Flash Fiction Magazine

By Sarah Levine

I was six years old the first time I remember going to the beach. I wore the two-piece bathing suit with pink and red butterflies, the one that was just a tad snug around my waist. Dad spent all day in the ocean with me, picking me up when the waves were too big for me to jump over. We feasted on ice cream from a cooler on a man’s back. At the end of the day, I dipped my feet into the ocean until my toes resembled raisins.

~

[Read more…] about A Shore Thing

By Greg Jasani

“Hey, I think you should come see this.” It’s Ryan, my intern. I’m sitting at my computer, furiously trying to finish my notes. As usual, I’m behind in my documentation. I’m thirty minutes from the end of my shift, trying to catch up on all the charting I’ve neglected. It’s important that I get out on time today. My daughter has a ballet recital, and I promised her I’d be there.

[Read more…] about Wound Check

By Zane Stephens

The band on stage harmonizes out the final tune, and Ward grins widely. He looks out at the crowd; he loves seeing so many people singing together. Ward loves the Church, loves God, always loves meeting, and he’s never forsaken it. One of the pastors steps up and tells everyone that they may be seated. He rattles off the announcements for the week, as quick as he can be (everyone wanted to hear the elder pastor speak; it had been forever since he had).

[Read more…] about Last One to Leave

By Melanie Walker

In all those years, I had never approached the door. Sixteen years, exactly. It was the same door—three stories above the parking lot, beside the river. Sometimes, there were seagulls or other white sea birds. Often, there were mosquitoes, almost always. I looked up at that door with my windows closed to keep away from them. When the wind blew the mosquitoes away, I opened the car windows, and petals from crepe myrtles flew in instead. The staircase was painted brown and the railings white. In all that time, they must have seen only three coats of paint. Sometimes, they rotted.

[Read more…] about Severance

By John Reid

When my brother was twenty-eight, only five years ago, he became wildly successful almost overnight. I know that in the modern world this is not a novel thing. Like so many others, he awoke to find himself an internet sensation. Still, never in my most quixotic dreams could I have conceived what happened to him to have actually happened to him.

[Read more…] about Sliver

By Carlos Rafael Gomez

Desmond Marquez is half asleep when he reaches for Richard and hits a solid wall. Everything is dark, and when he blinks to make sure his eyes are open, a pair of contact lenses clatters to the floor. Desmond doesn’t wear contact lenses, and as he tries to sit up to find them, his forehead bumps the ceiling. Left, right, front, back. He palms and pedals to confirm that he’s lying in a box only just larger than himself.

[Read more…] about Morning

By Malvina

I thought I’d cry when the deafening blow rattled me out of sleep early in the morning. My friend yelled into the receiver, Russians shell Kyiv, and the president forgot his tie when announcing the shocking news on TV. Well, I didn’t.

[Read more…] about So Delicate and Free