Flash Fiction – Page 4 – swamp pink

Giulia

Giulia had things I wanted but was not allowed: a pool with a diving board, a dock on the canal, a Noni from Italy, rainbow bread from Wal-Mart, a dwarf hamster, a half-brother, pierced ears, and a two-story house. The story goes that I helped open presents at Giulia’s baby shower, my little paws ripping...

My Son, in a Box

February 8, 2023

Today my son will enter a glass box. The box is eight feet by eight feet, hanging from the mouth of a hydraulic crane. When the wind blows, the box sways, but we’ve been assured that it is secure. My son is not interested in danger for the sake of danger, he says, he is...

Bleeding Out

February 7, 2023

It was a big deal when Jerry’s house got robbed, because he cared a great deal for what little he had. I picked Max up from his job at the hospital and we drove up to Jerry’s together. When we got there, he was sitting in the middle of his barren, ransacked living room. “I’m...

Our Intemperate Flesh

February 2, 2023

In bed, Markus and I play doctor. Not in the kinky way, in the way that he lays crumbled in the blankets, and I ask him what’s wrong in a hundred different ways. We go in circles but it starts the same—I sit on an upturned basket and bite my pinky. He clutches his head,...

The Breakup

January 12, 2023

I used to carry them in my pockets when we went on vacations, sitting them in the corner of the dashboard so that they could look out of the window. My ex-boyfriend had bought them for me, two little puppets: a rabbit with gentle blue eyes and made of soft white cloth, a yellow bow...

Instants

January 12, 2023

That’s me clinging to the Sunbird flying up 95 to see you after too many days and pangs and mother-hungry nights. BeBe, Dad, and Junior—all of us in the Pontiac on our way to Fort Dix for your graduation from Basic Training. Like there was anything basic about my mother learning to salute and shoot....