Flash Fiction by Rich Hartwell

The Brooch

 

I remember the brooch my grandmother gave me when I was about twelve, before she died. It had been given to her by her husband on their wedding day and obviously meant a great deal to her. It was of filigreed silver, about an inch and a half long and tapered to a point on each end, and maybe an eighth of an inch wide. There were minute vines and leaves and five small diamonds of greater worth than I will ever know. I was too young and she died too soon; so I carried this gift until I foolishly gave it away, along with my heart to a young girl, when I was sixteen. When that summer-love ended, that girl returned the brooch, but not my heart. I learned from that experience.

 

Three short years later I married, too young, too soon. It was the sixties and I designed a ring for my “natural” bride to display the diamonds plucked from my grandmother’s brooch. The filigree and the antiqued silver were lost, but not the memories. The story was passed on to my first wife.

 

When she and I passed away from each other and entered other lives, she kept this ring from our life together. She passed this on to our son along with the story that he verified with me. When he too married, he had the ring resized and bestowed it on his wife in turn. She also has been told the story, which has touched four generations now. He and his wife are now expecting their first child and I expect, as well, the story will be delivered to another generation waiting in the wings.

 

*   *   *

 

So much were my early thoughts, early in their disregard for earlier lives and changing times. My son’s wife, his first, had two children, both boys, and eventually she will be faced with a decision upon which son to bestow the ring. Perhaps she will have it dismantled, much as she did her marriage, and provide each child with a piece of her former love, her former life, and four generations of history.

Meanwhile the man who placed the ring upon her finger, my son, had met and wed another bride. If this were a jeweled life, his new bride would have received the ring and carried it forward, perhaps to a fifth generation, whole with love rather than halved with hate. But such was not to be and this is not a small gem of literary beauty, but rather a story of reality. This marriage, too, died when the new bride’s husband, my son, gave up his life to disease and despair and his bride was left to carry on, bereft of children, husband, ring, and history.

 

 

 

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick would rather be still tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon. He can be reached at rdhartwell@gmail.com.

Flash Fiction by Stephen V. Ramey

Beggar

 

When I listen to him, all things are possible. His voice, so throaty-rich, so pure. I think of Jesus on the cross. Life becomes smeared light, death a dark-blink interlude. Dear God, I think. Dear, sweet God, make us better, make us free of the blame that holds us back, take from us the violence that squeezed us from the womb. Dear God, I think, dear sweet God.

A final strum on the battered guitar, and his song is finished. I reach out. Notes tremble on the breeze. I want to hold them to my face. I want to make them real. Dust falls from my fingers into the slanted light.

He picks up a beret holding a few dollars and coins. His skin is dusky. "You like?" he says. He jingles the hat. His fingers are callused, half-moon fingernails stained.

I turn my pockets out. Coins spill onto pavement, a key ring, a pack of gum. Quarters bounce and roll through tight spirals.

His expression does not change. I take my wallet out, and dump it too. Bills flutter down, credit cards and business cards. The sidewalk litters with my life.

Still, his face remains impassive.

Tears come into my eyes. "Is that not enough?"

He watches.

"It's all I have," I plead, "all that I have with me. Please, tell me it's enough."

He pulls a cigarette from his shirt pocket, and presses it to his mouth. "Do you have a match?"

I pat my shirt, squeeze the cloth ballooning from my pockets. "No, no I don't."

He leans the guitar against the building. "Come back when you do, okay? I play again."

"Yeah," I say. "Sure." It's never enough. I never have what I need. I start walking. A breeze pushes from the north. I shiver. I look back.

A crowd has gathered around him. They jostle for position. I want to understand that they're after the money, but in my heart I know it's more than that. They're cleaning the ground of my residue, preparing for someone more worthy.

 

 

Stephen V. Ramey lives in beautiful New Castle, Pennsylvania, which used to rival Pittsburgh in industry. His work has appeared in various places, most recently Cease, Cows, Lucid Play's Glass Eye Chandelier anthology, and the Catherine Refracted anthology from Pure Slush Books. His collection of very short fictions, Glass Animals, was published in January by Pure Slush. Find him at http://www.stephenvramey.com.

Flash Fiction by Jim Harrington

Waiting for the Storm to Pass


"What's that?"  Angle said, pointing at the man's arm.

"What's what?"

"That thing on your sleeve."

The man looked at his arm, a frown on his face. "My heart. What the hell do you think it is?"

"It's beating," Angle said.

"I sure as hell hope so. Wouldn't need to worry about the tornado if it wasn't, would I."

Angle looked around the storm shelter. None of the other fifty or so occupants seemed to notice anything unusual. Most were huddled with family members, keeping an eye on the stairs leading to the exit.

He stared at the beating appendage, as it's pulse quickened, and idly raked bony fingers through his beard, not sure what to say. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Harold, but most people call me Hank." A honed edge remained on the man's voice, like he didn't want to be bothered. "What's yours?  Not that it matters. I'll be continuing on my way to Kansas City once the storm passes. That's assuming the bus is still upright."

Angle thought about that, and decided the man was right—that it didn't matter. He told him his name anyway. "Angle."

"Angle?" Hank scratched his heart.

"That's my name."

"What the hell kind of name is that? You Greek or something? Shortening your name so people can say it?"

"The person who filled out my birth certificate misspelled angel. My dad was so pissed when he found out he went to a bar and drank an entire bottle of Jack Daniels."

"Can't blame him," Hank said. "I would'a been pissed, too."

Angle nodded and smiled. "I don't think I would've killed the parrot, though."

"He killed a parrot? Did the bird make some wisecrack about your name?" Hank put his fists in his pits and flapped his arms, the heart beat faster with each movement. "Polly wants an Angle. Polly wants an Angle. Waaak!" Hank laughed so hard he nearly fell off his chair.

Angle reached out to steady the old man but pulled his hand back, not wanting to touch the beating heart. "Some other drunk challenged him to a game of darts. Dad threw the first one about thirty feet right of the target into the bird's cage." A loud bang from outside the storm shelter interrupted his story. Everybody in the room jumped. A woman Angle couldn't see screamed and prayed to Jesus to save her. Just her. No one else. "The owner tried to have my dad charged with murder."

"This just keeps getting better," Hank said, as he started to cough.

Angle patted Hank on the back until the barking stopped and the heart slowed its pace.

"Hey, folks." It was a high-pitched male voice coming from across the room. "I think the storm's passed. We're going to open the door."

Angle and Hank and everyone else sat still while a large man in a Chicago Cubs t-shirt, his bloated belly uncovered, a tattoo of a hot dog in a bun with cole slaw under his belly button expanding and contracting with each breath, opened the hatch. Sunshine brightened the dim room. A breeze carried fresh air into the dank rectangle.

"Well," Hank said. "I don't know what we're going to find out there, but it was nice talking to you." Angle noticed Hank's voice had calmed to normal, so had his heartbeat.

"Same here," Angle said. "Hey, you going to get that fixed?" Angle asked, pointing at the man's heart.

"Not sure." Hank cupped it in his hand, like it was a baby's head. "It kinda fits there don't you think?"

Angle watched Hank's fingers caress the organ as they climbed the stairs. "Yea. I think it does."

 

 

 

 

Jim Harrington began writing fiction in 2007 and has agonized over the form ever since. Jim's Six Questions For . . . blog (http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/) provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” You can read more of his stories at http://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

Flash Fiction by Rick Hartwell

For Whom the Ducks Call

(A Hymn on Hemingway)

 

 

Pullman let his eyes wander upward to the blue afternoon sky. His gaze caught the tightly held vee formation of the planes returning from the bomb-run against the pale indigo background and the glinting silver of the planes soon gave way to the pale belly feathers of the mallards swooping south over Venice. Oblivious to almost everything, Pullman slowly raised the barrel to the pale-silver, glinting feathers, inhaled and let out half a breath, and squeezed off a shot leading just enough to be certain not to ruin the meat. Nothing happened at first. The duck didn’t fall and the plane didn’t fall and even the sky didn’t fall.

 

Then Pullman began to be aware of the other hunters again. Faint shots echoed up to him on the rise, but still the vee continued unbroken towards the horizon.

 

 

When the second bullet slammed into Pressure Pullman, he swung to his left leaving ducks and Venice behind and further increasing the flow of blood from the first wound, the wound he had ignored at first. It had started as an almost orange trickle coursing down from his left shoulder and soaking across his chest to pool in the dirt by his right side. Now that he’d swung left, the trickle had reversed its course and changed to a deep scarlet. This scarlet flowed in a steady stream back across his chest, merging with a second big river pulsing a deep purple from a new spring near his heart where the second bullet had exited.

 

“I shouldn’t have turned my back on the bloody bastards, Grace. That’s my second mistake this year. I must be getting old. Besides, you can never trust another hunter in this damned country. It’s no good for hunting.”

 

Grace didn’t pay much attention. She’d heard this all before. Now, she knew, he’d say something about the other country where if you paid the hunters enough, they wouldn’t shoot you. Nobody would shoot you if you paid them enough. But in this country you couldn’t pay anyone not to shoot you. It didn’t matter that these weren’t hunters, not real hunters, and it didn’t matter that he hadn’t paid them and it didn’t matter that they didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

 

“Nothing. Nothing! Nothing matters!” Pullman finished.

 

Yes, she’d heard it all before he thought. Even before Venice. She didn’t understand it, of course. Not then and not now. She was female and couldn’t understand the joy of killing cleanly and being cleanly killed and of paying and being paid. Dumb broad, he thought.

 

He heard the hunters gathering for the final assault and he knew that this last defense was indefensible, but it was what he must do, had to do. He had no cover here, not even concealment, and he knew what he had to do about that too.

 

Pullman patted Grace affectionately on the rump and drew his Smith and Wesson .45 cleanly from the holster. He sighted at the intersection of an imaginary line drawn vertically from the part of her hair to the bridge of her nose, and one horizontally from one ear lobe to the other.

 

“You don’t really like women, do you Pressure?”

 

“That’s not true. It’s not pertinent either. This way we can finally be merged together and become one. You can become just as good as me, almost.”

 

He pulled the trigger smoothly and blew her brains out neatly, dropping her exactly where he had planned, forming a slight barricade against the approaching hunters.

 

He’d never had her. There hadn’t been enough time. But if he couldn’t have Grace under Pressure, he’d be damned if anyone else could. And besides, it had been a clean shot, bringing her down without bruising the meat. He pulled Grace closer, melting them together. He was remembering Venice and he could almost hear the call of the ducks.

 

Pullman didn’t notice the vee in the darkening sky overhead.

 

 

 

 

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick would rather be still tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon. He can be reached at rdhartwell@gmail.com.

Flash Fiction by Bob Brill

Silence in the Woods

Brother Joseph sat quietly on a fallen log listening to the sound of the brook. He raised his bamboo flute to his lips, took a breath and set himself to blow. Just then he heard a violent snapping of twigs, and a boy, perhaps ten years old, came crashing out of the brush. He spied Brother Joseph and, veering from his course, ran up to him crying, "Help. Help me." He collapsed at Brother Joseph's feet, gasping for breath, "Man broke into house. Got my folks at gunpoint. Says he's gonna kill 'em. I got away. Need help."

"Did you call 911?"

"Got a phone?"

"No. Up at the abbey. Come with me. I'll show you the way."  Brother Joseph set down his flute, picked up his crutches, climbed to his feet, hobbled slowly up the trail.

"Can't you go any faster?" cried the boy.

"You go on ahead. It's just a hundred yards up this trail. Take the right hand fork. Big wooden building."

The boy said nothing, just dashed away, quickly disappearing from sight. Brother Joseph took a few more steps, then stopped. He'll b

e in good hands now, he thought. Nothing more I can do. He returned to his log. Sat down. Picked up his flute. His heart was pounding hard. He listened to the song of the brook as it coursed over the stones. He brought the flute to his lips. Someone was coming up the path with slow measured steps. A bolt of fear shot through Brother Joseph when he thought it might be the gunman.  His friend, the postman, emerged into the clearing with a sack of mail.

"Hi ho, Brother Joseph," he called. "A beautiful fine day it is to be carrying a sack full of bills to the abbey. Here is your Smithsonian Magazine."

"Oh, look at this," said Brother Joseph, taking the magazine.  "What is this strange bird on the cover? It's a hoatzin, whatever that is." He opened the magazine, searching for the cover article. His eyes fell on a photograph of a gigantic robot arm, so delicate, said the caption, that it could juggle three eggs without breaking them. Quickly he closed the magazine. "Please, my friend, take this up to the abbey. I'll look at it later."

"Busy?"  asked the postman.

"Busy trying to quiet my busy mind. Why, just now ... never mind.  I'll tell you later."

"I see how it is with you, my friend. I'll be on my way."

After the postman left, Brother Joseph tried to settle down, but he kept thinking about the boy. What was happening up at the abbey? What about the boy's parents? An armed psychopath less than a mile away. Why hadn't he gone to a neighbor for help?  Probably one of those lone houses at the edge of the woods. The woods would be safest. Good instinct to run for cover in the woods. A robot juggling eggs. What for? Who would want to?

He couldn't silence the voices in his head. Then he realized that by trying to calm himself enough to play his flute he was doing it backward. The trick, he knew from long experience, was just to play the flute until the babbling voices stopped. He raised the flute to his lips and blew a note. A long wavering note that came from his busy mind, then a quick string of notes, still connected to his thoughts. As he played he again became aware of the brook singing among the stones and he answered the watery song with his own song, the notes now coming from deep within him, flowing harmoniously with the stream. He was focused now. The world narrowed to the water music mingling with the fluty wind music, no room for thoughts, no other being but here now.

Once more silence in the woods, except for the song of a bamboo flute, a running brook, a distant gunshot.

Bob Brill is a retired computer programmer and digital artist. He is now devoting his energies to writing fiction and poetry. His novellas, short stories and more than 100 poems have appeared in more than two dozen online magazines, print journals, and anthologies.

Flash Fiction by Art Carey

A Wedding Gift to Remember

        Wind gusted off the ocean, sandpapering the weathered sides of the beach house and rattling the wood shutters.  Outside, a chair blew over with a bang.  November's storms had arrived.  Summer on the cape was delightful, but fall weather was iffy.


         Ellie took a sip of non-alcoholic wine, grimaced, and turned on a lamp by the couch.  Her parents had been wonderful about the pregnancy.  They were always just a telephone call and a hug away.

       

         The chick-lit novel she'd been reading didn't hold her attention.  Ellie shoved the book aside but not before removing the envelope serving as a bookmark.  She took out the embossed invitation inside and read it again:  Sen. and Mrs. John L. Fley and Mr. and Mrs. Mark F. Jones request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their children Shanon Ann Fley and Richard Malcolm Jones…

 

 

         She didn't bother to read about the wedding ceremony or the reception at the country club.  They were over and done, like her brief affair with the groom.

 

 

         Richard had breezed into his sales manager's job at the auto dealership with a smile, a ready

laugh, and the confidence that comes of graduating from Dartmouth and going to work at a business owned by his father.  He cast his eyes about the office and stopped with Ellie, slim and blonde.  Soon they were inseparable, attending summer stock productions, dining at seafood restaurants, and enjoying art house movies.

 

“This is wonderful,” he said one moonlit evening, “but I want more time with you alone.”  He gazed into her eyes as they walked barefoot on the beach, savoring the salty air. Waves lapped softly at the shoreline, and tendrils of foam collapsed and vanished into the sand.

“My parents have a beach house,” she said, mischievously. “We could be alone there.”

He paused. “Really?”

Ellie sighed and looked about the room, cluttered with seashells, polished glass and other treasures from beachcombing. It had been a weekend to remember.

And then Richard met Shannon. She was everything Ellie wasn’t: the graduate of a prestigious women’s college, a lawyer, and the daughter of a U.S. senator.

Richard dumped her. Ellie was shocked by his betrayal and his reaction to the news she was pregnant.

“Whose baby is it?” he demanded.

“Why yours of course,” she said, taken aback. “We can get a paternity test if…

“Forget it.” He licked his lips. “I can get some money if you…”

“No,” she said. “No!”

He turned away. “Then it would be better if we didn’t see each other any more.”

That got easier the next day when she was fired.

The wedding invitation came as a surprise. She hadn’t gone, of course. But she decided to send a wedding gift. What could she give Richard and his bride that would stand out among the other gifts? Ellie took another sip of tart wine, grimacing again. Boy, could she use a glass of real chardonnay. After thinking about an appropriate wedding present, she settled finally on glassware. But not just any glassware.

The newlyweds would be back from their honeymoon in the Bahamas now, ready to open presents. Hers would be a surprise. She could imagine Richard’s bride saying, “Well, here’s a weird gift from one of your old girlfriends. She sent an ordinary water glass. Why, there are even fingerprints on it.”

Ellie smiled. They’d have a laugh at her and then  notice the two pieces of paper under the glass. They’d read them. And then the laughing would stop.

The glass had come from a luncheon meeting at the auto agency on her last day of work. When everyone had left the room, Ellie had picked up a water glass where Richard had been sitting. The first piece of paper was a lab report detailing what the glass revealed — his DNA. The second was a note:

Hi, Dick. You can look forward to being a dad as soon as the baby is born and I find out its DNA and match it with yours. Better  get ready to break out your checkbook!

Love (not), Ellie.

 

 

 

 

Arthur Carey is a former newspaper reporter and journalism instructor who lives in the San Francisco Bay area. He is a member of the California Writers Club. His fiction has appeared in print and Internet publications, including Pedestal, Funny Times, Eclectic Flash, Writers’ Journal, and Still Crazy. He is the author of “The Gender War,” a humor novel available on Amazon.

 

 

Flash Fiction by Jim Meirose

Candy

Candy is sweet.  Lovingly he stripped the wrapper from the candy and let it waft to the floor.  The candy lay lightly in his hand.  He let the sweet candy caress his tongue and closed his eyes until it was fully dissolved; it was at this point that the bullet entered his brain.

Jim Meirose's work has appeared in numerous journals, including the Fiddlehead, Witness, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Xavier Review, and has been nominated for several awards.  Two collections of his short work have been published and his novels, Claire and Monkey are available from Amazon.