Microfiction Monday – 209th Edition
Not a Mech of Dust
by Justin Byrne
“Make sure you shine the laser sights,” Zera yelled from inside the Resistance’s newest mech.
“Sure,” Josi responded as she climbed up with a rag in hand.
Zera needed to make sure that every nook and cranny of the cockpit’s instruments were sparkling. The Resistance was prepping for battle, and Zera didn’t want blood on their hands. As Zera continued to scrub, they heard a scream and a thud outside.
“Josi, you good?” Zera asked as they sighed, half concerned and half exasperated. At that moment, Zera realized they’d been scrubbing the laser’s on/off switch.
“Oh… sorry, Josi…”
Deirdre’s Bucket List
Skydiving. Check. Albeit in tandem, harnessed to a bronzed instructor with pecs like loaves of rye bread.
Tattoo. Check. A black serpent, an apple in its mouth, writhing down the long branch of your spine.
Poetry Slam. Check. Second place in the GTA Spoken Word Contest. And a bonus one-night-stand with an almost handsome Creative Writing grad student.
Silent Retreat. Check. That still small voice. Perhaps the one that spoke to Elijah at the mouth of the cave. “Accomplish, accomplish,” it whispered. “Or you will regret it.”
After you are dead, that is.
Eating Cake
by Wayne Garry Fife
Chester and Aisha snuck from their 43rd anniversary party so they could eat chocolate cake amongst their tomato plants and runner beans while watching Cedar Waxwings devour the bright red berries of the Mountain Ash.
“I read that some philosopher said that hell is other people.”
“Mmmm?”
“What’s heaven then?”
Pianos
by Linda Lowe
Pianos come in different shapes with 88 keys that make all our songs come true. Spinets are preferred by the parents, whose children love to bang through the bass keys and tiptoe through the high notes, like a tiny rain. On lofty avenues, the grand pianos roll into concert halls, the women in long white gloves, the men stiff in their tuxes, while down the street the uprights spend their lives in honky-tonk bars, where the tired and discouraged gather for a tall cool one and wait for the piano man to play, “Don’t Stop Believen” even if they have.
Haboob
by Scott Burnam
Morning reveals a feather and a bottle cap, delivered by the sandstorm, perched on the ribbon of grit outside my motel room door. The feather’s gray canvas is punctuated with riotous white spots. The brassy bottle cap, harshly bent from an opener, bears the words “Good Luck” on the inside, either as wish or warning.
Crouching, I snap a pic of this gifted totem. I fate the feather to find its own way out on another breeze. But I retrieve the bottle cap, blow out most of the sand, and pocket it, good with the gamble that it’s a wish.
Microfiction Monday – 167th Edition
Aftereffects
by Margaret Suganthy Parker
When at last I fall silent and the six-feet hole in the ground is my forever home, I shall cherish the company of maggots, which is more than I can say about you lot, Ben said. Maybe that pissed them off. When the time came, they cremated Ben, tamping down his ashes into a six-inch urn—a rusty, round Van Houten tin. The tin went from mantle (that honor lasted the duration of the wake) to mud-room shelf to cobwebbed garage corner, then to the garden-shed floor. Occasionally a fly rests on the tin, reproach conspicuous on its sulky face.
Appliance Appreciation
by Emily Fine
“I feel used, unappreciated,” my dishwasher told me.
I thanked it for its service.
“Too little, too late” it said, then fell silent and refused to turn back on.
After a week of hand washing, I realized I had taken it for granted. I sank to my knees, pleading, “I want you back. It’ll be different this time.” No response.
A week later I replaced it. The new machine was more efficient, less needy. Still, at the end of each load I made sure to give it a little pat of gratitude and whispered, “keep up the good work.”
Barbers
by Linda Lowe
Barbers look all Christmassy in their candy-cane striped vests, their mustaches frosty and festive. Barbers always wear red and white to match the poles that swirl and. whirl out front, begging for customers. Barbers dream of scissors and clippers that stay sharp forever, and shears that whistle a happy tune. Barbers will sing off key to teach you right from wrong. They sigh before they sing (it’s part of the plan). Everyone comes to visit them in their leafy old home, where they sing “Sweet Adeline,” and the old men say, “that could have been me back in the day.”
Jack-in-the-Box
I find a jack-in-the-box and crank the handle. The tune ends and out pops the jack. I stuff him back in, and he moans. In darkness the jack continues moaning as I crank the handle and the music plays. Again, the jack pops up, but he isn’t smiling this time. The jack screams when I stuff him in. I crank the handle, and a dirge plays. The jack-in-the-box pops up dead. The jack is silent when I stuff him in his box, which I note for the first time, is a black box with all gold trimmings, veiled in grief.
Microfiction Monday – 144th Edition
That The Blood Won’t Turn
by G.J. Williams
No, the jackdaws have not turned grey, they’re simply covered in ashes. It’s the times we live in. If panthers were native to these parts, they too would have a dusting of grey. It’s just how it is. And to preempt any objection to my use of the word ‘dusting’in this context, be assured that I am all too aware of how deeply ingrained in fur feather and skin is this ash of which we speak. The roses are grey, the grass is grey. What we dread is what a flesh-wound might reveal: grey blood, its flow weak.
Walk Like Lovers
by Akmal Hafizi
As we’ve just missed a bus on our way back to the dorms, I was afraid you’d think this is the worst date you’ve ever gone on after lectures. But, to see you’re still gleaming those dilated pupils got me thinking it wasn’t really a bad idea to take a walk with you around the campus. And, as I regretted my dull “I’m not so sure,” to your “Was it all about the journey or the destination?”. Your “But I like the way we walk like lovers, and I actually wanna walk further,” really swept me off my feet.
Tornado
by Linda Lowe
Among the hurly-burly of the aftermath: your couch, whose cushions have departed, your favorite chair, muddy and torn, the kitchen table, resembling firewood. Snagged in the old maple, a sheet, a blanket. And scattered about everywhere, clutter, including beads you hated, a gift from the man you divorced years back. It’s all years back, you realize, standing ankle-deep in broken dishes, glasses, and silverware, twinkling in the sun of a calmer day. Among the missing is your car, which took flight from this miserable existence. That car, old and sad. Do you really want to drive, anyway? Ever again?
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 Magazine 