是你的就是你的，不是你的就不是你的. That’s what my mother always told me. What is yours is yours, what is not yours is not yours. Once, she backed her silver 1994 Honda CRV over a man she didn’t want to love, but he came back to her on his knees, with subtracted teeth and a titanium spine but the same […]
The women in my family have death on their lips. No husband lives past a tenth wedding anniversary. My mother says it’s an old curse. Our love makes men drink, choke, slip, fall, suffocate with our hearts growing too big in their lungs to breathe. I thought I would end some man one day too […]
Yes, there were peaches, fresh peaches from the mountains, on the table that afternoon. January’s rice crop had already been taken in, leaving two glorious weeks of idleness until the July seedlings had to be planted. All the men were at war. In the small living room, cooled during the day by a dulcimer breeze, […]
The violin had curves like his mother. Electric guitars hung from wires as if dropped by angels, while trumpets blasted from all four corners of the display window. In pride of place, a glossy red drum kit crouched, motionless, like a heart waiting to beat. Struan pressed his hand-knitted, lumpy mittens to the icy glass, […]
Welcome to Flash Fiction Online’s 104th issue.Our stories this month have protagonists whose circumstances, status, and identity create the conflict and tension driving the story. After all, the experience—actually, the privilege!–of choosing one’s own path in life is hardly universal. Our protagonists solve problems in their own unique ways, they persist, and they maintain their […]