Daily Flash Fiction Stories
Beth soaks in the tub up to her neck in hot water, her eyes exploring the new marble tiles lining the walls. Spidery, gray veins weave across them like free-flowing sketches on square sheets of paper—a touch of Picasso here, a smidgen of Chagall there. She is drawn into their organic images, searching for people and things that deserve to be found.
Three tiles jar her: the one with the lamb drinking from a teapot, the one with the woman’s sorrowful face, the one with the roaring lioness.
By Dave Barrett
His wife had left him and gone to live at her sister’s house. First, it was with the understanding that it would only be a six-month separation; then, at the end of the six months, she had finally told him she wanted to leave him for good. The magic was gone, and besides, she was seeing somebody else.
They had been married for almost twenty-five years, had raised three children and were empty nesters at the time of the breakup. She had been warning him for years to change, that the only way they would last is if they could renegotiate their marriage. He had tried to change, had gone to a therapist as she had asked him. But it was true: he had been unable to change. He had been satisfied with the course of their marriage and she, not.
Ross didn’t quite know how to react to not getting the job as CEO. He’d been the better choice, he’d had the perfect background and preparation, and it was the right fit for his family. Even people within the organization who were connected to some higher political circles, board members or families of board members, told him he was a shoo-in. The decision had ultimately been a political one; one of the board members was adamantly opposed to Ross for reasons no one quite understood, and he’d been vocal, as were some employees, he’d heard later, who were playing on both sides of the team.
By Flo Au
You could not focus on your work as usual. Piles of paper and documents filled your desk and shelves, surrounding you like a range of mountains with their half-mocking smiles. Life was like a joke, particularly when it came to its end and you looked back. You were eager to be buried in the piles in front with your bleeding heart gouged out and to be turned into a robot like most other colleagues around, emotionless and thoughtless, scribbling fervently on paper or capering hectically on keyboards. The tattoos on their arms followed the swift movements, vibrating and glowing in beads of perspiration under the fluorescent lights.
By Rich H. Kenney, Jr.
I smell like molasses. That’s what Felice used to tell me, the only woman who ever believed in my scent. She also believed in hurricanes.
We met in a bar on Cape Cod. I poured; she served. She liked to drink sea breeze cocktails—ones she served to customers. She’d sneak a sip here and there when she thought no one was watching, but I’d see her. Once, she saw me see her and winked. I fell in love. Later that night, she told me that in another life she was a hurricane, and I believed her.
By Cameron Thomas Snyder
There’s this buzz coming from upstream about our brother, Gill. They’re saying he’s not really our brother brother, as in the natural sense of kinship, but more like he was modified from the hatch to seem like our brother.
