She’s flicking through one of those animal encyclopaedias, the kind you get heavily discounted in the run up to Christmas, and then even cheaper before New Year, the kind nobody is ever going to pay full price for. ‘Do you think I should keep this one, Mum?’ she asks. ‘I mean, it was a present.
That year I was smoking cigarettes, swishing past boys, and worrying about Vladimir, the classroom tortoise. Tim’s desk was inches away from the terrarium and he seemed to be keeping an eye on him. Vladimir appeared too wise to be trapped. The lettuce in his terrarium turned brown, but Tim would replace it with new
The second time Gina Oleson falls for the fiancé scam, Jenny isn’t as understanding. A fiancé in Greece who needs help financing a business purchase? A texted image of a check from the Bank of England for three million Euros? Poor Gina lives in a crap Westfield, New Hampshire apartment with her elderly cousin, doesn’t
“There it is,” William said when Cheryl got home, pushing the gingerbread house toward her across the kitchen counter. “We made it at the Managers’ Meeting.” Cheryl slid off her boots and hung up her jacket. “Wish I had a job like that.” “It’s team building.” “Looks pretty good though.” “You should’ve seen Dan’s,” William
I remember every Monday, the soft scent of soap, bubbles filling the air in your laundry room, clothes hanging from the line that grandpa fixed from one wall to the other, the soft hum of the wireless. When the sun shone, I followed you outside, my feet in your footprints, toes pointed like yours. We
Being in the other room, I could only imagine the look of the events that might match the sounds I heard. The sound was as much a distraction as sitcom walls teetering when its prop door shuts— bringing any semblance of alienation that the program might have brought to the world of the viewer also
I used to wake up early. I used to wake up before sunrise— when the temperature felt a season colder. I used to live on the side of a mountain where a tree fallen over a path could go unnoticed for weeks. And somewhere there was an axe I could use to clear it. I
Jayne Martin’s collection of micro fiction, published by Vine Leaves Press, is billed as ‘tiny tales for the time challenged.’ It features thirty-eight stories, none of them longer than 300 words, some of them much shorter. Martin began her writing career as a TV screenwriter. She’s been publishing flash fiction for about ten years and
Onto the dense undergrowth of stunted hay stalks and wide leafed grasses, a pheasant I shot shouldered its graceless fall. I remember we, that bird and I, were in a clearing on a hill. The surrounding woods had long since turned their colors and shook off their dead growths. The sky was clear. The air
Different than other men Dora found online—rougher hands, a dry wit, and tendency to hypochondria. Similar in how he loved drinks and small bites at happy-hours, TV crime shows, and playing Cards Against Humanity. She liked his looks, told friends he was a cousin of the Marlboro man: 6’ 2” tall, wide shoulders, narrow hips;
