Flash Fiction Magazine

By Andre Anthony Moore

I’m dreaming as the news blares out of my clock radio. A dazed three-year-old freezing in the rubble in Syria, a koala bear paralyzed by flames closing in on him in an Australian forest, a mink being dragged to a killing chamber in Denmark. Weird how I take the most gruesome things happening in the world and weave them, still half asleep, into my dreams.

Images of the three-year-old, the koala bear, and the mink fade as I sit up in bed, leaving me with an aching back and a knot in my chest.

[Read more…] about Poppy Seed

By Alexander Evans

I’ve been standing next to a display of teriyaki jerky for at least 180 seconds waiting for you to notice me. You are browsing the T-shirt selection. You stop briefly at a blue shirt with an eagle on the front of it. In the eagle’s claws, there is an American flag. It is on the extra-large rack. That is something I like about you. You are extra-large.

[Read more…] about Rhonda

By Jody M Keene

Apple trees surrounded Apple Orchard Apartments. The old orchard even bore fruit—hard, tiny apples that were good only for applesauce made with lots and lots of sugar.

The old woman climbed slowly up the stairs to her apartment. Her arms were ringed with plastic grocery bags bulging with the last of the good fruit pulled off the branches she could reach. Above her head, three little faces peered over the second-floor railing.

[Read more…] about The Poisoned Apple

By Jakob Castilian

The shower at the beach was never warm. Dry red skin clouded my mind while I walked back to my apartment.

I’d gotten used to not brushing my teeth in my bathroom. Public restrooms worked the same, and I didn’t have to pay. I wasn’t a cheapskate. I just didn’t have any money, and I felt bad for the landlord who came down to my apartment and asked for the rent two weeks past due every time.

“I’ll have it Friday,” I told him confidently.

[Read more…] about The Scythian

By Jenya Green

This Story Was an Honorable Mention in Our Contest

Once every seven nights, the child watched from her window as the flowers, shrubbery, and trees folded themselves up and went underground. It happened suddenly and without fail as soon as she spotted the third star to appear in the night sky, at this time of year glimmering over the tip of the cypress tree.

[Read more…] about The River

By Matt Garabedian

This Story Was an Honorable Mention in Our Contest

They emerged into darkness, the lights of the Yerba Buena Tunnel in the rearview mirror. Philip drove silently, his jaw firmly set. Clara had not said a word since they had left the party. After dinner, Clara’s mood had become dark. Leaving the Golden Gate fog behind them, they drove to their small Berkeley apartment. The GPS announced heavy traffic ahead on the Bay Bridge, and Clara turned it off. Needing to break the silence, Philip said, “It’s like Picasso’s Blue Period.”

“What is?” she replied.

[Read more…] about The Tragic Career of Hunter S. Thompson