For all intents and purposes, let’s set the record clear that I wasn’t intentionally trying to break anyone’s heart.
Thirty
He said, I can't imagine that. Living somewhere they don't speak my language. I said I couldn't either.
To Bask
A woman on the middle floor of the old Florida condo opens a sliding-glass door...
2021 Sudden Fiction Contest Open!
Our annual Sudden Fiction Contest is now open for 2021. Send us your best and weirdest.
Trespassing
Whenever they drove past in the car on the way to the next town over, all he saw was a bare expanse of crumbling gray stones stretching out like a long-emptied riverbed behind the warped fencing with all its warnings.
The Jumper and the Gaijin
Nora learns “gaijin” when she hears the teenagers say it. She’s not heard an adult use it, and when it’s said in her proximity the eikaiwa manager turns stern and scolds the student. So while she knows that it means “outsider,” it must mean something else, something a little shameful, the kind of word said only at home.
To Be Generous
When Amy whispered in Russ’s ear that what he wanted her to do would cost him fifty bucks, she meant it to be sexy.
The Young Mayor of Villa Sorgo
With a clogged throat and quivering bowels he’d watched the river of muscle flow beneath his balcony, the white-clad men in their blood-red neckties tumbling through the streets, vaulting over the barriers in their frantic attempts to escape the horns of the onrushing beasts.
Perfume and Cigarettes
Mrs. Marion heard Ronnie’s car turn into the driveway, and then shortly afterward the top of its hood slid into view out the kitchen window, breaking her concentration. A sour rush of annoyance spurted into her face like a grease explosion.
In the Name of the Son
His mind raced over a series of firsts. The first time he used a men’s room; the first time a man took him for another man; the first time a woman did, and the first time one flirted with him; the first time he introduced himself with his new male name.
