Microfiction Monday – 211th Edition
Eyebrow
by Brandy Reinke
Blanket around our shoulders, ankles crossed, mine crossed again over the top of yours. The rubber soles of my slippers do not stop the rain that drips off the edge of the roof from seeping through to my feet. The smell of it- wood and wet-is why we are outside. The snick of the lighter in my hand is loud. You watch me bring the cigarette to my mouth.
I hate when you do that.
I hate when you do that, I say back, grateful for the edge of my right eyebrow, how I can make it arch up.
Unbelievable
by Joseph Howse
I mean, who are you gonna believe, the ones in the kitchen or the ones in the dining room? There’s a flambé to light and a grandfather in ashes. He was a yachtsman and a sportsman and a man, oh, man! Quite a businessman. And how many times he shoved her down the stairs. And if she divorced him he’d get the kid.
Endless Grays
by Roman Albertson
Those I met in the other place speak only of gray.
I first sought the ferryman’s advice, and he told me colors were signs of madness. I thanked him, two gold pieces poorer, and wandered from the bank. I followed her voice, fading into my amnesia.
Then you, the mirror, revealed to me my forgotten truth:
I met my end by the venom of love. I rushed to her side, but she moved no more. I drank deeply of poison, and began my search for her. Now I search, trapped in memory, my endless grays traded for love’s taunting ruby.
Practice
by Scott Burnam
Cassie’s always one-third done her tea when she reaches for her Taoist to-do book. She opens to today’s reading with a heading numbered forty-six. There are no page numbers. She never remembers if her bookmark, a piece of red construction site danger tape, is for the left page or the right one. Or maybe, and likely, she never turned the last page.
Uncaring (some review or preview never hurts), she sips, ponders, then puts the danger tape back. She closes the book on her peaceful space to ready for traffic, work, and whatever else she has not yet figured out.
Short Shrift
by F.D. Jackson
The sheriff, needing chest x-rays, arrives at the county hospital. He doesn’t recognize the radiology tech’s face. Eli’s daughter, Frances, sizes him up, arms folded over her chest. She fits him with the shortest hospital gown she can find.
Standing in the doorway, chewing on a sucker, Frances watches the sheriff walk down the hallway. A sad smile forms at the corners of her mouth.
Despite his best efforts, the sheriff’s privates dangle out from under his gown. A small indignity compared to the one that he visited upon Frances’ father–the night Eli died in his jail cell.
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.
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