It was just a Sunday picnic to talk things over.
It was just an ant bite.
It was just my finger swelling, red, ballooning.
It was Accident and Emergency.
It was ring cutters.
It was just my wedding ring in two sudden halves.
The ant saw it coming, not me.
Dettra Rose is an award-winning flash fiction author. A born and bred Londoner, she now lives in Australia. She calls both places home. Find her at dettrarose.com and on Twitter and Facebook.
After hours of rummaging, he found the key taped to the back of his mother’s favourite watercolour. He rushed to the safe – no cash, no jewellery, just a handwritten note: “Disorderly postmen I’d paint, or something you learn to live with (14).” He’d always enjoyed anagrams, but this produced disappointment.
Andy Hedgecock’s disappointing inheritance is a name that doesn’t lend itself to the creation of anagrams. He is a freelance writer and obsessive cruciverbalist from Nottinghamshire, UK.
He set himself a poet’s challenge: to catch the lightning flash of life within the form — five, seven, five — ancient, timeless, perfect. With great care, he smoothed the rice paper, tipped his brush with indigo ink and wrote:
Brittle dawn air stirs
Quickening steps through hoarfrost
Miles ahead, hot tea
Nick Young is an award-winning retired journalist whose career included twenty years as a CBS News correspondent. His writing has appeared as part of the episodic novel “The Whole Wide World” (Sweetycat Press) and in the San Antonio Review, Short Story Town, CafeLit Magazine, Fiery Scribe Review, 50-Word Stories, Pigeon Review and Vols. I and II of the Writer Shed Stories anthologies.
Deciding it was about time he cleaned out the fridge, Dave entered a strange new world. For there among the blue cheese, neglected jar of capers, and sour milk was a tiny civilization. Apologizing profusely, clearly having interrupted some kind of presidential inauguration, he removed himself and closed the door.
Gary Paul Ballard is a writer from North London working in the field of mental health. Although his preference is for flash fiction and he’s drawn to the ridiculous, he has self-published collections of short stories and a novella.
My mother called it “around the bend.” Wherever it was, when Mrs. Dumont finally went there, she went without her skirt on. She had white gloves, I heard, and a shiny black purse. A pink scarf, I think, and then nothing else – not even shoes.
But she was wearing lipstick.
Monica Nawrocki lives on Cortes Island in the Salish Sea. She earns her living as a substitute teacher, happily impersonating someone different every day. She is the author of three books and her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies across North America. monicanawrocki.com
Hands folded, he approaches the Master and bows respectfully.
“Are you ready?” the Master says.
“I am.”
“Well then, what is the sound of one hand clapping?”
He blinks slowly, smiles, then says, “I have no idea.”
The Master arches one eyebrow, strokes his long goatee, and says, “Very good.”
Jim Courter’s short stories have appeared in the United States, Canada, and England. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and has won an Illinois Arts Council award for short fiction. His essays have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Smithsonian, and on the op-ed pages of the Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal. His mystery novel, Rhymes with Fool, was published in 2018 by Peasantry Press. First Things First: Ephemera and Offscourings of a Distracted Writer, a collection of essays, humor, and short stories, was published in 2019.
He’d loved her since their first shift together at The Greasy Chicken, hyper-aware of her presence, her laugh, the twist of blond hair under the net, then smiling at the white deodorant smudge on her tank top which meant maybe she wasn’t a goddess, meant maybe he had a chance.
Amy is a Minnesota-based writer in love with the short form. Find her at ashortgirl.com and on Instagram @ashortgirlwrites.
The cardboard package arrives on the doorstep an hour or so before you. Inside, the first fenestrations are just beginning to unfurl.
I shall come to see that the severing of our relationship enabled unbridled growth.
First, I approach the accidental memento with contempt and a pair of glistening secateurs.
Laura lives in London with twenty-four houseplants. This is her fourth 50-word story and she has recent work with The Phare Literary Magazine and Retreat West. She tweets at @laurarose_13.
The girl would romp at the edge of the swamp,
for they were quite poor and lived near the moor.
Her beauty attracted a prince who enacted
the role of a frog to entice dialog.
They shared her first kiss—
that’s when his sweet miss
became his betrothed princess frog.
Ken Gosse prefers writing short, rhyming, humorous poetry. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, he is also in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, Home Planet News Online, and other publications. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived with their dogs and cats in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years.
Family sits quietly at Dad’s funeral service. Incense burns, calming the nerves. My brothers and sisters have their heads down, praying, I assume. The eulogy reflects on the acceptance of Dad into heaven and his resting in peace. But when family gathers and reads his will, all Hell breaks loose.
Charles is originally from New York and is now retired and residing in Texas with his wife. He likes playing chess and writing flash. Check out his other stories at 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, Microfiction Monday Magazine.