Flash Fiction

2 MINPriscilla fussed with her hair. Of the 20 or so products that she had saved her money for and had carefully assembled, she’d curated five for this evening’s dance. Designed to tame her curly masses…

< 1 When I adopted you and took you away from your Bengal siblings. I promised to love and provide for you until the end. You were wild, like a Tasmanian Devil in a cage. Your tiny…

2 MINIt started with a deafening crash, the crunching and scraping of metal like an aluminum can in a trash compactor. Then came the screaming. “My God, I recognize that car, so.” “I think it’s Lizzie…

< 1 You linger in the approaching twilight. The elongated shadows of victory’s laurel tree casting doubt. Should you have taken this twisting path? You knew the journey’s end would menace, threaten, but sweeter times may still…

2 MIN“Sure you can get a prize,” says the hygienist. “You know, even high schoolers like temporary tattoos and stuff.” I climb out of the dentist chair and put my hand in the prize bucket. I…

2 MINShe was barely two years into the marriage. A toddler still at her breast. Money for soup folded into the knot of a faded akwete wrapper. According to her husband, she fled into the long…

2 MINI pay for the coffee with cash, apparently an infrequent occurrence as the cashier fumbles in the till for small change. It seems to be taking a long time.  ‘Forget about it,’ I said quickly,…

2 MINLast month he delivered a postcard dated from Antarctica Station. She’d arrived. I heard her scream of triumph 8000 miles away from her gentler sea in southern France. I was envious of her spirit of…

2 MINGeorge Orwell’s utopian epic may have missed its mark, but in 1984, AT&T released an inexpensive, magnetic tape answering machine that millions of homeowners enthusiastically snatched up by Christmas that year, often changing their personal…

< 1 The car park was a sea of colour when I arrived: pink and orange, purple and red.  It was obvious people had ransacked their wardrobes and pulled out the brightest thing they could find. Zinging hues….

2 MINSuzy uncurled herself from her hiding place, in the footwell behind the passenger seat. It was sunrise. She smelled gasoline, heard her father chatting with the attendant about the space race. She sat up and…

2 MINThe phone rings. I rush to answer, longing to hear my daughter’s sweet voice. When she left for college, it felt like standing on an ocean pier sending her off to the new world. My…