Microfiction Monday – 213th Edition
The Not So Merry Men
by David Sydney
“We’ve got problems.”
“What’d you mean?”
“It’s not working.” Little John explained that the men weren’t merry.
First, they robbed from the rich, as Robin had instructed. They gave to the poor. But, then, they robbed from the newly-rich to give to the poor who formally were well-off. It was not only repetitively confusing but also exhausting after a while. It was too much.
Robin was at a loss. He turned from Little John to the Friar.
“What’d you think, Tuck?”
“I’d use the religious solution.”
“You mean?”
“We have one last robbery. And, then, keep everything for ourselves.”
“Exactly.”
Transitional Pains
by Adam Snider
On a park bench, he wallows in boredom. Three weeks after the bar exam, the immediate unshackling freedom dissipated, he sits in a hole dug with obsessive studying, refusing calls, and ignoring texts. For months, he hadn’t watched a movie, checked social media, or listened to music.
He absentmindedly watches a child wind up a toy robot and let it run. Her mother calls, and she abandons it. Its key slows and stops, and it falls over. Its eyes point at him. They stare at each other. Motionless.
He blinks, winds himself up, and speeds off to apply for jobs.
Mansion at the Beach or Cabin at the Lake
by Brandy Reinke
Eight years before me a person convinced you your insides should not show on the outside.
You agreed. When you tell me I think of your shoulders so broad, so beautiful how they curve, how precisely they fit under my palms. I thought you made them so I could anchor myself to you. I guess in a way they did. When you tell me ‘No, in fact, they were made out of survival,’ I no longer want to drape myself across them. They no longer seem like they can bear my weight.
Mutations
by Becky Neher
“You do not have cancer,” she said.
My heart sank.
She had been my biggest supporter for twenty years. Down-to-earth, whip smart, kind-hearted. Lately, though, diseases were “states of mind” stemming from “modern culture’s toxicity.” Remedies were only a juice cleanse and several ImmuNature pills away.
I exhaled, wondering how I’d cope through the chemo.
Philosophy
by John Szamosi
The past is only what’s in our recollection; what we’ve forgotten might as well have never happened. The part of future that’s predictable is only a continuation of the present, and the rest is complete surprise, delightful or devastating. The present is happening to us, that is, it’s not our doing, and by the time we understand what’s going on, it’s too late. Another opportunity missed, another error made.
There’s always confusion.
That’s why people, especially in big cities and in Alaska, keep muttering to themselves.
Microfiction Monday – 203rd Edition
Unexpected Divergences
by Becky Neher
After he left her for another woman, she stopped hiding her newly-emerging gray hair and deepening wrinkles. She went to bed early, grew pansies, ate things with fiber. She bought comfy underwear. She started reading a book.
“She’s much older than you,” he had said.
At first, she had laughed.
Comfortably Alone Together
by Alexander Gerasimenko
Wish this moment would never pass. Cruising through the sunset, windows down, and one hand on the steering wheel. Love of my life rides shotgun, knowing I’ll eventually ask her to marry me. Not knowing when keeps her sparkly. The air is warm and infused with flowers, fresh on the skin as we flow through it; floating without an engine. The radio is off and we don’t talk for a while. Comfortably alone together. Guess that in the end neither one of us wants eternity, we just want life.
The Wasabi Effect
by Swetha Amit
I remember when my mother took me to a Japanese restaurant. She taught me to hold the chopsticks like a pen, scoop the sushi and gently dip it in wasabi. She complained about her nose being on fire when she had too much. She gulped ice water and warned me never to touch wasabi again. I think of her loud bouts of laughter followed by silent sobbing. Red marks on her wrist, forlorn eyes, painful conversations, the stench of urine in the bathtub. I think of how she rocked me to sleep. While I watched her close her eyes forever.
Remembrances from the Deck Overlooking the Yard
by David Klotzkin
The chimes jangled in the wind, and she suddenly remembered the bear.
On an autumn afternoon like this, the bear toppled the fence and ambled in. She’d marveled at it through the railing.
“It came in there,” she said aloud.
“I remember,” said her brother. “Pepper chased it off.”
“No!” she said. “We yelled and yelled, but it wouldn’t go until the cops used air horns.”
“What? No.”
“We didn’t have a dog then.”
They stared at each other, baffled.
The winds blew, the chimes tinkled, the shadows danced; now a dragon, now a horse, now a field of poppies.
Shedding
by Cameron Bertron
There is a girl with a lizard living inside her chest. Every night she must peel back the rind of skin above her ribcage to let it out otherwise, being nocturnal, it will patter over her lungs all night and keep her awake. It is a small, green anole. She used to delight in watching it cling to her sleeve or run over her crayons. But she was just a child. Now, she keeps it in all day. Even though she feels its impatience and, sometimes, the fish-bone thin hook of a claw as it squeezes between organs.
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