Flash 5/2010, #1: John C. Wright

A Random World Of Delta Capricorni Aa, Also Called Scheddi

It was not abduction. I volunteered to go.

I trampled out the crop circle in the north field of the Suttlebys’ ranch, at night, just with a board of plywood and a long rope. I did not know what the signs mean, but I copied them. Took me all night, and the sky was pink above the barn, and my breath was fog. It was October, the best month for contacting... Read more: HTML

In This Issue: Jake Freivald

...Bring May Flowers: Stories of Transformation

Sometimes an issue’s theme just presents itself. Much fiction is about transformations of one sort or another, but rarely is it hammered home so explicitly and wonderfully as in this month’s stories. Click through to get an overview of this month’s stories.

Our next issue goes live on June 1st. Until then, please read, comment, subscribe, and tip your favorite authors! Read more: HTML

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Flash 5/2010, #2: Amy Treadwell

Candy Floss Time

The free carnival pass dropped through Penny’s mail slot on Wednesday, exactly ten months after her mother died, three weeks after her son was born, and seven days before she planned to drive her car off Myrtle Pier.

Penny had shoved the stack of letters behind the door, along with other bills piling up since she’d gone to the hospital... Read more: HTML

Short-Short Sighted: Bruce Holland Rogers

Metamorphoses and Compassion

...And that, dear readers, is a metamorphosis tale, a story well suited to flash fiction.... Before the metamorphosis is the story of what led up to the transformation, and often the story lasts long enough after the transformation to consider its significance....

There is one risk to writing a metamorphosis story, and it refers to the phrase teaches them a lesson. Read more: HTML

Flash 5/2010, #3: Hayley E. Lavik

Fool’s Fire

It’s the cold mud that wakes me, and the taste of duckweed in my throat. In my mouth, my nose, my ears. It fills my lungs, creeps behind my eyes. I burst through the slime with a half-formed scream.

I retch until I feel empty, hollow, withered. Stagger to my feet,...

But where is he? Read more: HTML

Flash 5/2010, #4: Bruce Holland Rogers

Sea Anenomes

An example of a metamorphosis story, with a dash of compassion, used as an exemplar for Bruce’s latest Short-short Sighted column.

In a little church by the sea, long after the old gods had begun to sleep, there was a preacher of the Christian gospel who earnestly worried for the souls of his congregants. Read more: HTML

Classic Flash #30: Lord Dunsany

The Beggars

...The streets were all so unromantic, dreary. Nothing could be done for them, I thought — nothing. And then my thoughts were interrupted by barking dogs. Every dog in the street seemed to be barking — every kind of dog, not only the little ones but the big ones too. They were all facing East towards the way I was coming by. Then I turned round to look and had this vision, in Piccadilly, on the opposite side to the houses just after you pass the cab-rank.

Tall bent men were coming down the street arrayed in marvelous cloaks. All were sallow of skin and swarthy of hair, and most of them wore strange beards. They were coming slowly, and they walked with staves, and their hands were out for alms.

All the beggars had come to town. Read more: HTML