Flash Fiction Magazine

By Zach Zajac

On a cold Friday evening, the front door of Leo’s modest flower shop opened, and Eddie stepped inside. The young man stood in the doorway with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his thick black overcoat.

Leo, leaning on the counter at the back of the shop, didn’t notice Eddie. He was too focused on pruning a small potted plant. His gray bearded face twisted into a pained expression.

Eddie studied the older man. Leo was heavier than he remembered, heavier and tired. After a long moment, he cleared his throat.

[Read more…] about Three Legs at Night

By Amorina Kingdon

The spring breeze blows through the courtyard and flutters the ha-reed scroll that hangs from the palace lintel above the royal dais. Each elegant syllable-sign is a work of art. The courtiers, assembled in the yard beneath, stare. They marvel only at the elegant signs; they must wait for the scroll to be read aloud to know its meaning.

Only one of them, the scroll’s author, is fluent enough to read the royal dialect.

The Chief Scribe stands among the courtiers in the warm spring sun. Her court dress is green silk, the color of ha-reeds, and it lends her what gravitas it can, considering her remarkable youth. Several courtiers eye her as if doubting her scroll will pass muster when read. Though the Chief Scribe has held her position for four years, writing a scroll commemorating the Crown Prince’s birthday and wedding in one is the most critical test of her skill yet. She appears tranquil as she gazes at her words:

[Read more…] about The Scribe

By Sarah Hanner

My ex-husband fixed mufflers. “Mufflers by Mickey.” But it was more than that. More than just fixing. When he inherited the muffler shop from his father, he saw it as his chance to express his calling. So before he’d repair or replace or install a muffler, he’d paint it first. He painted mufflers in the style of Pollock, de Kooning, Twombly.

“No splatter left un-splunked!” he’d cry, the paint from his soaked brush pollocking over a row of silver metal tubes.

Some people, who’d heard about Mickey’s works of art, called and asked if he would paint other parts of the automotive body—catalytic converters, one guy asked, the entire car, another guy, axles, or a trailer hitch. Even if the parts weren’t visible, people requested commissions. But Mickey refused. He was a purist that way.

[Read more…] about The Muffler Man

By Yvonne clarke

You visit your mother weekly to help her declutter. Her generation, the war babies, are bowerbirds, habitually saving objects which may become useful again one day: elastic, string, newspapers. The house is overflowing. Thrift, not throwaway, is de rigueur.

“Boring! Boring! Boring!” chorus the twins from the back of the car.

“Shush! Gran’s very old, so we want to cheer her up, don’t we?”

“You’re very old, but you’re not boring.”

“I don’t like kissing her; she’s got whiskers on her chin,” one says.

This is true. To a child, whiskers mean witches.

[Read more…] about The Dastardly Art of Decluttering

By Marika Price

I was four years old, the first time I learned that being single was A Bad Thing. It was when Sunny, our parakeet, died. To be honest, I barely remember Sunny, Sunny’s death, or even Sunny’s funeral, where I apparently said, “Dear God, please tell Sunny to stop chirping so loudly at night so she can make bird friends in heaven.” But what I do remember is what happened after Sunny died.

Our other parakeet, Breezy, who was even louder than Sunny, stopped making noise. Not a chirp. Not a tweet. Nothing. Then, Breezy stopped eating. And stopped drinking. And finally stopped moving. It was such a drastic change, my four-year-old self wondered if Sunny took Breezy with her to heaven and replaced him with a different, quieter, sadder bird.

[Read more…] about Louder Solo

By Amanda Hurley

1. THINGS TO NOT FORGET

The sound of the slow creak of the back door, opened to let a wind-ruffled cat into a steamy kitchen on a wintery night.

The steep path from the road to the house, through the agapanthus and past the rockery to the gate. The empty letter box in the hedge, dripping wet in the rain. A rag doll, freshly washed, pegged to a line.

The sound of a father’s voice, the feel of his arms as he carries his child to bed.

A lemon tree. An overgrown bank, ripe for exploring, and amateur archaeology. Glass bottles fished from the soil, washed under the hose, filled with marbles and colored water, placed in the sun. A bed of weeds, littered with hidden caterpillars. A magnolia tree for climbing, sailed to the ends of the earth. Ants on a hot patch of footpath and an ill-directed magnifying glass. A back veranda. A little girl’s song and the look of loss in her father’s eye, misunderstood.

“Why are you not listening to me?” she yells, not realising the farewell she is being silently given.

[Read more…] about Life Lessons