ISSUE 25 May 2022
Editor: Francine Witte
Editor: Francine Witte
FLASH
August Brown * Brie Deyton * Sean Ennis * Gary Fincke * Jeff Friedman * Jeffrey Galef. Randy Goggin * David Henson * Kathy Hoyle * Mandira Pattnaik * Bonnie Proudfoot * Brad Rose * Kathryn Silver-Hajo * Joanna Theiss
August Brown
How to be Alone
To prepare, you must forget the smell of cigarettes and strawberries. The air chokes on
such thick wildfire smoke, you wouldn’t be able to tell if the convenience store down the road
was set ablaze, couldn’t see the light of one thousand Marlboro cases glowing crimson in the
flames. The same goes for souls, though you nearly convince yourself you hear the sound of
moth wings ascending, whispers, farewell. You squint ahead, eyes shriveling in the furnace, but
you can’t make out if your chain-smoker is among them. The world and everyone on it could
burn down and you would still be standing by this freeway, unscathed with the skeletons of the
pines and ashes of strawberry plants all around your feet. Old stories taught you that you cannot
be burned if the fire has forgotten your name.
You’ve always climbed trees and braided your hair with evergreen needles. Be patient
with yourself; you haven’t yet learned that you must protect more than your body to be safe.
The strawberry plants you wade through are dead. It has been too long since they have
seen the sun. Every ounce of perfume long since left their shattered stems, banished to the earth
beneath your feet. It would not matter if you could smell their stench. The scent of wild things
is not what you need to forget, it is something far dearer to you: the sickly sweet smell of imitation,
Hershey’s Strawberry Syrup in the neon bottle, both shades of pink found rarely in nature. It was
always slow as ketchup from its container, pooling across toaster waffles, mixed into milk and
Quaker oatmeal. You could never decide if you liked the stuff.
Forget how it coated your mouth and throat, made it impossible to taste anything besides
a sour, tangy sweetness for hours afterward. Forget the chain-smoker’s blue-veined hands
pressing, releasing, squirting the hot pink syrup into your hair braided with evergreens. They had
lifted you to reach the tall pines in the yard, straightened the plaits falling over your shoulders.
Forget that.
Forget it all, the viscous clouds of tobacco smoke smelling of burning rubber, bottles of
strawberry syrup. They will all be gone.
Remember only the alcoholic scent of the hospital room that singed your nose and throat,
the limping body lying on a bed too prissy and white to ever be theirs. Remember it is only a
matter of time. Remember it is futile to turn back. Remember that they chose their killer above
you. That is who they truly loved.
The wind blows and the air begins to clear. Take notice of the moths, fragile and dulled
after years of imprisonment in their human shells, remembering only now the feeling of the sun.
Whisper farewell. Forget that your chain-smoker has the wings of a butterfly.
August Brown is a young writer who enjoys outdoor recreation and time went with friends
and family in addition to storytelling. She is an avid school sports fan. This is her first fiction publication.
To prepare, you must forget the smell of cigarettes and strawberries. The air chokes on
such thick wildfire smoke, you wouldn’t be able to tell if the convenience store down the road
was set ablaze, couldn’t see the light of one thousand Marlboro cases glowing crimson in the
flames. The same goes for souls, though you nearly convince yourself you hear the sound of
moth wings ascending, whispers, farewell. You squint ahead, eyes shriveling in the furnace, but
you can’t make out if your chain-smoker is among them. The world and everyone on it could
burn down and you would still be standing by this freeway, unscathed with the skeletons of the
pines and ashes of strawberry plants all around your feet. Old stories taught you that you cannot
be burned if the fire has forgotten your name.
You’ve always climbed trees and braided your hair with evergreen needles. Be patient
with yourself; you haven’t yet learned that you must protect more than your body to be safe.
The strawberry plants you wade through are dead. It has been too long since they have
seen the sun. Every ounce of perfume long since left their shattered stems, banished to the earth
beneath your feet. It would not matter if you could smell their stench. The scent of wild things
is not what you need to forget, it is something far dearer to you: the sickly sweet smell of imitation,
Hershey’s Strawberry Syrup in the neon bottle, both shades of pink found rarely in nature. It was
always slow as ketchup from its container, pooling across toaster waffles, mixed into milk and
Quaker oatmeal. You could never decide if you liked the stuff.
Forget how it coated your mouth and throat, made it impossible to taste anything besides
a sour, tangy sweetness for hours afterward. Forget the chain-smoker’s blue-veined hands
pressing, releasing, squirting the hot pink syrup into your hair braided with evergreens. They had
lifted you to reach the tall pines in the yard, straightened the plaits falling over your shoulders.
Forget that.
Forget it all, the viscous clouds of tobacco smoke smelling of burning rubber, bottles of
strawberry syrup. They will all be gone.
Remember only the alcoholic scent of the hospital room that singed your nose and throat,
the limping body lying on a bed too prissy and white to ever be theirs. Remember it is only a
matter of time. Remember it is futile to turn back. Remember that they chose their killer above
you. That is who they truly loved.
The wind blows and the air begins to clear. Take notice of the moths, fragile and dulled
after years of imprisonment in their human shells, remembering only now the feeling of the sun.
Whisper farewell. Forget that your chain-smoker has the wings of a butterfly.
August Brown is a young writer who enjoys outdoor recreation and time went with friends
and family in addition to storytelling. She is an avid school sports fan. This is her first fiction publication.
Brie Deyton Washington D.C.
Bed in a Box
Nowhere did the instructions say two builders needed. Ella stared down at a handful of
boards, a few slats, and various-sized screws ̶ ten pieces standing between her and success.
She tried again to screw a beam into the headboard, but the physics of the whole thing made it
impossible for one person to hold everything level enough to keep it all from falling apart.
Ella tossed the instructions on the ground. Disassembling the old bed had been easy
enough to do herself. Taking the pieces down the elevator to the garbage on her own was the
first hint that perhaps she had underestimated the entirety of the task. There had been no one
to hold the door open, no one to balance the weight at the bottom of the stairs, no one to help
heave the awkward pieces in the dumpster.
Now here she was building a piece of furniture he never would have wanted in their
apartment. “Furniture is meant to last,” he’d said every time she had fallen love with a wine
rack or a bookshelf that needed self-assembly. “My parents got every piece from my
grandparents. They lasted sixty years and are still going. Do you think any of those came from a
box?”
A bed in a box was better than none at all. She would prefer to be surprised that it
lasted as long as it did, rather than bear the disappointment of a bed that had lost its biggest
piece. At least she hadn’t had to try this bed out; no need to reply not at all, as a salesperson
stood over her asking how she slept. Just three clicks and a bed was on the way. Box delivered.
Ten pieces between her and a brand new place to lie awake in the dark. Ten pieces that didn’t
have an ‘other side’. Ten pieces that didn’t purport to hold everything.
It was getting late and Ella stopped as she reached for the screwdriver. She had no
patience left for irreconcilable parts. She would need somewhere to rest. Ella pushed aside the
pieces and the tools that had done her no good and pulled the giant box to the corner of the
room. She flipped up the side she had cut open, grabbed a pillow and some blankets, and
stepped in. Lying back, the box’s walls hugging her, Ella grew sleepy for the first time in weeks
as within her palm she rolled one screw over and over ̶ one piece separated from the rest that
had found a purpose all its own.
Brie Deyton’s writing has appeared in River Teeth’s Beautiful Things and Creative Nonfiction’s
Sunday Short Reads. She lives in the Washington, DC metro area.
Nowhere did the instructions say two builders needed. Ella stared down at a handful of
boards, a few slats, and various-sized screws ̶ ten pieces standing between her and success.
She tried again to screw a beam into the headboard, but the physics of the whole thing made it
impossible for one person to hold everything level enough to keep it all from falling apart.
Ella tossed the instructions on the ground. Disassembling the old bed had been easy
enough to do herself. Taking the pieces down the elevator to the garbage on her own was the
first hint that perhaps she had underestimated the entirety of the task. There had been no one
to hold the door open, no one to balance the weight at the bottom of the stairs, no one to help
heave the awkward pieces in the dumpster.
Now here she was building a piece of furniture he never would have wanted in their
apartment. “Furniture is meant to last,” he’d said every time she had fallen love with a wine
rack or a bookshelf that needed self-assembly. “My parents got every piece from my
grandparents. They lasted sixty years and are still going. Do you think any of those came from a
box?”
A bed in a box was better than none at all. She would prefer to be surprised that it
lasted as long as it did, rather than bear the disappointment of a bed that had lost its biggest
piece. At least she hadn’t had to try this bed out; no need to reply not at all, as a salesperson
stood over her asking how she slept. Just three clicks and a bed was on the way. Box delivered.
Ten pieces between her and a brand new place to lie awake in the dark. Ten pieces that didn’t
have an ‘other side’. Ten pieces that didn’t purport to hold everything.
It was getting late and Ella stopped as she reached for the screwdriver. She had no
patience left for irreconcilable parts. She would need somewhere to rest. Ella pushed aside the
pieces and the tools that had done her no good and pulled the giant box to the corner of the
room. She flipped up the side she had cut open, grabbed a pillow and some blankets, and
stepped in. Lying back, the box’s walls hugging her, Ella grew sleepy for the first time in weeks
as within her palm she rolled one screw over and over ̶ one piece separated from the rest that
had found a purpose all its own.
Brie Deyton’s writing has appeared in River Teeth’s Beautiful Things and Creative Nonfiction’s
Sunday Short Reads. She lives in the Washington, DC metro area.
Sean Ennis Water Valley, MS
Leaders at Last
Weeks later, the saga continues. Something internal told me he was bad news. He reminded me
of the people in town who stole a canoe and then rode in it in the Christmas parade. He has that
stupid bravado I am paid to tolerate and pretend I don't have deep, deep suspicions. Like, for instance,
he’s reading that book, How To Lead When You’re Not in Charge right in front of me! He doesn't even
have leadership characteristics! There is no water cooler here to witness our aggressive banter, but
believe me, it does happen.
At home, I try to decompress without thoughts of his usurpations or his Diet Dr. Pepper
breath. Grace rubs my temples and Gabe reminds me that our team made the playoffs. I still love my
family. I don’t take baths–I’m not that vulnerable–but one might be nice to visualize, its puffy clouds
of steam, the smell of my tobacco and sandalwood soap, my nakedness.
We decided on a vacation right then, especially looking for a rental house on stilts or a hotel
with a glass elevator. Somewhere with heights–the whole family needs a confidence boost. We’ll leave
in two weeks.
Meanwhile, that thief of time still vexes. Now he’s reading Leaders Eat Last while I stuff my
face. He lost his key card and needs me to follow him around, opening doors like a henchman. He’s
wearing a tie when clearly office-culture is not that formal. He’s slowly dying his hear a deep chestnut
brown. What, as they say, is his deal?
The whole house is bugging. Even the dogs, high on CBD, loll from one room to the other,
paranoid. Gabe’s stress fracture just won’t mend itself and Grace, my love, my booker of hotel rooms,
is doing yoga so violently she tore the mat. I haven’t had a drink in seven years but I’m visualizing
elaborate cocktails with garnishes or just vodka in a juice glass. I mean, a commercial came on tv for a
luxury cruise, which I know are just floating experiments in Norovirus, saying, “rise to the vacation,”
and it struck me as so stupid it had to be true.
He’ll make his move when I’m gone, though I’ll assign him no extra authority. He’ll take his
books—these are real books— with their highlighted passages and squat in front of my office door. He
may even fake my signature on a request from Procurement. I won’t even let him see a picture of
Grace.
… Now we’re in the glass elevator we hoped for, and, no he’s not waving in the lobby. Maybe
he has a sick kid at home whose hospital bills he’s just trying to afford. Maybe I’m a shitty leader. We
all have our eyes closed because the elevator rises too fast and there is this vertigo.
Sean Ennis is the author of CHASE US: Stories (Little A), and his fiction has recently appeared
in Wigleaf, Pithead Chapel, Hobart and Maudlin House. More of his work can be found at seanennis.net
Weeks later, the saga continues. Something internal told me he was bad news. He reminded me
of the people in town who stole a canoe and then rode in it in the Christmas parade. He has that
stupid bravado I am paid to tolerate and pretend I don't have deep, deep suspicions. Like, for instance,
he’s reading that book, How To Lead When You’re Not in Charge right in front of me! He doesn't even
have leadership characteristics! There is no water cooler here to witness our aggressive banter, but
believe me, it does happen.
At home, I try to decompress without thoughts of his usurpations or his Diet Dr. Pepper
breath. Grace rubs my temples and Gabe reminds me that our team made the playoffs. I still love my
family. I don’t take baths–I’m not that vulnerable–but one might be nice to visualize, its puffy clouds
of steam, the smell of my tobacco and sandalwood soap, my nakedness.
We decided on a vacation right then, especially looking for a rental house on stilts or a hotel
with a glass elevator. Somewhere with heights–the whole family needs a confidence boost. We’ll leave
in two weeks.
Meanwhile, that thief of time still vexes. Now he’s reading Leaders Eat Last while I stuff my
face. He lost his key card and needs me to follow him around, opening doors like a henchman. He’s
wearing a tie when clearly office-culture is not that formal. He’s slowly dying his hear a deep chestnut
brown. What, as they say, is his deal?
The whole house is bugging. Even the dogs, high on CBD, loll from one room to the other,
paranoid. Gabe’s stress fracture just won’t mend itself and Grace, my love, my booker of hotel rooms,
is doing yoga so violently she tore the mat. I haven’t had a drink in seven years but I’m visualizing
elaborate cocktails with garnishes or just vodka in a juice glass. I mean, a commercial came on tv for a
luxury cruise, which I know are just floating experiments in Norovirus, saying, “rise to the vacation,”
and it struck me as so stupid it had to be true.
He’ll make his move when I’m gone, though I’ll assign him no extra authority. He’ll take his
books—these are real books— with their highlighted passages and squat in front of my office door. He
may even fake my signature on a request from Procurement. I won’t even let him see a picture of
Grace.
… Now we’re in the glass elevator we hoped for, and, no he’s not waving in the lobby. Maybe
he has a sick kid at home whose hospital bills he’s just trying to afford. Maybe I’m a shitty leader. We
all have our eyes closed because the elevator rises too fast and there is this vertigo.
Sean Ennis is the author of CHASE US: Stories (Little A), and his fiction has recently appeared
in Wigleaf, Pithead Chapel, Hobart and Maudlin House. More of his work can be found at seanennis.net
Gary Fincke
Orphans
When Virginia Woolf, the stray cat Susan had adopted years ago, died just as the
semester began, it was twelve degrees and hadn’t been above thirty for two weeks. “The
ground’s frozen solid,” is the first thing she said after she rushed into my office
and caught her breath.
What could I do? I volunteered the biology department’s freezer to keep her cat fresh
until spring. She hugged me, her heavy body pressing in a way my grandmother used to
cling at Thanksgiving after she’d had a few glasses of the sweet wine she loved. “I have
her with me,” she said. “I was hoping.” She walked to her car and came back with a box
from Amazon sized for what I guessed was half a dozen books. Inside was Virginia
Woolf wrapped in what brought to mind the phrase “swaddling clothes.”
Just like I promised, I forgot about it right away, not telling a soul, especially my
department chair. And so, apparently, did she, first her mother sick, then her father
beginning to fail, both nearly ninety and living with her, what I heard from others
because Susan and I never crossed paths on campus.
In fact, I didn’t have another thought about that frozen corpse until the new science
building was finished six years later, and there, while I was cleaning out specimens,
preparing either to move them across the street during winter break or discard them, was
Virginia Woolf inside that Amazon box.
I took a peek. Virginia was looking a bit on the dubious side, freezer burn and six years,
even on ice, of nature’s patient, relentless work. I told myself to seek Susan out, her
parents both dead by then, her close to retirement, but I confess I just couldn’t face the
renewal of her sorrow doubled by what I imagined would be a devoted pet-owner’s bout
of guilt. The semester had ended. There were only a few more days left to complete the
move. I took a few minutes to walk Virginia Woolf across my back yard, said RIP, and
heaved her over the border of forsythia into the ravine behind my house.
For more than a few troubling reasons, it was easy to keep that secret for another year.
Susan retired. After the first faculty meeting the next September, I asked someone from
the English department about Susan. “Susan?” she said, as if she needed time to form an
answer. “You know how she kept stray cats, right? Her last one was named Jane Austen.”
“That would be her,” I said, relieved, I have to admit, knowing Susan had moved on.
“Did you know her well?” she said, and when I shook my head, she seemed eager to keep
on. “The first time I met her, she showed me this pink thing lying in a box of Kleenex,
the personal size you can carry in your purse. There was nothing to it but a heartbeat
lying on what was left of the tissues. It was awful to see. It looked as if its mother had
had a late-term abortion is what it looked like.”
“Its mother was dead,” I said straight out, and the woman gave me what’s often called
“the stink eye.”
“She said she was trying to save it, but I didn’t see how. With or without a mother, that
thing looked hopeless. Did she ever show you something like that? That was three years
ago now.”
“No, she didn’t,” is what I said. I had been far away from Susan in the science building,
then farther in the new one without the body of Virginia Woolf. But just then, I thought
she might have forgiven me if I had told her I had always lived alone. She might have
thought of me as someone to adopt. She would have pardoned that orphan for his
callousness, even if doing so made no difference at all. She might even have loved me for
resealing Virginia Wool’s box, wrapping it in so much tape it looked like something
discovered in an ancient tomb, its contents surviving way past anyone’s expectations.
Gary Fincke's latest collection is Nothing Falls from Nowhere (Stephen F. Austin, 2021).
His flash fiction has appeared recently at Craft, Vestal Review, Atticus Review, Pithead Chapel,
WigLeaf, and Best Small Fictions 2020. He is co-editor of the international anthology series Best Microfiction.
When Virginia Woolf, the stray cat Susan had adopted years ago, died just as the
semester began, it was twelve degrees and hadn’t been above thirty for two weeks. “The
ground’s frozen solid,” is the first thing she said after she rushed into my office
and caught her breath.
What could I do? I volunteered the biology department’s freezer to keep her cat fresh
until spring. She hugged me, her heavy body pressing in a way my grandmother used to
cling at Thanksgiving after she’d had a few glasses of the sweet wine she loved. “I have
her with me,” she said. “I was hoping.” She walked to her car and came back with a box
from Amazon sized for what I guessed was half a dozen books. Inside was Virginia
Woolf wrapped in what brought to mind the phrase “swaddling clothes.”
Just like I promised, I forgot about it right away, not telling a soul, especially my
department chair. And so, apparently, did she, first her mother sick, then her father
beginning to fail, both nearly ninety and living with her, what I heard from others
because Susan and I never crossed paths on campus.
In fact, I didn’t have another thought about that frozen corpse until the new science
building was finished six years later, and there, while I was cleaning out specimens,
preparing either to move them across the street during winter break or discard them, was
Virginia Woolf inside that Amazon box.
I took a peek. Virginia was looking a bit on the dubious side, freezer burn and six years,
even on ice, of nature’s patient, relentless work. I told myself to seek Susan out, her
parents both dead by then, her close to retirement, but I confess I just couldn’t face the
renewal of her sorrow doubled by what I imagined would be a devoted pet-owner’s bout
of guilt. The semester had ended. There were only a few more days left to complete the
move. I took a few minutes to walk Virginia Woolf across my back yard, said RIP, and
heaved her over the border of forsythia into the ravine behind my house.
For more than a few troubling reasons, it was easy to keep that secret for another year.
Susan retired. After the first faculty meeting the next September, I asked someone from
the English department about Susan. “Susan?” she said, as if she needed time to form an
answer. “You know how she kept stray cats, right? Her last one was named Jane Austen.”
“That would be her,” I said, relieved, I have to admit, knowing Susan had moved on.
“Did you know her well?” she said, and when I shook my head, she seemed eager to keep
on. “The first time I met her, she showed me this pink thing lying in a box of Kleenex,
the personal size you can carry in your purse. There was nothing to it but a heartbeat
lying on what was left of the tissues. It was awful to see. It looked as if its mother had
had a late-term abortion is what it looked like.”
“Its mother was dead,” I said straight out, and the woman gave me what’s often called
“the stink eye.”
“She said she was trying to save it, but I didn’t see how. With or without a mother, that
thing looked hopeless. Did she ever show you something like that? That was three years
ago now.”
“No, she didn’t,” is what I said. I had been far away from Susan in the science building,
then farther in the new one without the body of Virginia Woolf. But just then, I thought
she might have forgiven me if I had told her I had always lived alone. She might have
thought of me as someone to adopt. She would have pardoned that orphan for his
callousness, even if doing so made no difference at all. She might even have loved me for
resealing Virginia Wool’s box, wrapping it in so much tape it looked like something
discovered in an ancient tomb, its contents surviving way past anyone’s expectations.
Gary Fincke's latest collection is Nothing Falls from Nowhere (Stephen F. Austin, 2021).
His flash fiction has appeared recently at Craft, Vestal Review, Atticus Review, Pithead Chapel,
WigLeaf, and Best Small Fictions 2020. He is co-editor of the international anthology series Best Microfiction.
Jeff Friedman
Fog
The fog covered the trees, descending into our driveway and then spreading into our house. First
my wife disappeared and then my son. I thought I could hear them calling for me, but the fog
drowned them out. I breathed in the fog and exhaled it. All I could see was white fog, no walls or
lights. I got down on all fours, where I could feel the floor, but not see it. I crawled through the
house several times searching for my wife and son. Tired out, I lay down and closed my eyes for
a moment, and then I fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke, the fog had darkened and was even
thicker. I felt pinned beneath it. I hauled myself up and parted the fog with my hands only to
watch them disappear and come back. I heard my wife and son in the distance—the memory of
their voices.
Jeff Friedman’s ninth book, Ashes in Paradise, will be published by Madhat Press in Fall 2022.
Friedman’s poems, mini stories and translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry,
Poetry International, New England Review, Flash Fiction Funny, American Journal of Poetry,
Best Microfiction 2021 and 2022, and The New Republic. Meg Pokrass and Friedman’s co-written
collection of fabulist microfiction, The House of Grana Padano, has recently been published by Pelekinesis.
The fog covered the trees, descending into our driveway and then spreading into our house. First
my wife disappeared and then my son. I thought I could hear them calling for me, but the fog
drowned them out. I breathed in the fog and exhaled it. All I could see was white fog, no walls or
lights. I got down on all fours, where I could feel the floor, but not see it. I crawled through the
house several times searching for my wife and son. Tired out, I lay down and closed my eyes for
a moment, and then I fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke, the fog had darkened and was even
thicker. I felt pinned beneath it. I hauled myself up and parted the fog with my hands only to
watch them disappear and come back. I heard my wife and son in the distance—the memory of
their voices.
Jeff Friedman’s ninth book, Ashes in Paradise, will be published by Madhat Press in Fall 2022.
Friedman’s poems, mini stories and translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry,
Poetry International, New England Review, Flash Fiction Funny, American Journal of Poetry,
Best Microfiction 2021 and 2022, and The New Republic. Meg Pokrass and Friedman’s co-written
collection of fabulist microfiction, The House of Grana Padano, has recently been published by Pelekinesis.
Randy Goggin New Port Richey, FL
A Night Drive with Mom
Mom sped us off into the Florida night, the worn-out suspension of her old Honda rattling.
With sharp jerks of the wheel and her window wide open, she sang Stevie Nicks to the river and
forest. The engine revved high. Icy air flooded in. The music was distorted with the volume
too loud.
Dirt roads. Trailers. Bald cypress trees. A raccoon ran hunched across a front yard.
I shivered in my hoodie. My jaw was so tight. Jeff shivered in his jacket on the torn seat beside
me.
Mailboxes. Trailers. Floodplain forest. Potholes and limestone road in the lights.
Mom fishtailed the car onto Moccasin Road, heading for State Road 54 up ahead. Glass
sparkled in the parking lot of the boarded-up store. The car slid to a stop, our bodies thrown by
the force. The engine idled, then she stepped on the gas. I searched for police as she made the
right turn.
Stand back! Stand back!
I couldn’t think. My teeth still chattered. Mom made a right turn into Veteran’s Village. To the
left was the Walgreens, now dark and vacant. Mom sped. She kept checking the rearview
mirror.
Flag poles. Houses. A stray cat in the street. Jeff was a lump on the seat in his silence.
I thought of the party, how mom yanked us away. Away from the campfire and crowds of
her friends. Beneath the screaming cicadas and live oak trees. She’d pushed us past strangers in
slurred conversations. In the car, she had warned us that someone would follow. Who, mom?
I’d asked, but she never did answer.
So we sped past the neighborhoods, beneath blinking yellows – sometimes almost flying across
intersections. Mom’s bloodshot eyes watered, and she wiped at her nose. She was checking
our tail in between the song lyrics.
My teeth chattered. My chest muscles spasmed. It felt like a chase scene from one of dad’s
Cold War movies - just a matter of time before head lights appeared.
She sped past the bike shop, volunteer fire station, water treatment plant, and two-story
apartments. Then 7-Eleven, with its blinding bright lights. No police in the parking lot when
she made her next turn.
Cars on blocks. Wooden fences. The Greek Orthodox church.
Mom was now angry-singing Tom Petty. …out into the darkness, cypress domes and cow
pastures - behind us a desolate, Pasco County road.
I think we lost them! I shouted, but mom didn’t answer.
She was singing that she was learning to fly with no wings.
It couldn’t have been easy for her living like this, keeping up the facade of a civilian life in the
States. A bartender in a backwoods town in the south, who picked up her children on the
weekends to watch. Before disappearing again out into the vague details of her classified
existence.
The winter wind whipped her Sicilian black hair. She gripped tight to the wheel for another
sharp turn. My teeth chattered. I just couldn’t stop them.
Cypress domes. Moon light. Barbed wire fences. Impressions of cows all huddled together.
I thought back to the night when dad threw that kick from behind. When she’d fell to the floor
and spilled beer on the carpet. Dad had said something about her cleaning the mess. Uncle
Kevin had laughed, and mom looked embarrassed. Then dad laughed too (as if the world had
gone crazy). Then the night just kept going, as if nothing had happened.
But Mom knew we watched from our bedroom door, her plan all along to prepare us for flight.
We’d grow tougher, then leave with her one future night. It would only be a matter of time ‘till
we fled.
Mom navigated another bend of Perrine Ranch Road – the marsh down below and the barbed
wire fencing. The radio tower in Holiday blinked like a beacon. Pale patches of cows in the
headlights streaked past. Up ahead, I saw the bridge above the Anclote River.
Brazilian peppers squeezed in from either side of the road. My bladder was stretched, and I
thought it would burst.
Cattails. Wax myrtle. A Styrofoam cooler.
All Mom had to do was keep the car to the middle.
She’d stopped singing, and I didn’t dare make a sound. This was it, the last challenge - the river
crossing at night. Jeff was looking too, his hand on the seat. If she pulled it, the three of us
would all be home free…
Randy Goggin lives on the gulf coast of Florida. His writing has appeared in Fourth River,
Sandhill Review, and Kairos Literary Journal. With an interest in biology and the literary arts,
his writing grapples with the broken world and fragmented state of the human soul. He loves
ecology, cephalopods, and his daughter, Liv, and he was once assaulted by a red-winged blackbird at the beach.
Mom sped us off into the Florida night, the worn-out suspension of her old Honda rattling.
With sharp jerks of the wheel and her window wide open, she sang Stevie Nicks to the river and
forest. The engine revved high. Icy air flooded in. The music was distorted with the volume
too loud.
Dirt roads. Trailers. Bald cypress trees. A raccoon ran hunched across a front yard.
I shivered in my hoodie. My jaw was so tight. Jeff shivered in his jacket on the torn seat beside
me.
Mailboxes. Trailers. Floodplain forest. Potholes and limestone road in the lights.
Mom fishtailed the car onto Moccasin Road, heading for State Road 54 up ahead. Glass
sparkled in the parking lot of the boarded-up store. The car slid to a stop, our bodies thrown by
the force. The engine idled, then she stepped on the gas. I searched for police as she made the
right turn.
Stand back! Stand back!
I couldn’t think. My teeth still chattered. Mom made a right turn into Veteran’s Village. To the
left was the Walgreens, now dark and vacant. Mom sped. She kept checking the rearview
mirror.
Flag poles. Houses. A stray cat in the street. Jeff was a lump on the seat in his silence.
I thought of the party, how mom yanked us away. Away from the campfire and crowds of
her friends. Beneath the screaming cicadas and live oak trees. She’d pushed us past strangers in
slurred conversations. In the car, she had warned us that someone would follow. Who, mom?
I’d asked, but she never did answer.
So we sped past the neighborhoods, beneath blinking yellows – sometimes almost flying across
intersections. Mom’s bloodshot eyes watered, and she wiped at her nose. She was checking
our tail in between the song lyrics.
My teeth chattered. My chest muscles spasmed. It felt like a chase scene from one of dad’s
Cold War movies - just a matter of time before head lights appeared.
She sped past the bike shop, volunteer fire station, water treatment plant, and two-story
apartments. Then 7-Eleven, with its blinding bright lights. No police in the parking lot when
she made her next turn.
Cars on blocks. Wooden fences. The Greek Orthodox church.
Mom was now angry-singing Tom Petty. …out into the darkness, cypress domes and cow
pastures - behind us a desolate, Pasco County road.
I think we lost them! I shouted, but mom didn’t answer.
She was singing that she was learning to fly with no wings.
It couldn’t have been easy for her living like this, keeping up the facade of a civilian life in the
States. A bartender in a backwoods town in the south, who picked up her children on the
weekends to watch. Before disappearing again out into the vague details of her classified
existence.
The winter wind whipped her Sicilian black hair. She gripped tight to the wheel for another
sharp turn. My teeth chattered. I just couldn’t stop them.
Cypress domes. Moon light. Barbed wire fences. Impressions of cows all huddled together.
I thought back to the night when dad threw that kick from behind. When she’d fell to the floor
and spilled beer on the carpet. Dad had said something about her cleaning the mess. Uncle
Kevin had laughed, and mom looked embarrassed. Then dad laughed too (as if the world had
gone crazy). Then the night just kept going, as if nothing had happened.
But Mom knew we watched from our bedroom door, her plan all along to prepare us for flight.
We’d grow tougher, then leave with her one future night. It would only be a matter of time ‘till
we fled.
Mom navigated another bend of Perrine Ranch Road – the marsh down below and the barbed
wire fencing. The radio tower in Holiday blinked like a beacon. Pale patches of cows in the
headlights streaked past. Up ahead, I saw the bridge above the Anclote River.
Brazilian peppers squeezed in from either side of the road. My bladder was stretched, and I
thought it would burst.
Cattails. Wax myrtle. A Styrofoam cooler.
All Mom had to do was keep the car to the middle.
She’d stopped singing, and I didn’t dare make a sound. This was it, the last challenge - the river
crossing at night. Jeff was looking too, his hand on the seat. If she pulled it, the three of us
would all be home free…
Randy Goggin lives on the gulf coast of Florida. His writing has appeared in Fourth River,
Sandhill Review, and Kairos Literary Journal. With an interest in biology and the literary arts,
his writing grapples with the broken world and fragmented state of the human soul. He loves
ecology, cephalopods, and his daughter, Liv, and he was once assaulted by a red-winged blackbird at the beach.
David Henson Peoria, Illinois
Honey People
Again he’s chanting louder than everyone. Gloria would love to
know who it is, but he’s behind her, and they’re supposed to keep
their eyes on Chant Leader. His loud voice doesn’t seem to bother
the others. She tells herself to focus. She’s new here, having just
joined the honey people to escape her husband, but knows chanting
for a safe and bountiful honey harvest is the most important part of
the day.
Chant Leader goes quiet and lifts her arms signaling it’s time to
work the bees. Five minutes to change out of their robes. Gloria was
a tick late yesterday so has been assigned a chore nobody likes --
cleaning dirty hives.
She lowers frames into boiling water. When the wax burbles to the
surface like fat, she skims off the goo and dumps it into a bucket.
She’s been told they’ll use the wax to seal around the windows for
winter.
She’s almost finished when there’s a commotion at the active hives.
She hurries over and sees a man down, gasping, clutching his throat,
face bright red, welt on his cheek. The honey people rely on chants
and smoke, not garb, for protection. Wasn’t enough for this poor
fellow. She wonders how creatures that create something so sweet
and beneficial can be so deadly.
That afternoon, Chant Leader tells Gloria to help construct a pyre. Is
it an honor or further punishment for her tardiness? She gathers
wood and builds a fire upwind from the hives. It’s not much of a
funeral. Gloria and three others chant ‘round the flames while the
rest work the hives, taking advantage of the calming smoke that
includes the ashes of their fallen comrade. Nothing here goes to
waste.
The next morning, the chant is eerily subdued, more than from
mourning the loss of one of their own. When Gloria realizes why,
she raises her voice above the others. Chant Leader stares at her.
Gloria’s voice wavers, but she maintains. Chant Leader nods,
and Gloria begins to feel the safety of belonging.
Later, as Gloria’s working the bees, her husband surprises her. He
begs forgiveness, says it’ll never happen again if she will only stop
provoking him. Dare she give him another chance? Maybe he’s right
that she’s to blame. Her thoughts buzz with confusion. She motions
for Chant Leader and asks what she should do.
Chant Leader says a bee shades with many flowers. The words turn
up the volume of Gloria’s confusion. Before she can say anything,
her husband snatches her wrist and starts to pull her away with him.
When Gloria cries out in pain, Chant Leader lifts her arms. A dark
cloud rises above the hives and swarms to Gloria’s husband.
#
Gloria lights the pyre they’ve built upwind from the hives. As the
flames crackle, she watches her husband help calm the bees.
David Henson and his wife have lived in Belgium and Hong Kong
over the years and now reside in Illinois, USA. His work has appeared in
various journals including Moonpark Review, Literally Stories, Gone Lawn,
and Brilliant Flash Fiction. His website is http://writings217.wordpress.com.
His Twitter is @annalou8.
Again he’s chanting louder than everyone. Gloria would love to
know who it is, but he’s behind her, and they’re supposed to keep
their eyes on Chant Leader. His loud voice doesn’t seem to bother
the others. She tells herself to focus. She’s new here, having just
joined the honey people to escape her husband, but knows chanting
for a safe and bountiful honey harvest is the most important part of
the day.
Chant Leader goes quiet and lifts her arms signaling it’s time to
work the bees. Five minutes to change out of their robes. Gloria was
a tick late yesterday so has been assigned a chore nobody likes --
cleaning dirty hives.
She lowers frames into boiling water. When the wax burbles to the
surface like fat, she skims off the goo and dumps it into a bucket.
She’s been told they’ll use the wax to seal around the windows for
winter.
She’s almost finished when there’s a commotion at the active hives.
She hurries over and sees a man down, gasping, clutching his throat,
face bright red, welt on his cheek. The honey people rely on chants
and smoke, not garb, for protection. Wasn’t enough for this poor
fellow. She wonders how creatures that create something so sweet
and beneficial can be so deadly.
That afternoon, Chant Leader tells Gloria to help construct a pyre. Is
it an honor or further punishment for her tardiness? She gathers
wood and builds a fire upwind from the hives. It’s not much of a
funeral. Gloria and three others chant ‘round the flames while the
rest work the hives, taking advantage of the calming smoke that
includes the ashes of their fallen comrade. Nothing here goes to
waste.
The next morning, the chant is eerily subdued, more than from
mourning the loss of one of their own. When Gloria realizes why,
she raises her voice above the others. Chant Leader stares at her.
Gloria’s voice wavers, but she maintains. Chant Leader nods,
and Gloria begins to feel the safety of belonging.
Later, as Gloria’s working the bees, her husband surprises her. He
begs forgiveness, says it’ll never happen again if she will only stop
provoking him. Dare she give him another chance? Maybe he’s right
that she’s to blame. Her thoughts buzz with confusion. She motions
for Chant Leader and asks what she should do.
Chant Leader says a bee shades with many flowers. The words turn
up the volume of Gloria’s confusion. Before she can say anything,
her husband snatches her wrist and starts to pull her away with him.
When Gloria cries out in pain, Chant Leader lifts her arms. A dark
cloud rises above the hives and swarms to Gloria’s husband.
#
Gloria lights the pyre they’ve built upwind from the hives. As the
flames crackle, she watches her husband help calm the bees.
David Henson and his wife have lived in Belgium and Hong Kong
over the years and now reside in Illinois, USA. His work has appeared in
various journals including Moonpark Review, Literally Stories, Gone Lawn,
and Brilliant Flash Fiction. His website is http://writings217.wordpress.com.
His Twitter is @annalou8.
Kathy Hoyle Warwickshire, UK
Whale Song
A whale floats high and light inside my womb. Its soft fur kisses my skin.
It spurts and sprays tepid water from its blowhole. That tickles, and I delight in its playful frolic,
sense it’s goofy tiny-toothed smile.
I lay still, feel my whale glide and turn and slip and slide through the waves of my bloodstream.
I call him Edward, Teddy for short, a good name I think, a family name. I stroke my egg-round
belly, so he knows I’m there.
My womb stretches outward, the ache is delicious. Edward - my playful little whale - extends a
flipper, dashes my uterus with his tail, then siren calls the others. They hear him. They are many
miles away, yet they come, swim right inside me, join together and begin to sing out sonic songs
of joy.
When their songs quieten down to lullabies, I rock awhile, carried on the pitch. I sleep,
dreaming, floating, as the whales swim downward, upward, all around, filling my body with
gentle whale song.
Later, when the darkness falls, I wake. My whale is gone. All I hear is my own silent cry.
Kathy Hoyle’s work can be found in Spelk, Virtualzine, Lunate, Ellipsiszine, Reflex Fiction and others.
She recently won the Retreat West Flash Competition, and has been placed in The Edinburgh Award for
Flash Fiction, The Cambridge Flash Fiction Prize and the Hissac Prize. Other stories have been listed in
The Bath Flash Fiction Award, The Forge Flash Fiction competition, The Exeter Short Story Prize, the
Fish Publishing Flash Fiction Prize and Flash 500. She lives in a sleepy Warwickshire village in the UK.
A whale floats high and light inside my womb. Its soft fur kisses my skin.
It spurts and sprays tepid water from its blowhole. That tickles, and I delight in its playful frolic,
sense it’s goofy tiny-toothed smile.
I lay still, feel my whale glide and turn and slip and slide through the waves of my bloodstream.
I call him Edward, Teddy for short, a good name I think, a family name. I stroke my egg-round
belly, so he knows I’m there.
My womb stretches outward, the ache is delicious. Edward - my playful little whale - extends a
flipper, dashes my uterus with his tail, then siren calls the others. They hear him. They are many
miles away, yet they come, swim right inside me, join together and begin to sing out sonic songs
of joy.
When their songs quieten down to lullabies, I rock awhile, carried on the pitch. I sleep,
dreaming, floating, as the whales swim downward, upward, all around, filling my body with
gentle whale song.
Later, when the darkness falls, I wake. My whale is gone. All I hear is my own silent cry.
Kathy Hoyle’s work can be found in Spelk, Virtualzine, Lunate, Ellipsiszine, Reflex Fiction and others.
She recently won the Retreat West Flash Competition, and has been placed in The Edinburgh Award for
Flash Fiction, The Cambridge Flash Fiction Prize and the Hissac Prize. Other stories have been listed in
The Bath Flash Fiction Award, The Forge Flash Fiction competition, The Exeter Short Story Prize, the
Fish Publishing Flash Fiction Prize and Flash 500. She lives in a sleepy Warwickshire village in the UK.
Mandira Pattnaik New Delhi, India
Prosody of Rains
Was it, Forgive me?
Consider the words. Remember the intonation, the way his voice quivered. His.
Row away from the island where the army truck stopped just for you. You.
Evaluate the universe around you. Still melting away, wringing itself dry in trains of raindrops,
falling on the cluster of islands, over a land where the deltaic waters and skies remain smudged,
coupled eternally.
There! Raindrops falling on the place where they rebuked you — when he and you, ten-year-old
errant schoolchildren, hid on the boughs of trees in the cashew-nut orchard, having escaped a day
of caning in the run-down primary school.
Pause. Breathe. Close your eyes. Open again.
Use the oars to lash the waves, beat them down until you can be home. Why it had to be the last
time he and you talked, why it had to be those two words on the last call, miles between you. No
love words spoken; no sentiments churned.
Except, longing.
Find the whiplashed tide return to slap your tiny wooden boat. Is it angry too?
Curse it! You need to hurry home, because you want to rain too, in the room where his music still
lingers.
Hear the clouds grumble, spit out a lightning on the grey hill beyond the smudged grassy bank.
Why do the clouds spare you?
Gaze at the archipelago around, like it were the pores of a humungous indigo skin. Pass the tiny
island where the market still spills with cheap wares people buy. Not you, though. The glass
bangles, and silk scarves, and colored beads, mean nothing today. Ceased to have any merit long
ago.
Except the one you’re wearing now. Think of how he turned the silver bracelet on your wrist,
how he counted for each day he was away. Then he stopped doing it because there were too
many to count, like the floods here. And, that was after he enlisted, after he went away.
Stop. Stop right there. Stop the flow, stun the flights. Halt in the middle of the waters.
Stranded? Nay, you are frozen; because you just remembered him saying, Melodic lines are in
bass and treble.
Don’t mind the floodgates of memories that open, ignore the torrent bursting from your eyes.
Breathe. Tremble.
Notice the boat sway you, rock you like a baby.
Look up one last time to see the army truck pulling away with his body in a coffin, wrapped in
the tricolor flag, hazy on the horizon, on the road snaking, meandering, moving farther
and farther away, skirting your tidal islands.
Mandira Pattnaik's work has appeared/is forthcoming in Best Small Fictions 2021, Asian American
Writers' Workshop, Atlas & Alice, Citron Review, Watershed Review, Passages North, Amsterdam Quarterly,
DASH, and Timber Journal among other places. Her fiction has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize
2021 & 2022, Best Microfictions, and Best of the Net, and was Highly Commended in Litro Magazine Summer
Contest 2021 and CRAFT Flash Fiction Contest 2020. Her writings can be found in mandirapattnaik.wordpress.com
Was it, Forgive me?
Consider the words. Remember the intonation, the way his voice quivered. His.
Row away from the island where the army truck stopped just for you. You.
Evaluate the universe around you. Still melting away, wringing itself dry in trains of raindrops,
falling on the cluster of islands, over a land where the deltaic waters and skies remain smudged,
coupled eternally.
There! Raindrops falling on the place where they rebuked you — when he and you, ten-year-old
errant schoolchildren, hid on the boughs of trees in the cashew-nut orchard, having escaped a day
of caning in the run-down primary school.
Pause. Breathe. Close your eyes. Open again.
Use the oars to lash the waves, beat them down until you can be home. Why it had to be the last
time he and you talked, why it had to be those two words on the last call, miles between you. No
love words spoken; no sentiments churned.
Except, longing.
Find the whiplashed tide return to slap your tiny wooden boat. Is it angry too?
Curse it! You need to hurry home, because you want to rain too, in the room where his music still
lingers.
Hear the clouds grumble, spit out a lightning on the grey hill beyond the smudged grassy bank.
Why do the clouds spare you?
Gaze at the archipelago around, like it were the pores of a humungous indigo skin. Pass the tiny
island where the market still spills with cheap wares people buy. Not you, though. The glass
bangles, and silk scarves, and colored beads, mean nothing today. Ceased to have any merit long
ago.
Except the one you’re wearing now. Think of how he turned the silver bracelet on your wrist,
how he counted for each day he was away. Then he stopped doing it because there were too
many to count, like the floods here. And, that was after he enlisted, after he went away.
Stop. Stop right there. Stop the flow, stun the flights. Halt in the middle of the waters.
Stranded? Nay, you are frozen; because you just remembered him saying, Melodic lines are in
bass and treble.
Don’t mind the floodgates of memories that open, ignore the torrent bursting from your eyes.
Breathe. Tremble.
Notice the boat sway you, rock you like a baby.
Look up one last time to see the army truck pulling away with his body in a coffin, wrapped in
the tricolor flag, hazy on the horizon, on the road snaking, meandering, moving farther
and farther away, skirting your tidal islands.
Mandira Pattnaik's work has appeared/is forthcoming in Best Small Fictions 2021, Asian American
Writers' Workshop, Atlas & Alice, Citron Review, Watershed Review, Passages North, Amsterdam Quarterly,
DASH, and Timber Journal among other places. Her fiction has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize
2021 & 2022, Best Microfictions, and Best of the Net, and was Highly Commended in Litro Magazine Summer
Contest 2021 and CRAFT Flash Fiction Contest 2020. Her writings can be found in mandirapattnaik.wordpress.com
Bonnie Proudfoot Athens, OH
Camp Probable
Act 1
When you are dropped off, you will almost certainly not know anyone else. The horses will bite
and buck. You will almost certainly get sunburn, poison ivy. You will stay up scratching your arms
and legs, watching branches scrape against the cabin window, wondering why you agreed to
come, but not exactly missing your own bed. You make one friend, Dawn, and you will almost
certainly tell Dawn a secret. Dawn will almost certainly reveal it to the whole camp. You will
almost certainly avoid the dining hall. You will hit the vending machines behind the camp office,
putting change into the slot for Mars Bars or Paydays.
Act 2
You will almost certainly run into Jake, a counselor, at the vending machines. Jake buys
Marlboros. You will learn how to smoke from Jake. You will watch for Jake, look for him at the
lake now, too. Soon you and Jake smoke together, at a picnic table at the far edge of the beach.
Jake will almost certainly invite you to his cabin while everyone is at a campfire. You will notice
how great his cabin is, a single-bed counselor cabin, compared to your 8 bunk-bed cabin. When
Jake kisses you, the world stops. You will almost certainly lose your virginity, and you will almost
certainly be dumped when Jake doesn’t seek you out anymore. You will cry for a day or two, sit
on your bunk bed and begin blandly cheerful letters home, then you will almost certainly
crumple them up and throw them away. You realize you did not like Jake that much anyway. You
smoke now. You notice that a boy named Jimmy from the boys’ camp across the lake has been
hanging around, waiting for you. Together you and Jimmy walk to the vending machines and
talk about what an asshole Jake is. This will not erase your humiliation, but at least you will have
learned how to keep secrets. When Jimmy gets too pushy you tell him to get lost. You will
almost certainly run into Jimmy in your freshman year at college. He will try to get into your
pants then, too, but that is a different story.
Act 3
You will almost certainly find your way to the barn, make friends with Brenda, the stall manager.
She lets you feed, brush, and saddle up the horses. Almost certainly, just as you were beginning
to figure out your place here, your parents will come to pick you up. They will be exactly the
same people they were when they dropped you off. You will not. You are a person who
remembers the smell of horses, how their coats shone after you brushed them and how they
galloped away when you turned them out to the corral. You will not miss Dawn or Jake; you will
add them to the list of things you can’t figure out, tucked away into your pocket of secrets.
Certainly, you will not be allowed to smoke, but you will remember smoking, the way you could
almost feel time speed up between striking a match and inhaling, the way the smoke rolls off
your tongue. You will think of that summer as the time your real life started, think about your
old self too, see her as if she is as flat as a photograph pasted into an album, a girl who never
really wanted anything, really. That photo will almost certainly fade, like an unsent letter, like a
brochure for a summer camp that probably promised the world, tossed into the trash in
September.
Bonnie Proudfoot lives in Athens, OH. She has had fiction and poetry published in the
Gettysburg Review, Kestrel, Sheila-Na-Gig, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, SoFloPoJo,
and other journals. Her first novel, Goshen Road, was published by Swallow Press in January of 2020,
and was selected by the Women’s National Book Association for one of its Great Group Reads for 2020.
The novel was also long-listed for the 2021 PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction.
Act 1
When you are dropped off, you will almost certainly not know anyone else. The horses will bite
and buck. You will almost certainly get sunburn, poison ivy. You will stay up scratching your arms
and legs, watching branches scrape against the cabin window, wondering why you agreed to
come, but not exactly missing your own bed. You make one friend, Dawn, and you will almost
certainly tell Dawn a secret. Dawn will almost certainly reveal it to the whole camp. You will
almost certainly avoid the dining hall. You will hit the vending machines behind the camp office,
putting change into the slot for Mars Bars or Paydays.
Act 2
You will almost certainly run into Jake, a counselor, at the vending machines. Jake buys
Marlboros. You will learn how to smoke from Jake. You will watch for Jake, look for him at the
lake now, too. Soon you and Jake smoke together, at a picnic table at the far edge of the beach.
Jake will almost certainly invite you to his cabin while everyone is at a campfire. You will notice
how great his cabin is, a single-bed counselor cabin, compared to your 8 bunk-bed cabin. When
Jake kisses you, the world stops. You will almost certainly lose your virginity, and you will almost
certainly be dumped when Jake doesn’t seek you out anymore. You will cry for a day or two, sit
on your bunk bed and begin blandly cheerful letters home, then you will almost certainly
crumple them up and throw them away. You realize you did not like Jake that much anyway. You
smoke now. You notice that a boy named Jimmy from the boys’ camp across the lake has been
hanging around, waiting for you. Together you and Jimmy walk to the vending machines and
talk about what an asshole Jake is. This will not erase your humiliation, but at least you will have
learned how to keep secrets. When Jimmy gets too pushy you tell him to get lost. You will
almost certainly run into Jimmy in your freshman year at college. He will try to get into your
pants then, too, but that is a different story.
Act 3
You will almost certainly find your way to the barn, make friends with Brenda, the stall manager.
She lets you feed, brush, and saddle up the horses. Almost certainly, just as you were beginning
to figure out your place here, your parents will come to pick you up. They will be exactly the
same people they were when they dropped you off. You will not. You are a person who
remembers the smell of horses, how their coats shone after you brushed them and how they
galloped away when you turned them out to the corral. You will not miss Dawn or Jake; you will
add them to the list of things you can’t figure out, tucked away into your pocket of secrets.
Certainly, you will not be allowed to smoke, but you will remember smoking, the way you could
almost feel time speed up between striking a match and inhaling, the way the smoke rolls off
your tongue. You will think of that summer as the time your real life started, think about your
old self too, see her as if she is as flat as a photograph pasted into an album, a girl who never
really wanted anything, really. That photo will almost certainly fade, like an unsent letter, like a
brochure for a summer camp that probably promised the world, tossed into the trash in
September.
Bonnie Proudfoot lives in Athens, OH. She has had fiction and poetry published in the
Gettysburg Review, Kestrel, Sheila-Na-Gig, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, SoFloPoJo,
and other journals. Her first novel, Goshen Road, was published by Swallow Press in January of 2020,
and was selected by the Women’s National Book Association for one of its Great Group Reads for 2020.
The novel was also long-listed for the 2021 PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction.
Brad Rose Boston, MA
At the Crossing
Can’t tell whether those are mountains or unexploded volcanoes. Let’s give them the benefit of
the doubt. I’m not sure what’s causing all this janky weather, but the wind’s been in hiding for so
long, I heard the swim team’s upcoming flash mob has been rescheduled until after the flood. As
soon as I can, I’m going to line up, single-file, and cut out the middle man. It’s bound to be a
once-in-a-lifetime chance to inventory the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. Of
course, during daylight savings time, nothing much happens that can’t be explained by dark
matter, so I’m thinking about changing religions and moving next door to that drive-through
tattoo parlor, you know, Squiggles, the one next to the abandoned brain bank. Besides, who can
blame me for not wanting to get behind the wheel of a school bus too soon? It was so dark and
stormy that night, and the kids were screaming so loudly, the train whistle barely woke me up in
time.
Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles, and lives in Boston.
He is the author of three collections of poetry and flash fiction, Pink X-Ray,
de/tonations, and Momentary Turbulence. Two new books of prose poems,
WordinEdgeWise and No. Wait. I Can Explain., are forthcoming, in 2022.
His website is: www.bradrosepoetry.com
Can’t tell whether those are mountains or unexploded volcanoes. Let’s give them the benefit of
the doubt. I’m not sure what’s causing all this janky weather, but the wind’s been in hiding for so
long, I heard the swim team’s upcoming flash mob has been rescheduled until after the flood. As
soon as I can, I’m going to line up, single-file, and cut out the middle man. It’s bound to be a
once-in-a-lifetime chance to inventory the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. Of
course, during daylight savings time, nothing much happens that can’t be explained by dark
matter, so I’m thinking about changing religions and moving next door to that drive-through
tattoo parlor, you know, Squiggles, the one next to the abandoned brain bank. Besides, who can
blame me for not wanting to get behind the wheel of a school bus too soon? It was so dark and
stormy that night, and the kids were screaming so loudly, the train whistle barely woke me up in
time.
Brad Rose was born and raised in Los Angeles, and lives in Boston.
He is the author of three collections of poetry and flash fiction, Pink X-Ray,
de/tonations, and Momentary Turbulence. Two new books of prose poems,
WordinEdgeWise and No. Wait. I Can Explain., are forthcoming, in 2022.
His website is: www.bradrosepoetry.com
Kathryn Silver-Hajo Providence, RI
Golden Molar
Dr. Cruikshank patted her shoulder in the patronizing way people do with the elderly, as
if she were a small child or puppy.
Hard to believe that filling held for sixty years, Mrs. Jones. Superb craftsmanship! We’ll
let the sedation work its magic. It’ll feel like your evening martini, he added with a wink. Make
the root canal a positively pleasant experience.
But Frances wasn’t thinking about martinis or sedation. She was thinking about the
sturdy crown her long-ago dentist installed that fateful year of her life, when she was just
nineteen. Now that tooth was being reopened after six decades. It almost made her want to
grab her purse—the one that devoured everything she placed in its dark interior—and bolt out
of there, but for the searing pain in her mouth.
Her father had arranged everything back then. She would marry her thirty-year-old
cousin, the one with no personality, whose parents were desperate to marry him off. There was
the shotgun wedding, a deposit on a two-bedroom apartment she’d be sharing with the
stranger who would become her husband, give her child a name, ask no questions, accept an
accounting job at her father’s company. Just three days before they’d wed, she went to the
dentist with a terrible toothache. When she inhaled the nitrous and the dentist drilled into her
tooth, she pictured the secret swirling into its depths, and when he sealed her golden molar, as
he called it, she relaxed, convinced he’d buried it deep within the tooth, forever.
Dr. Cruikshank had a point. It was a bit like her nightly cocktail—a Manhattan, thank you
very much, not a martini. Pleasant, delightful, then whoosh. Until he snapped the crown out and
she felt a pop but no pain; heard herself deep within a tunnel slurrily pleading. Stop, stop. Don’t
let it out. As she drifted away again, she heard the dentist and his nurse, Nancy, laughing, laughing,
then nothing.
Mrs. Jones? Can you hear us? Just take your time. You’ll be a little woozy for a bit and
here’s a pill for later.
Frances lay on the cot, arm flung over her eyes, remembering the long dead husband
she’d never loved, but who kept his promise to stand by her, raise her child with her. She
thought, too, of the man she’d adored, her married lover with the Errol Flynn mustache, who
flew for the Air Force, wore a fringed ivory-colored scarf, vanished when he learned she was
pregnant. What a cad he was—and what a fool was I.
Yet, lying under the bright fluorescents in the chilly, betadine-scented room, she felt that
terrible burden release—as if her ancient secret had been freed from its dark prison with that
pop! never to return. She smiled to herself, enjoying the last flirty traces of anesthesia,
remembering the tickle of that mustache on her neck, the teasing way he’d nibbled her skin
before he disappeared forever.
Kathryn Silver-Hajo’s work appears, or is forthcoming, in Atticus Review, Ruby Literary, Fictive Dream, New York Times-Tiny Love Stories, New World Writing, Flash Boulevard, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Bending Genres, Cleaver Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and others. Read Kathryn’s work at www.kathrynsilverhajo.com and follow her: https://twitter.com/KSilverHajo and www.instagram.com/kathrynsilverhajo
Dr. Cruikshank patted her shoulder in the patronizing way people do with the elderly, as
if she were a small child or puppy.
Hard to believe that filling held for sixty years, Mrs. Jones. Superb craftsmanship! We’ll
let the sedation work its magic. It’ll feel like your evening martini, he added with a wink. Make
the root canal a positively pleasant experience.
But Frances wasn’t thinking about martinis or sedation. She was thinking about the
sturdy crown her long-ago dentist installed that fateful year of her life, when she was just
nineteen. Now that tooth was being reopened after six decades. It almost made her want to
grab her purse—the one that devoured everything she placed in its dark interior—and bolt out
of there, but for the searing pain in her mouth.
Her father had arranged everything back then. She would marry her thirty-year-old
cousin, the one with no personality, whose parents were desperate to marry him off. There was
the shotgun wedding, a deposit on a two-bedroom apartment she’d be sharing with the
stranger who would become her husband, give her child a name, ask no questions, accept an
accounting job at her father’s company. Just three days before they’d wed, she went to the
dentist with a terrible toothache. When she inhaled the nitrous and the dentist drilled into her
tooth, she pictured the secret swirling into its depths, and when he sealed her golden molar, as
he called it, she relaxed, convinced he’d buried it deep within the tooth, forever.
Dr. Cruikshank had a point. It was a bit like her nightly cocktail—a Manhattan, thank you
very much, not a martini. Pleasant, delightful, then whoosh. Until he snapped the crown out and
she felt a pop but no pain; heard herself deep within a tunnel slurrily pleading. Stop, stop. Don’t
let it out. As she drifted away again, she heard the dentist and his nurse, Nancy, laughing, laughing,
then nothing.
Mrs. Jones? Can you hear us? Just take your time. You’ll be a little woozy for a bit and
here’s a pill for later.
Frances lay on the cot, arm flung over her eyes, remembering the long dead husband
she’d never loved, but who kept his promise to stand by her, raise her child with her. She
thought, too, of the man she’d adored, her married lover with the Errol Flynn mustache, who
flew for the Air Force, wore a fringed ivory-colored scarf, vanished when he learned she was
pregnant. What a cad he was—and what a fool was I.
Yet, lying under the bright fluorescents in the chilly, betadine-scented room, she felt that
terrible burden release—as if her ancient secret had been freed from its dark prison with that
pop! never to return. She smiled to herself, enjoying the last flirty traces of anesthesia,
remembering the tickle of that mustache on her neck, the teasing way he’d nibbled her skin
before he disappeared forever.
Kathryn Silver-Hajo’s work appears, or is forthcoming, in Atticus Review, Ruby Literary, Fictive Dream, New York Times-Tiny Love Stories, New World Writing, Flash Boulevard, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Bending Genres, Cleaver Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and others. Read Kathryn’s work at www.kathrynsilverhajo.com and follow her: https://twitter.com/KSilverHajo and www.instagram.com/kathrynsilverhajo
Joanna Theiss Washington, DC
On This Day in History
On this day in 1881, the physiologist Ivan Pavlov married Seraphima Vasilievna Karchevskaya.
Pavlov would later use a dog and a bell to prove that animals can’t control themselves.
On this day in 1893, widespread financial panic seized the United States. There were
many causes, but one was the government’s bad beat on the gold standard.
On this day in 1956, Needles won the Kentucky Derby. He came into the race as a
favorite but he fell back early, beating second-place Fabius by a single horse length.
On this day in 1999, the Cincinnati Reds hosted the Arizona Diamondbacks. Always bet
on the home team, he said, squeezing my leg against the cool plastic stadium seat, tugging the
five dollar bill Mom gave me out of my fist. Don’t be afraid to take a chance, he said. Have faith,
he said, and you can’t lose. The Diamondbacks beat the Reds, five to one.
On this day in 2001, he swore that Invisible Ink would win it all. Despite long odds, he
believed in the horse, which had nearly died as a colt only to put up strong showings at both the
Florida Derby and the Blue Grass Stakes. When Invisible Ink came in second, Dad held his head
in his hands and keened as Mom barked, how much, how much, how much did you lose? (He
lost $19,578).
On this day in 2003, Chance and I took the bus to Ashland without Mom. Chance’s Pez
dispenser clunked against the back of the trashcan after the guard took it from him. Security risk,
the guard said.
On this day in 2007, my best friend and I wore cheap purple rayon gowns and peeked
around the curtain at the audience. High school graduation only happens once, she said. I bet
he’ll come.
On this day in 2013, I drove out to his new apartment in Jeffersonville. I shouted his
name. I banged on his window, setting off a snarl of growls from his collection of strays, but he
did not come.
On this day in 2018, his third wife called me. He’s been asking for you, she said. He
knows he’s made mistakes and he wants to see you. Come today, can you? I think it could be any
time now.
On this day in 2018, I bet against her because he taught me not to trust other people’s
guesses. I bet on him, the underdog, the invisible ink message in a busted book that murmurs, I
can’t lose. I bet on him to outrun the wives and the mutts and me. He’ll pull out of it, I told her.
I’ll see him around.
On this day, Errol’s Dry Cleaning played Mammoth Car Wash. During the second game
of the drawn-out double header, he squinted at the bench where his grandson dragged a toe
through the sand and asked me if I thought the boy was getting enough time at bat.
On this day, the game ended in a tie.
Joanna Theiss (she/her) is a lawyer turned writer living in Washington, DC. Her publication
credits include articles in literary and academic journals, and popular magazines, and her microfiction
won Best Microfiction 2022. Her website (www.joannatheiss.com) features links to short stories, flash fiction,
book reviews, and interesting collages. Twitter: @JoannaVTheiss
On this day in 1881, the physiologist Ivan Pavlov married Seraphima Vasilievna Karchevskaya.
Pavlov would later use a dog and a bell to prove that animals can’t control themselves.
On this day in 1893, widespread financial panic seized the United States. There were
many causes, but one was the government’s bad beat on the gold standard.
On this day in 1956, Needles won the Kentucky Derby. He came into the race as a
favorite but he fell back early, beating second-place Fabius by a single horse length.
On this day in 1999, the Cincinnati Reds hosted the Arizona Diamondbacks. Always bet
on the home team, he said, squeezing my leg against the cool plastic stadium seat, tugging the
five dollar bill Mom gave me out of my fist. Don’t be afraid to take a chance, he said. Have faith,
he said, and you can’t lose. The Diamondbacks beat the Reds, five to one.
On this day in 2001, he swore that Invisible Ink would win it all. Despite long odds, he
believed in the horse, which had nearly died as a colt only to put up strong showings at both the
Florida Derby and the Blue Grass Stakes. When Invisible Ink came in second, Dad held his head
in his hands and keened as Mom barked, how much, how much, how much did you lose? (He
lost $19,578).
On this day in 2003, Chance and I took the bus to Ashland without Mom. Chance’s Pez
dispenser clunked against the back of the trashcan after the guard took it from him. Security risk,
the guard said.
On this day in 2007, my best friend and I wore cheap purple rayon gowns and peeked
around the curtain at the audience. High school graduation only happens once, she said. I bet
he’ll come.
On this day in 2013, I drove out to his new apartment in Jeffersonville. I shouted his
name. I banged on his window, setting off a snarl of growls from his collection of strays, but he
did not come.
On this day in 2018, his third wife called me. He’s been asking for you, she said. He
knows he’s made mistakes and he wants to see you. Come today, can you? I think it could be any
time now.
On this day in 2018, I bet against her because he taught me not to trust other people’s
guesses. I bet on him, the underdog, the invisible ink message in a busted book that murmurs, I
can’t lose. I bet on him to outrun the wives and the mutts and me. He’ll pull out of it, I told her.
I’ll see him around.
On this day, Errol’s Dry Cleaning played Mammoth Car Wash. During the second game
of the drawn-out double header, he squinted at the bench where his grandson dragged a toe
through the sand and asked me if I thought the boy was getting enough time at bat.
On this day, the game ended in a tie.
Joanna Theiss (she/her) is a lawyer turned writer living in Washington, DC. Her publication
credits include articles in literary and academic journals, and popular magazines, and her microfiction
won Best Microfiction 2022. Her website (www.joannatheiss.com) features links to short stories, flash fiction,
book reviews, and interesting collages. Twitter: @JoannaVTheiss