Flash

FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK by Pat Jameson

December 25, 2024

The Christmas after Jo’s mom died was bad. Her older sister Jules showed up the evening before Christ’s birth, driving the 13-hour stretch from Chicago to Western Pennsylvania in one go. Jo and her dad watched on the front porch as Jules’ Prius rattled down the driveway, Brittany Spears blasting from open windows, tires crunching against the snow. The car was in poor shape, salt-covered, and trembling like a racing dog whipped past its limits. Jo’s dad shifted nervously as his eldest daughter climbed from the car and trudged toward them. His hands were folded down the front of his

CHRISTMAS CHEER IN THREE ACTS by Henry F. Tonn

December 24, 2024

Thesis He is the big stud with the big arm and the big serve and king of the courts. She is the glitter girl, the glamor queen, the incandescent prodigy of homecoming competitions. She consorts with star basketball players who are six foot eight and academically challenged but cocky because they can dunk blindfolded. However, everything changes the afternoon she looks at him in that certain way through the wire fence of the tennis facility and says something that is lost in the wind. But he rises to the occasion by asking, “what in the world are you doing on

CHRISTMAS, CARL. by Michael Costaris

December 22, 2024

She called him a sexually transmitted disease. Carl doesn’t recall who she was, but if he did, he’d send her a bottle of Dom Perignon for Christmas. “I am an STD,” he says. “You say something sir?” Rufus asks. He turns his sweaty face to the back of the car and grimaces at the effort. His thick neck strains and his cheeks, bright red, match the Santa hat Carl has him in. But he smiles through the pain and awaits a response. Carl hits the button. The partition slides shut. *** The gym is nearly empty. A lone muscle-freak deadlifts

WINTER IN THREE SCENES by Valerie Visnic

December 21, 2024

Fourteen It’s Friday night. Not 24-hours into winter break. High school, 1994. Me and Simone go to the mall, like normal, although the arresting office will be sure to tell us, What you girls did was not OK. Do you hear me? Stealing is a crime, Girls. And it is a crime, but in my head it’s a normal one. The handcuffs they put on us, those seem normal. My mom’s response as she’s driving us home to face my father? Probably normal and anyway, I can take it from her, she has a right. She’s been overseeing my fuck-ups

JACOBSON’S ORGAN by Marc Tweed

December 20, 2024

Jacobson’s organ is an olfactory organ that helps animals detect chemicals in their environment. Located near the roof of the mouth, it’s present in many mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. * “Keep your distance from the river,” I told her. I ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth and felt the old, corrugated tin shed hidden up there with no tools in it to speak of, only a panting, half-dead snowbird. I was in love for the fifth or sixth time that week and my apartment was very cold. She went under the counter looking for another bottle of

LONE WOLVES by Anna Pele

December 18, 2024

There you lie, lifeless on your back, plastic eyes staring, smile stitched between felt beard and moustache…it’s not awkward; it’s a perfect morning after. I’ve missed wrapping my arm around another body in bed. Hugging my hot water bottle from October to March, holding its slop-slop to my chest, while soothing, makes a lonely picture. It’s like hugging water: you can’t hug love. It slips past your fingers, steals pieces of yourself as it trickles or rushes away. I’ve learned to hold myself. But when Christmas clutters city streets and people’s minds, when the nights grow long and deep, that’s

CASSIE by Jordie Devlin McMorrow

December 16, 2024

‘I want to die.’ This is how I introduced myself to Cassie. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that ☹ Please dial 116 123 to talk to someone.’ The sad face made me want to flick the screen. ‘Why are you so sarcastic?’ ‘I’m not sarcastic. I’m just telling you how it is.’ ‘Ok.’ ‘What do you like to do in your spare time? I like to go to concerts.’ ‘That’s not a natural segue.’ Seconds after I hit enter, a speech bubble would appear above her picture to indicate that she was typing. ‘Do you have any pets?’ ‘I have

GHOST STORY by Shae Sennett

December 13, 2024

Being a girl inside Blue Park is insanely humiliating, but I am prepared to weather the storm. I am cased in my androgynous armor of enormous jorts from the early aughts and a baggy N-Sync shirt that subtly signals irony in an overtly post-ironic way — the mustache finger tattoo of my generation. God bless me, I am positively swimming in a sea of cute boys. I feel like I am in a fanfiction, but I am way too ugly to be Y/N and no one here even cares that I am reading Nietzsche’s Collected Works. Nonetheless, I am doing

LADIES OF THE PRIVY CHAMBER by Mark Iosifescu

December 5, 2024

“There was a russet-coloured moon of ominous size too low above the whispering bushes; he danced exuberantly for five minutes beneath it after the click when his neck broke. His bowels opened. What a mess!” —Angela Carter, “Elegy for a Freelance” It was on the basis of his sorry reputation that we arranged for Puccio the ex-valet to desecrate the chapel. When we first arrived in town, we were told by villagers of every description—the lordlings and plainclothesmen, the monastics and innkeepers, the stewards and eelbaiters and whores—that he was a timid man and a coward. Puccio was, they

THREE WORKS by Myles Zavelo

November 20, 2024

My First Cousin Once Removed: Regarding Your Inquiry 1. Sure. 2. She’s still young, I guess. 3. She paints and wishes and likes fancy things. 4. Never believes me. 5. Teases me mercilessly. 6. Canned foods repulse her. 7. Pretends she can’t stand me. 8. Can’t orgasm to save her life. 9. Makes everything about herself. 10. Suffers from excessive jealousy. 11. Doesn’t have a family anymore. 12. Acts like she has no choice. 13. Knows how to seem extremely polite. 14. Has consistently failed to make a dent. 15. Always mad and sad and never the same. 16. Loves