Flash Fiction Magazine

By Sharon Gosling

The jungle was dripping. Everywhere, colours were running, merging into each other as if on a doused canvas, half-finished and now beyond help. Colonel Spink lay on his side beneath the inadequate measure of his tent, watching the drowning amethyst of a flower his mother would probably recognise, but which to him was entirely nameless. It was being consumed by water, slowly crushed a little flatter with each murderous slash of rain. As he watched the amethyst gradually turned to garnet, the bruised petals folding against one another. Funny, he thought to himself, how water could be both death and salvation. In his head he listed other things for which this was true.
[Read more…] about The Adoration of Colonel Spink

By Jackie Sizemore

Abby and Danny have been dating for a while now, like, three months or so. It’s problematic for stick figures to hold each other, but they live in the cave of their existence, and this is a cave where there are no real hands.
Danny calculates his moves carefully. He wants to hold Abby’s hand walking through the hallways of their stick figure high school, coming inside from gym, and in the back of theater class. He’s watched humans navigate affection and he is ready to try it out. He starts with closing the space of air between his stick arm and Abby’s. The sharp edge of Abby’s appendage cuts the air as they walked in large strides with their long, thin legs. The air in between them is so small, so insignificant, it is two-dimensional. [Read more…] about A Stick Figure Dilemma

By Prospero Pulma, Jr.

“Leave the fruit of your spiritual catastrophe under this spotlight.” Emily frowned from reading the sign beside the red gate. Fruit of my spiritual catastrophe? She looked down at the basket in her arms. She had one too many and Scott was irresistible one night nine months ago. Her eyes returned to the sign. “Ring thrice and leave. Your burden is now our blessing.” [Read more…] about Litter under the Spotlight

By Chad Greene

“Don’t you love how the capital O in Onion is shaped like an onion—?”
“—And the neon inside it is purple?”
“It’s so perfect, yet it’s so simple: The Purple Onion.”
“It’s so perfect because it’s so simple.”
“Two steamed milks? One with caramel for the lady—”
“Thanks.”
“—And one with vanilla for the gentleman.”
“Thanks.”
“So….”
“So….”
“So….steamers?”
“Steamers. Started drinking them whenever I went to write—well, to try to write—at Hard Times on the West Bank. Because, well, what else do you drink at a coffee shop when you don’t—” [Read more…] about The Purple Onion