Daily Flash Fiction Stories
It took me a long time to shuffle to the front door and, when I finally pulled it open, I was flushed with exertion.
My new gardener stood on the doorstep, staring at the ground, his body angled away from his mother’s. He was a dear little thing with a nose like a ski slope and unruly blonde curls. She was tall and fair, with cheerful grey eyes. Her name was Marie, and she worked with my daughter. Miranda said Marie would jump at the chance to lend me her son over the school holidays.
By Christy Helms
On the morning of the drive-by shooting, while eating my Mini-Wheats, I watched my sister Bentley pick up a trail of pennies on the driveway. The copper blazed like stars. I was sure the pennies would burn a hole in her pocket. She planted a fresh row of thirty coins, then squatted down to harvest them, one by one, into the front pocket of her blue denim overalls with the acorns embroidered on them. Every few pennies she’d waddle forward. I remember thinking how ducks waddle that way to nudge their babies in line. It looked like she was collecting little pieces of sun. I wanted to go out there and join Bentley, to pinch those bits of sun between my own fingers.
A shard of light cut across the floor from under the closed door. I imagined his shadow must be there, on the far wall, on its knees, pulling a t-shirt up and over broad shoulders, but my head would not make the effort to turn against the spinning room to see. The rest of the musty room was thick with darkness.
By Katie Hale
The first time I turned into a goose, it was an accident.
We were a week into our marriage. Already I’d taken to standing at the open window in my nightie, gazing across the rooftops as your rumbling snores filled the room. I only leaned out for the smell of grass and damp earth, but suddenly I was falling. No—flying… I spread my arms, and cotton-white wings stretched from my sides. My feet were spatula-flat, and I looked down on the terrace through peppercorn eyes.
By Matthew Fiander
The chirp outside the window, the pitch of it, sounds young. That was the first thought Russell ignored as he leaned over the breakfast table, clad in boxers and work boots, loading his pellet gun. The early morning light was a weak grey, a thin smoke hanging over the front yard. The chirping had gone on for hours, since long before the sun came up, and he’d had enough. His two-years-younger boss sending him to a useless west-coast conference. The knife pointed at Jayne’s face, downtown as she walked to her car, while he drank hotel coffee thousands of miles away, ignoring the cold glow of next-quarter projections. Her separated shoulder when the assailant yanked her purse from her arm. The miscarriage of a pregnancy they hadn’t even known about. The dead silence his wife carried around now. Her nightmares. His teeth grinding away when he slept. If he slept.
By Jess Kershaw
Rain flusters against the window pane, turning Arthur’s reflection into a blurry mess. He rubs his hands together, staring out into the street.
He made a treehouse for his daughter with these hands. He lifted her with them, sat her on his shoulders. Higher Daddy, as he’d pushed her on the swings, and throw it so I can catch it, Dad as they played netball.
