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LIVER MUSH IS AN ESSAY ABOUT MY MOM by Graham Irvin

Posted: March 3, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Creative Nonfiction

I want to talk about liver mush. Liver mush is a breakfast meat from Western North Carolina made of boiled pork parts and corn meal. It’s my favorite breakfast meat. It’s my favorite word. Liver mush is more than pork parts and corn meal, though. There is also sage and black pepper. But, liver mush is more than breakfast and sustenance too. It’s something close to that, but not exactly. It’s home but not home, but not exactly. Liver mush is more than a piece of fried pork parts and corn meal. Liver mush is more than old white dinner…

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SEXY REXY’S HOMECOMING FEAST by Steve Gergley

Posted: February 26, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Fiction

For his fortieth birthday, Lance bought himself a red-tailed boa and named it Sexy Rexy. When he returned to his empty apartment, he masturbated to a video on Pornhub called “MASSIVELY JACKED STUD ANNIHILATES SUBMISSIVE TWINK.” Then he turned off his phone and set up Sexy Rexy’s living enclosure, feeding tank, and hide box. For dinner Lance ate an entire chocolate cake and washed it down with half a bottle of champagne. Then he smoked a pack of Marlboro Lights and threw up in the bathroom for half an hour. After a long, hot shower in which he threw up…

Crow Jonah Norlander

CONSIDER YOURSELF HOME by Aimée Keeble

Posted: February 25, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Fiction

You and I at the window with our bandit teeth all exposed. Mine tallow, yours anodizing with the stale gold of nicotine, crap coffee that lives petrified in a jar. I’m your artful baby and I slip into shops first and blast back my chest. Hiya! And you coyote low behind me scoping with your dull sly eyes. Side by side at a counter and you’re velvet and torn at the creases but I’m no better (no worse) and my shirt is soppy and sags, better to stuff the gaps with. We’re proud as we unwrap our sandwiches in front…

Crow Jonah Norlander

BIRDS AREN’T REAL by D.T. ROBBINS

Posted: February 24, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Fiction

My girlfriend tells me something’s off in our relationship. Says we’re missing a spark or magic or whatever she calls it. I go, Oh, you wanna see magic? She goes, Yeah, idiot, I just said that. So, I wrap an old t-shirt around her eyes and lead her out into the field behind our apartment. It’s all a big surprise. The ice chest is full of beers and pastrami sandwiches and the chocolate cookies she baked last month. I put a slice of bread in a Ziplock bag with the cookies to keep them fresh. The cookies stay moist and…

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THE PURPLE TREE by Alienor Bombarde

Posted: February 21, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Fiction

It was not her favorite tree. It was simply where the children met. The tree was tall, its purple leaves like curtains, shielding its trunk. It was where, when she was four years old, she first saw Pasang. Pasang was the first and only newcomer the children ever knew. His father had come to work on construction plans. Pasang had a round face and a soft pink mouth. Even before she knew that people could use mouths for anything other than eating and drinking, she liked the look of it, its softness and slight downward turn. Those were the days,…

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THE BLUE ANGEL by Austin Farber

Posted: February 19, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Fiction

She was cooking dinner when I walked in the door. She had worked all night at the hospital, slept the whole day while I was at work, and was about to leave for another shift after dinner. I usually was relieved when she left, but tonight she looked unusually chipper. When she greeted me, she was dicing up a full rotisserie chicken. She kissed me. “How was your day, honey?” She asked. “Good,” I said. “How was your night?” “Oh, it was something,” she said, stripping the meat. “We had a code blue in ICU. A real stiff.” “Oh wow,”…

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MOUNTAIN MUSIC by Michael Seymour Blake

Posted: February 18, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Creative Nonfiction

All kinds of warning lights are flashing on the dashboard, and the front bumper is mostly held together with duct tape. Chelsey and I are driving my cousin’s car through the Catskills, searching for a trail that leads to an abandoned hotel at the top of a mountain. It’s supposed to be crumbling and overgrown, a long-ago meeting place for communists. It’s getting late, but we figure we have time to hike out, see this thing, and get back to the car by sundown. The GPS has us turn up a narrow, dirt path that circles the mountain in a…

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PET by Danielle Chelosky

Posted: February 15, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Creative Nonfiction

The night we met, I showed up at your apartment with fishnets shoved inside my bag. I was too nervous to wear them as I walked from my car to your door. I got catcalled three times anyway. Catcalling is really bad over here, you told me while we ascended the stairs. You took the lead; I followed timidly. I couldn’t take in your apartment as we stepped inside because I had too much going on in my mind. Your room, though, came across as beautiful—the light soft and careful, your bed sheets floral and muted, your walls white with…

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BURN THE SHIPS by John Darcy

Posted: February 12, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Fiction

The first scam was parking outside the bank, mobile-depositing a check, running inside to cash it with the teller. He dubbed it The Double Derring-Do. Loopholes find fault in failures of imagination. It’s about outsmarting, round-abouting. Okay, he did end up with two years for wire fraud. Watching a scumbag stoner conman movie, he whispers, “That’s not what it’s like.” On his computer are two hundred years of pirated movie soundtracks. He’s working his way through them. Also the first two acts of a five-act play, stellar dialogue but lacks compelling conflict. Policies in triplicate because it never hurts to…

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THAT’S ALL YOLKS by Alex Juarez

Posted: February 11, 2021 · Tagged: Flash · Categorized: Creative Nonfiction

I think about crawling into Arizona’s skin. It would be easiest to go through her eyes. A few years ago, I read an article about a girl who while on meth performed self-enucleation. Her pastor found her screaming, “I want to see the light,” while holding her eyes in her hands. I don’t want to hurt Arizona, but I think if I could slip inside, we would be easier. Before our alarms go off, she has a headache, so she presses her palms against her face and groans. I mirror it to make her feel like our emotional bond is…

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