Amy scrubs the farm potatoes; water browns. Grips the vegetable brush, knuckles white; scrapes off marks, blemishes, turning them pure, clean.
The potatoes smell of lingering looks, hidden kisses, regret. She rinses away that night, but a layer of residue remains as her husband’s tires crunch gravel on the driveway.
Ellen Townsend is an art teacher and writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, Fairfield Scribes, 50-Word Stories and others.
The salsa class had bass music thumping, floor vibrating, dancers spinning, skirts swirling, and sweat glistening, but upstairs, in the committee meeting, it was austere. Where clock ticks were amplified, the treasurer led, the chairperson’s seat empty.
Downstairs, Lorraine mopped her brow. The wrong room. An epiphany, daring something new.
Ellen Townsend is an art teacher and writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, Friday Flash Fiction, 50-Word Stories and others.
Same bus route to college; nothing had changed. New cargo jeans, angled bob haircut, laptop rucksack; ready for the semester.
At home, a single wineglass by the sink; the garage was full of old yearbooks, bikes.
Heavy backpacks jostled; she studied her course schedule: same college as sixty-five years before.
Ellen Townsend is an art teacher and writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, Friday Flash Fiction, 50-Word Stories and others.
We’re in woodland with backpacks, introductions.
Glowing couples hold hands; our foraging instructor munches leaves. I nibble. He discusses elderflowers whilst sitting amidst daisies; we picnic on sourdough and dandelions.
“Wild mushroom pasta,” he says. “Folklore believes these fungi help people read minds.”
The couples devour bowlfuls, then leave separately.
Ellen Townsend is an art teacher and writer. Her work has appeared in Friday Flash Fiction and Paragraph Planet and has been broadcast on BBC Radio.