I DON’T CARE WHAT GENETIC SUB-GROUP YOU’RE FROM, by comet is a lousy way to travel. And no, I don’t mean this touristy shite where they put glass huts on iceballs so rich-kids can ‘rough it’ and still get all the interplanetary TV they want. I mean real, true-to-physics, grab hold with your gene-modified hooks […]
Read “I Am Graalnak of the Vroon Empire…” here. Elizabeth Shack: “I Am Graalnak…” started with a contest on the Codex writing forum. What can you tell us about writing to prompts? Laura Pearlman: One thing I like about these flash contests is the combination of a prompt and a deadline. The prompt for this […]
Read “Comet Man” here. Stefan Milicevic: Congratulations on getting “Comet Man” republished with Flash Fiction Online! Tell us how you came to write it. Marina Lostetter: Thank you! I’m a member of the Codex writing community, and every year there’s a five-week-long contest in which the participants all produce a new flash-length story every weekend. […]
I MISSED THE FIRST APPEARANCE of the wish-dragons, so I had to hear about them second-hand from my friend Boomer. He’d been feeling pretty mellow and not fit to drive, so he’d wandered down to the docks and started singing. The moon hung low and full. Boomer said the sky filled up with streaks of […]
When that Cratch am watchin’, you better do right. Suck a corncob if them striped birds go over. Cranes pass on high, you best bury you some young mouse teeth. Wear radishes round you neck. You see leaves blowin’, best get gone quick. If it a odd number day, stay away from metal. Don’t move […]
CHAPTER ONE: The Last Man Watches Blazing Saddles It’s his favorite scene. The cowboys rise and fart, rise and fart, and he thinks of his wife farting in the night. He never laughed when she did. Most of the time he was asleep when she started and half asleep when she finished. He realizes now […]
Haven’t read the story yet? Read “The Cratch, Thy Keeper” now. SM: Tell us how you came up with “The Cratch, Thy Keeper”. MA: Eh, there wasn’t any real plan behind it. That’s the great thing about flash fiction. You just start typing, and 700 words later there’s a draft. “Cratch” started out as a […]
Haven’t read the story yet? Read “The Last Man on Earth — A Mini-Novel” here. Speaking with John Guzlowski, I couldn’t help but feel that I sheltered under the warmth of a favorite uncle or grandfather. But his history is replete with its darkness and gravity. After the Nazis had overrun Poland, John’s family was […]
Her mother had taught her that each meal, each dish made with her own fingers was a gift. You should cook with your loved one in mind, Sophie, her mother used to say, and strive for the best. So Sophie had. Each meal was a feast, a gift of love. Harold ate each with gusto, […]
Wheee. The death baby goes, wheee. It also gurgles something awful. We have a problem with them in the town, not the town proper but right outside. The death babies have gotten brave in recent years, crawling right up to the gardens and even to the homes. Nobody knows where they come from, only that […]