Microfiction Monday – Second Edition
I hope you enjoy the second edition of Microfiction Monday Magazine. Thanks once again to my assistant editors, Marc Corbier and Jessica Standifird.
Day of Fathers
by Suzy Vitello
That June day half my life ago, two fathers came to me. The first father, my father, pillowed me from shock. His strong arms, his fuzzy beard against my cheek, warm breath in my ear, “He’s gone.” The other father, my freshly dead husband’s father, stood apart from us, melded to the floorboards of our moist, fecund cabin. His empty hands grabbed for flesh, but could only find the tender skin of his baby grandson. A family, all of us. Sliced and erased of a husband. Of a father. A son. Spirit.
Billy
by Jessica Standifird
Always wanted to be a lawyer. We were poor, though. Mama’d point her knittin’ needle at me and say, “You got big dreams for such a little man. Ain’t never gonna’ see the lawyer’s side of a courthouse.” At school they said justice was blind. Ran home like I was on fire with the Lord. Busted through the door ‘n went straight to Mama’s sewin’ bag. Grabbed that knittin’ needle, plunged it deep into my eye, screamin’ victory. Should have heard the fuss Mama made. Doesn’t fuss about the house I got her in Henderson, though. Wrought-iron gate ‘n all.
The Slide
by Bret Fowler
The mudslide took the yard, the porch, and more. I slip in the mud, filling my boots with brown water and soaking my dress. Another slide could wash me away in a second, but I can’t stop. Not until it’s whole. Until I’m safe. In the gray-brown muck there’s the shine of a garbage bag. A gray withered finger pokes through a hole. I reach for it and pull until it slurps free. I smile. Even after everything, his wedding ring still gleams. It’s the last piece of him. This time I’ll bury the bastard in the desert.
Senior Games
by Paul Beckman
On the porch of Harmony House rocking, and drinking iced tea, Bertram pointed to a shadow across the street and said, “Like clouds, you can see different things in shadows.
“Let’s try the shadow behind that man at the bus stop.”
I said, “Okay,” Mary said, “Kid’s game,” and Tess mocked, “How about hop scotch next?”
Bertram said, “You go first.”
I said, “It’s a man with an arrow in his neck carrying a box.”
Just then the man fell over, an arrow sticking out of his neck.
“Good guess,” Bertram said, backing into the house with his bow.
When Susan’s Daughter Sank
by Caleb J. Ross
When Susan’s daughter sank to the bottom of the swimming pool, she was supposed to stay. I reduced her to a drowned raccoon, like the ones always bobbing in Susan’s pool. But her eye followed me, so I hide. The daughter will be rescued, revived enough to finally kill her mother and me. She hated me for not being her real dad, the dad who taught her to burn and skin animals. She hated her mother, too, for sending him to prison after he tried his flames and flaying on Susan. We’re afraid together, Susan and me. Parenting leaves scars.
Microfiction Monday–First Edition!
It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the inaugural edition of Microfiction Monday Magazine! Five incredible stories by five incredible writers. Special thanks to Marc Corbier and Jessica Standifird for their assistance in making some tough choices. Artwork by Marylea Madiman. Enjoy!
Now is the Winter
by Dan Coxon
Outside, the blizzard ebbs and moans. In here it’s simply cold. My nose is numb, my eyeballs ache. I can’t recall the last time I felt the purple ghosts of my feet. I read somewhere that your blood is the last thing to freeze. The heart never stops trying to warm its sticky reservoirs. Like tea. Like a million rivulets of mulled wine. I peel off my gloves and start cutting.
Truth is a Bearded Lady
by Stephen Graham Jones
My husband has two hearts. He told me. When he was a kid, sideshow people were always lurking around to kidnap him into the carnival. But he got away each time, just barely. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be together right now. But he only tells me about his second heart. His other wife thinks he’s like everybody else. She thinks he just has one heart, can just love one woman. I know the truth, though. He trusts me with all his secrets. If either of his hearts is bigger, then it’s the one he’s given me.
Romania 1989
by Angela Maracle
The Americans run from crib to crib, looking for children with the whitest skin. I pick up a dark-haired baby, flick away flies.
“No good, he is Gypsy,” my interpreter says.
There are no colors, no toys in the orphanage. Bottles are propped against pillows.
“I want this baby,” I say, clutching him, even though I came for a girl.
I can’t take all of them. Some of them grab my skirt through the bars. We step over broken glass, and a stray dog passes by in the corridor.
The baby twists away from me and cries.
Train
by Jon Gluckman
My uncle took me into the basement to show-off his train set. As he pulled a chain hung from the rafters, a sickly yellow light dissolved the darkness and silenced the crickets, illuminating a world in miniature. He had created hell on a sheet of plywood, where tiny houses on fire simultaneously populated and depopulated tiny towns. When he pushed a small black button screwed in beneath the table, a recording of people screaming began to loop. Bloody half stumps of commuters crawled from a multitude of car accidents toward a lake slicked with oil where they would surely drown.
Darla’s Notebook
by Bob Thurber
After my sister ran away forever, Mom found a notebook filled with crazy drawings and gloomy poems. One poem was titled FUCK and went on pretty much like that for several pages. Another told the story of Red Riding Hood being raped not by the wolf but the woodcutter, and another listed eleven ways you can kill a man so that he will die agonizingly slow. My mother showed the notebook to her boyfriend Carl who tossed it in the washing machine, added bleach, and set the machine on Heavy Load.
Microfiction Monday Magazine 