In the basement, there is candy. Boxes teetering atop boxes, overloaded with gum gums and chew worms and those little nougat-filled eyeballs that blink when you stare overlong; with honeyed do’s and honeyed dont’s; with tar braids and clots of candied floss. The basement has all the candy you’ve ever dreamed of, a sticky thrill […]
I stopped recycling on the day you left. You were the one who wanted to save the world, not me. I was the anthracite-fueled cynic with a penchant for sullen women with placards and eyes brown and impenetrable as the frozen autumn ground. Your placard read ‘Ozone before Oligarchy’. The details of how we became […]
1. Alligators have four-chambered hearts This similarity alligators share with humans, birds, and the engine of Darryl’s car. The latter of which is hunkered in the shadows of Roy’s Clunk N’ Junk after it shuddered to a stop on SR 44, miles from the nearest municipality. Roy’s is on the main drag of a one-stoplight […]
On the day Grandmother swallowed a piece of the sun, the carnival was in town.“They’d just elected Eisenhower,” she swears. “A do-nothing. Creepy looking, too. Bald, sun-spotty. That Normandy heat sucked the collagen right out of him, poor thing.”We nod and smile and keep on using the bedside commode and the bars of the home-hospital […]
This issue completes my first year of editing Flash Fiction Online. Wow. In between learning the EIC job, I had major surgery and turned 60. Through it all, I’ve been supported by the wonderful team at FFO, my found-family and my always-family. I am lucky and grateful.For a long time, I’d have sworn blue that […]