Tag Archives: flash fiction

The Things Left Behind

by Jamin Stortz

It had been three weeks since my brother left before I entered his room. I couldn’t bear it, preferring to leave the door closed and, with it, the possibility that he was still behind it, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall listening to music with his eyes closed like he always did. It was good that he was gone, I would tell myself, repeatedly, despite the sickness in my stomach that told me otherwise. Mom said he was better off, though she couldn’t look me in the eye when she said it. Continue reading

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Fallout

by Mickie Kennedy

My mother grew up near Chernobyl, decided to go to her aunt’s house after the accident. Her brother stayed behind, a good soldier taking orders. He moved concrete blocks and bags of sand, developed a sunburn despite being inside.

They rotated him out and he spent a few days in the hospital, mostly for observation. Other men fared much worse: some made it, others did not. One told him that he watched the sun set behind blackened crops and knew he too was withering on the vine. Continue reading

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Diner™

by Amber Baird

Sunshine yellow mustard caked all over my hands, America’s Favorite Brand or what the fuck ever, I grab the next bottle. Squirt out ketchup, America’s Favorite non-Newtonian fluid, in a spiral pattern on the wood-style laminate floor. Twist my hips to the soft rock anthem still blaring out of the diner’s sound system.

They announced it this morning, the death of capitalism.

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I Stumble into a Portal on 4th Street

by Marie Henry

Yeah, things are grim. But not all of it. I get buzzed into my bank which is almost pandemically empty. And am invited to sit down in a cushy chair by the lovely teller seated on the other side of the plexiglass.

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Christmas Eve Skeleton

by Mike Schoeffel

She is 28 weeks pregnant when she overdoses in the backseat of a rusty Honda Accord. Heroin, of course. It’s always heroin. Bad batch going around. Happens every couple of months. No overdose calls, no overdose calls, then BOOM: three in one shift. Continue reading

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