Microfiction Monday – 207th Edition
A Cheater’s Justification
by Claudia Prevete
When I cheated on my college boyfriend, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I did, however, Google “Am I a sociopath?” a lot that week.
The guilt, shame, depression, and inability to eat or smile that came next reminded me that I’m not actually a sociopath. His next girlfriend and his next, next girlfriend’s Picasso-like versions of my visage and vibe were nice reminders that he deserved it.
When I cheated on my college boyfriend, I guess he didn’t think it was that big of a deal.
Permanent Absence
by Natalie Kulick
The ghost felt sticky in her palm and on the tips of her fingers. Its back leg stretched into an unflattering shape, like it had swallowed a triangle that got stuck in the upper thigh. The ghost slinked away when the sound of a cat vomiting won the girl’s attention. She, the girl, Remi, fell back asleep with her hands nestled against her cheek. In the morning the ghost climbed into bed and laid against her. At rest, it formed into a dew, and absentmindedly, peacefully, she woke and wiped it away as if it were drool.
Mama’s Choppers
My mother wore dentures. I was fascinated by how she changed when taking them out to soak overnight. Her face would shrivel and suddenly I was looking at a newborn’s gums, wet and pink and naked. She’d laugh and smack her lips then place her teeth in a cup of water with an effervescent tablet. I think of her when my retainers go into a glass for cleansing and the blue bubbles foam at the top. When I look in the mirror and see her face gazing back at me. An old woman’s face sinking at the jowls.
He’s the Bull, and She’s the China Shop
by David Henson
He bellows that her feelings are porcelain, his brute terrorizing a tea set. She demands change. He snorts and stomps, shoulder shattering a Sèvres vase. Her “get out” a rippling muleta, steam rises from his hide, and his wrath wreaks havoc on Delfts, Laliques, Lladrós … Vowing she hasn’t seen his last, he crashes through plate glass. Jaw clenched, she sweeps and discards, ignoring pain from a piercing shard. Despite the damage, the shop has good bones. She embraces a fresh start, considers his parting words, and decides. The world needs more lady butchers.
Two-Timing
My best friend opened her wedding speech with, “Welcome back, everybody” and it tore the house down. Three of my college friends almost choked, spitting cones of champagne spraying, and I heard actual guffaws from my father and my second stepmother. Everyone laughed except my new husband, who clutched my thigh under the table, livid at the ignominious reminder that he hadn’t gotten me first.
Microfiction Monday – 199th Edition
Shapeless
by David Henson
My edges are blurring. People pretend not to notice, but I catch their sidelongs. The cashier’s hand stutters when he gives me a receipt, as if fearing the slip will pass through my fingers. I have to concentrate so it doesn’t. Some days my every step sinks to my ankles. In a recurring dream I fall through mattress, floor, planet — emerge in a lumiscape of shapeless words. Is it a dream within another? Occam’s Razor says no. I’ve started seeing the haze of others. We gather in the park, when not too windy, and seek ourselves in the clouds.
You Think That’s Scary
by Bill Diamond
Racing home in the dark woods, Daniel was frightened. He checked his watch. “Damnation!”
Mom had lots of rules: ‘No shortcuts.’ ‘Don’t go in the cemetery at night.’ Her most important was ‘Don’t be late.’ Every minute made it worse.
He snatched up a heavy stick.
Without hesitation, he jumped the cemetery fence and angled through the tombstones.
The shambling corpses were right in his path. He gasped, ducked and dodged, but didn’t slow.
A monster reached for him. Daniel swung the truncheon and knocked the skull from the rotted body.
It was scary, but Mom was scarier.
Of Sleepless Nights and Sunrises
by Lisa Briley
The hours that precede the dawn are the longest. Waiting for the sun to rise and bring back the light of the day. Kira finds them overwhelming in the worst of ways. Those hours where no one else is awake and there’s nothing to do except lose herself to her thoughts. And what thoughts they were. A haunting melody of thoughts that overran common sense. Telling her to run, jump, skip, and dance. To write until her fingers bleed. To do more, more, more. Everything piles on top and there’s nothing she can do but wait out the night.
And They Lived
by Beth Mead
You asked like kind men do, down on one knee, ring and eyes uplifted, hopeful. You weren’t the one I loved, but you were the one who asked, who saw me as something colorful and true, more real than I could ever be. You said we’ll be happy, so happy, so I said yes yes yes and I know and I didn’t say move away from me before I am scattered like glass on this dust-covered floor, like stones you throw by the handful across water. I almost said wait, listen, but I knew you would not.
The End of the War
Scattered pennies cover her husband’s grave like confetti, and she plucks them up one by one. People honor the dead, even when the dead made you want to die.
Her yellow and purple battle wounds are still fading. There is still vodka in the pantry. She remembers being drunk with him, trying on his uniform. Part of her loves the echo of his belly laugh.
Her stomach flutters at the sight of a miniature Old Glory next to his headstone. This is the end. Freedom rings through her, a knell loud enough to be heard on the other side.
Microfiction Monday – 198th Edition
The Snow Asleep on a Branch
There in the window of the apartment across the courtyard, pressed against the glass, a bouquet of pale blossoms. Like a springtime branch snapped off a cherry tree.
No. My mistake. It’s a cat. A white cat sleeping on the window sill, enjoying the warmth of the sun. I can see it breathing.
But for a moment, I thought of you. You who will always be a girl. Perfuming the room with your presence and an armful of white cherry blossoms that spring morning. Before your final winter, when the snow came too soon. And never really left.
Barren Garden
by Emily Hoover
Today the doctor with the Scandinavian name I can’t pronounce went over the newest ultrasound, found a chocolate cyst, said they’d need to do laparoscopy to see the adhesions from the endometrial tissue growing outside my uterus like weeds ruining a perfectly good fucking garden. There’s a surgery I can have or a pill I can take. Both will trigger menopause, the brochures say. I run my fingers along my abdomen, imagine the scars when they plow my pelvis empty—my ex-husband filling another woman’s bed, another woman’s womb, while I live in the cold cavern between moderate and severe.
Day is Night is Day
by David Henson
One dawn, the horizon darkens. As the sun rises, blackness spreads like spilled ink. By midday, stars salt an obsidian sky despite the dazzling sun. Blue skies emerge at sunset and rule the night. Birds don’t know whether to sing or nest. Brilliant, sunless nights and dark, sunny days persist. Our biorhythms play free jazz. Our nerves howl like wolves. Anxiety grips the children. Every morning we gather outside to await the sunrise like hopeful pagans, but it’s always brightest before the dawn. At least we have each other.
Never More
by Cathy Schieffelin
His fists sink into the warm dough, kneading, like a prayer.
A shimmer of white, floats in the dusty rays of morning sun. Lucy, skipping from the henhouse, night clothes mud spattered with a basket of eggs. Looks just like her mama – golden haired and lithe.
Heart heavy, he pummels the gooey mass, craving a salve to numb the nettles pricking his memories.
Wish Hazel’d be here. Never more. Birthing twins was too much. She loved his sourdough. They’d sit on the porch watching fireflies dance in the dying light, taking bites, butter dripping down their chins.
Never more.
The Ninety-One Pearls on My Necklace
Eighty-five? There are supposed to be ninety-one.
The necklace cascades between my shriveled fingers, pearls escaping me like faces fading into shadow.
She catches them. “How about I put it on you?”
We face the mirror. Pity in her bright eyes. Who is she? The daughter I always wanted? I can’t remember if her father was handsome. Fading faces. He had bright eyes. I could never forget his eyes.
“The cleaning lady. She’s slipping out the pearls one by one.”
She shakes her head. Brighter eyes. “There were always eight-five.”
I grasp the necklace. Snow in my palms. Melting away.
Microfiction Monday – 181st Edition
Space Became Distance
by Akmal Hafizi
You needed space, and I gave some. But before I knew it, space had become distance, and time became a while. As I had expected, you eventually reached the event horizon—a point from which there is no return. I was really reaching for the stars, except that they were redshifting away—you were.
I flung myself bound for you, and engraved longing into words and texts—wishing there would be a slightest echo where I would hear the same “come back”.
All the while I failed to recall that space is a vacuum—lacking of sound and indefinitely gloom.
The Girl Who Cried Gardens
by David Henson
When her mother died, the girl cried a garden of flowers to comfort her father. When he passed from grief anyway, she sobbed a garden of vegetables so she and her brother wouldn’t starve. When her brother ran off and left her alone, she wept a garden of angry thistle. When she became ill and was on her deathbed, she cried an empty garden for the life she would never know. After she was laid to rest in a place with no markers, a rock garden appeared on her grave.
The Last Letter
by Caleb White
She gripped the pen, her heart heaving with sorrow. She expressed her emotions and all the things she wished she had spoken to him before he went. She expressed her love for him, her longing, and her desire that he would return to her. She gave him a kissy-signature, sealed the letter in the envelope, and set it on the mantle next to his picture. I love you too, my dear, she heard faintly as she turned to exit the room.
Ouroboros’ Chain
by Sam Anderson
Martine sits alone on the park bench, tears streaming down her face. This is where he first said, “I love you.” But now, she sits alone and clutches the necklace he gave her, the thin chain tight around knuckles. A hand touches her shoulder. She turns and sees him smiling. “I’m back.” She jumps up, wrapping her arms around him. But his skin feels wrong, cold like misty leaves. His kiss on her forehead holds no warmth. Only the memory of something missing, now forgotten. And so, she sits once more, uncertain why she weeps but struggling to remember.
On Board
by David Sydney
Brutus and Rattus were on board the Ark, Brutus representing the Brown rats and Rattus the Black rats. The heavens were about to open up, with 40 days of rain to follow. It was getting dark and dangerous. Brutus used the words ‘ominous’ and ‘foreboding’, typical of a Brown rat.
Two platypus ducks boarded. Then, two cassowaries. Two hyenas. Then, two weasels.
Rattus frowned. “Everyone dislikes weasels,” Brutus agreed.
“HURRY UP,” the extremely long-lived patriarch, Noah, bellowed. “CAN’T YOU SEE THE WEATHER?”
Two Chihuahuas boarded, representing dogs.
“Can you believe who they’re letting aboard this thing?” said Brutus to Rattus.
Microfiction Monday – 172nd Edition
The Painting
by David Henson
As the man admires the cobalt sky and verdant meadow, he notices brush strokes everywhere, even on his arms and legs. He realizes he’s becoming the woman in a painting he once admired. He recalls the woman, though surrounded by beauty, appears horrified. This tension is what makes the painting a work of art. The man is happy to be in the painting and wants to stay there. He tries to fake the look of terror but realizes his countenance is unconvincing and ruins the great painting. The thought horrifies him. The work of art is restored.
On the Wing
by Zylla Black
I was stuffed into a cheap seat, below and behind the second set on the plane, my legs stretched flat before me. At least I could see the window, over the wing.
In flight, you can sometimes actually see the air as it funnels into channels crafted by human engineering. I love to watch the wind, the movement of metal feathers.
She was out on the wing. I blinked; she remained seated on the edge, hair and clothes snagging on the gusts, rimmed in cracking ice as we came out of a cloud.
I wondered how much her ticket cost.
Interlusion
by G.J. Williams
What you’ll see is this: Nijinsky in a straitjacket pirouetting in slo mo to some polyphonic hellbroth remastered for insane times. It’s a romance. There’ll be footage of the grainier kind, lending weight to each hieratic contortion. This’ll be history danced, the world’s psychosis incarnate. There’ll be no voiceover lacking affect, no quoting from diaries and certainly no prolonged silence to indicate the absence or otherwise of God. It’ll be wordless, and as wordless pieces go, it’ll say less than most. It’ll not even be strange.
Microfiction Monday – 171st Edition
Because
by Elizabeth Murphy
Her sideways stare warns me I’ve done wrong again because I couldn’t ever do right, my name forever a reprimand or complaint, whether deserved or not because I do try so hard to be her way, some way, not the way I am, but people don’t change including my mother because that’s just how she is, I am, and what I’ll one day accept or else I’ll pretend my mother is the sweet old lady across the hall who offers me tea and conversation, and repeats yes dear, no dear like I’m the child she never had.
Beautiful Day
by David Henson
He wakes her ‘round dawn vomiting in the bathroom. Squint-eyed and feigning sleep, she crosses her fingers as he returns, damp cloth to his forehead. She tenses when he mutters about the hair of the dog, relaxes when, instead of getting up, he groans, turns over and begins to snore. She slips from bed knowing he’ll sleep all day. Minutes later she’s sipping coffee on the patio, enjoying the butterflies and birds.
Options
by Ken Poyner
The boy comes back with only one leg. He learns to fold his excess pants leg invitingly, pin it invisibly. In locomotion, sometimes he prefers his wheelchair, sometimes wooden crutches, sometimes metal ones that clip to the upper arm with a hand stub. At times, one means of self-conveyance seems better than another, argues more shockingly with his chosen attire. Sometimes he rotates based on which has been seen most by whom. Either way, he defaults to being the current hometown hero. When people stare, he says he lost it in the war. They nod. No one asks which war.
When I Place My Palm on the Damp Ground
by Zeke Shomler
When I place my palm on the damp ground, I can feel the earthworms writhing underneath as if they were thrashing and burrowing right next to my skin. I can feel their polyrhythmic syncopated music, their flexing and contracting muscular elegance. I can tell what they feel and what they desire by the twisting of their corpuscles. When I walk barefoot they radiate against my feet.
Sometimes I feel that I can recognize which worms contain materials that were feasted from the bodies of my loved ones.
The dirt has recently begun to smell nostalgic, like a childhood dream.
Microfiction Monday – 158th Edition
A Halloween Encounter
by David Henson
I’m raking leaves on a blustery Halloween morning when a green-skinned warlock appears. He tells me I can eliminate my life’s regrets with his magic rifle. With a wink and a hand wave, feathery things fill a bare tree in our yard. “I don’t want to shoot a bird,” I say.
“Not birds. They’re your regrets.”
Relieved, I fire. One of the creatures chirps and falls to the ground. Guilt engulfs me. “I should feel better, not worse. Was it truly a regret?”
The warlock flashes a wicked smile. “No. And now you have one more.”
Judgement
by David M Wallace
After the stoning, no one could say for certain who had delivered the fatal blow. Sara was an adulteress. She had it coming. No one felt any guilt. As she lay bleeding, the men recalled her beauty. That night, the remembrance of the curve of her breasts fueled their fantasies.
Dirty Word
by A. Zaykova
“Keep your eyes on that door,” Jim says.
Freddie, his new partner, looks green and nervous.
“First time?” Jim asks and bites down on a hotdog.
Freddie nods.
“Just do as I say and you’ll be alright.” Jim takes another bite and a splat of ketchup lands on his good pants. “Shoot!”
Freddie cocks his rifle and pulls the trigger. Some poor bugger falls to the ground with a red flower blooming between his eyes. Their target darts into the crowd and disappears.
Maybe Judith was right in saying there’s something off about a hitman who doesn’t use cuss words.
Microfiction Monday – 151st Edition
Blossoms
by Ege Gurdeniz
A linden tree watched over our house when I was a kid. Honey. A hint of citrus. A bouquet so sweet you could taste it on humid days. It paired well with Mom’s mint lemonade. The Beatles on Dad’s radio. My sister splashing around in the pool. Daisy barking at some cardinals conspiring on a branch.
That’s the thing about smells – they turn into memories if you’re not careful.
30 years later. I am back to say goodbye. This time to Dad.
It’s a humid one. The house is quiet, but I can hear Paul singing it’s alright, little darling.
Blue
by Kris Faatz
One morning, your skin is the color of peacock feathers. It glitters in sunlight, diamond-dusted.
You’ve always folded your soul up small and tucked it away. Now you tug your shirtsleeves over your hands. Smother your face with makeup. You needn’t: your husband only sees your shape. He kisses you goodbye, not noticing when your blue fingertips pluck lint from his collar.
In the empty house, silence coils around your feet and legs, your chest and face.
You strip off your clothes. Flick on the lamps. When he comes home, that’s how he finds you: naked, breathtaking, covered in light.
Old Man River
by David Henson
He becomes a river to provide respite from job and family but, enjoying wandering, loses track of time.
After years of silt and drought reduce him to a trickle, he seeks human reconciliation, returns to find his wife has died. His daughter, now adult, damns him from her family’s life.
Can one stalk with love? Grandson to school at eight. His daughter to work by nine. Lights out at ten p.m. One Saturday the father takes the boy fishing. When his grandson whoops with glee, the man who was once a river feels the hook set in his heart.
Microfiction Monday – 150th Edition
The Little Mermaid
It was the little things. The way she was always at the water tray in nursery, her pockets full of stolen pebbles and seashells.
She spent hours watching Ponyo, hands pressed against the screen, puckered mouth blowing spit-bubbles.
When she was quiet, I knew where to find her: sitting naked on a pillow, brushing her hair with a silver comb, my mother’s pearls draped around her neck.
She was happiest on her stomach in the bath, legs kicking, toes flicking, head submerged like there was something only she could see.
And then, one day, we took her to the ocean.
Out Forever
Xavier Lee Martin Jr.’s mother swore that he could unhinge his jaw to finish dinner before the six o’clock news opening theme song. He idolized Lead Anchorman Perry Williamson down to the argyle bowtie. Xavier’s clipped on.
Perry’s tone was electric. “Good evening. In the biggest drug sting in Montgomery County history, police apprehended Xavier Lee Martin, Sr. who smuggled 6,000 pounds of . . .”
Live on air, officers escorted Xavier Sr. and Bruno who helped manage their “produce warehouse.”
###
The next day, a tieless Junior called his favorite teacher, Miss Tracy, a fucking bitch for the first time.
The Smiths Spice Things Up
by David Henson
“How would you like a pet snake, dear?” pops out of Mr. Smith and the blue one day even though snakes tremble him. Turning from her burners, Mrs. Smith says “Fine” as a shiver slithers up her spine. They surround a deadly coral with glass, bring home Saturday sacks of milk, butter, eggs, toads, and mice. One evening the cage is blank. A broom searches under the sofa, behind drapes, dangles galoshes. Finding nothing, the Smiths crawl into bed, pull the covers to their chins, and stare at each other wild-eyed. Smiling.
Microfiction Monday – 137th Edition
The Silence
by David Henson
This time we let the silence lie between us. It rolls onto its back, lolls out its tongue, invites someone to scratch its stomach. When no one does, the silence sits, whines, pumps its paws, stands and chases its tail. Neither of us reacts, so the silence scampers into another room, comes back squeaking, drops its playfulness between us. Still ignored, the silence stiffens, ears back, tail erect, hackles raised. Its lips curl, and rising snarls lather its jaws. The silence eyes your throat, mine. I take my chances, bite my tongue.
Bucket List
by Mikki Aronoff
One night I had a dream. I watched a blue whale slap its tail on the calm ocean surface, saw green anacondas slick their way through the steamy Amazon. I ambled along the Left Bank observing painters painting lovers, drove a car through a hole carved through a giant sequoia.
When I awoke, I thought this meant I was going to die. I went to my desk and filled my fountain pen to write my will. It skittered and scratched and blotched the page blue until I relented and replaced it in its stand.
Deep In The Woods
Summer weekends were spent in the old farmhouse. My brother and I sitting in the glow of the fire, our parents reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the smoky aromas of dinner lingering, cricket-song punctuated by the snap of escaping sparks. We’d found a tin box of toys which we gripped as we listened to the story of the lost little girl. When the fire and comforting smells receded and we were tucked in, I listened to the scratch of mice in the walls, drip of rain seeping through musty beams and wondered if the dark might swallow us up.
Away
by Jennifer Lai
After the divorce, her heart turned to stone. He said she was dead weight who kept him from his dreams. From becoming the astronaut he was destined to become. She argued she was his rock, her words heavy like gravity. But he was light-years away. Silenced into a cosmic void. Years later, she saw him on TV. Orbiting in space on a broken shuttle. Outside he went but forgot to tether in and drifted away. Fast and light like a plume into the obsidian expanse, with no one around to keep him grounded.
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