Author: Editor

Flash Fiction by Hilary Wilson

Still hot from the flames, my father’s bones lie on a silver metal table. The bones are made brittle by the fire. They’re easier to crush that way.

All of the attendees take turns picking a piece of bone with their chopsticks, passing them down the line. Because me and my two sisters are our father’s daughters, it’s our duty to do most of the bone picking. Even though the sight of her husband’s skeleton renders her unable to stand, our mother watches intently from a nearby chair as we work from toe to scalp.

My sisters and I do this for our father.

Not only because this is Japanese tradition, but because it’s something that we want to do.

For him.

For our father.

My father.

Wails of the living fill the air.

The Buddhist priest chants The Heart Sutra to help drive away our father’s spirit from the place where he died.

Silently, my younger sister passes me a piece of bone with a pair of long chopsticks. I pass that piece to my older sister, who puts the piece in a wooden funeral box. Our father’s death name is written on the box in delicate handwriting. The characters in his death name are very old and very rare. Only a few people will know how to read it. Now he can’t be called back to earth.

My older sister grinds down the bones with a wooden pestle. The powder mixes together and soon our father is simply dust.

Blown away on the wind, he will find a new home among the stars.

Hilary Wilson is a Canadian writer.

Image courtesy of NASA via unsplash.

Flash Fiction by Christopher Woods

Every morning, the same ritual. You dust both photographs. Turn Billy’s face up again for another day while the coffee brews. You look at Billy, then at Elvis. Outside the sun is coming up.

You never give up. Not you. Yes, it has been eighteen years since Billy walked out the door. That door. And ever since the door has grown smaller and the world beyond it vast and mysterious. A cruel kind of secret, maybe.

Billy, he never said boo. He left without a word. A light sleeper, you would have heard him if he had a last word or two. You don’t know where he went. He’s never called, never even dropped a postcard.

Mama, when she was still alive, always explained it to you this way. That Billy went to sow some wild oats. That you must have let him down somehow, him being a man and all, and you a woman. She said you could read all about it in the Bible. But you never bothered to read about it. That Bible reminded you too much of Mama and her runaway mouth.

Mama never knew the truth, that Billy didn’t have any wild oats to sow. Billy wasn’t so hot in the tame oats department either. But you got along with him fine. Oats or not, a warm body next to you on a cold night was a comfort.

Billy was no Casanova, not by a long shot. You always figured he would come home once he figured this out. Maybe when some woman told him so, and not so sweetly. You loved him because he was Billy, for his sturdy frame and strong jaw. That was enough. Still is, sad to say. And this is why it won’t surprise you if he comes back. That will mean he has learned his lesson, that no one loves him the way you do.

It’s strange, though. Elvis has been gone a long time too, but somehow it’s not the same. Oh, you know all about the sadness of Elvis being gone. Who doesn’t? You believe that Elvis was a giant among men when he was alive.

Now that he’s gone, he’s still about ten times bigger than the best of them. You think about this a lot, how a dead god is better than a cold man.

At the Visualize God In Grits Café, you work the lunch counter. You watch men coming and going, all day long. Some are nice. Others flirt. A few of them give you the creeps. Older now, you know better than to get involved. Besides, what would Billy say?

There was a time when you didn’t know who Elvis was. Mama changed all that. You must have been seven years old when she took you to see him in concert. Mama said the two of you had come along too late to see Jesus in person, but you were right on schedule for Elvis.

On her deathbed, Mama confessed something. She said that when Daddy climbed atop her on Saturday nights, she would close her eyes and imagine it was Elvis instead. Those were almost her last words, as if she was sharing the secret of the universe.

Seeing Elvis changed you. What your mother said when her death rattle was tuning up changed you too.

Tonight, when the sun goes down, you’ll be back here again, sitting on your lonely side of the bed. You’ll look at Billy and Elvis. You’ll turn Billy’s photograph face down for the night. Good night sweet Billy, wherever you are, you’ll say.

That will leave you and Elvis alone together. And you won’t feel the slightest tinge of shame when you reach for Elvis and hold him close. It’s one of those lonesome kinds of nights, you’ll tell him. You know, when the darkness sneaks inside and puts its arms around you? You know Elvis will give the darkness it marching papers. He knows all about it.

You will try to stay awake, hoping that Billy is coming home. If he does come home, this is how you picture it. It will be at dusk. Him coming up the road, the sun all fiery red through the trees. Lost people need to get home before dark. At night it’s too hard for them to find their way, especially after so many years.

But your eyes will close on their own in their weary way. You know that, wherever Billy is, he’s probably rubbing shoulders with the darkness that Elvis sent packing. And before you place Elvis back on the bedside table, you will kiss him like you would Jesus if he ever came back. Some say it’s just a matter of time.

Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher and photographer who lives in Houston and Chappell Hill, Texas. He has published a novel, THE DREAM PATCH, a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY, and a book of stage monologues for actors, HEART SPEAK. His work has appeared in THE SOUTHERN REVIEW, NEW ENGLAND REVIEW, NEW ORLEANS REVIEW, COLUMBIA and GLIMMER TRAIN, among others. His photographs can be seen in his gallery –http://christopherwoods.zenfolio.com/

Image: Bed, Shelbourne, by Christopher Woods

The Chief Inspector prints a flyer each time another woman is murdered. The woman is referred to by name; the unknown assailants are referred to as Citizen “10,” Citizen “11,” and so on. This serves the dual purpose of honoring the victims and letting the public know how many killers are out there. Some outsiders have suggested there is only one, but that would necessitate an individual ego and self-centeredness our society does not possess.

Katrina’s admirer was sweet; he doted on her from afar. She had become His Trina. The Station Master in her hamlet had introduced them through correspondence. Her admirer was looking for someone full of hope, unlike the jaded girls in his district. That she could belly dance was an unexpected bonus. He would put her in one of his little shows.

Our Chief Inspector will not rest until the killers are brought to justice, and what an exacting justice it will be! These foreign marauders will feel the hammer of the State.

For Katrina, this was also a way out of her province. Life had not been miserable but that wasn’t good enough. She would travel; be adventurous; her spirit would spread open.

We hang flyers at the train station to warn women not to travel by train (and also to advertise the holiday schedule because that must come out whether or not there are killers on the loose and we only have so much 80 lb. stock paper).

Her uncle warned Katrina. The city will swallow you whole. That would be fine, as long as it didn’t take her apart, piece by piece, over decades.

Our train station is a very windy place. The flyers become torn on their sides; their bottoms are shredded. Eventually, the pieces scatter in the woods. That is a fact of life here. Nevertheless, due to public outcry, we have hired a well-respected local to tend to the flyers. He is quite famous for his Top Hat, which will present a major challenge, given the wind.

In Katrina’s province, there had been a rumor of killers of women, but improving her station in life required bold action. Besides, there was no reason to fear; her gentleman would be waiting for her. What a team they will make! This man from her dreams, who brought all the places he had traveled alive in her mind, like only The Great Poet had done before.

By mistake, the former Commandant built the depot at the edge of town instead of in the center. This was outside of our control and so no apology is necessary but, as a result, the station has become a gathering spot for our fringe element: vagrants, drunks, the mentally challenged and the deviant (we are too polite to go into further detail). In lieu of an apology, we did make an announcement which apologized for any inconvenience the misplacing of the station had caused our fine citizens.

Katrina was surprised they let her bring her dog on the train but that is the province for you; not much concern about anything, nothing really matters. She will go somewhere that matters. Her name will be known. Her dog will run freely in the woods. She has never had him on a leash and the city will not change her.

Great news! At a symposium, our Chief Inspector heard of a new machine which will allow us to print the flyers more cheaply. This improvement will be available sometime within the next ten years. We will keep you posted on this exciting development but in all events expect the flyers to become more like a commodity.

Katrina is surprised there are not more people at the station when her train arrives. This will make it easier to spot her new lover. She will recognize him by his Top Hat.

Thanks to the efforts of our man in the Top Hat more than ten deviants have been arrested near the station. This has exceeded our expectations.

The station in the city looks worse than the one in her hamlet. Katrina pulls her stockings up over her knees. Because her province is frigid, she wears stockings on her arms as well. Missing feet, they run up her lean limbs, which were called gangly when she was young but which had become two of her greatest assets. An imposing man in a Top Hat waits impatiently by the tracks. Two stacks of flyers, each wrapped in a leather strap with large metal buckles, dangle from his hands.

Another one has been found, near the train station, in the woods. Choked. And also, sliced. We will no longer print new flyers every time, however, because it’s getting too expensive. Besides, this one was not from here, but from a faraway province we suspect (her stockings were ripped and, subpar). If we knew her name, we would tell you, but not print it because, well, you already know, the flyers.

On an unrelated note, due to our Chief Inspector’s razor sharp eye, a dog has been rescued in the woods near the station. Such a magnificent mane and a hunting dog nonetheless! Leather straps found tied to a tree nearby were too thick for the dog’s neck so the Chief Inspector left them to be retrieved at a later date. Out of the goodness of his heart, he brought the dog home. There is no need to describe the animal; you will see him in the photos we distribute with our special holiday flyers. As always, they will be posted at the station in time for the annual celebration, which this year will include carnival rides and be hosted by our newly-appointed Station Master (Our Chief Inspector is too busy with his growing family). There’s no need to print the Station Master’s name because, well, you already know him; he’s the man with the Top Hat in whom we have now vested total authority to tend to the flyers.

Bobby Sauro’s short fiction has appeared in Connotation Press, Fiction Southeast, elimae, Burnt Bridge, Corium, Dew on the Kudzu, and Red Fez. He resides in Atlanta but can often be found at www.sauromotel.com, a literary motel that houses short stories and articles about Kafka, Springsteen, sweet potato vendors and the occasional 1980’s vending machine. He once worked for a Chinese professor who knew Stalin and in a nail polish factory, but not at the same time.

Image courtesy of Paul Garaizar via unsplash.

The first time it happened, it had been a shock. Ray’s head rested heavy on the small oval window of the airplane. His eyes had just closed when a gentle ding sounded and the fasten seatbelt light was extinguished. Ray started with a little snort at the noise and lifted his head, noting with relief the vacant seat beside him. A flutter of white outside the window caught the corner of his eye. There was something on the wing.

Squinting into the setting sun, he saw a woman sitting on a stool. She was knitting. A strand of yellow yarn extended from her needles to a worn canvas bag slumped at her feet. Her long white hair stirred in what looked to be a gentle breeze. The woman was his wife, Dorothy.

Or, rather, the woman was his wife, Dorothy. When she had been alive.

Ray and Dorothy had worked hard and loved each other and raised two good kids, which they figured made them better off than most. Their life together had been simple and sweet, and Ray’s only regret was that his big-minded wife had never set foot out of Iowa. She had never seen the ocean. That didn’t seem right, so Ray made a plan. He saved a little bit of every paycheck from the meatpacking plant, and for Dorothy’s 60th birthday he bought them two airplane tickets to Portland, Oregon. From there they’d drive to the coast.

Of course he’d suggested California first. It was the obvious west coast destination. But she’d demurred, saying California wasn’t really her kind of place, even if it was warmer. There would be no sojourn among the blonde and tan for Dorothy; she wanted to go somewhere wilder, lonelier. They would take Highway 26 from Portland to the coast, and drive north to Cape Disappointment.

To Ray, vacationing at a spot called Cape Disappointment was just asking for it. But they never made the trip anyway. A week before they were to fly to Portland, Dorothy collapsed on the kitchen floor. She died right there of a ruptured brain aneurysm. After that Ray didn’t care if he ever went anywhere again.

But his daughter worried about him, and, one year after the trip he didn’t take, Ray flew to Seattle to visit her. That’s when Ray saw Dorothy on the wing of the airplane. He’d gasped, then waved his hand madly to get her attention. Dorothy looked just past him, her lips turned up in almost a smile, her head tipped as though she were listening for something or someone.

Ray waved a few more times to no effect, and only then began to wonder just how crazy he was going. He watched her out the window until it grew dark and he fell asleep. When he woke up, she was gone.

The following year, on a hunch, Ray flew on the same date to visit a friend in Salt Lake City. He chose a window seat next to the wing. Dorothy was there again, knitting, with the same inscrutable expression on her face.

Ray flew somewhere every year after that, whether he could afford to or not. A phantom Dorothy on an airplane wing was better than no Dorothy at all, even if she never noticed him. She never changed, even when all the hair he lost from his head seemed to sprout from his eyebrows, and he began to walk with a stoop, and his fingers became gnarled and knobby. Nothing changed but the growing pile of knitting, which began to spill off her lap as the years went by.

On Ray’s twenty-sixth annual flight, he was alone, as usual. He had never remarried. He would never want anyone but Dorothy. His Dorothy could splint a broken arm, field dress a deer, and brew coffee for a hundred people at a church potluck. Good coffee. Ray had never been much of a reader, but Dorothy would check out stacks of books from the library and tell him the things they made her think. He’d never find another Dorothy and he didn’t want to.

Ray ducked to take his seat at the window, fastened his seatbelt, and pulled a pillow onto his lap to rest his arms on. He was going to Seattle, as he had the first year after Dorothy’s death, to see his daughter and her family. The grandchildren would hug him and ask a few perfunctory questions before easing their phones out of their pockets. They would settle into the overstuffed chairs in the family room, taking furtive peeks at their laps while pretending to talk to him. He did not think they should have phones, and he was not looking forward to the visit. But he had reserved a rental car, a Lincoln. After a just-long-enough stay, he would drive down to Cape Disappointment at last.

The cabin lights dimmed. Ray looked out into the dusk. Dorothy was there, as he knew she would be. But today she looked as she had when he met her, and she was most definitely not knitting. Dorothy wore a cream-colored sundress. Her hair fell in chestnut waves around her shoulders. She pulled an enormous blanket from her knitting bag, and Ray saw that he had been mistaken about the color of the yarn. It was not yellow, but gold. Dorothy set a wicker picnic basket down on the blanket. Kneeling, she opened the basket, took out a lemon meringue pie, and placed it front of her.

Dorothy picked up a fork and scooted closer to the pie. In the fading light she held up a second fork, raised an eyebrow, and smiled right at Ray. He smiled back. Then Ray Miller, age 86, reclined his seat as far as it would go, leaned back, and closed his eyes.

A resident of Camas, Washington, Gypsy Martin is mom to two boys and has achieved minor fame as a lunch lady at their elementary school. Her short fiction has been published online in the Journal of Microliterature. Her work has also appeared in print anthologies, including the forthcoming Flash in the Attic: 44 Very Short Stories from Fiction Attic Press. She also won a prize in the memoir category of the 2012 Writer’s Digest Writing Competition for a story about the indignities of homemade underwear.

Image courtesy of Andrej Chudy via unsplash