“Bet you fifty!” “Aw, make it worth while.” “Two hundred!” “You’re on. Let Jack hold the stakes.” “Suits me.” Four hundred dollars was placed in the hands of Jack Strong by the disputatious sports, and he carefully put it away with the lone five-dollar bill of which he was possessed. Jack, although sportily inclined, lacked […]
This story collection is an exemplar for Short-short Sighted #24, “By The Numbers: The Prose Sonnet”. When the guy with the junked-out cars moved into the house two doors down, I said to Glenna, “I don’t understand why someone like that would move into a neighborhood like ours.” But Glenna bought a ham, cut some […]
This story collection is an exemplar for Short-short Sighted #24, “By The Numbers: The Prose Sonnet”. Snow. Ice. Heavy skies. All flights delayed. Morris wished he could smoke. He wished that he could go stand outside. This is what life becomes, he thought, watching ice collect on grounded wings. The career he’d expected to take […]
“Dini went three minutes thirty-two seconds before she couldn’t take it anymore,” Mel said, staring at me. “You think you can beat her, April?” It wasn’t a question; it was a challenge. Mel was my best friend. But last week she’d uploaded a vidbit of her brother snorking milk out his nose, and it went […]
Amy never relaxes until the third song, imagining everyone’s staring at her hands. But when she sings Styx and Stones, the music takes her places where, even if they are, she doesn’t care. So large as to be almost grotesque, her hands allow her to play a Martin Dreadnaught and to hold a man so […]
This is an unusual column for Bruce, dealing with the writing life rather than specific techniques and forms. If you’d like to read his previous columns, you can find a complete list on his author page. This month, I want to take a break from examining the forms of flash fiction and consider another aspect […]
I was walking through the mall when I saw a kiosk that claimed to be selling time. And I don’t mean in a “buy some labor-saving device” kind of way. I mean, little white boxes each labeled 10 minutes. I stopped and picked one up. The act of holding the box made me feel strange. […]
Punch, November 11, 1941 I had done the second hole (from the vegetable-marrow frame to the mulberry-tree) in two, and was about to proceed to the third hole by the potting-shed when I thought I would go in and convey the glad news to Joan. I found her seated at the table in the breakfast-room […]
I haven’t showered in ten days. My scalp fosters a family of bacteria, but the table of party food — chunks of chicken, weenies slathered in mystery sauce, and eyeballs — has been sitting there for two days. Its smell leaves mine in the dust. “Nance, we’ve practiced this.” Mom yanks on her matted clumps […]
She wakes up early. She gets her hair up, she gets her things together, and she’s out the door. If she can do that, she can do anything. She keeps her boots in the car. She carries extra socks, band-aids, saline for her eyes. She comes prepared. Life is unpredictable. She puts on her boots […]