Flash Fiction Magazine

By Teal Fitzpatrick

When they told me I could take one thing with me, and I told them I chose you, the gatekeepers did not object.

When I arrive, I dash to look for you. I look behind the boat and in the hut. I climb the high trees and dig into the moat of a perfect sandcastle. I even look behind a precarious pile of oddly shaped boxes. To no avail. To ponder, I need a sit and a drink. The sunshine, chaise lounge, and martini are little consolation. This, I think, was not the deal. I shake my fist and curse the heavens. I spit and moan. I run through the shelter and tear art off the walls. I pee on the floor of the hut. This is when the thunder roars.

[Read more…] about A Short Story about Boxes

By Andrew Fraknoi

I didn’t mean to swallow a Martian. I didn’t even know it was there, for Pete’s sake. But there’s no question I swallowed it. I haven’t been the same since.

Dr. Okito told me to record what happened, so people who come to Mars in the future will all be able to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. My story’s not going to make anyone happy, but maybe you’ll be more likely to heed the old warning they always gave to tourists on Earth—don’t drink the water until you know what’s in it.

My name is Dave Esposito, a Navy grunt from the Service Compound. I work the machines that do the hard labor of making Mars more habitable.

[Read more…] about I Swallowed a Martian

By Aishwariya Laxmi

Sravanti was barely six when her mom said, “If you don’t start losing weight, I will have to give Lobo as your dowry.” Lobo was their cocker spaniel puppy. Sravanti’s brother, Rehan, was also obese, but he got the nicest treats in the house. The finest pastries, biscuits, and ice creams graced the table on his birthday. Rehan often teased Sravanti that their parents had picked her up from the dustbin. Sravanti’s dad used to buy her material to get her kurtas stitched, since they didn’t have any readymades in her size. For Sravanti, the years that followed revolved around talks of her marriage, and how she could become marriageable, and find herself a good husband.

[Read more…] about But for Women, the Waiting Game Begins in Childhood

By Carter Merenstein

When I moved into my first apartment, my parents gave me a houseplant to liven up the otherwise empty cube. The plant was a delicate little thing in a purple foam pot, with skinny stems stretching out from a ball of roots. It didn’t have real leaves, just short, flat needles, like a young hemlock waiting in the understory. It was maybe a foot tall and a foot wide, and in the year I lived there, I don’t think it grew an inch.

[Read more…] about Growth

By Brandon Denham

A pint bottle fell out of Ben’s car when he opened the door. The sound of it bouncing off the curb ripped through the early morning stillness. Unfazed, he dragged his feet to the gravesite. Otis, who had been there over half an hour, watched him drone through the maze of headstones. Ben was pale. The only color left was in the rings under his eyes.

[Read more…] about Second Chances

By Kelli Short Borges

At the stop she’s come to dread each day, the yellow school bus jerks to a halt. Sarah’s heart stops, too.

The bus doors slam open. A foot comes to view at the top of the step—python print sandals, laces snaking up slim calves, then a body, the girl’s glossy black hair and softly rounded face betrayed by a quick, cruel smile. Her cold, calculating eyes dart swiftly, find their prey.

[Read more…] about Slither

By Ashley Hajimirsadeghi

Rewind. It’s summer, in Baltimore, back when we were teens. We grab Coke cans and chicken from Royal Farms before heading to the Gunpowder River. I lost my pink flip-flop there, remember? I cry as I cling to the mud, because those were my Dora flip-flops, and hop from stone to stone on bare, calloused feet. You laugh, grab a stick, and start fishing for the flip-flop. We never find it, giving up searching after twenty minutes. Frustrated, I shove you into the water, and, for a second, I fear you are drowning. But then you emerge, laughing and snorting water out of your right nostril. We lie side by side, the mud sticking to our shirts and the one flip-flop I have left dangling off my right foot, and stargaze, humming old jazz songs we’d heard my papa listening to in the basement.

[Read more…] about Voice Recorder