Flash | X-R-A-Y

A BOLD NEW KIND OF STORY by Michael Mungiello

March 31, 2018

Something new… Something new… I need to do something new… Something new… Something new… I need to do something new… It will be new… It will come now… Somehow… Somewhere… I know… It will start on the next page… One time I was reading important books… It was very important that I read them… They addressed concerns…of the people…of the elites…history…art…religion…politics… I was interested in those things… People I admired were interested in those things… So I read in pursuit of these people’s interest… In the hopes that one day…a book would be written…about me…by all those I admired… When

LIBERTY KID by Lanny Durbin

March 30, 2018

I saw the kid’s face when he got hit by the car. He was standing there on the sidewalk with a blank look and then the car jumped the curb. Just nailed him. The blank look stayed on his face when he flew through air, stared right at me. Like he meant to do it. A party trick. He was wearing a statue of liberty costume, which, for a short moment, made the visual a little funny. He stood out in front of the Liberty Tax building a few nights a week, one of those preying fast tax return spots

LONGBEARDS by Chris Dankland

March 28, 2018

Before The Smiths signed the contract for the brand new house they were set to purchase, the real estate broker said: I have to tell you that in the last few weeks a few of the construction workers have sighted some Longbeards near the woods. I’m only mentioning it because you said you have a small dog. Yes, said Mr. Smith. Thank you. We’ll be sure to keep him inside the house at night. That’s what I’d do, said the real estate broker, nodding. Just in case. I’m sure that as more and more people move into the neighborhood, the

TUNA SANDWICH by Jennifer Greidus

March 27, 2018

He orders tuna salad because he always orders tuna salad. Today, he also orders bacon potato soup. It’s too hot for soup. He likes to wipe his pretty mouth with the back of a hand. He sneers at the waitresses and only pays attention to the ones with fat tits. One of them, Trina, is my favorite waitress. Her tits are fat. I want to tell her to cover them up. Her skirt is tight, too, and the material that’s supposed to hide the zipper is pulled too far to do its job. He’s not an ass man, though. My

ZERO PINEAPPLES by Timothy Willis Sanders

March 25, 2018

Billy asked Chris and Molly what movie they had picked and Chris held up a DVD copy of The Birds. Billy shot a look at Meg. “Hitchcock had a really fucked up obsession with Tippi Hedren. I read about it online so I decided to never watch the movie,” said Billy. “Who’s Tippi Hedren?” said Chris, sliding the DVD into the Playstation. “Exactly,” said Meg. “Well, sorry about Tippi, but I have a surprise for you both after the movie,” said Molly. Billy pictured Molly wheeling out a human-sized box with a large gold ribbon, from which Gene Wilder, dressed

DEATH BED by Dóra Grőber

March 22, 2018

You’re sitting in your bed, legs pulled up to your chest, black, unkempt hair in an unusual ponytail and you don’t talk, not because he’s not home but because you have nothing to say. Just a few hours ago you were standing on your desk and painting on the wall, first with a brush and then with your hands, listening to the song Rolling by Soul Coughing, not on repeat. You didn’t feel like an artist but you didn’t feel fake. You felt like this was recovery or at least some level or element of it, something he could see

CREATION STORY by Bob Schofield

March 21, 2018

At first the world was just one spiral. Then that spiral grew a face. The face was hungry. It filled with water. The face was silent, but never sleeping. A single tooth grew through the bottom. The face was a word, and that word was “lake.” The lake was tended by older creatures. Giants with horns and black spiral faces. The whole earth cooled beneath their shadow. They danced over the hills on cloven feet. The lake was the twisting center of a universe. Gears were built to keep it all in motion. Fish were constructed, to keep the water

THE JANNICK OVERTURE by Avee Chaudhuri

March 20, 2018

Nacogdoches, Texas Jannick Meissner claimed to be from Eastern Bavaria. He spoke theatrically, e.g. “I will revenge myself upon Castro.” Castro had slighted Jannick by not inviting him to an ongoing, Sunday afternoon table-top role playing game. Jannick was livid. “I am an excellent storyteller,” he told me. We were drinking on Jannick’s front porch. I sat and he paced back and forth in a very tortured manner. “I will revenge myself upon Castro,” he repeated. “You don’t even like role playing games,” I pointed out. “This is accurate,” Jannick conceded. Jannick was a very cultured, seemingly intelligent German male

“NO BOOK BLURB, NO CRY” EXCERPT by Brian Alan Ellis

March 16, 2018

An Inspirational/Crazy Informative Guide to Proper Book Blurbage (An excerpt from Sad Laughter, forthcoming from Civil Coping Mechanisms) “[This book] will fry up some prose eggs in your ol’ brain pan.” ⋆⋆⋆ “[This writer] is the kind of poet whose madness and how [he/she] exorcises that madness is a thing of dark brilliance one can admire from afar but if you ever let [him/her] crash at your house for a few days [he/she] would scare the living shit out of you.” ⋆⋆⋆ “[This writer] can fix your pipes and your roofing but [his/her] book of durable, brick-layered stories can also

PENNY GORING’S hatefuck the reader REVIEW by Chris Dankland

March 15, 2018

GET THE BOOK (read online + download epub and mobi versions for free) LENGTH: 7,000 words PUBLISHER: 5everdankly publications, 2016 YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE: Kathy Acker, Édouard Levé, Sarah Kane Penny Goring’s book ‘hatefuck the reader’ starts with the sound of someone talking so close to your ear that you can feel hot breath: when i was invincible i believed beauty lasts forever and i died every day. you gave me nothing. i prefer to think you hit me because you are ill. i prefer to stroke my cold pillow. i prefer to sit on a chair