A Prose Poem by Anne R. Gibbons

Were they desirable because they were forbidden? Had they been
freely offered would we have turned away with a shrug? No thanks.
We’ll use the ones from the kitchen.

For a certainty the others—in bedroom, kitchen, study; the ones we
could use without fear of reprisal—they held no allure. The forbidden
pair tempted us from where they dwelt inside the satin-lined basket
with other accoutrements for patching and darning, hemming,
mending, and dressmaking.

The sewing scissors were not for cutting pictures out of McCall’s or
making colorful chains from construction paper. They were not to be
plied on paper napkins folded and refolded and refolded again into a
multilayer rectangle that my brother transformed into starbursts and
doilies, snowflakes and birds on the wing. They were not to be used
for curling ribbon on packages or trimming hair.

They were to be used for cutting cloth. That was all. Period. End of
discussion. The sewing scissors were for sewing projects. Fabric was
their medium and they were to have no truck with anything except
cloth. We had been admonished and scolded and fussed at more than
once about misuse of the sewing scissors.

Other scissors were not taboo. No objection was raised when they
were pressed into service. Scissors from bedroom, study, and kitchen
were fair game. We knew the rules.

But the sewing scissors beckoned. They crooned in their siren’s voice:
we’re right here . . . so close . . . reach out your hand . . . you only
want to trim one paper crown . . . just one crown . . .

Sometimes we succumbed to their blandishments.

Anne R. Gibbons grew up in the Deep South in an atypical southern family—they did not drink iced tea. Neither sweet nor unsweet. Adults drank coffee, children drank milk. Anne now lives in Vero Beach, Fla., with her husband, Bill Fitts, and their two cats, Amos and Luna. She still doesn’t drink iced tea.

A Flash Fiction by Kate MacDonald

Is there a place somewhere for me, a cosy cave, complete with soft furnishings and WiFI? There are deadlines to meet. I also need quiet to concentrate. Unfortunately, at this moment, every nerve ending in my body is vibrating. The cacophony made by my three children echoes through my skull.

The tenth circle of hell is reserved for writers, awaiting readers. Therefore, the dichotomy of a writer’s existence is the need for solitude to write, the desire for an audience to exist.

All true, but as a working mother, life intrudes, interjects, influences. If some considered hell to be on earth, I knew where that tenth circle was.

There was not so much a lightbulb moment, more the slight flicker from a guttering candle. My Celtic heritage might be of some use here. I was the keeper of our family ephemera, going back generations.

Great-great-grandma Harraughty had earned the soubriquet of Wise Woman. I knew there was a tattered book of her’s, in the obligatory battered old tin trunk, in the attic. Among the dust motes and the cobwebs, there it stood, as I remembered it. At the bottom, I found the aptly named “Book of Shadows.” Back in my study, I riffled through the pages. I was amazed to find this passage;

Take a tallow candle.
To harness time, etch “one minute= one hour” down the length of the candle.
Light the candle. Chant:
“While fully conscious mine eyes shall see, a portal open up for me.
I summon the space that I desire, to come to me for just one hour.”

I am sure there will be questions. For example, did it work? All I can say is, I have written four books in two weeks.

Kate MacDonald is a retired septuagenarian insomniac. She dabbles in buying junk and selling “Antiques” online, but writing has become her quiet passion. So suitable to help fill the still dark hours. Kate has only returned to writing in the past year or so. Kate has had five poems published in Stardust Review. She has also had two short stories published, one in Stardust Review, the other in Nonsensically Challenged. A poem, “Surprised” has just been published by High Shelf Press, volume XXIII. WinglessDreamer printed Dark Danger and Different Drum. A Tanka “Languid” was published by Spillwords Press.

A Flash Fiction by Jeff Harvey

With his toothy smile and black hair, Robbie reminded me of Donny Osmond. On Labor Day weekend his mom found him in a shed with their preacher and kicked him out, but she continued attending the same church. My mom let him stay with us until graduation. He slept on an air mattress in my room and always wore a red Speedo. I listened to him for hours insisting President Nixon worked for the Chinese government.

On New Year’s Eve, we hung out alone at my church rec hall playing ping-pong and chugging wine I’d stolen from my dad. Robbie asked if I would ever get married. I told him no because I preferred men. He threw the paddle at me and called me queer.

That spring Robbie started speaking with me again. He’d met the director of a local theatre group and was using expressions like drag queen, fag hag, and what a dump. I wanted to be his friend, but he scared me when he talked about the voices. At the end of May, we graduated and went to another kid’s party. After smoking weed, he jumped off this kid’s roof in an attempt to fight the man. I felt relieved when Robbie moved to live with his dad in Ohio.

Jeff Harvey lives in San Diego. His fiction has recently appeared in MoonPark Review and Potato Soup Journal. Find him on Twitter @JeffHarveySD.

A Flash Fiction by Ben Wrixon

Relationships are like milk. 

My friend told me before my first date with Her. We were drinking at the bar as part of our regular pre-game routine. I fell asleep confused after stumbling home, but woke up feeling stupid. Generations of dysfunctional men have passed down that metaphor to warn each other about being attached to something (or someone) that might curdle. 

Exhibit A: my parent’s marriage. 

Too different and married much too young to work through those differences together, they convinced themselves that changing for someone was self-betrayal, not unlike most people in their mid-twenties. Nonetheless, I’ve always been thankful they ended before I grew out of my diapers. I’m lucky to not have lived my childhood through their fights. Sometimes I wonder whether their flame could be rekindled, but I know the stubborn calluses that drove them apart have only hardened with time. Sometimes broken is better. 

Their split has become my greatest teacher. 

I first met Her in a sweaty t-shirt with shaking heads. When she smiled at me, I looked over my shoulder, figuring she’d seen someone better. Despite all my worries, the thought of Her in my life excited me. Her giggly laugh made me laugh, too. Her ornate jewelry commanded my attention. Our conversation almost sucked me in enough to forget, yet I walked home with hardwired skepticism. My errors weren’t reprogrammable.

Relationships are temporary, but children of divorce are forever. 

---

Now we’ve been dating for two years. 

Life is different than before we started. Sometimes I still go out with the guys, but our wallets are empty, and we’re all busier with school work. Catching up with them (when it does happen) is admittedly fun, though spending time with Her still beats walking home drunk and cold and contemplating my existence. It’s all simpler now. 

My parents remarried—to different people, of course. 

I have my doubts, but I’m happy for them. Seeing my dad settle down after fifteen years of playing girlfriend roulette gives me hope. She’s nice. My mother has only dated selectively since their messy divorce, so I’m relieved she’s found someone suitable. He’s nice, too. They all deserve someone to hold onto during their loneliest nights. 

I might have stopped hoping, but I still wonder. 

Sometimes I also wonder about Her and me. We’ve spent a couple birthdays and Christmases together, even done a little vacation. I almost had enough fun to trick myself into thinking life won’t drive a stake between us. That doubt is usually buried below my intestines, but on the worst days, it’s in my esophagus like a sore throat. I feel it most when we’re just coasting through our attached life on borrowed time. 

Sometimes I miss being alone. 

Being single was less stressful. I felt more at peace when our emotions weren’t intertwined. Love is intoxicating; Her unrelenting needs and desires consume my fragile psyche. She says she loves me for who I am, but I haven’t been myself in two years. 

Will she ever know me? 

Maybe. We could be meant to last. 

The first time that thought wormed into my brain, Her and I were curled up on the couch watching a TV show. For whatever reason, everything finally made sense to me after living a lifetime of confusion. While it wouldn’t be easy, I realized I could put my fears aside to believe in forever with Her. Us. But like all things, our moment expired.

My stomach churned when I kissed her cheek. 

Ben Wrixon is an emerging Canadian writer whose work was first recognized by the Stephen Leacock association. He studies psychology at Queen’s University. When Ben isn’t writing, he’s most likely playing guitar and cheering on his favourite sports Toronto-based sports teams.

A Flash Fiction by Kristen DiLandro

“All of this time you have been living your life like a Taurus.”

Rita, the astrologer shook her head at me from the 12 x 10-inch rectangle that connected to the keyboard resting on my lap. I first noticed her shiny, light hair, then her flawless skin with her ruddy cheeks. But the view through her window out across the San Francisco Bay stole my attention. The bright California sun lit up her office. Depending on how she turned, the backlighting made Rita look like an illuminated silhouette. The sun’s golden rays surrounded her like an angel. She looked like she wore a glowing halo. Then when she turned to the opposite side, her delicate features morphed into an unsettling mix of shadows. 

“You’ve got so much Gemini in your chart. Mercury is vibrating next to your sun and you have this fascinating duality that makes it hard to be you, doesn’t it?”

Our mutual friend, Pia, paid for my reading. Pia’s a conceptual artist who has too much Air in her chart. She needs some Earth. Taurus is an Earth sign. Taurus gets things done, does things well. Pia and I discussed working together in a creative capacity. Rita is sure that Pia and I are “karmically connected.”

She keeps asking questions which help explain planets, houses and suns or moons. I want to answer correctly. I want to do everything right.

“What a fraud?” is the phrase that flashes through my mind. I question how I ever made it this far in life. I have been living as a Taurus and my spirit has to manifest into its entire Taurus self over the course of my life. I have been doing this all wrong. All of my compulsive monthly check-ins with the Susan Miller Astrology Zone website, all of the Buzzfeed Quizzes about who my 1970’s folk rock persona would have been–based on my astrological sign, all of the outfit of the day quizzes on Refinery 29, all of it; I’d been living a lie. I’d been wearing tomboy chic as a Taurus when my life as a Gemini called for tunic glam.

I have so much Gemini in my chart that I’m basically composed from the same cosmic dust as Kanye West or Angelina Jolie. This leaves me befuddled. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler comprise the triad of “prominent Taurus” personalities according to Google. So many obvious differences set the world’s Wests and Jolies apart from its “The Rocks,” Feys and Poehlers that listing them all seems like a waste of time for all of us.  Just imagine my surprise; I had spent my entire life believing I was an Amy. Now, March 20^th, 2021, I learned that I was actually an Angelina! No wonder I’ve wandered through this life in a haze.

Rita tilts her head, furrows her brows, and places her hand over her heart when she nods empathetically at me.  

“It’s a lot. You are a walking contradiction. People don’t understand you.”

I love this woman. Rita unknowingly validated my romantic notion of self as an impossible loner. I remember the emotional outbursts of my adolescence. Stomping my feet, slamming doors, and declaratively shouting, “You just don’t understand me!” Now, I get it. How could anyone have understood me when I didn’t even understand myself?

“Totally!” I nod back, “that is totally my truth,”

I know. You have these forces working together and against one another. It’s like pushing down two keys next to each other on a piano,” she starts, “yeah, they’re together but they aren’t compatible when you strike down on them at the same time.”

“I feel that.”

We don’t proceed with a “where will I go from here?” conversation. But I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by the new life I’m going to live.

“From now on,” I tell myself, “You have to read the Taurus AND the Gemini horoscopes!” I wag a mental finger at my brain.

Rita has gifted me a new lease on life. I secretly hope that with each new month of astrological due diligence I’ll be struck sexier since being a funny girl is a Taurus thing. Starting all over again as a Gemini sounds like swapping out an old fragrance for an exciting new perfume.

Rita and I go back to talking about how amazing Pia is before blowing each other kisses and hitting “leave meeting.” I have two sets of feelings after our session ends. First, I feel grateful for the new cosmic insights. Second, a yearning to change everything in my life overwhelms me: my wardrobe, my hair, my ideas about myself, all of it must go NOW. Then I sit and think.

“What a fraud?” How did I ever make it this far in life?

Kristen DiLandro goes by Kiki; and while she feels like her life is lived primarily in the realm of the internet, her San Francisco rent reminds her she is actually sleeping under a California sky. Her most recent work was published by New Feathers Anthology. She writes a newsletter called “Aspiring to hate you less.” Kiki is working toward an MFA in Creative Writing at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

A Flash Fiction by Nicholas E. Timm

My arm bled. It wasn’t the only injury I had, but it was the worst.

Somehow, Elroy had caught me – He’d found me after all these years of running and hiding – the chase was over and I’d lost the race.

It was because I’d stopped. I’d felt safe, at home, at ease with life for the first time since I’d escaped his pallid grasp a decade ago.

Now, too late, I realized I hadn’t escaped – he’d let me go, and my whole life had been a game to him. He the cat and I the mouse.

Hiding in the shadows of the room I’d barged into, my heart hammered in my chest, bouncing painfully off my ribs. Old, tattered plastic sheets billowed in from gaping windows, hungry mouths for the night. The sheets snapped against the few tacks still holding them in place – teeth gnashing.

Moonlight echoed in, a fragment of light from the all new chrome and glass building opposite of this derelict three story Brownstone bound for demolition.

If I died here they wouldn’t find my body. The building which rose in its place would be my tombstone and the earth below a forgotten grave.

A cackle came from the bottom floor and I knew it belonged to Elroy. It was the same way he’d found me in my parents home as a child.

It was our fault. We’d called him.

We’d been playing a stupid game, like Bloody Mary, but real. All too real. My four friends had found that out before me – gone missing one by one, until I was all that was left from that midnight congress in the cold.

The blood dripped from the deep wound on my arm despite the pressure I kept on it. Each drop added to the growing puddle on the cracked wooden floor, contained on the edges by hardening scabs formed from decade of dust and rat droppings left in this sealed room.

A stair creaked between the first and second floor and I inhaled. Each breath wasn’t enough. They couldn’t feed the fear which sapped my muscles – My knees shook, my thighs were weak and all over I felt as if I would collapse.

Elroy.

“Doodle, dee doodle, who’ll win the prize?” The rhyme went, “Doodle, dee doodle who’s telling lies?”

A bottle spun and we five sat evenly spaced around it, too young to know what game we looked to be playing.

“Doodle, dee dee, the prize for me?” We chanted as one. Ellie, Vic, Mariah, Keller and myself, all around twelve years old.

The bottle landed on Ellie first, and she’d squealed in terror and delight.

She’d been the first to go, not a week later.

They’d found her bloody nightshirt in the river, down by the hobo camp. The cops had carted one off and blamed him – but we four knew. The old, crazed man hadn’t done it, even though he screamed about a bloody figure in the dark.

No, he hadn’t done it.

The bottle landed on Mariah next, she was older, more refined, and had simply sighed and rolled her eyes. She spun the bottle again without pause. She hadn’t believed.

Her parents found her eyes in the milk jug, staring up as if alive, coloring the milk a pale strawberry. They never found the rest of her.

Keller and Vic went next – they fought. They were smart and strong and they’d seen what happened to the two girls, or at least they’d seen what was left. Fear fueled them and they tried to recruit me, but I balked. I hid.

It was just a coincidence I thought, a horrible, terrible coincidence… But, it was cowardice talking. I knew Elroy was real, but I was too afraid to do anything about him.

A sickly, sweet sigh came from the second floor and my eyes ran wide and terrified to the stair case which turned out not ten feet from me. There was no banister around the top – it had fallen into the stairs years before, and I’d been careful to leave it in such a way as to block the steps.

I knew it wouldn’t work. Elroy walked through walls.

“Doodle, Dee Doodle,” Came the sickly sweet voice, “Doodle, Dee Doodle, who runs from me?”

The voice was high-pitched, whining and dry. It was the voice of the grave, and of a long-promised fate.

“Doodle, Dee Doodle, Who’s hiding from me?”

I shivered and pulled back into the corner.

When the cops found what was left of the Vic and Keller they’d said both had been alive until the end. I wondered if the girls suffered the same.

I wondered if I would suffer the same.

Some small part of me, the part caked in guilt, hoped that I did. I deserved it after all.

The bottom stair creaked as Elroy’s thin, sharp foot put pressure on it.

The sound resonated through the floor and the pool of blood under my fingertips jiggled like red gelatin.

The next step eked out it’s rusted melody, and the next, and the next and the next in quick succession.

My heart hammered in my chest as Elroy came to where I knew the fallen banister lay.

The obstacle gave him only a seconds pause before the steps sang again.

I backed into the corner, my arm aching from the deep slash. I willed myself to vanish, praying to whatever god was listening that Elroy wouldn’t see me, couldn’t see me.

But, as his corn yellow head of hair burst from the stairwell and the jaundiced eyes followed, rotating towards me though it was too dark to see, I knew I was done.

His slash of a mouth split open revealing cracked, rotted teeth – Or maybe they were scabbed over with blood?

Enough had been spilled. Why not?

“Doodle, dee doodle, Elroy found his prey.”

“Doodle, dee doodle, it’s time to play.”  

Nicholas E. Timm is an Native American graduate of The Evergreen State College in Washington State and is currently a Masters student at The University of Washington. At The Evergreen State College he earned a BS in Business Science with a minor in Statistical Analysis. He serves as a Staff Sergeant in the United States Air Force and flies on C-17A aircraft.                 

A Flash Fiction by Abby Asmuth

At the sound of her third alarm – which she put across the room so she had to get up to turn it off – Cassidy Forrester finally rolled out of bed. Groggily, she trudged across her bedroom and slapped the alarm off. Once the noise had stopped, a little voice tempted her back to bed. But today, she knew she couldn’t do that; she had to be up and alert. She switched on her light for good measure, and her frustrated eyes blinked to adjust to the brightness.

“You ready for today, honey?” Mrs. Forrester said as Cassidy entered the kitchen. “I’m sure you’re nervous, but I know you’ll make National Merit. You know how much you need that scholarship.”

Cassidy was tempted to roll her eyes; why did her mom have to make this such a thing? She was nervous enough all ready. “Thanks,” she mumbled instead. Cassidy grabbed a bagel and sat down at the kitchen island, scrolling through her phone. Her mom had the news on in the background and Cassidy half listened to the stories. Republicans and Democrats refuse to compromise. Devastating car accident on Main Street. Celebrity X overdoses. Why her mom watched the news, Cassidy had no idea. They always aired the most sensationalist, tragic stories.

“I’m headed out,” Cassidy said, leaving the room before her mom could pressure her more. She got into her car and chose some Indie artist – something that she hoped would be calming. Left turn, right turn, red light. The lyrics were drowned out by the thoughts and fears swirling through her head. What if she didn’t get National Merit? Right turn. How disappointed would her parents be? Signal left. And she would be so disappointed in herself. Green light.

Cassidy moved forward, mind distracted with thoughts of a test, one little test. So distracted she didn’t notice the car with the right away going straight – straight into her.

Cassidy’s whole body shook with the impact. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The last thing she heard was an alarm, a siren. Everything went black.

A Flash Fiction by Julie Benesh

Publish or perish. Last year, quarantining, should have been the perfect time to work on my research and avoid the fate of the Permanent Visitor. But working at home during quarantine, I got so anxious and distracted, everything blurring into mush. Sometimes you have to …get away. Business people decided the word “retreat,” describing a corporate junket, sounded cowardly, briefly relabeling them “advances,” betraying gender bias and, ultimately, #MeToo connotations. But, I’m a woman and a professor of business psychology, specialization in Jungian organizational interventions. I know my yin and yang. So, after the blessed vaccine percolated through my body the requisite amount of time, I flew to my favorite Santa Barbara resort– retreating, if you will, to advance my research and hopefully maintain my employment.

I stayed in my favorite oceanfront room, and I was getting my mojo back, until my third day there. I was awakened from a restorative sleep by a knock at my door, where, inexplicably, stood my mom, my dad, and a man resembling character actor J.K. Simmons. I figured he was either my mom’s latest boyfriend and/or my dad’s personal trainer/life coach because Dad looked fit and fab, like he lived in Santa Barbara himself. He had a classic tennis cardigan, sleeves knotted over an anchor-patterned polo shirt, and slender cut taupe pants discreetly hugging his toned glutes and legs. The only familiar item part of his ensemble was the deck shoes, which looked entirely different without their usual Iowa Hawkeye hoodie and stained sweatpant teammates.

Out of habit and an abundance of caution, we all refrained from hugging or handshakes.

“We didn’t want to just call you up. We wanted to tell you in person,” my mother was saying, her tone apologetic, as ever. My nose itched, and I felt queasy. Was my mother engaged to J.K. Simmons, and, if so, what did my dad have to do with it? They’d been apart for more than a decade.

I remembered how my mother cried when she saw Dad’s black and white retirement party pictures. He was only 59 at the time but, in the pictures, he looked 75, with deep lines and shadows. “That photographer was too good,” he had said. In retrospect, his retirement was the beginning of the end. They drifted apart, separated, and eventually divorced.

Now I looked at my dad, and he smiled reassuringly. That’s when I noticed his teeth, all in place like in his old portrait in his officer uniform, before the painful army dental work and subsequent dentistry phobia and alcohol anesthesia whose vicious cycle left him toothless. I ran my tongue over my own teeth—I had them cleaned and whitened four times a year.

“Are you a dentist?” I asked J.K.Simmons, and he frowned in response.

“He’s a grief counselor from the insurance,” said my mom. “He’s here to help us say goodbye to your dad.” Her voice got lower. “He passed away yesterday.”

Oh, god. Every time I saw my dad, I knew it could be the last. So hearing he had died was not as shocking as seeing him all tricked out in my room, despite it being so much sadder.

“That’s so nice…” I began “…I mean, so nice of you to come all this way to tell me. But I don’t quite understand how Dad can be here and…there… at the same time.”  My voice caught on the “there” and I could feel a welling behind my eyes and in my chest.

My best friend had a thing for angels—she collected them. Beautiful as he was, Dad didn’t look like one; no wings or flowing hair or musical instruments. I didn’t say the word “ghost” but it also hovered in the air like, well…you know. And I’d read about bardos, those Buddhist afterlife jails, and I wondered if my dad were in one, trying to move on, and, if so, were the rest of us even for real, or just cosmic props? I pinched my arm and it reddened and hurt, but I didn’t wake.

Dad ran his hand over his silver mane and my mother gazed at him, glared at JK and glanced toward me. He was too solid to be a hologram, then I remembered the documentary about the Japanese customer service robots and it struck me as the only thing that made any sense at all. Dad 2.0, as memento.

Everything had been so crazy the past year, and mostly crazy-bad, but within the crazy-badness had been, hints of progress, of betterment, renewal. Techno-fixes.

“Can I…umm…keep him?”

J.K. Simmons, suddenly seeming utterly miscast as a grief counselor, pursed his lips just like they always pay him to do, and said, “Do you really have that kind of plastic to burn through?”

I imagined acrid, toxic smoke, then realized that he meant money, like he had flubbed his lines which probably read “dough” or “coin,” or he was improvising, trying to twist a cliché into a fresh metaphor, (though why not “Bitcoin”?) and that Android Dad (Andrad?) was a demo, like a free sample test-drive, and J.K. deploying the reverse psychology of the neg. My promotion, once I got it, would net me a 7% increase–my dad had always lauded my ambition, saying all he ever tried to do was get by– but I sensed even that might yet be insufficient.

Reaching for my phone, I realized its camera could never do this moment justice, and a more advanced app for recording would no doubt be proprietary. I set it down.

Perhaps I could rely on my own mind to remember him this way, new and improved, or perhaps merely restored, the exact way he was meant to have been all along.

Or not.

Probably not; none of the above.

I supposed I would have to manage to live with that, too.

An alum of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers, Julie Benesh is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Grant. Her writing can be found in Bestial Noise: A Tin House Fiction Reader, Tin House Magazine (print), Crab Orchard Review, Florida Review, Gulf Stream, Cleaver, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, New World Writing, and many other places and is forthcoming in Hobart and Drunk Monkeys.

A Flash Fiction by Ronald McGuire

I looked up from my book, then looked again after a pause, and that’s when I saw him walking down the sidewalk. I turned back to my book, hiding shame from some unknown witness.

Yes, I felt ashamed to want him. But it was more than that. I felt ashamed even to see him or, I suppose, to be caught looking at him.

His schedule had become irregular and tortuous, twisting me into knots as I tried to time my reading with his arrival. I often spent extra hours on the hard, stone steps that rose to my family’s brownstone, trying to focus and not focus on whatever book I pretended to read.

Yet there I sat, day after day, waiting.

He was not entirely handsome, yet somehow he appealed to my most entrenched desires. Not terribly tall, but tall enough. Not slender or slight, but built just so, somewhere between beautiful and frightening. Athletic, to be sure, but a bit grotesque with his cauliflower ears.

I imagined him walking to me, not by me. In my mind, he saw me as I saw him. Not in exactly the same way, given my condition, but in the moment. Seeing each other, his movement, my stillness.

That day, he did see me. He looked right at me.

He stopped where I sat atop the rampart of my family fortress. Perhaps I only imagined the rays of sunlight splashing around his shoulders, reflecting a black sheen off his glossy cropped hair. If I did, it was a sweet dream of a moment. If I did not, then it was a glorious thing to know.

His eyes were darker than I expected and, when he smiled, my inner world shattered. He looked up and said, “You’re Tommy’s little brother, right?”

I’d spent innumerable hours imagining our first conversation, playing out in my mind how it might happen, how I would impress and enthrall him with my genius, my erudite wit. When the time came, all I could say was, “Yeah, he’s my brother. He’s a jerk.”

I cringed at my utter failure, knew all my dreams had just been ruined, felt my soul caving into nothing, blood rushed to my face and I was about to bolt into the refuge of our castle until he said, “Yep, that’s Tommy alright,” a smile filled with knowing writ large across his face.

“So,” he went on, “watch ya doin?”

I held up my book, Moby Dick, for him to see.

“Oh, yeah, guess I shoulda known, book in ya hand an all,” and now he was blushing.

In that moment, everything changed, a little. The universe shifted to one direction just a fraction of an inch and I knew he was just like me. Nervous and hopeful and wanting.

“Where ya goin?” I asked, as if I didn’t know.

“I’m goin for a swim, down at L Street, wanna come with?”

“What,” I say to give my heart a chance to slow, “you got a membership down there?”

“Well yeah, my pops does. I wouldn’t be goin if I didn’t,” he tells me and I feel my face burn again.

“Cm’on,” he says, “I get to bring a pal anytime, whatdya say?”

Faced with the realization of a dream come true, I had to acknowledge one simple truth, “I don’t have no suit.”

“Don’t need one down L Street, it’s all fellas, everybody goes skinny.”

I set free my desire so it could crush my fear and said, with the casual effect of someone caught stealing, “Okay, sure.”

“Let’s go then buddy, the free sodas ain’t gonna last long so we gotta get a move on.”

He swept one arm out southward toward the water and I stood, leaving my book on the stoop, fluttering in the breeze. I stepped down and rejoiced to find that we were almost the same height, me just a tad shorter.

He threw his arm across my shoulders bringing heaven down upon me and we walked south together as he told me all about the L Street Swimming club and how we’ll have so much fun and the sodas are free and I am already there before we reach the next block.

It was early summer, and my life had just begun.

Ronald McGuire is a novelist, poet, scriptwriter and journalist. His work has appeared in Catalyst Magazine (Athens, GA), Flash Fiction Magazine (April 2, 2021), and on CNN.com. Ronald holds degrees in Comparative Literature and in Journalism from the University of Georgia. In previous lives he was a bartender, bookstore owner, and inventor.

A Flash Fiction by Chiara Vascotto

“So, this boyfriend of yours…is he tall? Because…”.

“I know, grandad, altezza mezza bellezza”.

‘Height is beauty’ is one of grandad’s quirky mantras. He insists it’s a proverb, but I only ever heard it from him.

A year later, and I am at his funeral. He never got to meet my tall boyfriend, or to learn about the baby that was, and then wasn’t. The emptiness I feel is endless. Grandad lies in his good suit, his Partisan scarf carefully arranged round his neck.

In comes my father and, hooked on his arm, his wife. She’s clad in black lace, sobbing. A poor man’s Sofia Loren, who hardly knew him.  I look at what remains of this tall tribe, and I see no beauty, only loss.

Grandad’s last act of defiance was to dodge the religious rite; but there is no escaping the cemetery.

The pallbearers’ step on the gravel, their sombre rhythm suddenly halting. A ripple of hushed whispers and gasps: “it won’t fit”. If the casket had been made to measure, the hearse could not. Grandad will stand out, to the very end.

The men shuffle tentatively. They tilt, they crouch, their faces battling exertion and the need for composure. Trial, and error. Trial, and error. One more nudge, and the boot finally closes.

“He would have found it hilarious”, I want to say to dad, when he mumbles: “I’ll have the same problem, me”.

Altezza mezza bellezza. And a whole lot of trouble. 

Chiara Vascotto works in brand development and consumer research, and has a strong interest in creative writing. She hails from Italy, is a life-long student of dance and lives in London.

A Flash Fiction by Olag Motobuchi

“Uh, ‘scuse me. Mr. Donkey-Dick?” Tony blurts, “the giant cock section’s back here.” He grins.

His voice blows a melody into Darrel’s ears, even beyond the choir of moaning TVs. Darrel jolts his head around. “T-Tony?”

“Ohhhh! Look who actually remembers me.”

Darrel raises his voice. “Wow. Tony? Quinones? Course, I remember. Weird running into you now. And of all places…”

“Can you stand how fucking cute we are? I’m not even sure how this trash-can of a bookstore is still open. Essential business, my ass.”

“Yeah…Doesn’t all this remind you of the nineties a little? All the paranoia? The cruising? The seediness?”

“Leave it to the gays, right? We’ll find a hole in any system.”

“Guess so. It’s good to see you. You know, I was thinking of you the other—”

“Ha! Aww… Good one, Darrel. How is what’s-his-name? Ky-Kyle?”

“Kye.”

“Oh, right. Not Kyle. Kye. How’s Kye?”

“Ya know, we’re…we’re good. We’re actually…pretty great! We just, uh, moved uptown? It’s…nice.”

“Niiice. Sure sounds like it. He here with you?” Tony reduces to a whisper. “Should I go scare him too?”

“No…he’s…not here.”

“Oh. Huh.”

Groups of men on TV compete for the most dramatic exclamations of pleasure. A rupture of whimpers accompanies a rapid clapping. For a second, it sounds like an applause.

Thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap! Squiiiiish.

Darrel starts again. “So, uh…” On the nearest monitor, a droplet of perspiration slides down a yelping face. Darrel hardly notices, but he breaks a sweat of his own while Tony watches.

“What is it?” Tony asks, sensing Darrel’s struggling words.

“So,” he clears his throat a little. “You um…you still riding?”

“Pfffffft. Nah, man. Didn’t you hear?” Tony rubs his chin with curled knuckles. “My sis sold my Kawasaki to cover the hospital bills.”

“Oh, right. Sorry… Didn’t mean to…bring that up. I’m sorry.”

“Fuck, you know I didn’t mean it like—“

“You know how much guilt I had to climb out of, Tony? How much time I spent? Years. A decade! I dunno!? Maybe it’s been worth it. God, I fucking hope so.”

“Ch’yeah. Well, I get to live forever as Ricki Riley. Shit. Couldn’t I’ve picked another name? ‘Ricki Riley,’ they’re always saying. ‘Remember him?’ Well…The real me? I, like, never existed. Tony Quinones died a long, long time ago. And you. You coulda said, ‘adiós,’ Darrel…”

“Tony. I don’t know what to—” The air sucks the heat right out of Darrel’s cheeks.

The two hang back while a single TV bursts with a falsetto. Some limit is reached during a percussion of drenched slapping.

Slap slap slap. Slap slap.

“Yeah. Well. Parts of that movie are worth remembering. Right, Darrel? Goddamn. How can I forget how much you and that bike destroyed my back. Cheesh!” Tony smirks, squeezing his lips into a simper.

“Haaaaaaah. Ya know, there was a point where I told everyone I’d just tattoo Crotch Rocket 3 on my face.”

“Right? Who knew you’d catch that many eyes, Darrel. If you ask me, I think it’s that big, old bush you got. Ya fucker. Then you had to get all popular and run away to New York. Right when the gay cancer found—”

“Listen. We were young. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

A moment passes. Tony speaks up. “What kinda night ya having here, big guy? Hot date with…Hairy Potter and the…who—?”

Darrel chuckles. “Don’t be a creep.”

“A creep? In this place? Isn’t that what the kids call hate speech nowadays?”

“Hmp-hmph. Nice one, asshole. Hey. Did you…look to see if they have it?”

“Have what? You mean Crotch Ro—?”

Darrel assumes his porn octave. “Oh-h-h-ho. Fuck yeah, man.”

“¡Dios mío! What a sap.” A few seconds of eye contact, then Tony rolls his eyes.

Darrel steps backwards, and starts for the register. “Hi, sir. I was wondering. Do you have a movie called Crotch Rocket 3? From like, 1992?” He flashes his smile.

Cashier tries to contain a chuckle, looking at The One-And-Only. It is him. He’s been gawking at Darrel this whole time. “Oh, sure we do. He-he-he. Extreme sports. Back between Vintage and Water Sports.”

Twenty feet away, and there it sits—just a DVD on some dusty shelf. On its laminate cover, Tony and Darrel look wide-eyed. While frozen in embrace, the Moto gear hangs from their teenage bodies. Both share the hoist of their emerald throne, a hazard-green Kawasaki. Darrel scoops the DVD in his careful hands. “Damn. Look at us.”

“Wow. I look…”

“You look healthy…”

“My eyebrows didn’t. Can you even see ‘em down there?”

“You look healthy here, Tony…”

“Hey. If you could make it through that, don’t you think you’ll make it through this new virus?”

For a minute, Darrel holds a pause. “This one might be worse though, Tony.”

“You ever think you’ll get out of here? Out of Crotch Rocket 3?”

“I don’t know. You know, I don’t really come here that often.”

“Uh-huh. Sure ya don’t.”

With one trembling finger, Darrel wipes some dust from the waxy print of Tony’s face. His brows carve perfect ovals around those burnt caramel eyes. Behind him, his younger self holds on tight. To Tony. Both erections point up to the illustrated title: Crotch Rocket 3.

“Listen. It was nice seeing you, Tony.” Darrel parks the DVD back on its shelf, feeling just one more time a little heat from that engine. “Seriously. Was real nice. But uh…Kye is probably wondering where I am.”

Olag Motobuchi is an emerging writer exploring identity, trauma, and queerness. In the storms of 2020, they began publishing their work. Find more of their flash fiction in Typishly and Button Eye Review.