Flash Fiction Magazine

By Tripp Reade

Nobody remembers her now, which is good. She can move about as she pleases.

“Just seeing if I understand: you want to build in a declining neighborhood?” The realtor can hardly bring himself to look at his client, so terribly has the old woman been burned. She’s swiped some cosmetics across her annealed skin, granules of moist powder clumping and clinging to the ridges of her face. Why do old ladies bother with make-up? Not like it’s going to help. He shuffles and studies property lists, his legal pad of scrawl. “With no library nearby and, uh—” he squints at his notes “—‘high TV ownership’? Kind of an unusual request, Mrs. Hecks.”

“Ms., if we must.” Her voice is likewise charred. “I never took a husband.”

[Read more…] about Every Good Thing

By Tom Moody

Everybody had that one friend in school who led them off the straight and narrow. Mine was Alex Fisher…

It was a Friday when Alex dared me to throw the chicken sandwich at Katy Church. “Go on, Moody!” he whispered. “You’ll be a legend for doing it!”

The chicken sandwich was not in good shape. It had probably been lurking at the bottom of Alex’s rucksack for three or four days. The bread was drenched in mayonnaise and tomato juice.

I looked across the room at Katy. She sat with her back to Alex and me, eating lunch and reading a book. Katy was renowned for having a short fuse. Alex knew this…

He handed me the sandwich. Mayonnaise seeped through my fingers. He prodded me. “Go on, Mate…”

[Read more…] about The Peach Incident

By Ryan

The foot grew. It grew and grew. Bound and suffocated by cheap patent leather, the foot bulged and puffed, gasping for breath. Russell felt a pang of discomfort as he jogged up the stairs. He glanced at his loafer and noticed a growth, stretch marks, minor inconveniences. He did not know of his foot’s heartbeat, its pulsing veins, its life independent.

The day passed without incident. While Russell entered data and responded to emails, the foot napped. It was groggy when roused for a coffee break, grumpy when dragged to the deli. But by five it was awake and alert, charged as it began its journey home.

Russell noticed the throb again in his car. The foot relished the power, the force, the acceleration. When it pushed harder, Russell jerked in his seat. He pressed the brake, but the foot resisted. He pumped again and again, and the foot let up. It knew the game.

[Read more…] about The Spurt

By Jared Brewer

Whenever Luis grew frightened, his form would recoil, and he would begin to talk like a gringo even though he had never heard his father’s voice or seen one of them up close. His mamá told him it was because it must have run through his sangre and stayed there, but Luis didn’t think it worked like that. Just being half made Luis the whitest at his school, and probably in the entire district, though he didn’t know for sure. What he did know for sure was that if he could somehow scrub the white away for good, his days wouldn’t be so dark anymore. Tan oscuro.

He banged away wildly on the inside of his locker and cried out in that whitewashed, panicky voice that happened to be the only clue his father had left him. No answer. He banged and cried some more. Nada. Nothing. He gave his hands and his vocal chords a much-needed rest, and sat there in dark silence. Oscuro. Silencio. Su vida. His life.

When the janitor finally let him out during his evening rounds, Luis had felt the last of the pale fear spill out of him. He was brown again. Mexicano. No gabacho. No gringo. Pero café. Brown.

And that was good. *Here*, that was good.

“Oye, güey,” said the janitor as he pulled him out. “What the hell are you doing in there?”

[Read more…] about The Mirage

By Julie Wakeman-Linn

Arnie DeBlonk pinched his Pall Mall cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, the glowing tip cupped in his palm, as he squatted near her mother’s kitchen door. Across the room, the girl’s mother flapped a damp dress shirt and fitted the sleeve to the ironing board’s end. The girl perched on the back stairs, a dark tunnel to her mother’s domain, waiting for him to leave so she’d get help with her social studies project.

He sucked in a drag, pivoting his brown work boots, shifting his weight left-right-left; his stance steady again.

Her mother bent over her iron, occasionally interjecting “oh, really” or “that’s too bad” as he rambled on about President Johnson, the mayor’s new license for carpenters, Mrs. Antonides’ kitchen, and how much he missed his children.

Arnie swooped up the Sign of the Cross and her mother murmured, “Elsa was a good mother.”

[Read more…] about A Quarter for the Taj Mahal

By Madeline Gressman

“I’m ready to go see it,” Evelyn said one afternoon, stirring her iced tea calmly. We had been sitting silently on the porch, watching the neighborhood children play kickball in the street. I pulled my feet out from underneath me and sat up straight to look at her.

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

“Dammit, it took me ten years. I’m ready now,” Evelyn demanded. I gathered up my sweater around me and stood. Evelyn looked up at me, surprised.

“You said now, let’s go now,” I said and slipped on my sandals to head back inside.

Evelyn always demanded that I refer to her as my grandmother, though legally we were never family. Now that she was alone, I had made a point to visit every weekend, whether we were watching Jeopardy, talking about Nora Roberts novels, or sitting on the porch saying nothing at all. She used to braid my hair as I sat on the ground, back resting against her rocking chair. Her fingers were the only ones able to twist my stubborn hair without causing me to yelp.

[Read more…] about Ruins