Daily Flash Fiction Stories
By Garnett Kilberg Cohen
She rides her bike at night, across town, joined by other pale riders on her way. They fall into line and ride in packs—girls and boys, men and women, non-binary folks—departing from the places where they were fatally struck. Every night, at the spot she was hit, the girl throws her right leg over the seat, mounts the bike—and remembers how her mother had instructed her, “Don’t forget to get one of each kind, both fresh, not frozen.”
[Read more…] about Pale RidersIf the house could speak, it would weep instead, the tumble out of slights and wounds and pent-up need that both built and fed it. Don’t call it home. Call it quicksand. Slow death. Ask it to share how, after 30 years of the silent treatment, a man can get used to anything.
The wife makes no coffee, no breakfast, no joy in her step or in her kitchen. She leaves before he awakes. He thinks maybe she’s working again. He can’t be sure. They don’t speak. Maybe she’s up at the cabin. He likes it when she’s at the cabin; there’s peace then, and he can think and maybe write a little, although he’s not writing much these days. The famous poet dresses in the clothes he wore the day before, grabs the morning paper from the front stoop, and walks to the coffeehouse. The cane the doctor foisted on him stays in the hall. He thinks it makes him look old.
[Read more…] about The Famous Poet Shops for Emerald EarringsBy Peter Tyler
Marriage is tough. Isn’t that something we hear all the time?
“Honey, is the coffee ready? I have to get going.”
We love our early mornings together, enjoying the peace and quiet of the predawn hour between slumber and the other part of our lives. For this hour, we have each other.
[Read more…] about Romance of the Early MorningBy Jean Wolfersteig
Gaby circled north toward the lighthouse, let the boat fall off the wind, and swept the sails on either side of the mast like a swan—wings unfurled. With a fifteen-knot breeze blowing from the southeast, the boat skated the Hudson River, rising and falling over whitecaps, spraying water across the bow. She loved the challenge of keeping both sails filled from behind, holding the course without lurching into an uncontrolled jibe.
[Read more…] about Wing and WingBy Margo Daly
He’s home with the boys. Jake and Toby, three and five. I have the next two hours to shop on my own. My first stop is the cafe around the corner, where I sit with my latte and browse through their mags. The coffee tastes off this morning but I down it anyway.
Fuelled up, hands on the trolly, I push through the metal gate into the supermarket. In the baby aisle, I breeze past Huggies nappies. Toby will be at St Pat’s Preschool next year. We’re over the worst.
[Read more…] about SorryBy Christian McCulloch
“I remember a boy and his father,” began the old man. “They made a little balsa wood boat together in the garden shed. They shaped the hull with long, smooth strokes. They drilled a hole and measured a Dowling rod to be the mast.
“They used a handkerchief for a sail. They couldn’t show his mother because they’d trimmed it with scissors. It was his Sunday Hankie and had to be produced before the boy went to Sunday School. All she needed to see was the corner, so their secret was safe.
[Read more…] about I See No Ships