Flash

THREE FLASH STORIES by Michael Haller

November 19, 2021

WORK I answer a phone for the company. I sit behind a desk in a room and answer the telephone when it rings. When the telephone is not ringing I sit in my chair and wait for the phone to ring. When the phone rings I pick up the handset and listen to the voice on the other end, and when the voice is finished saying what it has to say I hang up and try not to think. Then the phone rings and I answer it. My boss tells me I am doing a splendid job, but I

GOTTERDAMMERUNG by Howie Good

November 18, 2021

Welcome to the Age of Autonomous Machines, where the brown bears of Kamchatka are cold, ragged, and hungry, and under perpetual ban, and rivers brim with jizz and blood, and fish have the twisted mouths of stroke victims, where saints travel incognito on New York City subways and God speaks to them in a gravelly two-packs-a-day voice, where a peeling billboard declares it’s time to look ahead to the past, when the public gallows stood silhouetted at dusk against a sky of faded red plush. & Blinking like a sick mole against the harsh white light of the desert, the

THE FLIGHT PATH by Megan Peck Shub

November 17, 2021

The morning my friend passed away—not a euphemism here, for passing is just what she did, through her protracted process, a slow shifting from life to whatever it is that is not life—some engineers launched a rocket at the Cape. I’d flown down from New York at 4 AM, but I arrived too close to the end for me to cut in, so I stayed at my parents’ house, waiting for the call. That night, in someone’s backyard, my other friends and I, we stood there, conscious of our collective remaining behind. It was one of those suburban Florida backyards,

YOU’RE INVITED TO MY MENOPAUSE BALL by Susan Hatters Friedman

November 14, 2021

The Debut Ball for Invisibility The family of _____________ (enter name of menopausal woman here) __ request the honour of your company at the Menopause Ball, in honour of her 51st birthday, to celebrate the “next phase” of her life. You attended her Debutante Ball when she was “coming out” to be pursued. Now, in Grandest Blue-Blood Tradition of the Magnificent Menopause Balls of yore—for the next rite of passage, she is “going back in.” Help ___________ celebrate this glorious time in her life, when she no longer needs birth control, Tampax, or responses to cat-calls. Join us as we

TANKERS by Mackenzie Moore

November 11, 2021

I thought my grief would come out like my mother dumps out her purse. If you’ve ever seen that woman turn over her tote bag, it’s like the Niagara of tidbits. You need a poncho just to block the crumbs. Everything comes spilling out into a big old pile: Armani lipstick that costs more than my phone bill; floss picks, Altoids, crinkled napkins with phone numbers of networking colleagues; one wooden “eco spork” used, but wiped clean on one of the aforementioned crinkled napkins. It’s an absolute mess but my god what a sight to see. That’s not what happened.

THE STOAT by Nick Perilli

November 8, 2021

We don’t know where the hole in the basement of our house goes, only that it’s far deeper than it looks. Our pet stoat made it last year before disappearing into it. She was always digging—into our wood floors, our garden, our couches, and pantries—but this hole was her masterpiece. The white fur on her belly darkened with dirt over time. Since the day we brought the stoat home, she didn’t pay us any mind; she only had time for digging. She escaped from her cage whenever we weren’t looking, and we admit we rarely looked. Whatever the stoat was

SUN IS MISSING by Kion You

November 7, 2021

The Korean rice weevil is a felicitous insect, bent on one simple task: scaling my bedroom walls. Tonight I see three but sometimes there are as many as ten. The thrill must be similar to that of free solo climbing, but when the weevil falls it gets back up and tries again—the hard-shelled advantage. After dinner I lie in bed, which is a mat on the ground. One weevil wordlessly falls onto my blanket. It lands on its back and its legs flail like a pit of eels. After gathering itself, the weevil plants its left anterior leg onto the

MOZZARELLA by Megan Navarro Conley

November 6, 2021

After they drown and bloat with water, white people look like mozzarella cheese. Not the shredded kind in resealable bags, but the smooth spherical cheese in the little wet bags near the deli counter. Sometimes I buy this cheese from Trader Joe’s because plucking it off the refrigerated shelf makes me feel fancy. I like to turn it over in my hands, cup it in my palm while waiting in line. I learn this fact about white people and cheese while standing in a river. I am nineteen, and I still think I’m going to be a doctor. The director

MAGNOLIA by Sarah Starr Murphy

November 1, 2021

The bumblebee swerves across the yard to a yellow daffodil. The bee clings to the flower’s face for an instant, then crawls on her abdomen into the cylinder of the corona, stretching her tongue towards the sweet nectar and flattening her last two legs behind like a puppy. She nuzzles in, wriggling. She backs out, clinging onto the rim with her four hind legs. Her front two legs wipe the pollen from her furry body. It falls in tiny but discernible chunks. She wipes her head a few more times, then buzzes off for the next flower. The young boy

MALL MADNESS

October 31, 2021

Between 7th and 8th period, Becky tells us she can speak to the dead. She swears she can show us after school. When she pulls the box from beneath her bed, we expect a ouija board. Instead, she produces Mall Madness, fun for ages eight to eighty. As she unfolds the board, it greets us. “Attention shoppers: There’s a clearance at the sunglasses boutique.” The four of us gather cross-legged around the game, and Becky explains the rules. “Wait to ask your questions until it says your car lights are on and you must go to the parking lot, That’s