices two police officers standing right across from where she normally sits to read her devotions. But it isn’t until she sits down that she sees a pair of tattered shoes sticking out from under a sheet. A homeless man passed away sometime earlier on a park bench. His backpack that had been there by his side, comforting him in his final hours, now sits in disbelief, so still and ridden with uncertainty that it, too, appears lifeless.
I wanted my daughter to know who her father was. I wanted her to meet me.
After nineteen years of never meeting. Nineteen years of missing birthday parties and beach vacations.
I was a scared kid when she was born, hadn’t even graduated. I thought she’d have a better life without me. But things have changed.
Winter ends today. After a season of yelling and upset stomachs. He touches the skin around his eyes and feels a plumpness. Opens the door to an empty apartment. Never has anything been so difficult. He lifts his feet out of heavy work boots, placing the shoes in pair by the front door. A bird knocks into the window before the sink, and at first he thinks it is Francoise. He can still sees her behind the sink, scraping bits of food off the cereal bowls, complaining about the stench. He hangs his jacket in the closet. The knitted caps made by his mother remain stacked like soup bowls. There is a lack of chill in the room, and every surface pushes out a light heat and perspires. He feels it should be cold, is not ready for spring. Opening the screen door in the bedroom, the wind comes in, still with the frost of winter. Nobody has told the wind it’s time to move on. He lays out his socks for tomorrow, which are matched and rolled in the bottom dresser drawer. The drawer with one missing brass handle from when he packed and threatened to leave. I’d rather be at a motel. I don’t want you sleeping in my bed. I kissed those lips. You lied.
By Adam Christian
Ingrid Besson reached the pinnacle, the apex. The drugs Dr. Morgan gave her worked. She’d achieved the seemingly impossible. She utilized one hundred percent of her brain’s capability.
She knew everything. She controlled everything. She was everywhere.
