Microfiction Monday – 129th Edition
Gone
by Linda Lowe
Linen napkins and tablecloths went first, along with candlelight and flowers. Predictable, given the times, but what happened in the heavens was downright surprising. While no one worried much about the disappearance of the Big Dipper, or stars, period, when it came to the moon, there was genuine concern. Short lived, though, as people seemed more intent on leaving than looking up. After a while so much was gone it made more sense to marvel over what was still around. You and me for example. Left to tell the truth I guess. Without a single sharpened pencil to be found.
Gone in a Flash
by A.M. McCaffrey
The civilisation business had finally gone under, and abandoned cars were among its rapidly depreciating assets. Shells and tyres would be gone in a century; engine blocks, five centuries; polyurethane seat cushions, ten; glass windshields, ten thousand. Every human construction, like the machines on the highway, would atrophy, and the second hand on the cosmic clock would twitch barely one space forward.
Winged
by David M Wallace
Every day at lunch Brenda sat alone in the playground sharing her sandwiches with a score of hungry pigeons surging around her. Patiently, she weaved their stray feathers into a dappled carpet.
“Where is Brenda?” asked Ms. Chen one afternoon.
A blur soared past the windows.
Microfiction Monday – 126th Edition
Daddy, Can We Build a Snowman?
He knows he should say no, but he can’t. So he bundles his four-year-old in her winter coat and carries her to the center of the road, where together they begin rolling snow into three orbs of differing sizes. After the orbs have been placed in a snowman configuration, he makes his way to their gravely stuck car where they have no cell service, where his wife breastfeeds their newborn, where they only have enough snacks for a day trip and only a half tank of gas, to rummage through their belongings for something that will make a good nose.
Righteous
Upstairs, Carl logs on and searches for forbidden fantasies: classics removed from schools and libraries because the district now calls them “unbalanced” and “inappropriate”.
“Ain’t nobody gonna tell me what to read. I hear worse language in class every day”, he thinks, skimming another ‘offensive’ story. “I know people like this, they’re cool. What are these idiots trying to prove? It’s all online anyhow.”
He loses himself in books the censors don’t want him to see; they’re tinder to the spark inside him. Another file copied, another friend messaged, and he spreads the brushfire further.
Object Lessons
by G.J. Williams
Music as Terror: Discuss. The wiping out of villages to Shostakovich. The snow-muffled strains of Schubert as played by the Angel of Death, circa 1943. Or those funkier numbers favoured by the Mad Sams of the underworld who drill through flesh in derelict basements. Music to kill by. The soaring guitars against the Vietcong. The songs in Manson. The headphones of Nilsen. Not forgetting Stalin’s perfect pitch. For Stalin, every sound had its key. A building might crumble in E-flat, a tram go by in A-minor, a fly buzz in F-sharp. Every human had a special scream. Discuss.
Eastern Approach
by David M Wallace
Lena’s teacup performed a little jig in its saucer as the vibrations grew closer. The tiny cry of porcelain chiming over the rumble of tanks grinding in the street below her window. Soldiers trudged behind, clad in khakis and impunity.
Microfiction Monday – 121st Edition
Blossom
by David M Wallace
In August were buttercups, lady slippers, snapdragons. Bluebells, cockleshells, eevy, ivy, over. Hopscotch and skipping rope. All around the mulberry bush and the ice cream truck. Then September and polka dots and am I pretty? All those tears and scattered leaves.
Anaglypta Dresses
by Justin Rulton
I watch them through the jockeying parade, merging with the walls, pinned like prisoners awaiting execution. Hidden in plain sight, hoping without precedence for something good to happen.
They just want to be asked, “Would you care to dance?”
Instead it’s more likely to be, “Wanna go to my place?”
The corpse of romance trampled underfoot, bleeding out under the pulsing lights.
Desperately numb, they aren’t even considered. Buttressed by my own wall on the other side of the hall, all I can offer is my empathy.
Leftovers go cold if they’re abandoned for too long.
I know.
I am.
The Empty Cupboard
by Jim Latham
His pantry held two kilos of chocolate, two kilos of coffee, two bottles of mezcal.
The chocolate ground with almonds, cinnamon, and sugar and pressed into discs the size of silver dollars.
The coffee grown in the shade by people who preferred the language of their ancestors to that of the Spanish invaders.
The mezcal distilled from wild magueys in small batches by gray-haired masters in villages beyond the reach of paved roads.
He’d eat and drink little else in his few remaining days. Life had been sweet. He wanted to leave it with his favorite tastes in his mouth.
Microfiction Monday – 115th Edition
Feathers
by David M Wallace
Little Amy picked up the head from where it lay in the dust near the axe. It was as soft and weightless as a marigold.
“Come back! I’ll fix you!” she cried, running in frantic circles.
Feathers flew everywhere.
Nocturne
I sleep on a cot and the cat can’t see, cross-eyed from catnip. He misses his box, sprays my bed, and showers my daughter’s blankie. The laundromat is across 12th, so I lug the week’s clothes on my back. My daughter follows, sucks her fingers, wanders out into traffic. I bite through my tongue; I taste blood. Our underwear strewn across Vermont. The bow of the violin doesn’t care, not one bit. The hand of the clock kills again and again, just like that.
Growing Up
Elaine hadn’t meant to start reading, but she’d found a book in the attic, crammed into one of her bins. Sitting on her knees, she’d uncreased the cover and opened it. She would read until she remembered the plot.
That had been hours ago. Book finished, Elaine settled against the plastic bin. Dust spindled in the light. Mom would be in Sarasota by Christmas. Elaine would have to fly down. That seemed the task of someone else. Someone older. A real adult.
In the attic light, the cover of the book shone. What else would she forget, over time?
Microfiction Monday Magazine 