FLASH CREATIVE NONFICTION
Normal Girl by Kelly Lindell
Bedtime in first grade is finger jelly and sock lint. Vaseline rubbed on my bloody, split, vellum-dry knuckles; hands cocooned in white Nike gym socks, wrapped on my wrist with scrunchies. I am told to sleep. Wake up for…
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Called Shot: A Prose Sestina by Emma Kaiser
I ignore him as he takes the chair across from mine, though I knew of course that he’d be here—back porch of the local backwoods dive bar, the night cool, the back of my neck burning. It is November…
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The Coat by Kathleen McKitty Harris
Christmas, 1978. I recognized my father’s rushed, angular handwriting in Santa’s note beside the empty scotch glass and plate of sugared crumbs on our coffee table—but I was eight, and I wanted to believe. That year, my father bought…
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Abbreviated / Not Manager Material by Paul Crenshaw
Abbreviated Since entering middle age, I sometimes fear my time is running short. I could use the word “manopause” to explain the changes men face at my age, but I need to save time so I just say…
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Refrigerator Elegy by Lindsey Harding
Do all things expire? you ask on trash night, and I shake my head, shake two-week-old pasta into the sink, shepherd it down the drain. No, surely no. And later—the refrigerator cleaned out, its shelves crumbless at last, so…
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Dois Irmãos by Hannah Storm
There’s a hill in Rio that overlooks the water, named for the fact it has two peaks. You describe it to me, but I don’t catch its name as you take my breasts in your hands, nuzzle my neck…
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Into that dark permanence of ancient forms by Aileen Hunt
I. It’s getting late when we turn into the car park—newly constructed to accommodate the endless tour buses that otherwise clog the country roads. But the late hour has worked to our advantage. The car park is empty; the…
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Because, the Ferguson Verdict by Ira Sukrungruang
Because, in 1978, we were the first Thai family in a working class neighborhood of Chicago, predominantly inhabited by Polish and Irish. Because we found our mailbox off its post every weekend, the aluminum dented in the shape of…
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Girls, Monsters by Jaquira Díaz
When we were twelve, we taught ourselves to fly. —John Murillo, from “Renegades of Funk” All of us girls, now women. —T Kira Madden, from “The Feels of Love” That winter, we watched New York Undercover on group phone calls,…
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