IN LOVING STRANGLEHOLD by Brecht De Poortere
Mosi is Sprite, Banji is Coca Cola. Whoever loses, does the rounds to check for hippos that might have strayed too far.
SUDDEN SILENCE FOLLOWED BY MILD APPLAUSE by Matt Kirkpatrick
The music lifted like a cosmic prayer. Then the collective scream: the squawk, the beef and bleat of the slaughter, a rumbling dusk arcing across the auditorium.
I AM MEAT JELLO WITH FEELINGS INSIDE by Pat Jameson
I’m about to reverse out when I think–drunk kid. In my car. And I’m drunk. Maybe a bad idea.
SUMMERTIME PURSUIT by Severin Wiggenhorn
But there are two kinds of shame: the kind that you cannot speak the words to, even in your head, and the kind you can’t stop talking about. I told the story for years.
MOVING HOUSE by Daniel David Froid
The crack widened at last and cleaved the porch in two. The tree had effected a crack that, the men saw, was surprisingly neat. The work of the devil, said Fred.
FINDING THE JOY by John Chrostek
No one had spoken up for me. Not a single soul on my street told the officers they had the wrong idea, that I was a pillar of the community.
DOUG AND A CAT by Anissa Elmerraji
He lunges into the dirty can and takes the cat by the scruff. It hisses and scratches his hands until blood drops fall from his hands.
TRANSATLANTIC & TWO OTHER FLASH PIECES by Peter Krumbach
The 84-year-old woman across the table from me describes a couple who has chosen to be buried in coffins stacked on top of each other in one grave.
PONT-SAINT-ESPRIT 1951 by Phoebe Billups
The man clutches at his stomach as the attendants wrestle him into a straitjacket. By the time they manage to sedate him, the waiting room brims with new patients.
THE PENNY IN THE WELL by Henry Elizabeth Christopher
We had sex, he took my blood. Positive ions, positive feedback loops. The cycle perpetuates itself.