Flash Fiction Magazine

By Mark J Russo

Naomi, a recent resident at White Oaks Assisted Living, sits in the hallway bay. She scans the vacant green lawn outside and begins to hum an old country song, trying unsuccessfully to shield against voices that billow from Mat’s room at the end of the hall. 

His door stands wide open so that air flows freely about the room, ushering the musky scent into the hall: a step he took to accommodate three people simultaneously moving about and breathing. He leans against the grey wrought iron bed that his great grandfather bought after arriving in Tennessee from Scotland. Mat, with the exception of his incipient senility, has aged well; stands erect; a thinning mane of salt and pepper hair; slim build; crisp bright brown eyes; and an unforced smile. It’s just that his fingers have begun to curl inward, and he doesn’t think he can make the clear mountain water flow from the banjo like he used to. 

[Read more…] about The Century Plant

By Victoria Mack

I can’t sleep, although I’m exhausted. It’s 2 a.m. in New York and 2 p.m. in Beijing. I sit in the darkness of the plane and listen to the white noise of the piped-in air, the occasional snore lifting above it. My husband sleeps next to me, his head pressed onto the edge of the window. When we land he will have an indentation on his temple that I will try to smooth out with my fingers. I look to my right, across the aisle. There is a young Asian couple, a man and a woman, with a little girl between them. The parents are asleep, but the girl, perhaps five years old, is playing with a doll in a blue dress. Both the girl and the doll have thick, straight black hair with bangs cut straight across the forehead. She is making sounds—boop a-boop—and bouncing the doll on her knees to make her dance. Suddenly she looks straight at me. I start forward awkwardly—I’d thought she wouldn’t notice me watching—and then smile. She looks at me with mild curiosity, not smiling, and then returns to her doll.

[Read more…] about Mae Lin

By Mary Stokes

Every Wednesday afternoon, on the way home from school, Marie would steal a stone from the toy store on the corner. They weren’t valuable stones, just cheap colourful things that you could buy a small bag of for ten dollars. Marie, when first seeing the bucket, had known they were very cheap, worthless things and had been outraged that the store was charging ten dollars for such little bags. It wasn’t right to lure in children with such cheap things that a child couldn’t possibly know weren’t worth ten dollars. Marie, not a very little girl anymore at eleven and quite savvy in her surmising, knew that this was a rip off.

[Read more…] about The Gemstones

By LC Burri

I’ve learned how to walk up the stairs quietly.

That wasn’t easy. It took time. This is an old house, with old stairs. They don’t like it when you make them hold weight, and they let you know it. They let everyone know it, unless you know their secrets. See, you can step here, instead of there. Then in the corner, by the landing. Not that side, but this side. And by doing so, you can get upstairs without anyone knowing you’re coming. And that’s all that matters.

[Read more…] about The Braid in the Bristles

By Anthony D'Aries

Sometimes the movies get it right. Two cops really do show up at your door, cap in hand. One a bloated lifer, the other fresh-faced with large, sad eyes. I was probably polite and invited them in for coffee. I probably apologized for the way the house looked. I probably thanked them.

Fresh-face called me “ma’am,” but he said it like “maim.” Maim, you need anything else? Maim, you run into any trouble, you just call. Maim, your kids are beautiful.

[Read more…] about An Honest Pain

By Rachel Mauro

“You have to leave because you are making people feel unsafe.” These women, with their vibrantly colored hair, their countercultural stud jewelry, and shirts emblazoned with LGBTQ+ slogans, are supposed to be my allies. These women, who talk online of “celebration,” of open arms. Outside our little community, people in pressed suits walk quickly on the sidewalk, eyes downcast. Inside, sisters chant in joyous, defiant unison: “Queer and proud! Queer and proud!”

I am wearing a t-shirt and jeans. In that way, I resemble most of the marchers here. Almost. I chose my Jewish youth group shirt deliberately but imagined myself as part of a patchwork sea with other ethnic groups doing the same. Now, the bold Hebrew lettering on my chest blazes like a siren. But that’s not why these organizers of the queer rights march are kicking me out, they say. They say it’s the Star of David rainbow patch knit onto my backpack.

[Read more…] about Intersection