Quick Fiction

Village 51 Glimpse

Quick Fiction — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:50:51 -0400

Mounting the fixture to the top of the cliff, the dwellers stared out to the frozen sea, not realizing that the fixture had been affixed incorrectly and would not survive the small gale that was soon to un-entrench itself from the sky. They were not of our village, they were of the other one, the one we refer to as Un-Village. They are all wild there, doing strange cliff-hanging dances to woo after the lusted-for ones. And they eat the young of the fish, which we know is very important to not do. And they feed their raggedy animals such morsels that should be left only for the tiny princes of our place.

There’s Bugs

Quick Fiction — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:40:46 -0400

Her face was enough of a certain way to stop her from being beautiful. Her eyes didn’t seem to blink enough. She and her mother wore cotton dresses and planted flowers around their house’s foundation. Earl drove his truck down their road—he would see her and imagine different bare parts of her. Earl lived alone and had a young baldness that seemed to cover his whole rounded body. His sheets had developed nubs in the fabric that felt like dirt. He laid there at night and thought of Norma in the one-piece swimsuit she wore under the dress. It was nearing July and one afternoon Earl walked over to tell Norma how nice the fireworks looked from the hill behind his house. “Yeah,” Norma said. “Well,” he said, “some of the lower-to-the-ground ones get blocked by the trees.” “Oh,” she said. “And there’s bugs.” Norma was looking at the ground but still standing in front of him like they should be talking. “Be sure to piss and things before we go up there,” Earl said, “or else you’ll be pissing in the trees and like I said there’s bugs.” She came when it was getting dusky and the air was turning dry. Earl watched his truck kick up dust from the side-view mirror as he drove up the hill. Norma stared out the window at the trees and the dust. Earl had to open a gate near a stand of hemlock—they drove past the gate up a rutted road to a clearing. They sat in the grass and waited for night. Swarms of gnats floated by them and they were quiet until things got darker. The few first rockets flew straight up before they blew out in blue and red circles. “I think we get along,” he said and watched her thighs as she moved one leg over the other. “You know what I heard about why men and women don’t usually get along?” Earl said. “I heard that back in the caveman days the man and woman would almost starve over the winter.” Loud bangs were hitting their chests and backs before settling into the spaces behind them. “All the man could think about was getting her baby off her and bashing it against the cave wall and eating it, but she wouldn’t let him do it,” he said. “She held that baby right up against her.” Earl noticed the smoothness of Norma’s face and her hair, which had separated into thin curls above her eyes. “But I think we get along fine,” he said. The wind blew the branches back and forth at the edge of the trees. The woods were thick and black between them and the road. There was a red explosion followed by a white one and they both burned slowly as they bled toward the ground. She was quiet and let some weight off her hands and let more of her back lower onto the grass.

Belly Flop

Quick Fiction — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:30:08 -0400

I can’t say I didn’t know we were out of gas, I can’t say I didn’t want this falling feeling, clouds made of icy swords and flashes of a small-town life: summer kisses, warm beef steak, fresh milk with a skin on top. I haven’t felt anything in far too long. I do what they tell me: spend my nights in the sky and an hour later I don’t remember how I got down alive. And this, the air on my face, cut-grass smells and roses, yowls (dogs barking), the kerrr-ack (my body breaking), and a dream, that old wise woman, her finger on my brow, it’s all I ever wanted, and I got the moon too and loud night birds, my friends scratched up but alive, OK, just fine, and—pulled the cord a second late, just a second, nobody knows, the sky up against me with her thousand fists, a belly flop, a dive off a really high board. Look at him, they’ll say, it happens, an accident, a tragedy, he was so very brave, a purple heart maybe, a wife bent over me, proud; I can’t remember her face but her belly’s bigger than before. This will be a better death, not at home but somewhere like it; not a wet swamp crash, my body missing, growing mushrooms, or me not dead at all but clenching teeth, raining liquid down on lush green leaves and bright thatched houses with small and happy husbands inside.

Chinatown, Yokohama, 1977

Quick Fiction — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:20:57 -0400

The windows of the bakery across the street reflect the setting sun partway down the alley. The scent of bean-curd pastry travels further. The only other light is the neon word bar quivering as if it’s weary of war against the gloom. I settle on the stool around the corner of the counter, incline against the wall and order. The bartender slides down my whiskey and water and then, in the red light spilling in the open door, she paints her nails in convoluted schemes of blue. I stare into the mirrored Kirin beer ad above her and try to read my silhouette’s intentions. With a staccato of stiletto heels, a younger woman materializes in the doorway. I say, “You’re carrying too light a load for this sort of place.” The bartender slips the girl a straight-up vodka and replies, “She’s my sister, doesn’t speak much English. She stops by every night on her way downtown. She’s not allowed to drink the real stuff at work.” The girl clicks her glass to mine, rests her hand on my thigh and leans in so close I see my image in her eyes. I shudder and look past her. “Tell your sister that you’re more my type. She’s too young.” Her rat-a-tat shrinks into silence. I buy the bartender a drink. She pours us both a whiskey. After listening to the hissing of the drunks pissing on the walls outside, I ask, “What time you close?” She pours another round, this time on the house. “Two. I’ll go with you if you’re still here.” When my drink is empty, I tell her to set up another round and drop a coin in the jukebox. She shoves the stools over by the booth, pushes buttons. We dance back and forth along the front of the counter. I watch our reflection in the mirror. The red light plays off the blue of the barrette holding her black hair back from her face, pressed tight to my chest.

Bobby Kennedy and His Sea Lion Sandy

Quick Fiction — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:06:13 -0500

Robert Kennedy returned from work, entered the front door of his large white house, Hickory Hill, kicked off his shoes, removed his suit coat, loosened his tie, walked over the black and white tiles of the hallway floor, past the enormous black Newfoundland named Brumus, five children, the governess, a nurse, three maids, past the open doors leading to the rooms all painted in bright reds and greens, unbuttoned his shirt, tousled his hair, walked out the back door past the iguana and the sea turtle, removed his shirt, his belt, his pants, headed towards the swimming pool where a young sea lion sat poolside, and he (in just shorts and socks) and the sea lion dove into the cool water. Kennedy opened his eyes under water; he saw the animal beside him. He lifted his head above the surface of the water. “The weather is good today, Sandy,” he said and flipped to float on his back. “Really nice. There’s fresh sardines in the barn; let’s go.” [6 comments]

Best of Quick Fiction

Quick Fiction — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 15:26:56 -0500

Through a new partnership with Art Throb, the local arts and culture online magazine north of Boston, we're sharing some of our picks from Quick Fiction’s back issues with the area arts community... and you too.

Eight Miniatures on Sudden Fiction in General, and Sudden Fiction Latino in Particular

Quick Fiction — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:06:40 -0400

Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America. Edited by Robert Shapard, James Thomas, and Ray Gonzales. 336 pages. W.W. Norton. $15.95. 1. My vocation found me in the aisles of a church goods store. I was too young to appreciate the irony of crucifixes and other religious articles being on sale, stripped of sacramental power by their price tags and presence in bulk. At the same time, I was probably no more reverent than I was during family trips to the fabric store; in short, I was quickly bored. At some point during this particular excursion, I came across a framed picture of Jesus at floor level. If you stood at a certain point in relation to this image, the Lord’s eyes appeared closed, perhaps in agony, perhaps in the transport of destiny fulfilled. But with only the slightest shift in one’s angle of perception, the eyes would shoot open, a trick of design no doubt intended to evoke spiritual awakening, or the vigilance required of Christian living. I was not so perceptive as I later tearfully struggled to explain to my parents how the picture had somehow come to life.

Get on the Flash Track at Salem Lit Fest!

Quick Fiction — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:17:46 -0400

Lovers of the short form take note! As a proud sponsor of the Salem Literary Festival, Quick Fiction is hosting a series of events called The Flash Track, including writing workshops, a killer reading, and even monologue performances!

The Middle Distance

Quick Fiction — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:05:26 -0400

From a window at the long end of the Bramhall Library, she saw the Duke splayed out on the bricks of Pollard Square, calling to her with his eyes. My girl, he seemed to say, my end is here and I wish to die with an acceptable view. She meant to ignore his plaintive face, and continue reading, but her book began to wrinkle and pull itself away the way water shrinks and bends a paper sheaf. And so she thought she would. His hand was rough like cracked clay and he fell into her weight. They walked together and she brought him up the marble steps into the Library’s potent scent and down some halls to the Winston Room. “Here,” he said, “bring me to the window with the dull bright glow. I want to die gazing out into the middle distance,” and the middle distance grew until it was almost everywhere, stretching into a tinted glaze that spread his feeble body like a zeroed thing. [1 comment]

Round Midnight

Quick Fiction — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:04:45 -0400

Miles was in our kitchen wearing my blue-in-green bathrobe, while a humongous blackfish seethed in the deep-fryer. Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 spinning on the turntable. Images of The Outer Limits flickering like an eerie slide show upon the walls. Frances and I were perched on the windowsill, passing a stogie back and forth, watching the rain pour slantwise in the neon-colored night. I rested my hand on her sepia thigh, but it felt like touching somebody else’s sentimental photograph. She just picked up my hand and placed it in my lap again. “You’re in the wrong key, honey,” she whispered. “I’m a key dangling from a thundercloud.” She uncrossed her legs as if to stand but she did not. Miles’ horn issuing from the kitchen—a few Egyptian-sounding notes, middle range and legato. The cigar smoke hovering in the air like a charmed cobra. My wife, I believed, waking in our dark bedroom, lifting a damp cloth from her luminous face.