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From Hope Came Peace, and From Peace Came Home, by J. Iner Souster

24/2/2023

1 Comment

 
His last memory was of the flickering of a full moon, glowing red above the horizon. Harland's eyes opened to a dream that was both intimidating and mesmerizing, as all stories from the subconscious can be. The night began to drift, leaving an eerie, almost frightening luminescence in the sky—his heart was still racing.

Deep in the cave's chamber, he stood overlooking the ocean of this strange world. It went on forever, beyond the reach of the atmosphere and all the powers of mortal men, with the sounds of water dripping off stalactites and the whispers of unseen creatures as the cosmos illuminated their dance.

A nest formed at some point over thousands of years as eggs drift into the sea, carried by currents and tides. Birds with broken feet but wings spread wide, fleeing in flight from dying hearts filled with the obsidian of its inhabitants and the unforgiven, mutating and breaking down within the lethal darkness from which it grows, blinded and ignorant.

He must be on his guard in the warm calm of dawn. Similar to the nights when he sensed the fragile awakening of what is. Sometimes Harland forgets the one thing he should never forget: everything is hungry.

His heartbeat quickened. The heavens appeared as they had in the dream, but no light seemed to touch the horizon. It was as if the moon had turned to stone, changing ever so slightly from a gibbous to a crescent.

Perhaps the knowledge of it affected his perception of the earth, perpetually entangled in each other's orbits, continuously succumbing to the allure of roving magnetism, provoking tidal surges through time. They progress through the phases as months turn into years with the cyclical precession of the ages, only to begin once more though the spring of life breaks with the winter of death, existing simultaneously with the passage of eternity.

There was a small polarizing space between the two surfaces, so they would always be close to touching but never be able to share their gifts. Bodies would dance with each other in the night, whispering words in their ears and drawing hearts with their touch. The sky would open up, and beauty would emerge, both great and fierce. It would last for eternity, always less than perfect.

And yet there would be no bitterness or regret.

As the light above faded, Harland fell onto the warm, granular sand; it was an inexplicable feeling as the beach moulded itself around the contours of his body, each coarse grain—a kiss upon his skin.

And if this new world was indeed born of an eclipse—a sign that great things were yet to come in the domain of man's consciousness—then he could only hope that his work was successful.

People who found their souls while in it would have a rare kind of peace, and everything would be as it should be. The dunes' euphoric embrace enveloped him, and he knew he had finally come home. ​
1 Comment

Barking Hairball, by David Margolin

24/2/2023

5 Comments

 
Hairball went to bed a cat and woke up a dog.

His first clue was the horrible smell.

His next clue was a mouthful of foreign-tasting hair that accompanied his first morning-grooming lick.

Instead of the familiar arched-back, hair-on-end reaction to danger, he felt his snout curling menacingly and heard a threatening growl roiling up from within.

Hairball, always the optimist, hoped that he was suffering some type of delusion or hallucination. After all, that rat that he finished off the night before had tasted a little odd.

His next reaction was to attempt to retreat to his favorite hiding place—under the bed, but his retreat was blocked by his now-too-large rear end, which lodged firmly under the bed frame. He escaped only thanks to a forceful sneeze, induced by a large ball of cat hair (his own), that he was now extremely allergic to.

As Hairball catalogued all of his former sins, searching for an explanation for his predicament, it occurred to him that he had become, in very literal terms, his own worst enemy.
​
5 Comments

New Neighbor, by Don Tassone

24/2/2023

9 Comments

 
Linda Williams turned off her TV. Another fatal shooting involving an illegal immigrant. It had taken place 50 miles away, but the news still put Linda on edge. Illegals seemed to be everywhere these days.

Linda lived alone. She had a home security system but still felt vulnerable. Her neighborhood had been idyllic when she and her late husband Jim raised their kids. Now there were all kinds of people living there.

Just a few weeks earlier, a strange-looking family had moved in two doors down. Linda hadn’t met them, but she could tell they were immigrants by the way they dressed. Maybe they too were illegals, she thought.

It was a warm, sunny morning, and Linda decided to take a walk. She put on a wide brim hat, locked her front door and headed out.

Walking down the sidewalk, she came upon a young woman and a little girl kicking a ball back and forth in the front yard of the new neighbors’ house.

“Good morning,” the young woman said.

Linda said nothing. The woman just smiled and kicked the ball to the girl, but it bounced by her. It rolled between two parked cars and into the street. The girl ran after it.

“Layla!” the woman screamed.

Linda saw a car coming. She bolted after the child, who started to squeeze through the parked cars. Linda grabbed her by the shirt and yanked her back. They both fell backward into the grass.

The young woman hurried over, dropped to her knees and gathered the girl in. The woman was crying and saying something Linda didn’t understand.

“Is she okay?” Linda said, slowly getting to her feet.

But the woman didn’t answer. Instead, she picked up the girl and carried her into the house.

Linda brushed off her pants, put her hat back on and resumed her walk. She wondered where the woman and the girl were from and what language the woman had been speaking. She hoped the girl was okay.

Back home, eating lunch, Linda heard a knock at her front door. She opened it. On her porch stood the woman and the girl. The woman was holding a plate full of pastries.

“My name is Amara,” she said, “and this is Layla.”

The girl looked up at Linda and smiled.

“I’m Linda.”

“Hello, Linda,” Amara said. “Thank you for my daughter.”
9 Comments

The Spirit at Night, by Angela Carlton

23/2/2023

6 Comments

 
I can hear the spirit at night, your voice, before I drift away to sleep. “You must stop practicing black magic. You must relent and let go Eva.” I tend to pace the floor after these encounters wondering, searching, and trying to recall the fond memories of you, my late mother.

“Walk away from casting spells. Stop the witchcraft!,” the voice roars on later in my dream, as I sit up with a sweaty feeling and head to the kitchen for a tall glass of water.

In a box tucked away in a closet, I fumble around until I find my old baby book. I flip through pages until I find a birth announcement, grade school news, and birthday parties. I look at a selection of photos, me and you posing, smiling and happy in front of the camera. We were happy. I can see that we were happy.

In the back of the book, I noticed a letter tucked behind an envelope. It was stuffed behind a cream envelope, this, a surprise.

Dear Eva,

If you are reading this letter I hope I am safe. I hope I have found a way to sever my relationship with your father. I did not realize he was a warlock and dabbled in voodoo. I did not realize he was abusive and controlling. I hope as you read between the lines you will find that I was able to escape and we both are free.

Love,

Mother
6 Comments

Falling, by J. Iner Souster

17/2/2023

3 Comments

 
Someday, Harland will go back to his friend's house. He will feel a phantom glow and know she's there, in her cottage, with its beautiful garden and stunning horizon. But at the moment, it's as though the membrane between them is as fragile as a thin layer of moss. She'll let him in, and he'll feel the warmth of her arm against his and smell the sweet intoxicating scent of her skin. She will tell him he's her friend, and she'll remind him that they're going to get through this and that he has to heal his senses: his sense of smell, his sense of sound, his sense of touch, his sense of taste, and his sense of love.

He'll make it through.

He can feel her breath on his shoulder. It's still warm, and it still smells sweet and thick. He can taste the blood on his lips. He will get through this; he'll keep digging and continue to break himself openly until he can take those foundations of his fragile mind apart and scatter them in the wind like they meant nothing. Like they never existed.

With the room now completely dark and silent, Harland staggers inside. He wonders if he can take much more before completely breaking down and imagines he can still smell her body against his cheek.

The door opens slowly.

Harland reminisces about how much he cherished Kali's home and her bedroom. He would spend hours on end in her bed, just lying there and listening to her talk about her work. She would gush about how happy they were and how full of life they felt, and he would listen until he fell into a deep sleep.

He'll keep falling into the darkness, remembering how his body got tired in her bedroom, and he'll stop sleeping in her bed. He'll remember he was never supposed to fall in love and wonder why he even wants to get through this pain. He'll make it through the night, but his chest will still feel heavy.

Now lost, thinking about how he loved her more than anything. The door will open, and he'll feel Kali's arms around him, smell her breath, and fall back into darkness.

He'll keep falling.

She'll let him get close. He'll know she's there, in his arms, keeping him close to her heart, but her heart is breaking.

Harland can feel her breath on his shoulder, the warmth of her arm against his, and she'll remind him that they're going to get through this. He'll feel it when her heart breaks again, and he will fall a little further down.
3 Comments

The Tenant, by J. Iner Souster

10/2/2023

3 Comments

 
She took the Devil by the hand, speaking softly into his good right ear.
"Together, we take a different path."

All existence is born of thought, and all her thoughts grow at the speed of pain. Willfully wearing it like a shroud, now bleeding, from a once beating heart of adoration, permitting anguish to reign, picking away the eschar of her past, never expecting the damage to mend. She is the walking wounded, bound by a tyrant called opprobrium, beginning each new day descending just a little further down.

Expectations lead to disappointment, soon to be followed by resentment.

"I am the mistake" was all she could say.

The pieces of both had formed from other lives once lived and possibilities still to come. Their bodies were like nesting eggs. The further you delved, the smaller the parts of their hearts became and with each decreasing size came a more elegant understanding of their inner workings as individuals and how they functioned as one.

Creatures formed from base elemental materials, discarded bones, and shells cast out from the sea. Items retaining toxic heavy metals, poisonous to each other's touch. They are the forgotten pieces of nature, burning with life anew. Intertwined in the roots of a dying tree and the horns of long-dead animals, everything buried mutates into fertile embryones. Pearls and precious metals united, all held together by magnetism. A brain that grows within a brain, a heart within a heart, all which came before. Fine, intricately woven organ lives within layers of dedication that so few could ever understand.

She can feel it slowly rising. It starts deliberately and resounding, pounding, hiding somewhere in her mind recesses. Gradually it vibrates and grows from within as new life sprouts forth. Memories return in particles, like elements that wander through space, slipping between passing celestial bodies.

It's only those who have truly been touched and have had the words of infinite possibilities whispered in their ears. Tinnitus of cosmic creation, never ceasing in its atonal song of purpose, a melody that always comes at a price. As the voices sing louder with each passing moment, there is no tuning out, only to tune in, to listen even closer than before, almost hearing the secrets of the universe.

Whispering in her ear, he spoke for the first time. "I love you."

Shame led to sensations of being undeserving, resulting in despair, scouring for a way to purge the defilement, allowing her soul to hemorrhage and seep through those unhealed crevices where all light escapes.

"As we tend this land together, may it begin to heal our heart and soul." He then fell silent.

They sat holding hands, finding beauty in the ashes, basking in the warmth, waiting. The reconstitution of two disembodied souls, not as a tenement lodger but as the sole tenant.

"One not littered with the remnants of our past."

Gradually they became entwined within each other's hearts. Quietly they watched as the world they knew gently burnt away.
​
3 Comments

Swallowed, by Angela Carlton

10/2/2023

6 Comments

 
I’ve been caught up in your lies. I’m not the spider but the bug who waits to get swallowed in your web, those delicate strands. Yes, I’m wrapped inside where everything tends to hang.

“If my husband calls,” you say, ”Tell him, we were at the sports bar or I was at lunch with you on a chilly day when the gust of wind kept us tucked away inside a cozy booth. Right, I was stuck inside that booth with you…remember?” When you laugh on the other end of the line, my brain swirls like those fierce, grey tornados I’ve seen on the television set. On a Tuesday, you might meet me for lunch to give me a rundown of your calendar as if I was another character in your shady plot.

The next week, I learned, you meet with the other man again, again and again. Sometimes you’d call to fill me in on whatever was next but over time, I stopped listening. I was too busy looking out toward the garden, the one I planted with my own hands as I waited for the Spring harvest, my reward.

When the rains came and washed winter out, some of your friends gathered around to celebrate your five-year anniversary, but I wasn’t there. Instead, I sat on my bench surrounded by the aroma of jasmine and honeysuckles waiting for the cucumber and zucchini, the yellow squash to break through that rich, fresh dirt.

I waited for it all to emerge.
​
6 Comments

The Judgment of Angels, by Ariana Hagen

10/2/2023

10 Comments

 
Hitchhikers were rare nowadays, which made the man excited to see one. He had always wondered if he would be brave enough to stop for a stranger and invite them into his car. When he spotted the well-dressed man on the side of the road he grinned and pulled over. Turns out he was brave enough after all.
The stranger approached the open car window and leaned in.
“Can I get a ride to the city?” He asked in an impeccable British accent.
“Sure can!” The man exclaimed. He patted the empty seat.
The hitchhiker let himself into the vehicle and settled in for the ride.
“My name is Michael,” the hitchhiker said politely.
“Mine is Jared,” the driver answered, tickled at this little adventure he was partaking in. “What brings you to the city, Michael?”
“Business,” Michael said in his elegant voice. “Business has been exceptional these past few millennia. And you, Jared? What events do you have planned at your destination?”
A wicked, slightly bashful grin crossed Jared’s face. He dismissed the strange phrasing as a slip of terms.
“Well, you know… a man has needs. Mine just so happen to be of the, uh, carnal pleasure variety, if you catch my drift,” he laughed.
“You speak of sexual deviancy?” Michael asked.
Jared laughed again.
“I guess you could put it that way! Truth is, my wife ain’t how she used to be, and I don’t like waiting around. So, I’ve found a place downtown that fulfils my every fantasy. You should try it!”
“I see,” Michael sighed, patting his briefcase.
“Well, I ain’t going to do anything to you, if you’re worried about why I picked you up,” Jared joked to ease the tension.
“It’s quite alright. I’m not scared. It is just hard nowadays to find humans who aren’t full of sin,” that cool voice said.
Jared glanced at his passenger in confusion.
“What?”
“It seems as if your designation is Lust. Not the most reprehensible of sins, but a job is a job after all,” Michael said.
And with that he reached over and struck his hand right into Jared’s chest, pulling the beating heart from within as if it were a simple magic trick. Deftly Michael tucked the heart into his briefcase.
A second later the car crashed into a ditch, the driver dead from heart attack, as the coroners would decide.
Somewhere on a quiet highway road, Michael thumbed down his next ride, ready to deliver his judgment.
​
10 Comments

Beware the Chicken Curry, by Sandra James

3/2/2023

5 Comments

 
Loud pounding on my door woke me as I dozed in front of the television. Two burly policemen glared.

‘Your husband collapsed at work. We believe he was poisoned.’

‘Will he be okay?’

‘Too early to tell. You both ate the chicken curry?’

Nod.

‘Did you add something to his serve?’

‘Oh, no. He cooked it and we ate before he left for night shift.’

‘We spoke to his ex-wife. She said he never cooked. She used to wait on him hand and foot.’

‘But he insisted. I complained about his laziness and he said he wanted to make amends for all his neglect.’

Eyebrows raised.

‘Really! I switched the bowls when his back was turned; my serve was too big. I didn’t want to offend him because I thought he was trying hard.’

‘I understand you recently came into a large sum of money? Signed a book deal with a major publisher?’

‘Y-es… it all started to become clear.’

Then I woke. It was only a dream. But what a great plot for a novel.

But I’ll never eat chicken curry again.
5 Comments

Ralph Knows Everything, by Patrick Mara

3/2/2023

1 Comment

 
From the back row, Ralph resented the classroom’s smarty-pants. To ignore them, he began slipping into a daydream, but a mysterious classmate appeared beside him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I grant powers,” replied the unidentified classmate.

“I wish to absorb a book’s knowledge simply by touching it.”

The classmate nodded and disappeared.

Ralph dashed to the library and, with fingers outstretched, grazed each book as he flew by.

All at once he knew more than he wanted. Not only the horrors of history, but their pattern of recurrence. The awareness that we have never learned.

Ralph woke up, melancholy.

1 Comment

The Stones in Stunbury, by Anne-Marie Smith

3/2/2023

2 Comments

 
In the village of Stunbury an old pile of stones that were shaped like a human had occupied the top end of a street for what seemed to be forever; there was no wall or grass around it. No one you asked could tell you when or how the stones were placed there or whose statue it was meant to be.
The stones formed like the focal point which people assumed must be a traffic island. Apart from faint white lines leading the traffic on the R 42 that led into the village, there was no signalling of direction when you got there, but everyone walking or riding along the road would observe an unspoken rule to keep a wide distance from the statue and act as if it was the hub of a roundabout.
Although no one knew whose statue it was, many had their own nickname for this anonymous structure. One day Council was renaming some streets and local points of interest including the R42 road which led all travellers past the said statue into the Stunbury village. Everyone wondered what that landmark would be called and at the primary school the English teacher decided to do research by asking her students to give her one name they had heard used for that statue.
Only the acceptable names are listed. She had to make a final decision: submit to Council a choice of ten names for that road’s noticeable fixture either in the order of originality or to list them in the order in which she had collected them. Because it was her project she chose her preferred sequence:
1 Bonny Prince
2 Statue with no name
3 The secret guest
4 Unknown human.
5 Mystery monster.
6 Cockeyed Stones
7 Nameless rabble.
8 Uneven Stones
9 The Enigmatic
10 Cryptic Stones
For a couple of months the teacher kept looking for any sign going up against the stones when she drove past on her way to school. So that summer it came as a shock to her when she saw the council workers installing a blue road sign stating the words “Cockeyed Bonny Road”. My time, she said, was not completely wasted. ​
2 Comments

Burial Lullabies, by J. Iner Souster

3/2/2023

2 Comments

 
That night we walked into the forest with only the cemetery lights to guide us. The bird looked back at me from the tree, and I felt my father's emotions reflected in my heart. The ardency and life flowed between them, and he had to close his eyes. I looked at his face, feeling warmth as I sat in the memory of the crow.

It was time to bury the body. In the darkness, there was a faint glow. My shovel sank into the earth without resistance, and the quiet of the night swirled around me. Silence but for the calls of insects, once familiar, now alien and devoid of reason.

Between us and the cabin, I planted two more shovels full of earth to cover the distance that had formed between us, along with the tree, soil and old bird bones.

At first, the night crow's soft cry was so faint that I didn't even notice. Then my father turned to me, and his eyes were old and sad as the shadows surrounded them. The pain of loss that comes with time made the outer corners of his eyes resemble birds' wings. A darkness that fractured as it moved outward.

The moon was softly shining over the top of the trees when my father dropped to his knees. Then, the bird revealed itself to us in all of its finery and glory, hopping onto the top of the tallest tree, facing us.

In the moonlight, the bird cast a magnificent blue and grey shadow, cloaked in tranquillity and dignity. It was still, majestic and devoid of fear, both at night and burial time. I thanked the crow for the serenity it had brought us and proceeded to bury my uncle. Then we felt our spirits lifting, and the cold sets in again.

We picked up our shovels, calmness still lingering on our faces despite our lightheadedness. It was mysterious, but it was comforting. I stood and faced the storm as glorious hail pelted my already-weathered brow.

I dug, pushed, and I buried my uncle. I cried when it was all over. One minute you are staring at the cold eyes of the grave, and the next, your life has changed forever. Then, I cried some more.
2 Comments

    Longer
    Stories

    Longer Friday Flash Fiction Stories

    Friday Flash Fiction is primarily a site for stories of 100 words or fewer, and our authors are expected to take on that challenge if they possibly can. Most stories of under 150 words can be trimmed and we do not accept submissions of 101-150 words.


    However, in response to demand, the FFF team constructed this forum for significantly longer stories of 151-500 words. Please send submissions for these using the Submissions Page.

    Stories to the 500 word thread will be posted as soon as we can mange.

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    One little further note. Posting and publishing 500-word stories takes a little time if they need to be formatted, too.
    ​Please note that we tend to post longer flash fiction exactly as we find it – wrong spacing, everything.

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