Microfiction Monday – 124th Edition
This week’s artwork is by G.J. Mintz
Mantis
by JW Goll
I’m on my second vodka and ginger ale. Delilah has had five, but as always, she’s steady and lucid. We sit in cheap plastic chairs near a greasy motel pool in Sturgis. We talk about Vietnam and she mentions a cousin killed at Hue, a childhood friend crippled at Dac To. She opens the second fifth, ignoring the ginger ale.
The light turns golden as does Delilah’s skin. A large praying mantis lands on a nearby table. It’s a love animal she declares. She takes a long drink from her tumbler. I wonder who it is here for, she says.
Scar Tissue
by Tim Frank
Why did the lonely boy from the high-rise estate, with his scarred wrists and nicotine breath, kill the dead-eyed drifter with a machete in the local park?
Why did the community act shocked and alarmed when behind closed doors they claimed he had it coming, like all the boys with infected tattoos – that they were a stain on the neighborhood, and deserved to have their stomachs carved up like pizza dough and then left to rot in a hole, forgotten forever?
Feet
by Betty Stanton
“Talk to me about one time you saw God’s hand at work in your life,” his counselor prods him. Doctor Jim is a small, serious man with milk-colored hands.
He could be a hand model, Andrew realizes, and then he bites his lip until he tastes the copper of his own blood and tells Doctor Jim that he doesn’t believe God has hands.
Just feet.
Presumably for stepping on things.
The Last Flight of the Honeybees
by Michael Anthony Fagan
The terminal honeybees cut their wings off, forcing their bodies through the compact wire fence. Their bodies fall onto plastic flowers (doused in peppermint and sage); their journey is in vain.
Her eyes command a tempest. A queen no more. The world around her is dying. She is picked up by leather fingers, crushed into a frosted glass, and smeared onto a faux Kandinsky painting by the bald bourgeoisie artist whose father owns the mill house.
Microfiction Monday – 123rd Edition
Snowmelt
by Kapka Nilan
Back then when I used to have a father and there used to be snow for as long as I remember before my memories turned into slush and the future became all too real without the intricacies of snowflakes and with the knowledge that all Santas are temporary but melting into nothing is a bonus as that way they would never get old and develop a catalog of illnesses that can only leave one half-alive.
Picturesque
by Matthew Corbyn
The sun poured champagne into the ocean. Pristine water bubbled on the white sand.
The porcelain woman lay on dark mahogany, shaded by postcard palm trees. Her oversized sun hat and sunglasses, a polite ‘do not disturb’.
She had meant to leave two days ago.
Her phone buzzed. She ignored it.
A local walked by early evening. She didn’t return his greeting.
Even as the crowds gathered under the full moon, followed by red and blue flashing, revealing the deep, dark ocean. She dared not open her eyes, lest another sight would be her last.
If I Could Give My Former Self a Fortune Cookie
Five years from now, you will live in a modest home, in a small town, with a fulfilling job, and a new partner. You will have a golden retriever named Lucky.
But right now, you are alone, crouched on the floor in the last bathroom stall, your head in your hands, sweat droplets running along the small of your back, your knees pulled up and pushing against your palpitating chest. You smell urine and Japanese Cherry Blossom, and a layer of coffee stagnates in your mouth. You keep lifting your feet to feel the slight pull of the sticky floor.
Hug Me Once
by Tim Frank
As a child I refused hugs, always offering a firm handshake instead – even to my mother who watched sadly as I grew into a frail teenager with perpetually clammy palms.
On her deathbed, grandma offered my greatest challenge.
“Give Nana a hug, darling,” she said, with dull grey eyes, stretching out her arms. “Not long for me now.”
Reluctantly, I leaned in, pressed my cheek against her wiry purple wig until I heaved contented sighs that turned into tears.
Then I burst into flames, incinerating my grandma, leaving her charred remains glowing on the mattress.
“Oh, right,” everyone said.
Microfiction Monday – 96th Edition
This week’s artwork is by G.J. Mintz.
Not Enough Yesterdays
by Christopher P. Mooney
Come in for a cup of tea? I ask, unreasonably pleased when she says she will. I let the bag stew for longer than she likes, knowing it will mean more time.
While she drinks it, I want to ask her to remember that during all of this, whatever this is, I am loving her. And that she loved me, too.
Afterwards, when she’s gone, again, I’m glad I didn’t say anything, didn’t ask. Because the awkward pity in her eyes – that used to see me – and in her words – that used to tell me – would have been too much.
A Peaceful Jane
by Raymond Sloan
Her complexion was busy in loud, uneven colour. The dress on looked musty and flooded her body. The room rung of a thick hush of condolences that Jane’s husband relished in behind the grief.
On cue, his eyes welled. Sorrow swelled. Words choked in the middle of a memory as he put aside his lies, affairs, the years of misery he put her through, to play the distraught husband.
Stopping to take the scene in for a moment, a feeling of betrayal arose when he realised every photo surrounding him was missing the one thing she now wore.
A smile.
Penance
by John Barrett Allen
He inhabits the Invisible when his heart stops. No hovering over his hospital bed to gawk in shame at his whiskey-wasted body; no ambling down a bright corridor toward miraculously healed Becky, who offers a forgiving embrace. No. Instead, he wanders in fog-drenched darkness until his shin bumps metal. A rowboat’s stern. A river’s lapping edge. Infinite vessels, gloriously lit, the redeemed faithfully pulling the oars. Impatient, he clambers over the hull and everything disappears. He falls and flattens until a hard light pierces his tear-soaked eyes. Doctor says, relieved: “He’s back.” Another voice, Becky’s, agitated, follows: “Not your boat.”
At the Dinner Table
by Emanuel Hind
Scotch eggs, Cara surmised, furry and orange as they are, must one day hatch into highland cows, for they were very similarly clad and she was a very logical eight-year-old. Avocados, too, were surely the ova of fearsome scaly lizards. Naturally, then, an ordinary supermarket egg, brown and smooth, could never come from a feathery, squawking chicken: the two seemed nothing alike. Contemplating her thesis, her gaze fell to her hands, her arms. Brown. Smooth. Realisation. A canon of shrieks, a violent crash as the floor shattered the plate. That was the last egg her fork would ever touch.
Just like Weldon Kees
by Jim Doss
Class, that’s what he’d call it, seersucker suit, fedora with brim turned down, half-smoked cigarette between his lips, surveying Alcatraz at sunrise, plotting his escape into another life. The party ran late that night. One of the last to leave, he drove the opposite direction from home toward the Golden Gate, his keys left in the ignition to seed the mystery. Did he possess the courage to jump, his body drawn by anonymous currents out into the Pacific? Or did he swap identities, namelessly crossing the Mexican border, a gringo tolerating no questions? The trail of butts leads us nowhere.
Game Over
by Janine Muster
The storm lifts the cover off their unfinished porch and blows down the ladder Hector had used to fix the roof. The sudden noise makes Elsa almost drop her bishop. Hector, ignoring her attack on his queen, moves his knight.
Elsa can hear the drops. Then something warm rolls down her back. She shivers.
“I thought you fixed it?” She takes Hector’s queen.
“Yes.” Hector takes her rook. “Chess.”
“Why is it still coming through the ceiling?” Elsa’s hand trembles as she moves her king.
“It mustn’t be the rain then.” Hector calmly traps her king with his rook. “Checkmate.”
Microfiction Monday – 92nd Edition
This week’s artwork is by G.J. Mintz
Back to the Beach
by Joseph Yenkavitch
Maria sat stiffly on the multi-colored blanket leaning back on both arms her right foot fidgeting into the warm beach sand. Her husband, one hand holding onto little Grace, ran into the water while the more independent Kathy splashed nearby. Maria watched as the turquoise water encircled the children’s bodies. She sat upright as the waves climbed and lifted them. Catching her husband dreamily gazing out to sea, her hand grabbed a knot of cloth. Kathy waved as frothy water covered her. Maria leaped up remembering how Bobby had waved going under. But Kathy surfaced with a squeal of laughter.
Standing on Air
by Andrew C. Hartford
It was dark inside the prison yard despite the morning sun. Dressed in another’s Sunday best, Jeb Sanders trod heavily up the scaffold steps. No crowd had come, only the law and the faith, the latter of which was represented by a lone figure standing before the trapdoor. Moving to his spot, he made a quick study of the priest. Pale, baby-faced, the leather spine of his bible uncracked. His holy garb, though clean, was too long and fell past his feet, giving off the impression that he was floating. “Hey” Jeb said, “Mind showing me how you do that?”
A Slow Demise
by Seminare Ta’afua
My eyes opened yet the darkness did not go away. I lifted my head but it bumped into the ceiling. I moved my feet but could not bend my knees any more than a few degrees. Turning was also obstructed. I realized my demise and start to feel my tears roll down into my ears. I knew yelling wouldn’t help but impulsively- maybe by fear- I screamed out as loud as I could. I maneuvered my arms to allow for prime pounding position and proceeded to hit the coffin ceiling repeatedly. It didn’t take long until dirt started sifting through.
The Cockroach at the End of the World
by Jim Doss
He wants to be called Bernie, but no one’s left to speak his name. He stares from those sad Franz Kafka eyes, a body shriveled as if he’s lived for years in concentration camps. He combs through building rubble, nibbling on barbecued people, not bothering to hide since the bombs went off. Mutually assured destruction—some deterrent. His cells absorb radiation, mutate, then mutate again. He feels sick, both at heart and in mind. He isn’t transformed algae crawling out of a pond at the beginning of time, but he is the new Adam in search of his Eve.
Tendrils
by Matthew McEwan
She spotted it first through tears. It was a hiccup moment. Nothing significant, just something to notice; a small leaf sprouting against her grey wooden fence. The next morning, she woke up and cried. When the tears stopped, she saw two; a week later, three. Since then, she would cry in her empty double bed, then stare out her window, counting the leaves as her cheeks dried. Months passed and no longer did she cry, but one day she tossed her heavy duvet aside and rushed outside. She took hold of the blossoming vine in a white-knuckled coil and ripped.
Microfiction Monday – 89th Edition
This week’s artwork is by G.J. Mintz.
Fully Immersed
by Andrée Gendron
Perched on a porch swing overlooking marshlands for long hours on end an old woman systematically discards (molts) her pointless (undervalued) humanity. Transformed once dissolved she becomes fully immersed in the pageantry below. She boasts a newly crocheted poncho—black, red, and bright yellow—resembling her spirit animal, the red-winged blackbird. To further blend in with them she spreads both arms wide while swinging as if darting amidst the cattails and sunbeams. Only there and then can she find true joy and peace among her own kind. It seems they are all the family the old woman has left nowadays.
Would Give 0 Stars If I Could
by Adrienne Ryan
I go through the ritual, draw out the circle for summoning Roneve, but end up conjuring Raum instead. I didn’t mean to do that, but it looks like the incantation was for Raum and the symbols of binding are for Ronove. Nice. Needless to say, the barrier doesn’t hold. If it weren’t for my talisman I would have been incinerated! Now Raum is demanding a blood feast, and I really don’t have the time to deal with this. I won’t even attempt a dismissal since I don’t know if I’m using it’s true name. Seriously, do not buy this ebook.
The Horror of Doris’ Toenails
by Janet F. Murray
Everyone hated Doris’s toenails. As long as her fingers and painted a bright red, her gait was like that of a clumsy alligator. Inopportunely, as Doris discovered, she did not share the alligator’s agility. Sheriff Milne realized this one day when up to his own nefarious activities in the Great Dismal Swamp in the south eastern region of Virginia. About to bend young Sophia over a conveniently placed tree stump, his eyes lit upon the grotesque sight of bleached brown phalanges, red nails desperately clinging to swamp grass. Doris’ digits are now memorialized in formaldehyde at the local museum.
To Be Warned
by Trisha Ridinger McKee
Sam tried to sneak past his mom as she handed out candy, but her sharp squeak reached him. “Did you just wake up? That’s ridiculous. Hey, watch for the crazies. Tonight, they’re everywhere. Be careful.”
He rolled his eyes but simply agreed so he could escape into the night, amid the miniature ghouls and werewolves holding out pillowcases. He strolled down the sidewalk, and as everyone was watching the dressed-up monsters of the night, he slid into a backyard, wondering as he sank his teeth into the scrumptious neck, what his mom would think if she knew.
Cedar Balls
by Brooks C. Mendell
My first customer gifted the cedar wood balls rolling in the cup holder. “You seem nice, but your car smells kinda funky.” If my next fares give five-star ratings, I overtake Vernon in Lansing and reclaim first in the Midwest driver rankings. This garners respect and encourages tipping. I turn to offer hardboiled quail eggs while Vivaldi plays. Two chipmunks sprint across the street. I slam the brakes. The espresso machine tumbles, showering a nun from Holt and a ride-sharing personal injury attorney with scalding water. The sounds of bouncing cedar balls fail to cover the screams and profanity.
Killed by a Drink
by Mir-Yashar D Seyedbagheri
Nick’s sister Nancy is struck by a beer truck. He tries not to conjure the truck, making contact. The motion of Nancy flying into the air, crack of bones on pavement. He tries to block the nicknames she bestowed on him. Saint Nick, Little Nicky. Whirlwind energy, love of piano. Footsteps, loud clickety-clack. He wishes she hadn’t gone out that day. Wishes he’d followed her. Gotten hit himself. When people ask about her, he says it was a drink that killed her. Technically correct. A truckful. Being killed by booze seems mysterious and inexplicable. Beyond logic. It’s easier.
Microfiction Monday – 87th Edition
This week’s artwork is “Mills” by G.J.Mintz
The Wishing Well
by G. Allen Wilbanks
“What are you doing?” my sister asked.
“Making a wish in the well.”
Addy slipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out a coin. She let it fall into the well and we waited until it hit the water with an echoing plip.
“Nope. You’re still here,” she announced. “It doesn’t work.”
Addy turned and walked down the hill, her ponytail flouncing behind her as she went.
“Very funny,” I shouted after her, but I wasn’t mad at her for the joke.
It had been two years since the car crash. I was just happy to see her again.
The Crack
by Marta
While shattered china patterns of pink and red flowers spread wide on the bone cold kitchen floor, we hide the dustbin to avoid picking up the shards and tip-toe around the tiny daggers to get to the milk and cereal so we can go about our day.
En Shore
by Jake Zawlacki
On a sand-sprinkled beach, I stared into the world. The world, in a molting scarred form, ruptured from the water to face me, it’s slick wings licking the ocean around it.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
It moaned and sputtered, in pain, “An odd question.”
I shoveled granules and threw them at the world. Sand-scattered salvo splashed, then was absorbed by the ocean, like all things.
“There is nowhere else to be,” the world said, the shiny scars of its back wet and glittering. Under heavy breaths it groaned and creaked then, silence,
as the world swam away.
The Last Blue
by Karen Walker
“Let’s bring your photos, Mom,” Jennifer says.
I’d take them with me if I could. Snaps of a misty morning at the lake long ago, of Jack in those awful navy socks and sandals, of our daughter’s wedding in lavender.
“So it’ll be just like home.” Her smile drips into a sob; she’s so sorry. I catch her tears. She wipes mine.
“Go home,” I tell Jennifer. Her girls need her.
Setting the prescription beside the bed, she kisses me. “Have a good sleep.”
I will. The pills are blue like her father’s sky eyes. I’ll see them tonight.
Paper Cranes
by Nhu Tien Lu
A Hmong girl, home high above rows of stone corn, sings to the water buffaloes in her rainbow skirts. Her laughter bursts bright and contagious. At fifteen, she is kidnapped to be a wife. She eats 55 poison leaves, chewing one at a time, but doesn’t die. At sixteen, an uncle takes her to China, where he sells her to strangers; for four months, she swallows her songs like beating wings. Now at seventeen, in the safe shelter with the other girls, she dreams of seeing the ocean and folds tiny colorful paper cranes. She sings until they soar.
Microfiction Monday – 81st Edition
This week’s artwork is by G.J. Mintz
Growth
by R.C. Weissenberg
The piece of bark attached itself to the wall and, no matter how hard anyone pulled, it wouldn’t come off. The next day it doubled in size, and by week’s end its diameter had increased tenfold. Bright green leaves sprouted from the wooden growth.
Nobody wanted a forest in the building, so they removed that piece of the wall and tossed it in the park. There, it blended perfectly, rapidly re-greening the barren landscape.
They tried to get an environmental tax break for doing this, but their request was denied. Their wall repair was costly.
If These Symptoms Persist, or Are Bothersome…
by C.G. Thompson
The morning after he started painkillers for his knee, he whinnied while brushing his teeth. He thought he’d stepped on a squeak toy. Then he saw hooves.
He navigated downstairs, a tail growing. Cartilage, then hair.
In the kitchen, he crunched carrots, read the prescription warnings.
Possible side effects: dizziness, nausea…
Pointed ears swelled behind his temples. Did he hear electricity flowing through the house?
A hard material began to encase his fingers.
Three hours later, police responded to a Palomino roaming a front lawn.
The horse ambled toward the patch of greenest grass. It favored its right front leg.
Elephants and Dolphins
by Jeremy Nathan Marks
I suspect that the language of elephants and dolphins is not in need of metaphors. To wit, when I barter for a candy bar I truck telescopic photos of the most distant stars. The brown clerk says he knows all astrologers. Put a man on the moon (again) and I will say -I’ve been there already. The moon itself is little more than that face my daughter makes when she sees life’s unfairness and says, dad, you didn’t teach me any of this. Le mot juste, unfairness this. Time to stoke the flames of our furnace.
Death and Taxes
by Lauren Punales
My sister’s corpse reanimated on a Wednesday. Unwashed and grey, dressed in an amalgamation of clothing different relatives insisted she’d be buried in. I quickly assimilated her into her previous life; reacquired her Taurus, moved her into my spare room, and bought her pungent drugstore lotion to mask her overripe stench. I argued with the IRS about tax evasion in death as my sister’s corpse moaned, hobbling sock-footed around my living room.
“I guess we’ll fill out your W-4,” I told her slack jawed face.
She grunted, her stiff fingers scrabbling against each other, staring at her grave plot outside.
Microfiction Monday – 73rd Edition
This week’s artwork is “Where It Leads” by G.J. Mintz.
Faded Blue Loveseat
by Paul Germano
After an unpleasant evening at a holiday party neither of them wanted to attend at the festively-decorated red-brick home of the lovey-dovey couple they sometimes hang out with, they unlock the dead-bolted door to their tiny apartment, still miffed by an argument in the car and immediately head for their living room, turning on the TV and reluctantly taking their appropriate spots, sitting uneasy and far apart, on a faded blue loveseat that’s not up for the job.
The Beauty Within
by Jim Doss
Each day people die, only to be reborn again. It’s like they never left, same features, same clothes, same age, same memories, rising from the usual bed to eat a normal breakfast. Uncle Eddie last week. Sister Mary yesterday. They greeted me on their way to church this morning, two true believers walking the straight and narrow. I tip my hat to all who have witnessed the afterlife, felt their soul leave the body. Everyone’s time of dying remains a mystery of synthetic tendons, semiconductors, algorithms of good and evil. In my heaven, God’s just one more lonely computer scientist.
Unlike the Ones That Came Before Me
by Daeira Brown
I’ve seen things I shouldn’t have seen.
There were others like me. But they always do something wrong. When they do, the room goes cold and I hear the faintest hush of whispers.
I’m afraid. The last time I heard the hushes, one of us disappeared. But I am still here.
I’m still here, so I must be right. The way I speak/think is right. Suddenly, it all added up. I was right, so I wouldn’t disappear.
I curved my lips into a smile. Except this time, I did not need the numbers to tell me to do so.
Not Following
by J.R. Heatherton
A sickly gentleman from Prague opens a window to peer down at a throng-filled street where each pedestrian busily carries a chiseled rock from one side of the street to the other, giving thumbs-up once post is made and congratulating one another on a job well-done before carrying their rocks back across the street to repeat the process all over again. The man yells out, “Can anyone tell me how any of this matters?” No one answers his plea, paying no attention to anything other than passing time carrying rocks. So he shuts the window and draws closed the drapes.
Microfiction Monday – 69th Edition
This week’s artwork is by G.J. Mintz
Human Nature
by Katherine Bonnie Bailey
As a child, I harvested powder from butterfly wings to smear on my cheeks, glittering war paint for soft, pale skin. But beauty did not occur to me. Instead, I applied the shades for fantastical reasons, reveling in imagined potency.
“Don’t,” My mother scolded when she saw. “They need their fairy dust for flight.”
But no dust would lift my feet from the ground. And if I couldn’t wing away, why should they? So I chained the colorful creatures to the flowers with tiny tears in delicate places, my face glimmering. Stranded, they were only worms. No better than me.
Scones
by Barry Basden
On his way for scones this morning, he rolled through a stop and turned in front of a tan pickup. Immediately a cruiser appeared in his rear view.
“I beat him to the corner,” he lied.
“Not if you’d stopped. Two weeks ago a woman got T-boned there. Broke her neck.”
He remembered that cluster of EMS and police vehicles, his irritation detouring around it. So. A woman with a broken neck had been at the center of all that commotion.
He tacked the warning citation above his key rack. He wanted to see it every time he went out.
He Remembers a Girl in Scotland
by David L. Arnold
Once, when he was much younger and on orders for Nam, he backpacked Scotland. In Mallaig, he sat on the dock with a girl he met on the Sands of Morar. They shared a head of lettuce, slicing it like an apple. She was going to Ben Nevis. He was waiting for the ferry to Stornoway. He thinks he still dreams of her sometimes; a girl walking beside him on the sand who he cannot turn and see. He has been back to Scotland. He never made it to Nam. He’s older now, so he figures it worked out okay.
The Good ol’ Days on the Farm
by Kenny A. Chaffin
On the farm we’d put up bailing-wire antennas for everything – the B&W television, the CB radio, even the chickens. There was only Channel 12 with its 10,000-watt, thousand-foot tower a few miles east of the farm broadcasting to the entire Southern Oklahoma and Northern Texas region. It came through everything. Like the Philco we’d listen to KMAD on, Channel 12 always there in the background. It was on the party-line phone, in the barn somehow through the galvanized steel and chicken wire. Mama heard it on her teeth. I believe it. I’m surprised we didn’t get cancer. The pigs did.
Deadheaded
by Hannah Whiteoak
He prunes you like a rosebush, removing dead wood. He disentangles stems that might strangle growth: your mother, sister, friends.
Don’t you want to be perfect? He proffers pruning shears and urges you slice away bad habits: drinking, dancing, going out after work. Soon, you won’t need work. He provides.
You bear fruit: a daughter, with rose-red lips and skin that bruises like petals. When winter comes, you bundle her against frost. “Wait in the car. Don’t wake Daddy.”
Ten minutes later, you take the driver’s seat. You stash the pruning shears in the glove box, blades red as roses.
Microfiction Monday – 64th Edition
This week’s artwork is “Dandies” by G.J. Mintz
Herman’s Job
by Simon Read
The café is full of middle-aged men lovingly stroking their paunches. The girl enters like a tongue in the ear and everything stops. Thoughts vaporize in outbreaths then crystallize and tumble, tinkling softly onto the stripped pine boards. Herman’s job is to sweep up the thoughts quickly and unobtrusively. He sweeps them into a dustpan. He empties the pan into a box and seals it with a special tape emblazoned with the words “private and confidential”. When he’s finished, Herman puts the box on the secret shelf for “collection”. Herman and the girl leave the café hand in hand.
Dear Antonia
by Wendy Cobourne
I must tell you, the poems are all outside. I left them there… I hear them through my window, exhaling in cool, exquisite blushes. I hear them fondling leaves; I smell them mulchy brown and wet green. Inside poems are humanufactured with the sediment of synthetic ingredients. They are architextured and tend toward right angles. Their luminescence is incandescent, like a margarine sun. I wanted to tell you something important, but like myself boxed inside these walls, my revelation is darkly vaulted. I am musty inside. Dank. My burps taste like basement. I’m sorry. Please love me in absentia.
Scrambling
by Kelsey Maccombs
One minute I’m scrambling eggs and the next I’m crying over the frying pan because I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon. I don’t know if the rocks match the sky when the sun sinks or if shadows descend to shroud the secrets inside. I don’t know how close I can get to the edge. The eggs burn, the smoke alarm shrieks, and I don’t know if my voice would echo back or be swallowed by the silence. I turn off the burner. I’m a state and a half away when I remember I left the egg carton out.
Hair
by Maura Yzmore
Sometimes I cut my own hair. I comb each long, wheat-colored strand; I hold it flat between two fingers, look my mirror image in the eye, and cut. But I always cut too much, by an inch—or five—more than I should. I watch the dead locks fall, without sheen, and curled, like in pain, as I grow lighter. I would love being bald, but that would make me ugly and my life hard. Ugly people cannot be carefree; others force them to battle ugliness. For a bit, when I cut too much, I am both ugly and carefree.
On the Spectrum
by James Dufficy
First they said my brother was dyslexic. Only needed that extra bit of help. But he could tell you the name of every player in the Premier League. He could tell you the name of everyone who ever played in the Premier League. So my mother is dying of breast cancer, and one day she reaches up on top of the refrigerator and pulls down the bottle of champagne. She says, “What the hell!” and starts to open it. My brother turns in his seat and says, “No, you can’t. We’re saving that for when you’re dead.”
Art Imitates Death
by Brooks C Mendell
Racing the sundial, Paulo shaped clay as the Prince loomed behind. The challenge—sculpt the Prince—had three rules. Finish in one day. The Prince decides. Do not look at the Prince. This final rule terrified. As decreed at birth, no citizen could look the King’s heir in the face. Nine artists tried and died, failing the challenge. Paulo glimpsed the Prince’s lengthening shadow, presaging the day’s end. In the shadow, he noticed the shape of the hips and caught a floral scent and thought about princesses.
Microfiction Monday Magazine 