Tag: Flash

Everything Must Go

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She woke before dawn to secure the sign into her yard. “EVERYTHING MUST GO!” it said in large, block letters she had traced from a stencil. “EVERYTHING” was waiting under blanketed tables in the garage, which she trundled out into the driveway as the neighbors’ lights clicked on for the day. She sipped from a thermos of coffee, breathing heavily with the strain of lifting and the uneasiness of letting go.

When folks arrived she greeted them with a smile, saying, “PRICES NEGOTIABLE!” with the same enthusiasm as the sign, as if stenciled. She watched the knickknacks dwindle down throughout the day, tallying each purchase in a ledger. In her heart was another ledger, taking toll in a different way.

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The Best of Friends

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The best of friends are glued together on the sofa, wrapped in a mélange of blankets, the blasting AC sprouting goosebumps on their exposed wrists as they pass a joint back and forth, the cold air decreasing their body temperatures, combatting the friction of the undercover exploration.

Ice spins around slowly in plastic cups of pinot grigio, box-poured. Around them, wasted partygoers are shuffling off to bedrooms, to nooks, to crannies, doors locked and clicked and fastened with bangles around the knobs to keep a separation between fact and refrigeration.

Muffled moans, the parting sighs of lips opening, tongues swirling together, the pitch of a pendulum somewhere in the apartment, swinging back and forth—slower and slower—as the two nestle somehow closer, the yellow haze overtaking them, fervent departure from friendship into something more. They melt together, lost to the desires boiling inside them.

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Lachrymal

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Feeling inspired by Etgar Keret lately, so I wrote this. Thanks for reading!

I wasn’t sure what was happening. The tears didn’t feel natural; they were not the tears I had cried the day before, at least. Yesterday’s tears were shed so freely, so deep into the stacks that I might have been all alone, tucked between an odd alcove near a riot-proof window and a shelf of outdated psychology journals. Since picking up this work study job, I have learned all the best places to cry in the library, from the service elevator (only accessible by library staff), to the most secluded desk in the quiet study, my face pressed against the cold, scarred wood.

Today’s tears were reluctant tears, jammed up inside my eyes. As hesitant as they were to be born, that didn’t stop my body’s other functions from *wanting* them to surface. I parked the book cart outside a bathroom, relieved to find it empty. Standing with my nose pressed against the mirror, I tried my best to avoid scrutinizing what I saw, but my tired and slouched posture, the premature lining on my face that hadn’t been there when I left for college, the puffiness in my eyes, were enough to release the hot, painful tears from their prison.

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Warm Hands

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I wrote this piece as a part of Write Now, a 48-hour flash fiction writing contest for University of Iowa Alumni, and was selected as a finalist. I hope you enjoy it.

My grandmother’s hands are veined tributaries of deep, blue memory, as warm as her famous Sunday dinner rolls, as even and steady as a taut clothesline. Whenever I visit, I make sure to hold them at least once, while we’re sharing a pot of tea, or during our afternoon walk, or when we’re cleaning the dishes.

That connection makes me feel safe; it always has, since I was a small girl, when she would run her hands across my back until I fell asleep. Now a woman myself, I nurture a longing for that connection again, to sleep away the world’s problems on her couch, wake to the small sounds of chores, the clink of plates stacking in the cabinet, the spray of an aerosol cleaner against a dusty surface.

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