Can’t tell how many times a girlfriend dumped me. Always taken completely unawares. Years ago, I decided to turn the tables. I had no reason whatsoever to dump Jenny but I called her just to make a breakup date. Still waiting for her return call. Still wonder if she knew.
Don Nigroni is a retired labor economist. His flash fiction has appeared in Ambit, Asymmetry Fiction, Mystery Tribune, Theme of Absence, Free Flash Fiction and 365 tomorrows.
‘You weren’t worth it.’ The simple truth, stated for the first time. Words that ripple far into the past, acknowledging years of dog-like devotion.
Words that ripple far into the future, opening avenues of opportunity previously ignored.
A subtle change of emphasis creates even more distance. “He wasn’t worth it.”
Madeleine McDonald is a former precis-writer who relishes the challenge of flash and micro fiction.
He moved the couch.
Moved it again.
It felt right where it was before she bought the end table she didn’t take with her but the end table didn’t feel right anywhere else so he couldn’t move the couch back.
An inch to the left. Two inches forward.
Almost there.
Currently residing in the Rust Belt, Erika Noel Johnson enjoys tea, horror movies, and bad art. She’s figuring things out.
I set fire to the past by burning photographs, old diaries, and your heart-shaped pendant – a shackle around my wrist until now. Doused you in alcohol and watched as the flames consumed you.
And yet you still persist.
In the dulling embers, buried in yesterday’s ashes, your heart still lingers.
Billie-Leigh Burns is a writer from Liverpool. Her short stories and flash fiction have been published by Fictionette, 50 Word Stories, and Naked Cat Lit Magazine. She is currently working on a novel set in a dystopian future.
Diana saw Him enter the room… with Her. First time since Their eight years ended. She wanted to run but stayed, coached herself: be brave, be friendly, meet the wife. They’re coming over; breathe… chest out… further out. Here they come, big smile.
And…
There he goes right past her.
Carol Tymann is a retired kindergarten teacher who loves to play with her granddaughter, read, write, cook, and work out.
Took me three winters to finally get over you.
And there you are–in line at 40 Flavors Lickity-Split. I’d know that red braid anywhere.
Someone shifts their weight, and a cherub comes into view. He’s riding your hip.
I’m a cardboard bucket, my insides scraped out with a spoon.
Shoshauna Shy loves the word “nevertheless”, but wishes it had the counterpart “alwaysthemore.”
It took time for me to see that he was a bad partner.
We had been together months before I grew tired of the comments, forgotten dates.
Christmas at his mom’s brought it home. He forgot my name.
I kept the tin of cookies she made but tossed the person.
Hoosier-born Carissa Rae is a New Jersey resident by coercion. She works in NYC and lives with a rapscallion mutt and temperamental radiator.
Breathless from missing you, I run smack into the middle of an August sunrise. My aching feet pound the hot pavement. Sprint past painful memories. What’s done is done you quip when I beg for a second chance to make things better. Your sigh further stretches the distance between us.
Tammy Smith, a social worker from New Jersey, enjoys running almost as much as writing.
On the plane going home from a B&B in Amsterdam, my soon-to-be discarded partner continues his unending diatribe. I lean over and move my body closer to him to hide the fact of my distaste, boredom, and dislike of him. Fake it until I escape it, I say to myself.
Rosanne Ehrlich’s work has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Persimmon Tree, Panoplazine, The Voices Project, and Quillkeeper’s Press’ Rearing in the Rearview.
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.