Flash Fiction Magazine

National Motorcycle and Tattoo Show and After

June 11, 2014 Leave a Comment

By Jane Ozkowski

Saturday night, I found myself with a job at the National Motorcycle and Tattoo Show. I sampled kangaroo jerky and held out impotent pamphlets for motorcycle safety courses to bikers with face tattoos who refused to make eye contact.

And after I was at a friend’s house, drinking wine from a teacup and listening to a French band from Brazil. It was a record from the 1970’s, both authentic and ironic, and apparently, it kept skipping, and it might have been the wine, but I didn’t notice.

The tattoo booths, lined up at one side of the show, held overweight men with their shirts off and smelled antiseptic like some intimate sickness as though HIV had a scent. Even after I got on the streetcar, I could hear the tattoo guns buzzing like there was a man in the back seat giving out free tattoos to children, “Did you want an eagle or a crucifix?” He’d ask. “I’m only doing eagles and crucifixes from now on, or I can tattoo a picture of a cat on your neck.”
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The Letter

June 10, 2014 1 Comment

By Nikki Mason

He stared at the words in his hands. The letters swirled and swooped more elegantly than he remembered. Hard to make out if he didn’t know their meaning by heart. Hours he’d spent tracing the lines with his fingers, gorging them with his eyes, these words that were once hers were now his. In his mind, in his soul. They spoke of a lost time. Before his skin was papery and dour. Before his mind began to grow feeble. Before he’d even married.
Now the words began to blur, the familiar writing becoming unfocused as tears threatened to spill over his drooping eye lids. This was the last time he’d know her. They were moving him out, away from his home and all the possessions that made up him and his life. That made up who he was. He was once the receiver of this letter – adored, wanted and vital. He once ran with vigour, lusted to touch this woman’s skin which was covered in freckles brought out by the sun. [Read more…] about The Letter

The Autocrat

June 9, 2014 2 Comments

By Lori Schafer

He hacked. It was coming in gushes now, the blood in his sputum, the cureless calamity of his body and soul.

“Name a successor,” his adviser had urged, on reviewing the doctor’s report. Secretly hoping, perhaps, that it would be he.

It wouldn’t be. The Minister had no son; no child to carry on when he was gone. No reason to carry on at all.

The years of service had exhausted him. Few understood it, the strain of monocracy. His subjects perceived only its magnificence: the fine clothes, the luxurious automobiles, the sumptuous banquets with world-renowned guests. They could not guess at the responsibility that accompanied it, the knowledge that he was ultimately accountable for every decision, every difficulty of the people. When they loved, it was him they loved. But when they despised…

He coughed again, spat into the bronze basin, and watched the discolored mucus slide slowly out of sight, leaving a watery crimson trail behind it. It was nearly time.
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The Son of God

June 6, 2014 4 Comments

By Angelika Rust

It’s pitch dark. Small wonder, as it’s the middle of the night. The lamps have long been extinguished, and not a ray of light shines through the narrow windows of the paltry huts lining the streets.
Nothing moves. No, wait, something does…there, at the back of a small alley. A lanky, coltish figure. A boy, with long, hazel hair and a pale face, around twelve years old. He stoops down to pick up a pebble. He aims carefully, then throws it upwards. With a resounding clatter, the missile bounces off the wooden window frame and drops back down into the sand. The boy waits for a moment, hoping for some kind of reaction. When nothing stirs, he picks the tiny stone up again and lifts his arm, squinting, aiming for another shot.
It takes three tries before a sleepy, ruffled face appears. Another boy, roughly the same age. His hair is distinctly darker, as is his skin. He stares down, unbelieving, and rubs his eyes.
“Jesus!” he blurts out. His hand flies up to cover his mouth. He hurriedly turns around to steal a glance at the room behind him.
“Whom did you expect?” The boy in the alley stands completely unperturbed, hands on his hips, an insolent expression on his gentle features.
“Shush, not so loud! Shouldn’t you and your parents be on your way to Jerusalem already?”
“Sure. Only it’s taken them so long to find me. And then it was too late to leave, which is why we’re staying another night. Come on. I’ve hidden a bottle of wine for us.”
“You’re nuts. I’m grounded.”
“Why?”
“Why?” the boy at the window repeats incredulous. “Because you and me disappeared for three days?”
“So what?”
“My mother cried her eyes out and my father gave me a spanking, I can hardly sit down. My parents are absolutely hopping mad, that’s what!”
The boy in the alley snorts derisively. “Well, so are mine. Is that supposed to impress me?”
“You’re not grounded?”
A mocking laugh sounds up in reply. “No.”
“Why not? You’re half a year younger than me! That’s not fair!”
“You’re not the son of God, that’s why. Oh, do come on, John. I’m bored.”
“You’re…” The boy at the window groans exasperation. “Wait.”
A scant moment later, the end of a rope hits the ground. John climbs down nimbly. He drops down the last few feet and lands next to his friend, burying his bare toes in the warm sand. They exchange a grin. [Read more…] about The Son of God

The Traveler’s Eulogy: Part One

June 5, 2014 Leave a Comment

By Olivia Raymond

“No one will believe me, so why bother?”
She’d be punished if she went back home, that much was for certain. And, the young girl, now woman, couldn’t find it in her to care past the apathy that had settled and taken root in her heart. It wasn’t her home anymore.
Little Annie wandered around the edge of her town alone. The sun sank low, skimming the uneven ground of the ghost town. It had once been a beacon of hope, a fountain of youth and prosperity for the salt of the earth. Hard workers who labored with their hands in the early dawn, only to fill their stomachs with their hard earned cash turned into liquid gold come night fall.
That was no longer so.
Golden curls bobbed restlessly around a heart shaped face and pouty red lips. Her face was a shadow of it’s former self. Swollen in some places, eyes puffy and red… faded black-blue bruises lined it and trailed far below her dresses frilly collar. Bruises much the same color of her eyes. [Read more…] about The Traveler’s Eulogy: Part One

Backyard TV

June 4, 2014 Leave a Comment

By Dana Staup

Sometimes I imagine I am on a reality tv show in my backyard. Ratings counted only by occasional glances from neighbor’s eyes… bearing indifferent witness to the life being played out right before them.

They hear the same sad songs and watch as I break things and put them back together. The everyday drama that grief demands in order to be temporarily pacified. Bearing it as gracefully as wisdom allows… for as long as it allows. Until finally it becomes a muddy memory and easily put on a shelf for later or never.
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