Mirror, P.C.Wyatt

Mirror
By P.C. Wyatt

The child looked into the mirror
A world in smooth cold glass
Grey hair, faded eyes, a stranger’s skin

Tears fall like snowflakes
One or two at first
Shining in the fading light
They form two silver tracks down this unknown face

Blood flows like the tide
No longer stirred by frenzied storms
Of fear and passion and hate
For these things leave no trace

Time is cruel and unrelenting
There is no escape, no respite
No surrender, no victory
No beginning
No end

Blood and tears have dried to dust
No more snowflakes fall
The silver tarnished
The sea is still and calm
Wild waves long forgotten

And between tears, and blood, and dust
A child looks in the mirror
Smooth and cold
And wonders how he got so old

The Widow, W.I.Stoneberger

The Widow
By W.I. Stoneberger

She watches the homecomings on television,
the soldiers the sailors returning from Iraq.
She watches the wives the girlfriends
waiting for their embrace, tears in their eyes.
And there are tears in her eyes too,
tears of sorrow of jealousy of rage.
She wants her husband to come home.
She wants to wait by the dock by the door,
until she sees him walking toward her.
She wants to run into his arms,
crying and laughing at the same time.
She wants him to take her face
into his hands and kiss her
like its V-J day in Times Square.
She wants him to take back
what he did that night.
She wants them to show the women
of the ones who do not return.
She wants to see how they handle it,
whether they break down
or set their faces into still porcelain,
if they wear their sunglasses
even if its overcast, like she does.
She wants him to come back,
just come back to her.

Flash, G.D.Schwartz

Flash
By G. David Schwartz

Jay Leno has shown, and commentated any numbed of times, on the fact that a comedian who “trips” over lines will not win the laughter. The reason is that such strutting slows down the joke, gives the audience time to think about what went before.
James Thomas (in Flash Fiction authored with Tom Haguka (N.Y.W.W. Norton and Co, 1992) distinguishes “sudden fiction” from “flash fiction,” in terms of the letters shorter limit (‘by a full thousand word); 17OO dawn to 750)(pg 12).
But we are dealing with 1000 words which could be either Post modern fantasy, with which the includes sci-fi as a subcategory “must always be humorous. By definition it affirms the discount, and inherent otherness of the self, language, and the word,” (62, Olsen Circus).
Such short fictional treatments are pre-novelistic (or pretreatment of the suddenly here, saddest told, scrimmaging gone genie of fairy tales. As is obvious by the mere mention of fairy tales, flask fiction need not be humorous. Fantastic as folklore is not necessarily humorous.
George Gibian in the “Introduction” of The Man in The Black Coat: Russian Literature of the Absurd (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1987) calls Daniil Kharms frequently humorous tales “a working out of a simple hypothetical supposition: they are ‘what if’ stories.” (38).
Why does short science fiction tend to be humorist or funny or irony? Why does short-short fiction tend to make us laugh or smile?
We need not get bogged down in discussing and distinguishing theories of laughter. Whether we laugh because of incongruity (Koestler; Kant (177, Critique of Judgment. A psycho-emotional release (Freud, Jokes, Kant, Critique (179) of indenturing with the success of lived-power) over dull (inert) things.
Bergson – the so-called dulled, so encrusted is, laughable, not us) is all the same Both the incongruent analyses and the “not us” analysis deal with comparing and contrasting- the first with comparisons leading to contrasts, the second with contrasts leading to comparison and each rarely on psychic or emotions follow the train of thought which tiers out to be funny.
Wherever we decide to call pierces of fiction which are 1000-words or so will have metanarrative implications. “Short stories” suggest they are minuscule works (which is why Kafka and (some say) James Joyce, two of the best known collected of these pierces, characterize them with one of the following descriptions: “Sudden fiction’ suggests, perhaps that we were unprepared for their occurrence. In terms of science fiction (or any fiction for that matter) being too proponed denotes a trite storyline, a predictable plot or other narrative intercessions) but science fictions, unlike most if not all other forms are palpably unpredictable. After all, scene fiction deals with alien beings, space travel and other undersign yet interesting beings, while they must be coherent in terms of strutted, plot, scope and shape so they could be afforded to be more daring than mainstream fiction.
But while the term ‘sudden fiction’ suggests our unprepairdness, the term “flash fiction' sugars the rapidity, snap, crispness that is within the narrative itself.
If sudden fiction catches us unaware in the sense in which we are not prepared, flash fiction catches us unaware in the sense that we could not have been prepared.

Always in Transit, J.Wright

Always in Transit
By Jackson Wright

Always in Transit
An ever changing scene
An interstate view
From the passenger’s seat

Sun and sound flash by me
Time is left behind on the road
The face of all my families
Beg me, “stay”, but I break hold

Don’t try to understand
The gypsy blood in my veins
Use the Key of Wander
To break the Lock of Same

Always in transit
No slow around the bend
Always in transit
Always til the end

Sometimes slowing
Sometimes speeding
Always going
Always leaving

Nasal Noes, G.Bosacker

Nasal Noes
By G. Bosacker

It's never nice to pick your nose,
You can pick a wife or a rose,
and then quite sensibly
the right card, your teeth or new clothes,
a guitar, a friend or your foes,
and often, quite privately
that icky stuff between your toes.
Pick garden weed that stubborn grows
and winning numbers I suppose
or your butt when no one knows
but mothers and teachers agree
it's never nice to pick your nose.

Different Angles, R.Goity

Different Angles
By Roland Goity

I apologize for the meal. The recipe’s rather overdeveloped. Plus I’ve had difficulty focusing today and I’m not sure about that pan.
It’s fine, Honey.
Not terrible, I guess.
I’ve had worse.
Shutter up, kids. It’s fine, Honey.
How was your day, Dear?
Rather boring. No real action today.
No?
Not as far as catching anyone in the act. Security didn’t request tapes or anything. I did see a pregnant woman’s water break and a kid pick his nose so hard he needed a trip to the first aid station to stop it from bleeding.
What about you boys?
Shot three dudes today up on the mountain. Two skiers and a snowboarder. The skiers were easy, but I had to shoot the snowboarder a bunch of times.
Good, good. It was a nice day for it, wasn’t it? Nice and clear.
Yeah, I got some killer shots off.
Hey, I shot more people than he did today. Like six or seven.
Who were they?
Some young women. A couple of guys.
Were they clothed?
Hel-lo! It’s called adult entertainment. It was an orgy. Shot them all at once at first, and then individually. Shot some extremely close up. Didn’t take long. I shot them all in a flash.
I still can’t believe your father lets you be exposed to that.
Can’t filter everything, Honey. A young man’s gotta pay the bills somehow. Try every angle.
Can I please be excused?
Yeah, me too?
Not until you both finish off your peas there.

Such was the conversation that evening at the Camera family dinner table.

The Highway, S.Kjaerbaek

The Highway
By Stephanie Kjaerbaek

Her mind stirred up old routes.

Tall trees embrace clear skies;

While the stars hypnotize.


The dream drowned in a lake.

He told her softly,

“Release me from my pride;

Take me for another ride.”


She held her thumb up,

As she scanned the horizon,

And the abandoned highway.


Free ride doomed him at sunset;

She stood out in morning light

With her dark look and light eyes.

Dead Moth, M.Betts

Dead Moth
By Maria Betts

A home cooked dinner, breakfast in bed
all the things you said
true love last's, now were a thing of the past
our love songs, our evil tounges
when we wern't there for each other.
so leave this to linger, to slowly die off.
i'll just be your dead moth.