Flash Fiction Magazine

By Mary Li

Randy is taking me out today. He’s one of the salesmen, and his hair loops up on his head in a perfect, gelled curlicue. His ass is heavy, his breath a cloud of coffee and aspirin. He always brakes before he sets the tires right, grinding rubber.

But I’m not complaining. Hardly anyone bothers to pull me out of the lot anymore. The used car dealer became a new car dealer, and the sign went from Frank’s Used Auto to Francis Chevy Buick. I saw Vicky and Mustang go to new homes in their big inventory closeout sale, before they remodeled the showroom with marble floors and Keurig coffee makers. They haven’t liquidated me yet.

[Read more…] about Lot

By Sofija Zovko

It’s always teeth. Teeth falling out, teeth chipping. Teeth bobbing up in boiling water like gnocchi, teeth crumbling in my hands like cottage cheese.

When did they start, the dreams?

Last February, that’s when it began.

[Read more…] about Milk Teeth

By Tanya Perkens

The thing about an ammonite fossil is that it’s all right there, in front of your eyes. Whorls of growth and attempted growth, a last pirouette frozen in grey stone the size of a hockey puck. I should tell you I’m Canadian, but I’m more comfortable with analogies that take their cue from the cold than the cold itself. I grew up in it, but that’s not to say I’m used to it. What kind of body could be? Certainly not the smooth effigy that sits on my desk, my little ammonite from the Devonian, who lived when things were steamy, fecund, slippery with matter still evolving.

[Read more…] about Amun

By Denton Loving

Turn the fan on, she said.

It was hot. Sweat ran down in a line back of her ear. Made me want to touch it. I switched the fan on high, and the blades went ‘round and ‘round. The whirl made you think there was more air than you could feel.

[Read more…] about Hot

By Richard Weems

He arranged to meet the girl at a diner he’d never gone to with his wife. Nor was it likely any of his wife’s friends went there, either—sticky tables, torn vinyl, the persistent humidity of hardened grease. He left the house on the presumption that he was meeting a former student for lunch, which he was. But before he could clear the door, his wife reminded him when the boys would be home, when the feeding frenzy would need to begin, what toppings each preferred. He nodded as though taking close mental note.

[Read more…] about Liaison

By Joe Cappello

Martin Aurely was dead inside. It wasn’t physical, but a persistent feeling that there was no feeling. Where there is no feeling, there can be no life. But he feigned life quite convincingly. When he went to meetings or passed colleagues in the hall, he smiled, his pencil mustache extending only slightly to the corners of his mouth. Though he was adept at fooling his associates, he couldn’t fool himself. He was dead, and that was all there was to it.

[Read more…] about Dead