Short Stories

Flash Fiction for Your Phone and Beyond

Delivery by Denis Bell

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Delivery

by Denis Bell

 

“It came out positive.”

“You’re kidding!”

It would seem so. The news was surprising to Ruth because Sandra was old. Not Betty White old, but easily old enough to be Ruth’s mom.

“What did Jim say?”

“I didn’t tell him.”

“Sandy, he’s gonna have to know sometime.”

Sandra didn’t even bother to reply to this, just twisted her mouth into the expression of disgust that she assumed at times.

“You ought to go see a doctor. Sometimes those tests are wrong. There was this chick I knew in high sch­–”

“It’s not wrong, I checked it out. When they say no sometimes it’s yes but when they say yes it’s always yes.”

Sandra looked down at her stomach, as though she expected to see it expanding. Not yet, after two months. Anyway, she’d always been kind of chubby. She would be chubbier still. Like a balloon. She knew the changes that her body would go through, she’d done it once before. Nausea. Bloating. Back pain towards the end. The sheer strangeness of something growing inside her, a part of her and yet… not. And how sick she had been after… Women were supposed to like it. Did this mean that she was not a real woman?

“Perhaps he’ll be happy when he hears the news. My sister’s boyfriend was when she told him she was pregnant with my niece.”

      Yes, thought Sandra, though she assumed that this was something else that he had given up on long ago. Laying around the house all day in his underwear, drinking and farting and picking at his sores. Yelling obscenities at the TV and passed out on the couch by 8:00 pm. That which he claimed to want most in the whole world, their failure in this regard brought out as a club against her time and again, she had the power to give it to him now.

      She had the power.

The thought was so strange, it seemed to lack meaning. Meanwhile, Ruth was carrying on nine to the dozen about the sister and it seemed necessary to contribute something to the conversation.

“So, are they?”

“Huh?”

“Are they happy?”

“She thought so, for a while. Then one day he just up and left. Told her that he needed his freedom.”

      Freedom. This word had so many meanings. Sandra had lived with several men in her time and they always seemed to come up with some version of it when things went south.

“He doesn’t want it, he only thinks he does. He hasn’t worked in three years.”

Sandra was becoming a little distraught.

“How can we…”

Ruth reached out an arm and drew Sandra towards her. “Don’t worry sweetie, it will be alright. You’ll manage, people always do.”

Spoken with the deep wisdom of twenty-four years of life, thought Sandra.

There had been a delivery of muffler parts earlier in the day. Sandra picked up a box and started towards the back of the store with it.

“You shouldn’t be doing that! Call Pete.”

Pete was busy with a customer. Sandra would carry the box herself, and the other boxes too. Tonight, she would be the one doing the drinking in the Krogh household. The booze would help some, but it too would not put an end to this nightmare. There were only two ways to do that and sometime soon she was going to have to choose one.

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Denis Bell is a professor of Mathematics at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. He grew up in London, England and studied at the Universities of Manchester and Warwick, where he obtained a master’s degree in statistics and a doctorate in mathematics. He has received several awards for his scientific work, including an Outstanding Scholarship Award from the University of North Florida and a Research Professorship at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California. A spinner of small tales for many years, he started publishing his fiction five years ago. His work has appeared in many literary magazines and journals, including Grub Street, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, and the Adelaide Literary Awards Anthology. A Box of Dreams is his first published collection.

Disclosure optional by Keith Nunes

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Disclosure optional by Keith Nunes

Disclosure Optional

by Keith Nunes

A middle-aged guy in a dark jacket and a patterned shirt sitting at a bar, a woman of a similar age in a deep purple dress walks over and sits next to him.

She says peering into him, red lipstick glistening: “What are you drinking?”

He says glancing and glancing again: “I buy my own drinks, but thanks.”

“Waiting for someone, something?”

“Just the next cliché.”

She smirks, her blue eyes staring at him in the giant mirror behind the bar and his blue eyes staring at his drink.

He says, holding her eyes in his and then looking back at his drink: “Hey, look sorry I’m just flowing along nicely in my own miserable little river of self-pity and you don’t need this.”

“Best not tell me what I need.”

“Yeah, well, don’t we all need the same things?”

“I’ve had the same things for way too long.”

“That caught me out,” he says, “I’d forgotten what it’s like to be surprised.”

“I surprised myself, not often I feel I can be honest around a man without setting off a booby-trap.”

Hands around his drink: “Lately I’ve been told I’m no man at all so I guess you’re still not really being honest around a man.”

She smiles and runs her hand through her mink-coloured hair.

He smiles, glances at her and away: “I feel like telling you my name now … how do you feel about that?”

“Well, if you prefer make it a pseudonym.”

“The name on my birth certificate says Jacob.”

“They’ve been calling me bitch for a while but I prefer Tess.”

They sit quietly, Herbie Hancock jazz drifting through the bar.

“I write for a struggling magazine and I’m not of any great use as a functioning male role model, this is my first drink in five years and I’m not enjoying it, I was hoping to spiral down rapidly … sort of make a decision without making a decision, that’s me.”

“I’m an Olympic fencer and I stab people in the back.”

They both laugh like they haven’t for years.

“I guess I’m waiting … odd,” she says, “I’ve always known what I wanted … and I got it, I made damn sure I got it but what the hell it was I don’t know.”

“My wife is waiting too, waiting for me to either focus on the marriage or leave, ‘just fucking make up your mind’.”

The woman is covered in a wry smile as she steps off the stool beside him: “So my lovely husband, are you coming home?”

He eases onto his feet, kisses her cheek, takes her arm and they leave with more than a hint of swing.

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Keith Nunes is from New Zealand. His stories have been published around the globe. He has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize.

After He Cheated by Angela Carlton

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After He Cheated

by Angela Carlton

At first she felt free, after her husband cheated. Oddly, Vivian found herself walking through a local park in the July heat without a bra on. She simply didn’t give a damn about attire now with her stringy hair and puffy eyes. Above her in the branches of a thick oak tree, she spotted a vibrant red cardinal. In an instant, she threw her palms out as if she might be able to catch the creature, drag it home and let it flutter wildly all over her bedroom.

Next, were the extras, all the tiny extras, stuffing it down, indulging. She drank too much Maxwell House after he cheated. She ate too much chocolate and let the sticky caramel ooze all over her lips. She drank Pinot Grigio and Cabernet Sauvignon and Smirnoff Vodka after he cheated. It was the satin on her tongue, the silk sliding down her throat, and it seemed to help tame that fury inside. So eventually she slept. Fifty nine hours later, Vivian finally slept. She slept and slept and slept.

Much later, it was disgust. Yes, the disgust crept on in. She ate packets of Mentos to feel clean and washed it down with the lemon vodka. She rode down dusty roads and those black streets in a complete daze. Vivian drove at low, low speeds trying to find the path, this place while the other car horns blared at her. The horns blasted and blared as Vivian’s car slowly veered into the wrong lane, and the oncoming truck swerved sharply to avoid her. The Chevy truck skidded and ran off the median, tumbling over the bank and crashing into a heap of boulders below. It burned below.

And it R-A-T-T-L-E-D her.

Sweet Vengeance by Spandna Chokhani

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Sweet Vengeance

by Spandna Chokhani

I gave my paw one final lick and pressed my nose against the glass. The mangy canine “I refuse to bestow the dignity of a name on a creature with no sense of personal boundaries or personal hygiene” was, as usual, outside digging in the yard. It was about time, I strained my ears for the unmistakable sound of our human’s footsteps.

Sure enough, she soon came into view, yelling, her flat footed slippers flapping inelegantly. I almost rose to rub against her but reined myself in; I was a cat on a mission. “Coco! Jackie!” she hollered. “Mommy’s got food! You don’t wanna miss dinner, Coco!”

As if! The canine came bounding in, spraying the kitchen floorboards with drool, mud and grass. “Good girl,” cooed our human as she scratched its ears. I tried to tamp down the flare of jealousy. Not now, I told myself firmly. I stretched and dropped down beside my bowl as our human gave the canine its food.

Next, the human spooned out my dinner and scratched my ears saying, “Eat up, Jackie.” I purred with pleasure. Then, as always, she returned to the study and shut the door, leaving us alone to eat. I looked around. The canine was busy slurping. I quietly slipped from the kitchen and snuck out through the flap. In the yard, I steeled myself and walked to the pile of fresh earth the canine had dug today.

I don’t know how I did it. I don’t want to talk about it. I could barely stand myself as I walked back into the house and went into the living room. The couch gleamed, ivory white and pristine with lace covers. I snuggled into it, rolling around, relishing the cleanliness as the dirt wiped off. I soon cleaned myself of the most visible streaks of mud. Washing off the rest over the next few days was a price I was willing to pay.

I hopped onto the coffee table and meowed loudly. The canine came rushing to investigate. I crouched invitingly and swished my tail. The canine woofed with joy and lunged at me. I jumped aside at the last moment and the canine’s paws knocked the porcelain centerpiece. It hit the floor with a resounding crash. Perfect. I slunk away to the kitchen as the study door opened and our human ran into the living room.

I could hear the exclamations from the living room as I started on my meal. “My god! Coco, you know you’re not supposed to climb the couch!” I licked my lips. Mmm. “Bad girl, Coco, no treat for you tonight!” I smiled to myself. A few more days. Step by step?