Flash

NEIGHBORS by Will Cordeiro

May 12, 2020

It was an in-service day at school, and the bus dropped me off at home three hours earlier than usual. The doors were locked. The extra key was gone. I tried to wedge a screen-window open. The neighbor saw me trying to break into my house. He invited me over. Reluctantly, I said okay. My neighbor had me sit on a big velvet chair and handed me some chocolate milk and a plate of vanilla wafers. After I’d eaten them, he said he wanted to show me something. He opened a door to what looked like a closet. He entered

ANOTHER ROAD TRIP STORY by DS Levy

May 11, 2020

Two months ago, after flirting with a handsome Ojibwa who poured stiff Margaritinas, Fonda tottered over to the slots and maxed out her credit card, setting her back two grand. Which is why, heading south on I-31 after an afternoon wine-tasting in Traverse City, I’m surprised when she tells us from the back seat that her inner voice just whispered: Twenty bucks will move your spirit toward prosperity. Since her heart bypass last year, Fonda’s been on speaking terms with her gut. “You know that ‘feeling?’” she says. “Well, I’m finally listening.” “Did your gut mention how long you’ll have

HUNGER by Tyler Dempsey

May 10, 2020

Robbed. The ski-masked man squeezed my biceps. “Easy,” I said. He went, “Get in, fucks,” and nodded toward a black SUV, gun under Eddie’s throat. “Don’t even think about it.” Eddie called shotgun. That was yesterday. Eddie’s my roommate. I’m 34. Too old for a roommate. I fucked up. Eddie’s on the couch. You could say “living” there. Old vomit, pink—like brain blended with Monster energy drink—arced but didn’t clear the cushions. My cat’s purring caked in matter needing chemicals to remove. Ed’s stomach jiggles from a tank top. A hairy muffin hidden for later. Pink on his cheek, he

SENIORS ON THE MOVE by Mike Itaya

May 2, 2020

I’m Old Boy. In the assisted living, they give me the journal, for a doodling. I write camphor, cancer. Camphor, cancer. I don’t give a shit. I’m Old Boy. It’s Tuesday. And right off, things go bad. Somebody swiped Rundy’s anxiety candle. “Who’s fucking with my aromatherapy?” He wants to know. I used to drink. I don’t have the mind for it. My back’s fucked. I sleep out in the banquet hall, like a plank, waiting on them lunch ladies. I flash peepers and spot Rundy beneath the salad bar—guzzling stuff—working up to frenzy. He monograms his onesie with ranch

SAFE PASSAGE by Sharon Dale Wexler

May 1, 2020

Even though I know where the missing part of the toy gun is, I won’t tell. They haven’t asked. They ask each other but not me. Even if I tell them it’s under the kitchen table, that won’t be the end of it; they won’t settle down and sit at the table for the meal. The dog smells like a boy on a camping trip. The breeder promised to deliver at three. Safe passage. Once inside, right away, the dog squatted on the floor. The boy was only here every other weekend and, therefore, never showered. At first, the dog

FISHSPLAINING BAUDRILLARD by Faye Brinsmead

April 28, 2020

The robo-guppy came in a tank with LED lighting, soothing ocean sounds, and coral reef background wallpaper. Proven stress-buster, Bernie said, handing me the box. There was some study in some journal. After 10 weeks of fish-watching, 75 percent of the subjects flushed their anxiety meds down the john. I took this as a hint he didn’t want to hear any more about writer’s block, impostor syndrome, the library’s overdue loans policy, or anything else connected with my PhD on Baudrillard. He looks sinister, I said. Those mean little eyes. Must be in on the techno-gadget revenge plot. I took

AT LEAST IT WASN’T ME by Andy Spain

April 27, 2020

George arches his back and reaches for the ceiling, fingers fully splayed in morning praise pose. His wife lumbers around him with a groggy scowl. “Great, gonna be late again,” she mumbles and bangs her leg on the bed frame, cursing softly as she clutches her shin. George winces and edges past her. “At least it wasn’t me,” he thinks. Strolling into the kitchen, George rubs his eyes and smiles at his two sons as they scurry around the breakfast table. The younger one waves hello, over-pouring milk into a glass. White cascades race down the cabinet edges and splash

DINNER by Christopher Linforth

April 25, 2020

At that time in our lives, we rose at dusk for the feeding shift. Still in our underwear, we crept downstairs and into the kitchen. Shiny black bugs skittered across the tile floor. The lazy cockroaches remained on the counter and in the tinfoil containers stinking of rotten noodles; a few silvery beetles disappeared into the seal of the refrigerator. In the living room our mother railed at the television, at the caregiver exiting the house. We heard calls for dinner, thuds on the floor, shouts for our dead father. We rubbed crust from our eyes, then surveyed the leftovers

AFTER AUSCHWITZ by Howie Good

April 24, 2020

To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. – Theodor W. Adorno We were taken off the train at night. “What are those bonfires?” I asked. A sarcastic male voice said from out of the dark, “You’ll find out, child.” It felt like I was on a bridge and there were two or three heavy trucks and the bridge was rocking—but there were no trucks. Even cows wondered what was happening. At one point we seemed to be following Beethoven’s footsteps through Vienna. Although democracy was dead, women and young girls were smashing jars of blood on the sidewalk in a

GATSBY EFFECT by Erika Veurink

April 23, 2020

The first time I had pneumonia, I wanted it to be seismic. I wanted it to almost kill me. Being fatalistic felt grown up. I laid in the West Village, drank gin from a jar and stared at where the wall hit the ceiling, the cross-like convergence, forever. “There are crosses everywhere.” That’s what my basketball coach told me once before a game. If I was nervous or worried about a freethrow, I would look for a cross–in the rafters, the painted lines of the court, the referee’s stripes. And salvation meant something. The first time I had pneumonia, when