Flash Fiction Magazine

It Pays to be Nice

June 18, 2014 1 Comment

By Todd Martin

Arnold was making his way back to his car with the grease-stained paper bag that contained his lunch (a cheeseburger with no onions or tomatoes on it and an order of seasoned fries) when the odd-looking man approached him seemingly out of nowhere. The guy was wearing a dirty navy blue sweater that was a little too big for him and a pair of ripped and stained corduroy pants (that were a hideous shade of brown that reminded Albert of dog shit) that looked like they hadn’t been on the receiving end of a good wash since Bill Clinton had been in office. [Read more…] about It Pays to be Nice

The Business Lunch

June 17, 2014 5 Comments

By Tracy Markham

Dramatis Personae:

Midas – Old Etonian
Mafia Boss – Sick Bacchus
Daughter – Statue

I often go back to that grey February morning. How I long for gray now..
We’d been snowed in for the best part of January. How quickly that white landscape turned to black sludge and even blacker skies looming low, portentous and unrelenting over the fens. It was a relief to get out of the village that day, be back in The City. I hopped in a cab at St Pancras, could’ve walked but didn’t want to get my Churchill brogues messed up did I , had them since ’77 you know. Trundling along we missed the turning and drove straight passed The Caravaggio. The cabbie had to do a u-turn. In my living and waking dreams we just carry on, we never make that turn. As if in slow motion, always in slow motion, we just carry on..
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Bluegrass and Seaweed

June 16, 2014 Leave a Comment

By JD DeHart

Nolan remembered her country way, her porch swing voice like butter melting on cornbread and light white blouses, but now all he could see was the picture of her, baby in tow, and the yokel on her arm. I could have been so much more to her, he thought, and had been a thousand times in his mind.

He tried instead to focus on his work, carefully editing papers, but all his mind would do was ravel and unravel the image: the girl, the baby, the yokel. Finally, he called the only person who could save him from his drudgery.
Morgan was a raven-haired knockout and he would have tried to date her, but she was off-limits, meaning she would punch his teeth in. He had known this since they met their ninth grade year.
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The Little Shell

June 13, 2014 3 Comments

By Fiona Kyle

The little shell sat on the mantelpiece where it had been for as long as anyone could remember.

Margery sits in her chair and looks at it.

She bought the shell a lifetime ago on a family holiday in Scarborough – her and Robert and the five children. She had wanted a souvenir to try and protect the memory of the most perfect day of her life. The very word ‘souvenir’ so different and exotic and always linked to magical trips to special places. They found it in a large shop on the front which smelt of sea salt and cigarettes. Susan had bought a stick of pink rock then refused to share it with the others.

She had put the shell, all wrapped up in paper, down in the fish and chip shop while they placed their huge order and nearly left it but the chap behind the counter pointed it out to her. They sat on a bench on the promenade to eat them. Sun beating down, greasy fingers, newspaper, salt, fish, lovely. Seagulls wheeling about above them – that noise they make! So distinctive, every time she heard a seagull since then she is catapulted back to that day, to that bench in Scarborough, surrounded by everyone she loved.
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Safe Haven to Living Hell

June 12, 2014 2 Comments

By Mary Crowley

I stood gazing at the overgrown greenery, which once constituted a well-maintained colourful garden. Speculating, how somewhere could transform, from being my paradise. A place I referred to, as a little piece of heaven, to the living hell it had become, now desolate and chilling to look at. Depicting a sadness of unfulfilled dreams, and memories lost in the battle which caused its decay.

Stepping down the path, pushing through the dense English laurel hedging, its presence previously perceiving an air of mystery, and providing privacy. Now overgrown, shadowing the formerly picturesque area below. Entering the bottom of the garden, now overrun with rubbish, and broken garden debris. I glance around, the once beautifully designed area of this much loved garden. Having accommodated a water feature, surrounded by pebbles, to enhance the sound of the running water, as it splashed on top of them. Shimmering nuggets strewn among the stones, incorporated to reflect, in the light of the evening sun. Small maple trees had been carefully planted, to add visually to the tranquil ambience. Bamboo rustling in the gentle breeze. Beyond it lay a seating area, a tranquil space to sit and unwind.
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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