Flash Fiction Magazine

By Tony Lindsay

In the old days, I would have put a little brandy in her hot chocolate and not worried about her waking up, but not now. Her mother, a physician, would have a stroke if I gave her daughter a cap full of brandy; although, I put Dr. Jasmine to sleep many of Christmas eves with spiked hot chocolates, and she turned out just fine.
Because our grandbaby, Kura, is a lot like her doctor mommy, a very light sleeper, her grandma and I are standing in the doorway like two cat burglars in our own home.
Kura lost her first tooth this morning, and she knew nothing of the Tooth Fairy. But, before we could tell her the fable, we had to call her Buddhist parents because The Easter Bunny was catastrophe; we didn’t think the Easter Bunny was Christian, but they did. So for the Tooth Fairy, we called and got the ok, and now we are standing in the doorway of the baby’s room checking her breathing. [Read more…] about Operation Tooth Fairy

By Ed Nichols

We used to go visit Grandma Perkins down at the insane asylum in Milledgeville ever so often. Grandpa Perkins would not accompany us. Just me and my daddy and mother and my brother Roy would go. We’d get up early and travel for the three hours it took us to get there. Mother would always fix us a good picnic lunch and if Grandma Perkins was in the proper mood they’d let us take her out onto the grassy spot between the two big brick buildings and sit and have our lunch and sometimes good conversation with her.
Sometimes she’d ask us questions and talk just like normal. Other times, she’d tell us that this might be the last time we got to see her because the doctors and psy-col-a-gest were making plans to kill her. Mother would always say to Grandma Perkins, “You know that’s not true, Helen. They’re just trying to help you get better, so you’n come on back home.” [Read more…] about Grandma Perkins

By Deanna Morris

It is leaning, this house, more a pile of bricks than mortar and frame, casting its crooked shadow over the acres of land that made up the estate. The gardens used to be maintained, the grounds manicured. Now, weeds wallow in the yard, and the fountain that filled its bowl with spring water, is cracked and empty.

The owner, Gwendolyn, is inside, in the drawing room where a grand piano sits scratched and silent, the fireplace mantel juts its jaw over the mostly empty room. The windows are draped in heavy, moth-eaten damask material, their maroon color faded and layered with cobwebs; the only lights in the room are the dots of sun coming through the holes in the fabric. On the walls, a slight shade of difference in the paint reveals where paintings had hung, their shadowy shapes evidence of devotion to beauty and art.
[Read more…] about The Estate