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How Do I Say Goodbye? by NT Franklin

3/12/2021

 
We met the first day second grade. You were new to town; my people had been here forever, living on the poor side of the tracks. You had pink ribbons and plastic barrettes in your long blond hair. I close my eyes to say goodbye, and I see your pink dress, white socks, and shiny black shoes.

My lucky stars put you in the seat in front of me. I put on my best smile and stuck out my hand, Roger L. McConnel here; I’d like to be friends. I’m Tammy. I’d like to be friends, too. How do I say goodbye to that memory?

You stayed in town through high school because your dad ran the factory where my dad worked. I stayed in high school because you were there. I don’t remember a single day that doesn’t include you. How can I say goodbye to that?

I went to work at the service station, you went into the factory office. Two years I worked to be able to buy the station. Then I asked for your hand. Fifty years, three daughters, and five granddaughters later I have to say goodbye. Every day I was with you. How can I say goodbye to a lifetime?

I left the room so they could close the casket. How do I say goodbye to part of me? All of me? Outside, eight blond girls surrounded and hugged me. I looked into their faces. Each one looked like you. I realized I didn’t have to say goodbye to you.

The Queen's English, by Janice Siderius

3/12/2021

 
The train finally came to a stop.

“Leicester,” the conductor yelled out
.
My husband and I rounded up all seven of our suitcases and managed to get off before the train moved out of the station again. We were finally at the end of our journey. In the suitcases were all our worldly belongings. We were two twenty-something-newlyweds starting a new chapter in our lives. My husband would be a manufacturing engineer, and I would be looking for a job.

We parked our bags at the left-luggage office and decided to walk down the London Road. We needed to find the Post Office. The weather was glorious, and it was so liberating to walk hand-in-hand, looking in the shop windows. We were a Yank and a Canadian abroad in a foreign land.

“We need to ask directions to the Post Office,” my husband said. And I agreed.

“You do it,” I responded. “I am not sure I will understand the accent.”

My husband decided to ask the constable on a corner. His response was, “Just down the London Road, turn left on Beaver Street.”

OK, that seemed easy enough. We kept walking and walking and walking until the London Road ended at the Clock Tower.
“Did you see Beaver Street?” I queried.

“No, we must have missed it. Let’s walk back to the station. Maybe we should ask someone else?” So we did, although it was hard to believe the constable had given us incorrect directions.

We stopped a nice gentleman and he pointed up the London Road and said, “Just walk up the London Road and turn right. You cannot miss it.”

Off we went with great determination; we would surely find the Post Office this time! Except we didn’t. Our newly-found confidence was shaken.

“We need to ask again. This is crazy,” I said.

In desperation, my husband stopped a lady coming out of Boots. “Excuse me, ma’am. We are looking for the Post Office. We were told it is on Beaver Street. Can you help?”

Suddenly the woman began to smile, and then to laugh. “In Leicester we pronounce it ‘Beaver’ but the street name is ‘Belvoir’. It is one block up.”
​

Platero And I: Concrete, by Hervé Suys

3/12/2021

 
Editor: This is technically fan fiction. The original “Platero y Yo” stories, a series of gentle early flash fiction stories about a man and his donkey riding through Andalusia, were written by Juan Ramón Jiménez. A Spanish poet who won the 1956 Nobel Prize for Literature, he is largely unknown in English translation. Hervé Suys is attempting to add a further Platero 120 stories, written in various languages including French, Dutch and English.
Let’s have a walk behind the yard of the house where those people from the big city came to live, mainly on sunny days.
I thought I was the only one who knew this path and its comforting loneliness. I used to play here as a young kid, Platero, long before you were born. Don Diego then lived here and was all alone with his immense grief. On numerous occasions, I grabbed black currants from his garden and ate from the overhanging sweet prunes but was never caught, although I know he must have seen me more than once.
Soon I won’t be doing any more rides on your fluffy back my friend.
The preparations for building a real road have started and from then on it will be far too dangerous here for old people like me and silver gray donkeys like yourself, Platero. So, let’s go, before it all becomes too concrete.

    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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