Flash Fiction Magazine

By Emily Moran

The mosquitos made their way in through the rolled down windows and landed softly on their sweaty skin to grab a snack before they continued buzzing around in the Virginia humidity. It was early July, and Michael and Emma laid in the backseat of his pale blue sedan, playing cards and wishing for a better place to hang out, but since the only two stores in this town were both run down gas stations, they settled for the car. The sun began to set, and with his head sticking to her chest, they watched as the light began fading into the tree line until it completely disappeared into the ground; this had been their routine all summer long, but something strange came over him that evening.

“We could run away, you know,” Michael said, half awake.

“That would be nice,” replied Emma, “but you know we can’t.”

[Read more…] about It’s a Toss

By Rayner Bray

You have reached the voicemail of Thaddeus Applecore. I regret not being able to bother with you at the moment, but please leave a message after the beep.

Beep!

“Hello Mr. Applecore,

This is Mortimer from Fairyland Pest Control. We completed the job and wanted to let ya know it was with minimal destruction to your property. You will recall the extra fine print in our contract about not being held liable for any work related damage? Ahem.

[Read more…] about Pest Control

By Brandon Daily

Agatha takes the net from where it rests against the wall and then picks up the basket and heads out the door. The voices inside are still loud as she walks away from the house. After a while, she turns back and looks at the small, square shack made of logs piled one on top of the other. It sits on the edge of the field, and in the early morning darkness the shack blends into the line of trees behind it. To a passerby, the place would not be noticed, save the whispering voices that carry from it.

She smiles sadly and then readjusts the basket in her hand. The meadow is a mile and a half away, through trees and over a small creek of water icy to the touch. Like every other morning, Agatha walks slowly, a quiet tune escaping her whistling lips. The walk to the meadow takes forty-five minutes, and with each shuffled step forward, through the airy music that comes from her mouth, she thinks of her life as it had been. Those she loved. And those she lost. Her husband, dead now eighteen years. Her children, all five of them, scattered across the country in places whose names she cannot recall.

[Read more…] about Words

By Cedric Tan

I made sure to adjust my hat before I entered. The brass bell hanging above the door sounded my arrival, and the gray-haired shopkeeper looked up from behind the counter with a jovial smile.

“Top o’ the morning!” he called.

“Morning to you, too.”

When I smiled in return, the shopkeeper’s eyes widened in recognition. “Ah, it’s you again. How was the Phlegm-Be-Gone Potion, sir?”

[Read more…] about The Potion Shop

By Angela Joynes

Like coconut left overnight on the counter, the shards of Danny’s toenails scattered atop the bedsheets are sharp, white, dry, and angular. Little scythes or draw knives or razors, I wonder, meant to rasp off the hair he despises on my legs?

Using my thumb and forefinger, I pluck a coconut crescent to examine it by the pale morning light. Dark sticky matter still clings to one corner, the greasy smell of Danny’s feet wafting upward.

[Read more…] about Toenail Sawdust

By Zach James

The painting hung on the north wall of the Renaissance wing at the Louvre, waiting for the day that the man with the yellow umbrella would set his eyes upon it once again.

Martin had seen the painting nine years earlier, with his wife and daughter beside him. He stood before it, contemplating the painting’s illimitable, polished beauty. The colors twisted and twined and harmonized like a baroque choir, while the shading created mysteries that only angels or prophets could know. It reminded Martin of the complex beauty that is family. It reminded him that the three of them, that trinity—his wife, his daughter, and he—were one, but at the same time separate, and that there was shading between them that allowed contrast and harmony all at once.

[Read more…] about The Yellow Umbrella