Fiction
He Says
He says he wants to quit smoking, but by now those words are perfunctory. Along with I need to go for a run and we..
Section
Fiction
Showing 265-288 of 549 pieces
Fiction
Hanging Laundry
She died at the age of thirty, at the clothesline in her own back yard on the first day of summer vacation. Dropped straight to..
Fiction
Two Stories by Allison A. deFreese
Two pieces of flash fiction by poet and translator, Allison A. deFreese.
Fiction
LeftRight
It was the year of strange weather. Whirring blades of Chinooks above him, he rehearsed a monologue sometimes, in preparation for a testimony he felt would be demanded, soon.
Fiction
Signature
The first letter of Georgia’s name was supposed to be a tribute to a dead great grandmother on her father’s side that no one remembered.
Fiction
The Garden Spy: A Diptych
The Garden Spy is from Aamer Hussein’s anthology, Restless. The book is a collage of fugitive fictions, reminiscences of friends, and personal essays which, when read in sequence, offer an unofficial picture of one writer’s private and public lives.
Fiction
Museum: A Collection of Four Works
A collection of four works of flash fiction presented in the style of four works from a museum.
Fiction
The Night Jumpers
The moonlight shined on your brown hair, wet and wavy from the sandy river’s flow. My toes clung to the bark underneath my feet, and..
Fiction
Saving Elmore James
A thin line sometimes is all that separates genius from insanity. A person with a gift for music is called a prodigy, while the person..
Fiction
A Wonderful World
Sarah giggled as Ian breathed on her neck. “I forgot about how passionate you are. It’s like we’re teenagers all over again.” “We shouldn’t have..
Fiction
The Last Day of School
A bustling, well-tarred road divides the educational potential of Kasipatti town by gender. On one side lies the Kasipatti Boys’ Senior Secondary School. On the..
Fiction
A Summer Holiday
Five glasses of lemon squash are placed in front of us. Mummy has taught me to never be the first one to reach out for..
Fiction
That Year, This Time (A Summer Yarn)
“I’m coming in a minute. Hold the door for me, won’t you, Robi!” Madhura yelled from somewhere deep inside the house. Robi, her son, was..
Fiction
Flowers & Stars
Looking back, no-one could remember when the clown first appeared on the corner by the park. Everyone agreed that it was sometime last spring and,..
Fiction
Historian
My wife screams and my daughter’s hair-mottled scalp crowns. The doctor guides my hands and I grasp my daughter, her small body taught and alive,..
Fiction
Ma in the Sitting Room
Ma at the bookshelves, searching for new knowledge. She takes a novel between her calloused fingertips, rummages through the pages like she’s looking for something..
Fiction
Priority One
ATTENTION PASSENGERS: Sorry to startle and disappoint, to inconvenience and annoy, but our priority one is not arrival or commute, it’s code for deliverance of..
Fiction
Mama was a rainbow
Everyone say black is the colour of death. But Emily know it ain’t true. Black is the colour of Mama bein’ alive. It the colour..
Flash Fiction
Absence Makes the Heart
I wake up from my nap. The house is empty. You said you were going to the store, but that was many hours ago. In..
Fiction
Who Cares for the Dead
A lean man of average height with intelligent eyes set far apart, a narrow chin, and a mouth that sloped downward at its corners, August..
Fiction
Fear and Feathers
Every evening, she set up the altar afresh, because she couldn’t leave it out overnight. Even if it didn’t rain, the dew at dawn was..
Fiction
The Jim Crow Dope
“There’s not supposed to be a test,” I said. The man behind the table gave me a skewed look, his mouth turned in a malignant..
Fiction
Ten
The tears came early that night, something she had expected. She had felt it building all day, a jagged boulder against her chest, sliding deeper..
Fiction
Land Lore
Alan finds a glade with no overhead branches that might come crashing down if winds blow up. But hard ground, rough with exposed pebbles, frustrates..