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Free Flash Fiction

@fffict

Lovers of Words.. FFF publish flash fiction within 500 words, on any theme, for our readers to read. Admin - @iaminfoian https://t.co/xD2grVG6kb

Katılım Şubat 2020
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Free Flash Fiction
Free Flash Fiction@fffict·
Free Flash Fiction Authors / Writers / Lovers of Words Got a story within 500 words, any interpretation, any theme, that should be read? - submit below. freeflashfiction.com/submissions/
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Mythic Picnic
Mythic Picnic@MythicPicnic·
MICRO MAYHEM v6 Mythic Micros from @MeanerHarker @TommyDeanWriter @merlinflower @KennethMGRAY2 @IvyGri @JohannahWrites @fffict @Foreverasheley @ronita_c @1funnyfarmAdams @ContesdeFaye & @TheDarkestStar_ Curated by @NathanBorn2010 / Nathan Pettigrew #MythicPicnicTweetStory === === Betrothed by Zoë Davis / @MeanerHarker . She fell for him through soft mossed earth and chipboard shards. It was the unexpected fall of a long dead angel as their bones collided and settled between each other’s nesting forms. It was a tenancy of grave collapse, of rib-cage merger, as two single beds were thrown together for the happy couple, newlywed in dirt and now inseparable. Her plot had been cheap — a necessity for a first home — unscrupulous landlord conveniently forgetting to explain about the downstairs neighbour taken on years before. He'd been quiet, solitary, minding his own business until the shifting of the times — tin anniversary of mortal crimes supernaturally punished. Only a pocket watch remained, untarnished and wedged in the soft folds of a waxy cavity, its incessant ticking inaudible to the world above, where a rain softened divot had appeared like a giant’s thumb print — an inverted grin — her body nothing more than a little pill popped downwards. The worn gravestone told passers-by that only one occupant was worth mourning, yet as sediment rushed in to fill the empty spaces, her scared and scattered bones found themselves gathered within a dead embrace. Through long rotten teeth, he murmured whispers of comfort, broken prayers, and welcome. Then apologies. As that was all he could think of — this cursed existence a present never meant for gifting, every second stabbing through eternity’s crude shroud in relentless metronomic slicing. There should have been flowers, or jewelry, but the worms had long since run off with both. It was too late now, her rest-dragged spirit crudely forced back into a lesser space, to experience fractured immortality six feet under, with him, her new soul mate. What was left of fingers squeezed soil and milky bone. Cold, maggoted fat congealed around a brittle palm. “Don't be afraid,” all that was left of him murmured. Never having experienced the kindness of any living soul, in death, it was a relief. With no memories of Heaven, she assumed, naively, this was it. “I’m not,” she replied, and gently smiled. . Zoë Davis is a writer from Sheffield, England. She's a stubborn FND sufferer and fights what her body says she can't do by playing wheelchair rugby league. She writes poetry and prose, and especially enjoys exploring the interaction between the fantastical and the mundane, with a deeply personal edge to her work. You can find her words in publications such as: Ink Sweat & Tears, Strix, Roi Fainéant and Red Ogre Review. You can also follow her on X @MeanerHarker where she's always happy to have a virtual coffee and a chat. === === Bedroom. Light. Revealing. by Tommy Dean / @TommyDeanWriter . You think me numb to your loneliness, that I don’t see your cigarette flare, that these windows are only open for me? Who could ignore the heat, the whistle for taxis, the drum beat of trembling cars as they idle at the light? No, we hunger for the soft touch of identifying something beyond the sweat of flesh, of the snarls of hearts set on breaking open at the valves. The safety of the shadows, where I remain as perfect as the kiss of a peach on a summer morning at the beach, the breakers whispering their furies below their surfaces. How many men have drowned in these promises? So you see the pinks of my knees, the crevasse between bent legs, but your stare cannot dig deeper than the surface, and still I remain just out of reach, the potential a crime we’ll never commit. Each night a hundred strokes of the hair brush, while your search light of a face finds everything, but my own, and for this may I never come down, Rapunzeling myself, content to never face your passion, not knowing whether you bring solace or harm. . Tommy Dean Literary Agent, Rosecliff Literary EIC, Fractured Lit & Uncharted www .tommydeanwriter .com https:// tommydean . substack .com/ === === Worn by Merlin Flower / @merlinflower . The evening groused about and left as the night gradually peaked. The mob, planned for stylish coordination, had orange robes and peak level swords in hand. Some had machetes and two wielded iron sledgehammers. The two women didn’t have weapons except naked hatred. The first house was easy. Doused in gas, the fire spread fast before the few residents realized the nightmare was real. A single voice cried out and died down. The men and women were satisfied. First mission, done and how. They called their headquarters and announced ‘19 more’. Next house seemed even easier. A glass house secluded from the road with a single woman who engaged only with herself for company. Since an easy job, the mob took its time. They arranged themselves outside. Though glass, they couldn’t see anything except the reflected darkness. They tried to peer in only to encounter opaqueness. The two with the sledgehammers stepped forward and braced themselves. Suddenly, the light in the living room came on and they could see the woman, wearing a quaint blue dress, deliberately opening a wine bottle. She gulped down the entire bottle in an unsparing breath. The two men hesitated. Sensing the uneasy shift, the two women nodded in encouragement. The men took a deep breath and struck the glass. The hammers bounced. The woman in blue turned sideways and looked at them like a saint. The mob felt an aching chill. The woman closed her eyes and raised her hands as if conducting a symphony. The amber gas bottles rose and doused the mob. She opened her eyes and looked at them. The mob felt the chill again. She clapped her hands three times. A burning ball of fire descended to strike the sledgehammer men first. They shrieked and ran around like headless chicken. Frantic in desperation, the others dropped their weapons and tried to flee but their legs refused to obey. The two women were the last to burn. The woman in the blue dress laughed, her sound echoing across the deserted road. . Merlin flower is an independent writer. === === Mister Crow: Chapter Four by Kenneth M. Gray / @KennethMGRAY2 . I woke up on the sidewalk and saw Dokker's face looming over ‌me. "Wakey, wakey, dumbshoe." "I think you mean gum—oh, hilarious. You’re a regular Goon Rickles.” "Be nice, Mister Crow. Aretha saved you from that large and surprisingly fast man," Miss Stanton said. It always threw me off when she called Dokker "Aretha". It was like learning Sasquatch had a first name, and it was Aretha. "Both of you play nice," she said to Dokker, who, one-handed, lifted me to my feet. "Show off," I said, pulling my mangled jacket from her grip. Dokker, still gripping my tie, said, "Why don't you stop by my dojo sometime? I'll have the ladies show you some self-defense techniques." I snatched my tie back in a manly manner and said, "Let's go up to my office. I have questions." Miss Stanton looked at my building as if it were a bug. "We'll talk in the Mercedes." Dokker wasn't pleased to have me in the front seat. "That big bastard cold-cocked you pretty good." I felt for the knot on the back of my head. "You don't have to sound so happy about it. And exactly how did you save me?" From her left side, she pulled out a huge machete. "I said please." I found myself with newfound respect for Dokker, and I didn't like the feeling. "Put that thing away, Aretha." We both turned to face Miss Stanton. "We are sorry for your loss, Mister Crow." I turned to see Dokker's reaction. She shrugged and reached over to flick all the AC vents toward her, and just like that, the world was back in balance. "We'll talk on the way to the Cashmere, then drinks and a little snooping," Miss Stanton said, and the Mercedes pulled away from the curb. "What are we, Scooby Doo, now?" I winked at Dokker and turned an AC vent back my way. "Guess that makes you Shaggy." "What?" . X - KennethMGRAY2 Instagram - graykennethm Bluesky - @kennethmgray . bsky . social === === House of Shadows by Ivy Grimes / @IvyGri . Between the shaved boxwoods, other shadows crouch. I watch from your window. It’s rare to return here, where I dread the sight of the screens that keep out mosquitos and portion my reflection into hundreds of pieces like a massive birthday cake. Shadows live in every house, behind the stove and stacks of books. When you move, they move. They grow when you find the measuring tape. The deep shrink, and the shallow stretch out. A haunted house. Something always humming. Don’t tell me I belong here! You summon me once a year, and I can’t refuse the call, but I’d like to. You ask me the same questions, about forgiveness and joy and life after death. I don’t forgive. I am not happy. I keep myself busy. Have I ever tried to hurt you? The judge forgave you. You got to start again. I know where you live. We both left shadows in the river. I got mine back, but yours is still there, searching for something. I see it when I pass by on the way to the cave. In the flesh, I would have been afraid to spend the night alone in a cave, but now I know I’ll never be alone. My shadow tells me everything she knows. And one shadow knows what the others know. Something underground connects them all like buried electric lines. Or maybe they’re like trees, roots intermingling underground where I can’t see them. What she says about you is no surprise. You grieve your pain. The night you drove us into the water, your own shadow decided to leave you. Stop bringing me back. Content yourself with strangers’ shadows who linger in the corners, who curl themselves under your door. . Ivy Grimes is originally from Birmingham, Alabama and currently lives in Virginia. Her stories have appeared in The Baffler, hex, Maudlin House, ergot., and elsewhere. She is the author of the collection Glass Stories (Grimscribe Press), the novel The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion (Cemetery Gates), and the novella The Cellar Below the Cellar (Violet Lichen). To learn more, please visit www . ivyivyivyivy . com === === Trust Me, It Gets Better With Age by Johannah Simon / @JohannahWrites . My anger isn’t thrown elbows and rough edges anymore. Isn’t hoarse-throated screams and balled-up fists beating against drywall. My anger isn’t shots of tequila and whisky fueled rage. My perimenopausal anger is a richer cocktail. She’s a subtle blend of unadulterated resentment cut with the sour mash of wrath and a dash of shrewd retribution. I’ve learned to make my anger my best friend and ally. She’s my ride-or-die. At work, she seductively whispers in my ear. “Burn it all down.” I give her a knowing glance. “Bitch, you know we will. Scorched earth.” She winks back at me. “Remember, no fingerprints.” I can’t tell if I’m enabling her or she’s enabling me. Folks don’t understand perimenopausal anger because they don’t understand perimenopausal women. I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been. I don’t need explosive fury. I run on finer fuel. I’m powered by a potent combo of experience, earned confidence, and no longer giving a fuck what people think about me. I’m angry all the time, with the bonus of being a woman over 50, utterly invisible. And my anger’s cool with that. I mean, if I’m burning it all down, I don’t want to get caught. There are times when my perimenopausal anger gets nostalgic and yearns to ignite like we did in college. She hungers to glow in shades of a California wildfire sunset. Sultry smoke and heat and fuckers can choke on it. I remind her that we don’t do that anymore. We play the long game. Slow burn biblical-level vengeance dressed up in a natty silk scarf and tasteful gold earrings. We don’t need to cry or yell, we artfully undermine, gaslight, and sabotage. We aren’t fever and fury; we are political and patient. We get it done quietly. Stealthily effective. No fingerprints left on the blade in your back. . Johannah Simon (@JohannahWrites) is a Midwestern GenX writer, who can’t stop writing about her messy life. Find her at www . thewritingtype . com === === The Soil Girl by Amy Bharucha . A woman gives birth to a twig. Bewildered, she pots it and cares for it as though it were a daughter. Soon enough, a bud starts to form, a girl grows underneath the soil, curled up, foetal. The years pass and the soil-girl grows, ever so surely, into a young maiden. As young maidens so often do, the soil-girl comes to be dissatisfied with the monotony of her existence. She begins to tire of plant food, of being caked and cramped in the heavy peat. So she starts to emerge, only at night, only to feed. She suckles on bread soaked in milk, fingerfuls of honey. One day, a lost (and very dashing, it must be said) traveller arrives. He asks the woman if he may stay the night. He is confused and weary and simply must find somewhere to rest his head. Reluctantly, the woman obliges, and prepares a bed for the traveller. That night, the soil-girl emerges, on schedule, to commence her nightly feast. This time, however, she can sense something different. The house does not smell the way she is used to. There is something metallic, something sharp in the air. The soil-girl follows the new, peculiar smell to the traveller’s room. She has never seen a man before, but the maiden recognises the feeling that now overtakes her. A want she has felt all too many times. A tension deep inside the belly which churns and demands to be felt. A furious thump in the heart, a sweet fluttery headiness. The traveller wakes, and is surprised to find a girl crouched at the foot of his bed. She has tangled, damp hair and smells ever so slightly of earth. She wants to get a good look at him, so she crawls a little closer, still shielding all but her eyes behind the bed. A few minutes pass in this way, both parties observing, trying to make sense of each other. Satisfied, the soil-girl slowly stands up. The traveller notices, suddenly, the creamy lustre of her skin and the soft pink of her rosebud lips. They do not exchange a word. Indeed, it would be futile to try, for the maiden cannot speak the language of men, and the traveller is deaf to the language of flowers. Neither one has made love before, but the motions come easily to them. They finish, and the traveller falls into a deep sleep, his hands grasping the soil-girl’s cold flesh. When he wakes, she is gone. He wonders whether it was merely a dream, but he cannot explain the soil crusted under his fingernails, the scent that lingers on his pillow. Unsettled, the traveller gathers his things as fast as possible, blurts a garbled thanks to his hostess, and, fed up with travelling, makes for home. As he hurries through the garden and swings the gate shut, he does not notice the heavy-headed flower that was not there yesterday. He does not notice how it turns to watch him disappear into the woods. Most of all, he does not notice the pair of lips in the centre, gently parted, waiting to be kissed again. * First published in Free Flash Fiction / @fffict . Amy Bharucha is an English Literature student currently living in Sevenoaks, UK. @ amybh4rucha === === A love so peaceful it’s violent by Naa Asheley Ashitey / @Foreverasheley . Count backwards and forward, Each breath serves as a warning siren for the oncoming storms. Repent, repent, Before the plagues return. Repent, repent, And let the ocean carry you back to land. The score hasn’t been written yet. The craters of the moon are still in its infancy stage. The crack of lightening splits the sky in two before it is reunified By the graces up above. Heaven does exist. I sprint towards the gates. . Naa Asheley Ashitey is a Chicago-born writer and MD–PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A first-generation, low-income Ghanaian-American and University of Chicago alumna, she writes at the intersection of race, medicine, and belonging. Her creative and editorial writing examines how policy, media, and academia reproduce structural violence—and what it means to resist with truth. Her creative work appears or is forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, Hobart, The San Antonio Review, BULL and editorials for The Xylom, MedPage Today and KevinMD. She has been nominated for multiple awards, including Best Small Fiction and a finalist for the Claire Keyes Poetry Award. More at NaaAshitey . com Twitter/Instagram: @foreverasheley Bluesky: @foreverasheley . bsky . social === === Coming Home by Ronita Chattopadhyay / @ronita_c . It started when I lived in Mumbai. My eyes would burn and tear up, often at the most inconvenient of times. My life became this constant struggle of evading light. Ophthalmologists across multiple cities were clueless. Was it some kind of allergy? Allergy to light? Pollution? Then, one guy in Ahmedabad said – “It is almost like your eye lashes are trying to go inside your eyes.” It wasn’t that farfetched. I was born with my eye lashes turned inwards. An old, experienced general physician had come up with the most unexpected, practical solution. “Put sticking tape below her eyes and it will stretch the soft, baby skin and the eye lashes will come out on their own.” It had worked. For a while. I guess, in the end, we all just want to come home. Don’t we? . Ronita Chattopadhyay is an Indian writer and poet. Her micro prose chapbook Preparing to be Wrecked was published as part of an anthology (Grieving Hope) by Emerge Literary Journal. Her work has also appeared in The Hooghly Review, Akéwì Magazine, Porch Lit Magazine, FemAsia, JMWW, Blood + Honey Lit Magazine among others, and anthologies by Querencia Press, Sídhe Press, Rough Diamond Poetry, Bare Bones, Black Pear Press and Pippa Rann. === === Saving Christmas by Tracie Adams / @1funnyfarmAdams . You feel weak crying in the kitchen, asking our kids for help packing up the tree, the nativity, the wreaths, dragging lights back to the attic while I lie in bed. You tiptoe in silence around grief that tries to swallow me. You wash dishes, you clear clutter, beg me to hold on. Depression looks different on holy days. The sacred is torn from our hearts, the veil blows apart, and we have no choice but to bow to its unholy presence. Just fight, just snap out of it, you say. You bring me soup that congeals on my nightstand next to the wad of tissues covered in mascara and the untouched cup of tea you brought this morning. You want to help. I wish that you could. Maybe when I wake up, I will want to eat toast, or listen to music, or live to see the sun set through the bare trees. But today is like no other day. The sacred is torn, the veil blows apart, and we have no choice. You pretend you are brave. I try to believe you. The clock ticks louder and louder until I cover my head with a pillow to escape the torment. You remove the last ornaments, star-shaped bells, wrapping each one in tissue paper, placing them in the box with others we’ve collected over the years. Behind the closed door, I hear the bells ringing. I hear you trying to save Christmas. Trying to save me. . Tracie Adams, a retired educator and playwright, writes flash fiction and memoir from her farm in rural Virginia. She is the author of two essay collections, Our Lives in Pieces and Not Finished Yet. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and published widely in literary magazines including Cleaver, Pithead Chapel, Stanchion, Fictive Dream, and more. Visit tracieadamswrites . com and follow her on X @1funnyfarmAdams === === Grandpa’s 99th by Faye Brinsmead / @ContesdeFaye . Pincer-like, blood-blackened hands feel for the grapes his eyes can’t see. The quiche and vegetables excite no interest. I don’t eat much, the thin voice pipes, when I’m just here, doing nothing. He frets the strap of his disco-blue party hat, says it pinches. We unhat him but retain our fatuous cones. Soon, we’ll stick the two 9 candles in the Coles fruitcake, sing the old song in three different keys. He’ll need our breath to quench the small blue tongues fêting this ancient birthday boy. But when we start the video, he’ll say, in a slow voice that creaks vast distances on bullock tracks: I was born in 1918. And I love you all, and thank you for putting on this party. . Faye Brinsmead’s writing appears or is forthcoming in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, Wales Haiku Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal, New Flash Fiction Review, The Ekphrastic Review and Meniscus. One of her pieces was selected for inclusion in the annual Best Microfiction anthology; another was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She works as a government lawyer and lives on Ngunnawal Country in Canberra, Australia. === === Empty Walls Calling Your Name (to Grandad) by Karina Longo / @TheDarkestStar_ . I remember you In dreams— how the creamy, half-peeled walls wrapped around your chair, somewhat cozy, somewhat as if weeping in their weariness. I remember you, and how your hands rubbed together whenever you hummed Sinatra songs in your radio speaker voice, your eyes dancing waltz. The room was always filled with coffee, dark and strong and yet tasted like butter cream and April slow mornings. But foremost— I remember a little red note, your old grey typewriter, and small, crooked letters that carved their way inside myself: "And do not forget me, dear. Please: Think of me well." . Karina Longo (she/her) is a Brazilian-Italian neurodivergent poet based in Milan. She's the EIC of La Rotonde Review. You can find her work in Expat Press, Eulogy Press, Dodo Eraser, Michigan City Review of Books, Burning House Press, Eunoia Review, Some Words, and other places. X: @TheDarkestStar_ === === end === ===
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