In This Issue: Suzanne Vincent

Mothers' Day Issue

To honor brave and loving women everywhere, we present our special Mother’s Day issue.

“Star Maven” by Sarah Akhtar: Even the stars can’t keep Mom away; “The Deep” by Adam Smith: Nothing can keep her family from her, either; Our Classic Flash, “Mother’s Birthday Present” by Carrie Seever: Nothing gets in the way of Elizabeth getting Mom something good for her birthday. Read more: HTML

Flash 5/2012, #1: Sarah Crysl Akhtar

Star Maven

Think you’re tough? The kind of hyperspace hero who calls a meteor storm “confetti?” I dare you to say “no” to my mother.

Tell her something just can’t work that way, and she’ll start to wonder why not. She’s good at untangling things — my girls will swear to that. And then — eventually maternal cunning will trump whatever technology you’ve got.

Wish she’d throw out some of the stuff she finds whenever she untangles her closets. Got her hands on a relic that turned out to be an ancient graphing calculator... Read more: HTML

Your ad could be here, right now.

Flash 5/2012, #2: Adam Smith

The Deep

The night the sea came in at the windows with a roar like a thousand drumbeats, I was abed and dreaming of my dead husband.

Riauk had been gone nigh on two years, pitched over the side of our fishing boat, where he’d disappeared (I was told) with scarcely a splash. Punishment, the villagers said. The sea mother’s retribution. I did not believe it.

I missed Riauk most in winter, when the rain off the sea slipped through the cracks around the windows and the wind moaned beneath the thatch. The thin woolen blanket was no comfort from the mist, and the forlorn cries of the gulls picking clams along the beach were echoes of emptiness. Read more: HTML

Classic Flash #57: Carrie Seever

Mother’s Birthday Present

Lizzie was sitting in a corner counting her money. “Thirty-five, Kitty, thirty-five cents.” When Lizzie’s mother was away, washing, she made her kitten her confidant. “Talk about mamma’ll be surprised when she gets this birthday present, My-i! Third one I’m giving her — when I was five I gave her peanut candy; only she didn’t come home till the peanuts were picked out. Second time I gave her a blue hair ribbon; blue looks nice on my red hair. Now I’m seven — twice seven and I won’t have these freckles and long skirt’ll cover my skinny legs, and,” she continued, getting up and trying to stand dignifiedly, “my name’ll be Elizabeth. Then I’ll give mamma a album! So long, Kitty.” Read more: HTML