Flash Fiction Magazine

By Kirk Boys

That Tuesday, there was a cold rain, and Calvin’s arthritis was flaring like a motherfucker, but he knew to shut up about it. Marcy was sick of his complaining and her sympathy was not something to be squandered.

Sixty-nine years held few rewards for Calvin; there was Social Security, Medicare and AARP, senior discounts at the movies and bowling alley, none of which really mattered anymore. He felt irrelevant. People talked up the volunteer thing, claimed it gave them a new purpose. Chumps. They were kidding themselves if they thought anyone appreciated it. He’d volunteered at a local food bank.

[Read more…] about Lucky

By Elisabeth Giffin Speckman

Now that Linda was dead, it was time for some spring cleaning.

The house on Peach Street had been a hoarder’s haven for longer than John could remember. It was her way. She’d liked to collect—she always had. As a child, for instance, John remembered his sister keeping a jar of spare buttons in her bedside drawer. He’d needed one once, when his jacket button popped off.

“That’s not what they’re for,” she had said, snatching her jar from him. He’d felt frozen, ashamed, standing over the buttons that weren’t for buttoning, caught like a cub with its paw above the honey pot. The next morning, the buttons and their jar were gone. In their place, John had found a small plastic baggie, filled to the rim with mint tins. The tins themselves—all empty.

[Read more…] about Spring Cleaning

By Rick Forbess

Jane is texting when the right front tire of the Prius drifts onto the road’s shoulder. She jerks the wheel to correct the error, and the car rolls several times. On the third revolution, her head smashes into the passenger side window frame on the way out, and, at the end of a graceful arc, Jane lands hard among damp rows of earth planted with corn just the day before. She lies on her back, legs twisted at impossible angles and feet buried in the plowed earth. A murder of crows caw with startled urgency, and silence blankets the sun-splashed field.

[Read more…] about Change of Plans

By Paul Beckman

Strickland didn’t go to work Monday. He hadn’t planned on not working his first day on the job—in fact, just the opposite; he was looking forward to it. He had his last joint at seven and his final beer at eight-thirty or nine and went to bed at a respectable ten o’clock Sunday night.

When his alarm went off at six-thirty that morning he didn’t dawdle in bed. Strickland went to his dresser and took the last of the joint, barely a half, and lit up. Just as he was about to take a morning-opening toke, the “little guy” voice on his left shoulder said, “Perhaps that’s not the best idea in the world, Strickland.”

[Read more…] about A Working Man

By TibberFibber

The sea breeze caught and snapped at my coat. The sun had begun its descent past the horizon, spilling red hues across the sky. Salty spray coated my face. I embraced the cold chill of the ice, leaning into the frigid wind.

“I was wondering when you would arrive.” I turned from the waves licking the shore, feeling the corners of my mouth twitch up into a smile. There was Tollers, sitting in an overstuffed armchair next to a varnished table, a small pile of books resting on top.

[Read more…] about A Talk with Tollers

By Noelle Palmer

“Cathy?” Clark questions as he fiddles underneath the sheet.

She looks up from her book and registers the time. She still has 15 minutes before she needs to get ready for work.

“Mhhm?” she responds vaguely, finishing her page before turning over to her husband.

“Cathy…” Clark sounds shy now, uncertain. He takes her hand in his. “Feel my ball?” he requests, leading her right hand under the sheet.

[Read more…] about Feel My Ball, Won’t You Dear