FLASH CREATIVE NONFICTION
Crumpled Map by Meg Pokrass
There was always a map in our mother’s lap as we drove over states we’d never imagined before; leaving our Pennsylvania discount-outlet-shopping-mall town that smelled of fried onions, matzo balls, fathers and grandparents—leaving a television that blinked blue all…
My Country Is Not in the Pull-Down Menu by Vesna Jaksic Lowe
I glare at the pull-down menu on the laptop screen, the arrow painting each choice baby blue as I send it running up and down, up and down. With each click, a new country or continent. Congo. Costa Rica. …
Father Figure by Rebecca Tiger
Where is your father? He’s dead, Mommy. She sobs over the piece of frosted layer cake the memory care center has given her as a welcome celebration. She forks bites of chocolate and thick white buttercream into her…
Fight Test by Will McMillan
The flesh on his arms, like an overripe banana, peels as I drag my nails upward. Ribbons of crimson appear—thin, jagged trails up and down his skin. My brother doesn’t just yell—he shrieks. Not my older brother at all…
Frozen Momos by Rachana Pathak
The water spilled over the rim, hissing on the stove, making a mess the way things do when no one is watching. I turned down the flame, wiped the counter, and cleaned what could be cleaned. The bubbles subsided.…
Lessons in Herpetology by Katy Luxem
As a lawyer with plenty of life experience, my mother should have known that lizards were a bad choice. Lizards are pets you cannot even pet. Touching them opens the risk of salmonella or something more sinister. Picking up…
He Drove by Cindy Skaggs
He drove a semi for the carnival, age sixteen, carrying transformers, his the bright yellow of the Zipper; he drove each Sunday to a new destination, driving all night, driving fast, driving on speed, driving on amphetamines, and then…
Solid Liquid Glass by Linh Preston
Two(opens in new tab) thousand, four hundred, twenty-nine texts. Over the course of 625 days, I exchange 2,429 texts with my boss, Will. For the first 149 days, 88 percent of our texts are work-related. Like the twenty texts…
The Plough and the Stars by Sean Thomas Dougherty
What did I know of being a man, back in another century, as I sat in that bar off Massachusetts Avenue, with the older men talking about the Red Sox, and so-and-so’s wife passed on, the saint she was,…
Parts by Allison Field Bell
I. He tells me my body is deteriorating. Just like that. He says, “Your body is deteriorating.” Part 1 of me says Fuck you. Part 2 of me weeps. II. We’re fighting about sunflowers again. Or maybe the…