Daily Flash Fiction Stories
By Jamie Holland
There was so much news—who was going out with who, what the new kids were like.
People were breaking up and going out with other people. There were boy-girl parties. Seven minutes in heaven. Cigarettes. Sprite and vodka. They all wrote, How R U??? Are the guys cute there??? Everyone said they missed me, but I felt like I’d moved to the moon.
[Read more…] about JellyfishBy Mitchell Maloney
“Dispatch, send an additional unit. I have a woman, late twenties acting erratic, with pills in the front seat, likely an addict.”
“Please advise, what is your location?”
I have her pulled over on Mcduffee, we are off Highway 30 about two miles down.
“We have another unit heading your way, ETA is five minutes, should be arriving at 20:00.”
“Ma’am, stay in your car! Ma’am, stay back! Get your hand out of your pocket! Hand out of your pocket!”
[Read more…] about Okay, MollyNew text from Rufus: Get down here, now. Corner of Gibralt and Pine, heading north on Pine.
New text from Eddie: What’s going on?
New text from Rufus: Now. You’re not going to believe this, bro.
~
Eddie stopped at the end of the sidewalk, orienting himself as he caught his breath. Two signs—Pine Street and Gibralt Sreet—stood perpendicular to each other atop a metal pole. He looked down Pine Street in one direction, then the other. In the distance, beyond parked cars, stray walkers, and waves of rising heat, he spotted Rufus’ signature orange knit cap disappearing into an alley. Eddie jogged slowly down the street.
[Read more…] about Chicken Pants and the Gold Brick WormholeI sit beside the ford on a crumbling wall, unlace my shoes, and fold my jumper. It’s a ritual, doing these things in order, the way we always did. The promise we’d get a little place by the coast one day never happened, so we’d come here instead to paddle and wiggle our tired toes in the sand and gravel. I tug at a sock, and my fingernail catches Annie’s darning. I swallow back an ache in my throat, but there’s no sense feeling sorry for myself. I should be grateful for all the good times.
[Read more…] about TwelvetreesColumns of sun break through the breeze, warming her back as she flaps against the wind—soaring, swooping, gliding, turning, whistling, racing—flying to advance through that next open stretch, that shadowy gap in the trees, that dive to the grass and launch back over the wild fingers of the thicket, straight into the corridor of light, an extra beat in the wings to get through the glare, head down into an eruptive chirp—the precipitous pop—before dropping in silence to the ground.
~
She never saw the window. Never knew what a window was before she woke in the cold belly of a shovel.
[Read more…] about Existential GrubBy David Newkirk
It is 2021. The waves have whispered for twenty-nine years since I met them, and longer still since they last talked to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
An article pops up in my newsfeed. It says that the pandemic has claimed the Hotel Laguna in Laguna Beach. It is closing after ninety-odd years. I’m briefly sad. I think of change, the impermanence of the world, and of Buddhist monks and sand mandalas scattered by the wind.
A month later, I read that new owners have bought the hotel. I close the article. I can’t be late for the staff meeting.
[Read more…] about Whispers