Flash

D-O-D-E-C-A-P-H-O-N-I-C by Bryce Jones

May 27, 2019

The composer used his Guggenheim and several other grants for the purchase of twelve children. Pitching for conditioned octave he specified three teens with tinsel, flinty, and flintiest timbres, five prepubescent boys whose vocal chords had rashes of uniquely layered crackle, and four soprano toddlers of separately valued screech. His house’s twelve TV rooms were built for private occupancy. In one the tube was empty and the toddler hit the screen. Enacted blurs of violence against the reflective surface. Posing afterwards flexed muscles, elbows out-crotched biceps straining. Kissing a mirage of Barbie while she lasted hand-lined in the air. The

MOTHERS by Melanie Czerwinski

May 26, 2019

Liv’s mother called, but Liv’s mother always called. I imagined her eggshell sheets on what would soon be her deathbed, the waxy fake ferns in the corner of the nursing home room. I imagined her bloated face on her dead body, as waxy as the fake plants. Disgusting. The aides were the ones who actually called. They would hold the phone up to her mother’s cheek, and she’d huff into the receiver about how she missed her daughter and how she should come visit. She was always out of breath. Liv would listen to the messages, then delete them without

THE PASSENGER by Anthony Dragonetti

May 24, 2019

When I can’t think of what to do, I have no choice but to go fast. I grab my car keys from under a pile of crumpled receipts by the door. I’d throw them out, but what if I need them someday? I could be audited. I could need an alibi. I focus back on the keys. It’s important to avoid rabbit holes. I can feel my tongue in my mouth. It’s time to go. I get in my car and fly out of my condo development’s parking lot in reverse and swing forward towards the ramp to I-295. It’s

MY DAYS by Emily James

May 23, 2019

We hold hands and listen to him read our vows, grey mustache puffing above his breath. I picture him sucking a cigarette outside, a Bible tucked to his body, white robe blowing in the wind. Behind us, my mother’s arms hang from the hospital gown, her limp limbs our altar. Her eyes closed, two still coins. Our daughter keeps grabbing the wires. We unclasp our hands again and again. Stop it, we angry whisper. Come back. The beeps are steady, at least. Her moans have subsided, at least. Yes, I will take him, at least in sickness, at most in health. Her

AJAR by Ankita Banerjee

May 19, 2019

He was at the counter flirting with a pixie cut. My eyes followed him the whole evening and I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I ordered my fifth gin and tonic, and when Sofie asked, “Why don’t you go talk to him?” I sniggered. It started raining outside – the worst kind. He was now purring to the little black dress at the corner table. She was small, with a little hunch on her back. I went out for a cig and argued with the voice in my head. “Perhaps it’s life coming to a full circle.”

GOOD BOY by Kailash Srinivasan

May 17, 2019

It was a mistake trusting your parents will come back to get you. It was a mistake turning your back to them, clapping idiot-like at the spinning top that lit up red in the dark. They left for Bombay, leaving you behind in Delhi with your grandma, your paati. Its summer—the city is a furnace, everything is melting. Your paati slips in the bathroom and fractures both her legs. With weights, pulleys, her legs hang in the air, like the hands of a clock: 2.10 p.m. Her loose, burnt-brown flesh hangs loose from her thighs. In brown shorts and a

GNOSTIC BAPTISTE by Gregg Williard

May 16, 2019

“I found him.” “Him who?” “Gnostic Baptiste!” “The spam tag?” “It’s not just a tag! I wasn’t even running a simple traceroute function before I get a local postal address. So I go there…” “Wait a second. I need a beer for this.” Alex and I had worked together for 3 years out of the Attorney General’s Office, doing tech consulting for an anti-spam task force. Alex was one of the best systems designers I knew, parlaying hacker-honed skills into the legit and the lucrative. But the thankless and poorly- paid search for spammers had become his holy grail. I

THE HEART OF MORALITY by Austin Ross

May 13, 2019

Daddy’s monster is back. That slightly musky scent of sawgrass wafts in across the Everglades as he slides a single bullet into the revolver. This is what I remember, all these years later. This incident with the revolver is familiar to me, a nightly ritual to cap off our evenings of foil-wrapped TV dinners and, for him, nearly a third of a bottle of whiskey. I have learned by now to keep silent during the ritual. As he examines the revolver in his hands, polishes the silver of the barrel with his sleeve, I think: he isn’t such a bad

SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY LIFE by Meeah Williams

April 26, 2019

I could sense it coming like a mule senses thunder. I had his cock in my mouth and I was trying to keep my neck from being too traumatized when he bucked his hips in short hard thrusts. It was like being a passenger in a car whose driver proceeded down the street by slamming on the brakes every three seconds. I’m getting whiplash just thinking about it. I watched people on the sidewalk stop, stare, and the expressions on their faces said “What the hell is that all about?” I leaned out the window and threw confetti at the

LET ME SHOW YOU WHERE YOU’LL BE SITTING by Jeffrey Yamaguchi

April 25, 2019

We walk through a corridor, then down a flight of steps. Elevator doors open to receive us as if they had been waiting. We get in and my guide, a woman in perfect business attire, pushes the only button. The doors close. There is no sound. I can’t tell if we are moving up or down, and then I realize I can’t tell if we are moving at all. Suddenly there is a slight lift, and then feathery fall, of the woman’s hair above her eyes, which are staring right through me. ***** There is a painting on the wall.