Flash Fiction

Flash Fiction: The Volunteer

Posted by ractrose on 18 Dec 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories

Flash Fiction The Volunteer                         His arm held in the grip of officialdom, he would tug, but gently, allowing himself otherwise to be moved along. He would search faces for the onlooker willing to meet his eyes, and flash a smile to convey that […]

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Flash Fiction: Advice for Lightning

Posted by ractrose on 11 Dec 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories

      Advice for Lightning     The yellow fog was half smoke, and a breaking sun’s rays glittered through this, cast over cinders. Being late to take advice, thinking no one had come to the door, she went out at last. Someone had. A flyer of emergency numbers hung from the knob. Leandrew […]

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Flash Fiction: Character

Posted by ractrose on 9 Dec 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories

Flash Fiction Character                           Though the question occurs…whether this is not a product of nostalgia, this notion… Of character or coherence…     Coherence, adhesion, McAlley says to himself. Redundancy. Like healing like. Things that were familiar have fallen to schemes, none of […]

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Flash Fiction: Free for All

Posted by ractrose on 4 Dec 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories

Flash Fiction Free for All                     Suzette, who was going to teach how to sell lip gloss, eye palettes, body glitter— (H.E.N. the name of the line, which had underlying meaning, feminist sardonic, and official meaning: Health, Energy, Nature…) Had a drawing-in-of-the-lips habit. Long, impractical nails. […]

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Flash Fiction: Peckish

Posted by ractrose on 30 Nov 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories

      Peckish     “I don’t try to get out of things. I try my best not to get into things.” The weasel had dropped by, as he put it, coming on at first by a peristaltic rippling over a basswood’s roots. The roots canopied water pooling naturally between a fallen trunk and […]

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Flash Fiction: Fallen Short

Posted by ractrose on 27 Nov 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories

Flash Fiction Fallen Short                               Darian thought an attic window black as that could not be empty behind the glass. But no one who’d broken the others could pitch a stone to reach so far. She wondered if this were true. […]

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Flash Fiction: Pine

Posted by ractrose on 20 Nov 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories

Flash Fiction Pine                       Salvador had gone off, more of a brood than a hunt, though he carried his shotgun and walking stick. That suited Bridie, who wanted to feel free, picking over her herbs, seeing what had come back in the flower bed. Bluebells, […]

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Flash Fiction: All the Sires of Generations

Posted by ractrose on 6 Nov 2020 in Flash Fiction, Short Stories

All the Sires of Generations                         “That’s too bad. How you figure,” Arbuthnot asked McCoy, “if I put it out…if you get around, I mean, and put it out under my name… Tell em the professor, that’s what I hear they been calling me—” […]

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Flash Fiction: May Day

Posted by ractrose on 25 Sep 2020 in Flash Fiction

    A few years ago, Hogarth Press started the Shakespeare Project, contracting with famous authors to write novels in a modern interpretation of the plays. I haven’t worked my way to famous yet, but I liked the idea. The one I would have latched onto was The Comedy of Errors…setting it in the McCarthy […]

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May Day: Flash Fiction

Posted by ractrose on 19 Apr 2018 in Fiction, Flash Fiction

May Day                   Gougher, the man Dria had thought he ought to sponsor, the man who’d undertaken digging a pond with a shovel, the man who suffered, in some way Dria’s church friends were too delicate to ask… Anthony Vrenick had the thing in mind. If Gougher […]

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