Flash Fiction Magazine

Daily Flash Fiction Stories

Questioning

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By D. Fegel

“Steve! I am agent Merrow and this is agent Barberi. Today is not your lucky day is it?” The larger of the two agents asked me as he sported a middle-age mound that hung over his belt and he rubbed it kindly as if he were expecting. “It seems you are in a bit of a pickle.” The expecting agent leaned back in his steel folding chair and continued to show affection almost losing his balance. I didn’t say a word.

“This will go a lot easier for you Steven if you cooperate. I don’t think you are a bad guy., just a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.” I had seen enough crime dramas to recognize the good cop routine that agent Barberi was selling, but it was surreal to see the professional sitting right across from me use it.
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The Break

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By Clara Challoner Walker

Colm McFie’s establishment, “The Clean Café”, clings precariously to the corner of a street in Leith, Edinburgh. Haphazard pricing and an accidentally acquired bo-ho reputation attracts clientele ranging from nouveau-wharf flat-owners to street girls. Colm’s lack of any skill normally associated with stewardship of a business, renders the café’s survival from week to week a pleasant surprise to its growing cadre of regulars.

Mary had shrunk into the café’s remotest corner. She had sipped two mugs of sweet tea as her harvest mouse eyes darted to reassure herself of her continuing invisibility. She gripped a train-spotter’s notebook and bit the end of a blue biro. A sticky sensation reminded her that the urgency of her escape from the house that Saturday morning had again prevented attention to matters ablutionary.
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Not My Best Friend

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By Ian Luke

I wanted to make sure the house was empty. As night fell and neighbouring houses werelit from within, number 53 stayed dark. Staying in the shadows, I skirted the front of the house, moving down the sideway, and found a convenient window facing the backyard.

Cupping my hand against the glass, I peered in. I made out furniture, and nothing else. Not a sound reached my ears, so I decided it was safe.

forced the window and with no alarm sounding, climbed in. I made my way through the room and into a hallway. Once in the hallway, I had the feeling that eyes were upon me. Turning, I found myself staring at glistening white teeth. They seemed to be about a metre away, floating in the darkness, about two and a half feet off the floor.
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Temp Stain

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By John Gorman

My eleven o’clock was nothing short of spiffy. His hair was Ibiza-slick, combed over his bronze forehead. His brows were waxed and he held his distinguished nose as an Opera buff. He kept his legs neatly crossed so as not to frazzle the delicate crease in his herringbone trousers. I gave a quick look over his nails. Immaculate. Maybe a bit longer than I liked, but trimmed evenly only enough to pierce an orange skin. His jacket had virgin lapels, which was understandable. Who really tucked gardenias nowadays? But right on the lip of his white shirt collar was a scarlet smudge. It dripped to the right, a twisty little river of stain. He made no attempt to hide it, in fact, his collar peeled over his jacket as if showing off a frat pin. So help me, he shouldered it forward with spin-the-bottle precision and dabbed it with his middle finger so I had no choice, but to stare. What the hell was he thinking coming in for interview like that? But, maybe there was a good reason. Maybe he’d been evicted, flooded out of his home and he was living out of a Camry, the rearview mirror his shaving buddy. But there were no cut marks on his chin. None on his cheek. Perhaps it was a wine stain: Chambolle-Musigny, Fronsac or Yellowtail. Maybe it was jelly donut splotch. Then, of course, I considered lipstick. Yeah, lipstick. Maybe this was his ballsy way of letting me know he was a play hard/ work hard kind of guy. Bastard. We could use one of them around here. [Read more…] about Temp Stain

Hank’s New Song

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By Mark Connors

Hank Mullins wakes to silence. Hank is not used to silence. Even the goddamn birds have stopped singin’. There’s no potterin’ or sizzlin’ comin’ from the kitchen. There’s no hissin’ from the bathroom, that sound of sharp summer rain he’d heard every mornin’ for as long as he could remember. There’s no hollerin’ from his daughter: “Where the hell are my shoes, Momma?” There’s no scratchin’ of Bronco’s paws on the old wood floors. No huffin’ or a pantin’. Nothin’.
The only sound is Hank’s laboured breathin’ after too many cigarettes and too many whiskey’s at Cal’s Bar last night. [Read more…] about Hank’s New Song

Filler Flower Heart

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By Sarah Brentyn

I heard a soft voice, too quiet for real conversation, before I felt the hand on my hair. “It’s time,” my sister whispered.

“No,” I stumbled forward and pointed. “I don’t want those here. They smell bad.”

“They don’t smell. It’s just baby’s breath…” She pulled her hand back quickly.

I ran to the wreath.
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The Woodshed

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By Sarah Brentyn

The woodshed stood on its own at the bottom of our large garden, beyond my father’s beloved vegetable patch. When I was a boy, one of my many chores around the house was to go down there and bring chopped logs up to the kitchen, not that I could carry many at a time. It was my father who used to chop them, rather skillfully, with a long handled axe, although he never said where he picked that particular skill. It was always a delight for me to go to the woodshed; it wasn’t only the constant smell of freshly cut wood, but also the lingering aroma of pipe smoke that was so much a part of my father. It was one of the few places my mother would allowed him to smoke his pipe. But each time I was sent to the shed for logs, I was accompanied by my mother’s words:
“Don’t touch that axe.” The axe was my father’s pride and joy. It was always clean and constantly razor sharp, leant against the wall in the back corner of the shed, presumably where a small boy wouldn’t be tempted to play with it. [Read more…] about The Woodshed

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