Meeting Someone Once for Five Seconds
Imagine a woman who has come to a cabin two days ago. Not everything is put away yet; there are boxes stacked along one wall, all of them still closed, four or five that have been marked Assorted, the ones that will frustrate her getting settled. There are other boxes she didn’t get to mark. […]
The Teardown
A week after their not-a-one-night-stand at her place, Ray invited Edie to his house. The house lived in the center of its own small forest behind a suburban industrial park. Edie stayed over, then simply stayed. Although, staying implies a passivity where in fact there was grasping intention to establish herself. She thought it was […]
THERAPY
From the porch, he heard the metal wind chimes tinkling on the Shepard’s hook, and the dull clanging of the shell chimes dangling from the back awning, and the baritone bamboos nailed to the lower limb of the elm tree. It was a windy day. The chimes reminded him of his wife, who’d hung them, […]
The bracelet
The stall in Spitalfields Market, London, sells silver jewellery, bracelets, necklaces and earrings. I edge closer to take a look. Beside me a woman of about 50 is talking to the stall owner, an older Indian man. The man’s right arm is poised mid-air as he holds up a rack of bracelets for her to […]
A Silent Marriage
Mr. and Mrs. Dalton were creatures of habit. Each morning, when the alarm clock trilled at 6:30 am, Mr. Dalton would descend to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, dark roast, with vanilla flavored cream on Saturdays as a treat. Meanwhile, Mrs. Dalton made the bed, pulling the white sheets tight and tucking […]
On Discovering My Poetry Causes Hysteria
A ceiling fan cuts the humid air. A decrepit bookstore; the musty aroma of hardbacks. I wait until ten minutes after the hour, to allow for stragglers. Tonight’s audience is equal parts silvery intellectuals and undergraduates in collegiate sweats. As I approach the lectern, a fly lands momentarily on my papers. My shoulders are tight […]
An Old Life
We were traveling to see an art installation in the country. The artist, now dead, had planted a ten-foot-tall drying rack in a copse of trees far from everywhere. We sloped easily over the mild hills of washed-out arcadia. Our world lay still. Four of us in a blue van, suspended in icy AC. I […]
New Journal Launch!
New year, new journal! Incredibly delighted to announce the launch of our SECOND literary journal. This autumn/winter edition collects all stories published on the site from July to November 2020: twenty-one pieces in total. Just as in the previous edition, these amazing stories, and their authors, represent the best that the flash fiction genre has […]