Fiction

Flash Fiction

Blackman’s Flight in 4 Parts

Part 1. / Blackman knew lack / Of gravity before gravity / had a name / Black man flew before he was told to / Till the ground / Till the ground / Till the ground / Till he forget to look at the sky / Till Blackman forget he knew how to fly

In Feb. 2021 (Issue 64)

Flash Fiction

The Billionaire Shapeshifters’ Ex-Wives Club

by Marissa Lingen

“You’d have thought it’d be the musk, or the way he could rend me limb from limb at any moment,” said Carla thoughtfully, “but honestly it was the hairballs. You haven’t known gross until you step in a tiger hairball.” They all contemplated that for too long. Steph took a deep drink of her mimosa.

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Fiction

10 Steps to a Whole New You

by Tonya Liburd

Author spotlight

(1) Be unaware that the wolf was presenting itself to you in sheep’s clothing. It began, as most things do, simply enough. In a simple neighbourhood, on the edge of a town. Too urban to be rural, too rural to be urban. Women grew old. Some women aged with their children, grandchildren, family around them. Some grew old alone, isolated, bitter. Others might grow old and die sick, in pain. Then there was you.

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Flash Fiction

Incense

by Megan Chee

The storyteller sits on a plastic stool by the side of the street. Rickshaws trundle past; cars honk their horns. Cart vendors crying their wares (“Beef noodle soup! Dragon’s beard candy! Scallion pancakes!”) swear at him for getting underfoot on the sidewalk. Children, released from school gates in a delirious swarm, run shouting through the streets.

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Fiction

Things to Bring, Things to Burn, Things Best Left Behind

by C.E. McGill

Author spotlight

Oz is holding a knife to his wrist when they knock on the door. For a moment he hesitates, weighing his options. His eyes dart between the door and the knife—eeny, meeny, meiny, mo—and land on the door. “Might as well,” he mutters, and gets to his feet. The dull sound of the knife as he sets it aside on the kitchen table seems to fill the room. It’s a terrible thing, he muses, how loud a house is when there’s no one else in it.

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Flash Fiction

Tiny House Living

by Kristiana Willsey

After years of roommates and sublets and shared bathrooms, other people’s beard trimmings in the sink and other people’s leftovers leaking a brown film into the refrigerator, Jude moved into a walnut shell. She went in feet first, arms locked overhead in a butterfly stroke, letting all the air out of her chest in one long exhale like a spelunker. Inside, it was snug. Cozy.

In Dec. 2020 (Issue 62)

Fiction

Umami

by Anya Ow

Author spotlight

“I have a favour to ask,” said the fushi to the chef, “and in exchange, I will grant you a wish.” “What sort of favour?” Yun San asked. She wiped sweating palms down her brown hanfu and tried to show a brave face. Thick mist had whisked her away from the back of her restaurant into the wilderness. Even were she thirty years younger and somehow able to outrun her captor, she had no idea where she was.

In Dec. 2020 (Issue 62)

Flash Fiction

If These Walls Whispered What Would We Hear?

by Aynjel Kaye

The first time Robin spent the night at my house was the first sleepover I had that there wasn’t some kind of complaint from under the eaves or deep in the walls. We were eight years old and Robin slept in a leopard-print sleeping bag that filled the space on the floor between my bed and the wall. “You still sleep with a nightlight.” And Robin’s tone wasn’t snotty and mean the way Tina’s had been. There was no unspoken baby at the end.

In Dec. 2020 (Issue 62)

Fiction

An Indefinite Number of Birds

by Kurt Hunt

Author spotlight

Stanley began watching birds on the day he panicked and asked JD how much he really loved him, and JD responded, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Stanley. How many birds are in the sky? I don’t know—a bunch!” Stanley couldn’t get the question out of his head. By week’s end, he’d bought a birdwatching guide and an embarrassingly expensive pair of Leica binoculars. He spent a tense Sunday morning ready for the birds to awaken and sing the day’s gossips and confessions, watching and ticking things off in his journal as dawn grew from a hint to a bloody smear to proper daylight.

In Dec. 2020 (Issue 62)

Flash Fiction

Love Laws and a Locked Heart

by Tamoha Sengupta

Princess Nivedita is one year old when a wizard named Yash locks her heart and steals the key. Nobody finds out who Yash is, for they never see him. The King calls for help in carving another key, but none of the keys fit. Nivedita becomes the Princess with the Locked Heart.

In Nov. 2020 (Issue 61)