Tag: Flash fiction
-
The Box
She closed the door slowly, keys slipping from her fingers to the entryway table with an absurdly loud clatter in the silent house. A light showed dimly under the kitchen door and her feet moved automatically in that direction. Her hand slid across the door as she pushed it open and a broad swath of…
-
The Map
It was the worst excuse for a map I had ever seen. Trust Lin to come up with something like this. Too much imagination, not enough sense, that girl. That square might be the airport, I thought. Or if I was holding it upside down, maybe it was the fairgrounds. Given the giant question mark…
-
The Pod
Lise’s eyes darted back and forth in the dim light under the trees. Jole was always following her around, but she didn’t want to share her find with her loudmouth little brother. Sure she was alone, she ducked under the hanging moss hiding the strange pod and its contents. The bones were merely a curiosity;…
-
Dark Star
Her sisters already framed the night sky, swirling gently into the place reserved for them by Zeus. Only she remained, already touched with the stardust of the light she would become. The light she had not chosen. The grasses crushed softly under her bare feet as she walked slowly across her mother’s pasture, their scent…
-
Symphony
He flexed his fingers and shifted nervously. He stroked the keys, drawing a deep, ragged breath as he moved his hands into position. The first notes were soft, tentative, sending dim blue tendrils into the darkness of the sound chamber. His pulse quickened, notes grew stronger. The tendrils thickened and swirled, the darkness within their…
-
The Chapel
“Boris, dorogoy, please come away from the window! The hall will not come to you, no matter how hard you stare. We must go to it, and soon or we will be late and the Chinovnik will mark against us.” Boris sighed and twisted his cap in gnarled fingers, his eyes not leaving the hall.…
-
Seasons
She stretched her nearly thawed wings to brush the trees on either side. How much fun dancing among the branches had been, their bare bones crackling beneath the ice of her feathers. How delighted she had been by the cooling that had silenced the world and dressed her in crystal lace. The touch of her…
-
The Legend
There he was, in all his lacy glory. I’d heard of the viscount, of course, from every local in every cafe and bistro between Paris and Calais. Quite the legend, apparently, that no one outside of France had ever heard. No one remembered his full title, or even his family name, only that he was…
-
Vlad
How long had it been? One hundred years? Two? Locked deep within the castle vaults, skin burned black and then white by the silver of his sarcophagus, thirst that would not be assuaged by his own blood turning his mind to enraged madness. How long since his screams of pain had turned to bitter silence,…
-
Doorman
The floor undulated beneath me, its checkered waves lifting me although I could not feel a surface under my feet. I wasn’t sure I even had feet; I couldn’t seem to find myself. The door hung from nothing, stood on nothing, with light streaming through it from some unidentifiable source. A Fedora sat on top…
The Word Worker 