Flash Fiction Magazine

By Courtney Clute

I’m driving to the Italian deli at 8:49 p.m. on a Friday night to get the right type of pecorino Romano because when I started shredding Parmesan cheese, and not Romano over my mountain of spaghetti, I felt my grandfather’s stern gaze from heaven.

Dinner had been delayed. I’d gotten home from work, put on an episode of The Sopranos, and fallen asleep on the couch. I dreamt my dead grandfather stood over me, hunched over his walker, which was covered in yellow smiley face stickers, teeth out, so his gummy smile gave me the chills when he said, “Get up, you lazy piece of shit.”

[Read more…] about Carbonara

By Tim Frank

My childhood was filled with joy, and I got the audience I deserved. I grew up in a loving family, had loyal friends, and drew crowds that could fill cinemas.

I had a privileged life, but it was not always easy being so popular. I had to sleep with a pillow clamped over my ears as the audience squatted around my bed, chattering. They loitered in the dining room and analysed me while I ate dinner with my parents and my little sister, Abby.

When I hit fifteen, Abby lost a long battle with leukemia. My life was rocked, and my audience transformed. A large portion of my crowd deserted me, and the remainder took no notice when I held a knife to my wrist.

[Read more…] about Audience

By Julia Abelsohn

You know you shouldn’t do it. You’ve been brought up in a good, Christian household, so—by now—you know right from wrong. But the temptation is just too great. It’s only little things at first, change from your mother’s purse or the coin box in the kitchen; however, one day, you are feeling really bold and you take a ten-dollar bill from your father’s wallet. The exhilaration of that pulses through your body, and you feel like a secret agent that has stolen the nation’s secrets.

You buy little bags of candy from the corner store for all of your friends; that way it’s not like the money is all for you, so that doesn’t really make it wrong. You are like Robin Hood, you tell yourself.

[Read more…] about Tiny

By Jessalyn LeBlanc

The empty stage is swarmed with spotlights. Velvety fog pumps from a corner, and the smell of hairspray loiters in your row of seats. Your daughter emerges on stage, her shiny pointe shoes striking the floor on her way to center. She is wearing your red tutu, the one she found dusty in your closet and pointed out like a scar. She extends an arm above her. She smiles and waits for the music, an arrangement of notes on a flute. The music startles you. It never used to.

[Read more…] about Theatre Thoughts

By Amy Marques

Dear Nice-Family-With-The-Scarecrow,

I didn’t mean to steal your pumpkins.

I was on my way to my gran’s. You might know her. She lives three curves beyond, where there’s a stone wall and an old gate that’s always open. The hinges got so rusty that it stopped moving, and Gran said we might as well leave it open because she lives in the safest place in the world.

Now I’ve ruined it.

I didn’t mean to. Honest.

[Read more…] about I Didn’t Mean to Steal Your Pumpkins

By Thomas J. Misuraca

I feel your pain so much that it burdens my soul.

All you endure is reflected within me—perhaps even amplified.

Empath. Is that the word they use? That is what I am.

Who I am.

Others praise me for my volunteer work at the cancer clinic. How compassionate I am with each patient. How I endure their suffering.

Because every pain they exhibit vibrates through me.

They wince, I wince. They cry, I cry. Like a pack of wolves, I’ve often howled into the night with these poor souls.

[Read more…] about Empath