Stories tagged flash-fiction

Housewives and Ladders

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In the upstairs bedroom, the faucet runs wide open, overflowing the garden tub, shoving water to the white tile floor where she lays in a pool of blood. A white package of forty watt bulbs rests beside her sink. A three step ladder lays on its side. The…

A Nice Girl Is Like Powder

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A nice girl is like powder, quick to anger, fresh, impudent, too quick to know what expletives fate speaks. It was a cold year for trash talk and sheer silk. And yes, the fox was smoking, who could attract or irritate a nice girl with the same look, a wom

Opposites Attract

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It was the same table they met and fell in love.

A Walk on the Moon

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I used to say I’d rather walk on the moon with my own rapacity, and you can easily say things like that, given the luxuriance of youth. But it was a lie, if you want to know the truth, so much hot balloon air, puffed up in the chest. That is not how i

Rx

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He tips the last pill into his mouth. Tower bells begin to chime. Swallows unlatch from a trellis and flutter into the square, peck at crumbs around the fountain. A woman reaches into her carpet bag and pulls out a handful of teeth, tosses them to the birds. They crunch…

Fabulous Bird

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Just let there be that self-moving thing, a sweet girl mentioned by innocence in an off moment because of her skin, because of the way rain beads up on it.

WE SHOULDN'T HAVE BOUGHT THE FIREWORKS

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My chin is half-eaten. My chest is gone. There is a rhythm to how each flame licks me. Like how you used to in the mornings before work. Before the coffee. Before the toaster. Before a rose clenched between your teeth and dancing.

You Were On Top of Us Freely

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You turned to the beautiful youth because we were light, because we were so full of life that our skin alone could not seem to contain us. We were burning on all sides for the world. Shade, shadow — nothing. Nothing the moon. You lifted the cloth and peer

The Worst Girl's Best Day

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Her mother yanked her away, like I was dangerous. I get that a lot. I’m big, you see. Tall, but it’s more than that: I’m hefty. Large. I’m a big girl, the worst kind of girl you can be.

Motivation

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Motivation always needs to come from somewhere. For some all it takes is a sunny day, a smile from a stranger or a simple pat on the back. Others demand a fire lit, a carrot dangled or a whip cracked. Yet here the sun had set, the fire extinguished and th

only, remember me

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I know how deeply your hands plunged into my fire. I remember putting my arms around your back and holding you in the flames for as long as I could bear it. And I remember feeling you slip away, serenely, with that light that urges the rose up out of my s

Not All Scars Are the Same

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We never discussed whether there would be more sex in heaven, or some sex, or any sex at all. I was awfully close to being a human wind chime when I started chirping or whimpering like I did, whenever I got close to coming. But not all scars are the sam

The Silent Rise at the Opening

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I remember how silk felt against my skin, dressed in these flimsy things, while the cold bit my nipples. How I would lie in your arms, after being awakened from my pubescent slumber, in a rush to grow up for good, holding on to the oblivion long enough.

Letter to Self and the Combative Writer

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the blank side

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She fingered the wooden Q tile in her jeans pocket, following the curves and then flipping it around to feel the smooth of the blank side. Fifteen more minutes and she would be gone. She ripped a sheet of paper from her journal and folded the warm Scrabble letter into…