Come Back (by Cara Long)

He asks you who your father is and you look at him, but say nothing. You do this because although you recognize his words, you do not know who he is, you do not know what “father” is or is not, you do not know where you are.

You turn on your internal controls and try not to panic (which you are very close to doing). You clear your throat and cross one leg over the other. He – the man, this man – is now looking at you very intently. Finally, you say, “Does it matter?”

The man sighs. He says, “Look, I know you’re probably scared.” You look away from him. He knows nothing, but you will not tell him that he knows nothing because you have a sense that saying this will make him talk more. You have to get away. That is what you know for certain. You ask him if you can talk later, you say that you are tired. The man nods and stands up. He says, “I want you to think about things so you can talk about them.” Then he leaves.

You look out the window, the one he had been blocking when he sat across from you.

You see things you have seen before and they tell you nothing. You are awash in panic - you know now that you have most likely always been here, in this place, and that the man, he will come back for you.

(Cara Long lives and works in New York State. Her first collection of short stories, Partly Gone, was published in June 2014 through Unsolicited Press. A Greek translation was published by Strange Days Books.)

Marissa (by Yasmin Khan)

Cradling his warm scrawny softness between her knees, Marissa’s heart left her body and entered that of her newborn son. Watching his fists and face fight the weightlessness of the air, she was terrified of hurting him. “Hold it” said the woman known as The Chinese, reaching into a flowery washbag. Marissa wondered where it had come from. It wasn’t kept with the tampons, first aid kit, painkillers and dust covered condoms needed for running a brothel.

The baby let out a hiccup, a gasp and a long thin wail that ricocheted off Marissa’s breasts, making them ache; instantly filling with milk. “HOLD IT!” ordered The Chinese, selecting some scissors from her bag. With a muscly crunch, the cord was cut and Marissa lay the baby down, then screamed out in pretend pain and folded forward.

Lying within reach, the scissors were small and sharp and smiling. Marissa had been a brilliant pick pocket as a child – deft and quick. As a teenager, she’d dealt drugs and fallen in love with a gang boss who chose her to take a shipment to London. After bringing the heroin to this ever-curtained house she had never left.

“Placenta coming now” The Chinese said. Shielding her son with a tent made only of her knees, Marissa curled her fingers around the scissors, brought up her hand and punched the pointed blades into The Chinese’s neck. The side of her fingers and fist slid sank against soft flesh.

Marissa was already floating as she heard the panicked, urgent gurgle and scream. She dragged the metal sideways, opening the wound before digging the point in again. Marissa’s hands were filthy with thick blood – she needed them clean to tend to her son. She needed the stupid kneeling pile of flesh to topple and still. Again, she jabbed – this time taking care, leaning in low like a lover before ripping the ugly flesh a final time. Then all she could hear was the pure single noted cry of her son and she could wash them both clean.

(Yasmin Khan is a writer who is half Pakistani and half Irish. Having worked as a TV and Radio Journalist for 17 years, she is now exploring her love of writing fiction. She has an MA in Anthropology and is fascinated by stories and how they transcend physical settings.)

Jokes (by Lee Porter)

Just because I knew the guy from way back when didn’t mean I wanted the conversation to proceed, but he continued to stand in front of me, blocking my way. “Excuse me,” I said.

“Jeff Bridges died.” He spoke fast. “Order a White Russian.”

Towering over me, I had to look up at him to meet his stare. He took a large, slow sip of his American Double Stout, the liquid like chewing tobacco spit, and smiled. I expected the thick, dark brew to be clumped up in his mouth, sticking to his teeth. It wasn’t. Even his beer projected disingenuousness. I didn’t smile back.

“Did you hear me? I said Jeff Bridges died. Go order a White Russian.”

“I heard you.”

“So. . . .”

“So okay.”

“Okay then.”

I joined Giovanni at the bar.

“Did he try that one on you, too?”

“Jeff Bridges?”

“Yeah.”

I took a sip from my beer and glanced at the televisions around the bar – all tuned to the Phillies game – nothing out of the ordinary. “I don’t believe him.”

So we played with our smartphones for a second and then placed them on coasters, not surprised that there was no news about Jeff Bridges – good or bad – online.

“I should have said ‘Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man,’” I mumbled. Giovanni laughed, flagged down the bartender and ordered sweet potato fries.

We finished our beers, ordered another round, talked about our women – or lack thereof – and comics.

I let the door swing closed behind me on our way out. He was standing outside, as if waiting for us, leaning against the wooden facade, smoking a cigarette.

“You guys leaving?”

I had to ask. “What do you have against Jeff Bridges, man?”

He explained that he and his friends would do this frequently when out late. “Do you know how little milk a bar normally stocks? They have to send a guy out just to get more. The more people we get ordering White Russians, the more they send some sad sack out for milk. You know how hard it is to buy a gallon of milk at one a.m. in this town?”

He laughed and spat on the sidewalk.

I shrugged. Giovanni and I walked away, down 15th Street.

“Why doesn’t he just say it’s his birthday? Why’s the joke have to be about death?”

(Lee Porter is the writer/producer of the award-winning comedy Web series My Ruined Life and the founder/editor of the food/drink site Chocolate Covered Memories. Lee’s work has been featured on Zoo With Roy, The Gaggle, Philly.com, Comcast SportsNet, Shmitten Kitten, and even tweeted by Questlove. Lee lives in Philadelphia.)

It Didn't Matter (performed by Brian Kremer)

(I wrote this flash fiction in the form of a lyrical poem, and asked my friend Brian Kremer to set it to music and sing the words. The audio link below plays Brian's resulting work: a 2 minute, 18 second song! In addition to teaching the unique Kremer Voice Design curriculum he developed, Brian is a member of the Voice Faculty at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Click here for his web site, here for his facebook page, and here for his twitter account. This flash fiction is better on the ears than the eyes, so be sure to use the audio link below and enjoy Brian's piano playing and voice.)



It didn't matter at all
But it mattered to me

It was September that Fall
We were just watchin' tv

You didn't wanna be poor
Wanted the world and for free

Your tone of voice made me sore
Alone in my mentality

It didn't matter at all
But it mattered to me

I stopped by at your house
After working all day

You didn't wanna go out
I told you I couldn't stay

I quit my job the next week
'cause you only wanted to play

It didn't matter at all
[No it didn't]
But it mattered to me

It didn't matter at all
But it mattered to me

We were each part of a team
I just had to stay in line

You didn't wanna be seen
Together we were something divine

It fell apart at the seam
Crossed over that borderline

It didn't matter at all
[No it didn't now]
But it mattered to me

It didn't matter at all
[No no no no]
But it mattered to me

It didn't matter at all
But it mattered to me

Guilt (by Katrina Byrd)

I stood in my friend’s lavish living room. I tried to hold it all together. It was as if a dam was about to burst inside me. I wanted to get everything out in the open between me and Sarah but now wasn’t the time.

Sarah and I had been friends for nearly twenty years. We met right out of college. Sarah was everything I wanted to be – smart, beautiful, and  neat. She wasn’t a show off or mean spirited, just perfect at everything.  Well not everything. Her one imperfect thing was Ron, her cheating husband.

I’d been invited to the Lawson home on that cool January morning because Ron was gone and Sarah was broke.

"Look at me," she said from behind me. That was the one thing I wanted to avoid. Looking at her now was like looking at half of a photo. "Look at me," she said again and I did.

Sarah stood in the center of the room surrounded by long tables piled with her belongings. Hot pink price tags illuminated by the bright sunlight. Damn, she could turn a garage sale into a high class event. I felt like I was at an exclusive boutique and caviar would be served any minute.

"He left me with nothing. I’ve got bills and … and I could lose the house."

I wasn’t accustomed to seeing her frazzled. It was a major shock. I thought she had everything together or at least that’s what I told myself to justify what I had done.

Several loud knocks prompted Sarah to turn quickly and rush toward the front door. When she opened it a crowd of people rushed past her. Mrs. Pritchard, Sarah’s next door neighbor, was the first one inside. Mrs. Pritchard was a gossip who sat around in a house dress everyday poking her nose into her neighbors’ business. She hovered over the table like a vulture. She picked up one of Sarah’s beautiful plates. It was hand made by J. Johnston, a famous potter who fashioned it for Sarah and Ron’s wedding.

"How much?" Mrs. Pritchard asked.

"I can’t do this." Sarah was beside me. "Selling off his stuff – our stuff."

Looking at her was like seeing a beauty queen stripped of her title. It was like seeing her, the real her, for the first time. She was a woman who’d had her heart broken.

"Twenty five dollars," Sarah said to Mrs. Pritchard, who continued to hold the plate. Sarah’s face was stained with tears, her eyes red and puffy. Her shoulders slumped.

"You’ll get through this," I said.

"I want to buy it." Mrs. Pritchard reached into her ample bosom and took out a wad of money. She peeled off a twenty and a five. "Be careful when you’re bagging it," she said to Sarah, whose face was a mixture of shock and embarrassment.

"It’ll be okay," I said and snatched the bills from the giant woman. I took the plate, wrapped it in tissue and handed it to Mrs. Pritchard.

"It sure is ashamed about your husband, honey," Mrs. Pritchard said.

Sarah rushed past her and headed for the kitchen. I followed close behind her as fast as I could without breaking into a run. When I entered the kitchen she was sobbing near the sink.  

"Selling his things seems so cold." Her words mingled with the soft meows of Tiger, her lynx point kitty who moved about rubbing her sleek body on our legs.

"You have no choice. The insurance doesn’t pay in cases of su-" I stopped abruptly, searching for a better word. "In these cases."

"I know but it still feels wrong."

"It’s not." I spoke more sharply than I intended. Sarah cried on my shoulders for years. She told me everything. He was lazy, didn’t like her mother, ran around with other women and he liked to do freaky things in the bedroom.

"I know things have been rough since he was laid off but this? Why?"

How could I tell her? It wasn’t her. It wasn’t his job. How could I tell Sarah that I had enjoyed two years of raw, forbidden, adulterous passion with her husband? Long lunches that started with salads and ended with loud, ravenous love making while she was at work. How could I tell her that I had succumbed to Ron’s freakish desires? Occasionally barking like a dog and reciting the Gettysburg address during our love making sessions. It was just sex. I didn’t love him. I declined his offer to run away with him. I knew he was upset. How could I tell her? I couldn’t. Mrs. Pritchard was in the doorway.

"How much?" she said. In her fat hand she held a bowl. My bowl. A crystal bowl that had been handed down to me from my mother. A bowl that had been in my family for generations.

"It isn’t for sale." I wrapped my fingers around the rim and pulled. Mrs. Pritchard clung to it. "Sarah, how could you sell my bowl?"

"I didn’t remember that it was yours."

"Didn’t remember?" My voice rose an octave. "It was December 2nd,  the night of the Christmas gathering. You invited the entire neighborhood. You specifically asked me to bring my famous banana pudding  in this bowl."

"I remember that pudding," Mrs. Pritchard said. "The worst use of bananas I’ve ever seen."

"It was delicious!"

"Nasty," she said in a tone that sounded like a final verdict. "Nobody liked it."

"Ron liked it."

"Banana pudding wasn’t all Ron liked," Mrs. Pritchard said, adding a satisfied "ARF!"

The bowl was snatched. My body went forward then back. I stood frozen in horror. I glanced at the large woman beside me. Her mouth hung open.

"No!" Mrs. Pritchard said when Sarah moved near the counter where her fine cutlery lay.

"Sarah," I said. "Don’t do anything stupid."

Sarah didn’t say a word. She lifted my beautiful bowl high above her head.

(Katrina Byrd is a writer and playwright who graduated from Millsaps College with a B.A. in History. Katrina has published three books and received four Artist Minigrants from the Mississippi Arts Commission. Katrina has also designed and presented several writing workshops for all ages. Click here for her facebook fan page and here to check out her book, Byrds of a Feather.)

Exact Copy Data Set (by Simon Kearns)

Once past the first set of proxy servers, Carlton knew the real challenge was just beginning. The initial circuit of detours was a filter, a qualification round to weed out amateurs and cyber cops. The next level kicked off with a rather pretty anonymizer based in Calcutta. This was daisy-chained via the Sunray Network, flipped by the Indonesian Hub and doubled back three times. It took seventeen hours to navigate.

He worked, as ever, wired on speed and speed metal, and as he worked, Carlton became aware of a rising thrill that had nothing to do with the long-ago-plateaued amphetamine. He was starting to suspect the identity of the author. The procedure was familiar: exquisitely arranged symmetries, complexity of repetitions, subtly signposted pitfalls. Another week of work and no doubt remained; he was on the trail of his nemesis.

The onion routing continued: Sao Paulo, Singapore, Wisconsin, Minsk, Shenzhen. On and on, back and forth, as piece by piece the orb-like encryption was delicately peeled. He had never come this far, this close to his quarry, it seemed he could simply foresee the path to take, all traps and decoys fell away on his approach. The relativity of time became pronounced, moments melted into hours, weeks flew by, no night, no day, he lived a perpetual dawn of revelatory hyperlinks and ever-evolving message targets.

Near the end, following a particularly deviant decoy cipher, one he realised, almost too late, to be authentic, Carlton found himself at the gates of the final destination. Incredulous, fingers trembling, he tapped out the concluding code.

Upon return, he entered the hall of mirrors.

(Simon Kearns grew up in the North of Ireland and currently lives in the South of France. His debut novel, Virtual Assassin, was published by Revenge Ink in 2010. His next book, The Hyper-Reality Show, will be coming out in 2013. He enjoys experimenting with prose in the form of flash fiction, examples of which can be found on his site: simonkearns.com.)

Safety in Numbers (by James Parsons)

Through the window, the moon cast a ribbon of light diagonally across her body, revealing a shoulder, two ribs, and the curvature of a hip.  A path of skin like fresh snow beneath a streetlamp.  The smell of lilacs – her ever-present scent – invaded his nostrils.  This time mingling with sweat and the moist August air.  Yet the rest of her was veiled in storm cloud gray and grew more indiscernible despite his staring.  Sheldon had known Tatum for over a year but she seemed so vague to him, as if he were peering at her through a rain-splashed windshield, betrayed by broken wipers.  She was opaque lying there in the tousled bed linens and that made him anxious.  It occurred to him to quietly exit the room and leave her to her dreams, so he made his way out the door, down three floors, and into the silent streets.

The city pulsates like a switchboard of energy in the waking hours.  Yet, after midnight, within certain neighborhoods, it is a cloister.  The small streets can be like portals to a quainter era.  The atmosphere so different than in the daylight.  This is what he loved most about Philadelphia.  It rested.  And because of his inability to do the same, Sheldon walked.  West, on Locust, toward the river, he meandered past narrow, cobblestone back alleys.  The giant silhouette of a cargo train vanished northward toward the Art Museum.  Around a corner, a cat, like a sentry, slinked back and forth on the slender top of a property gate, and startled him.  Ahead, on a street perpendicular, two women in flowing skirts passed by on bikes that seemed too large for them; even at this hour, in the bright darkness, they looked purposeful yet carefree, as girls in skirts on bikes often do in the summer months.

Sheldon favored Fitler Square to the much bigger Rittenhouse.  Rittenhouse Square was a spectacle.  Fitler Square, at this hour, a sanctuary.  The brass ram in repose greeted him.  The bear in mid-stride paid him no mind.  He imagined them coming to life like in a child’s daydream.  He sat on a bench next to the tortoises conferring with one another.  The moonlight was still strong and it gleamed off the helmeted backs of the tortoises; the largest casting a fatherly figure in front of two attentive children.  Be patient, you’ll get there, don’t worry, it is who you are.  Sheldon began to feel at ease and the edges of his mouth curved upward forming a wry smile.  He sat and enjoyed the solitude for minutes which seemed longer.  Suddenly the drone of the southbound #12 bus on its final run grew closer and it roused him.  Above, some lonely stars shone in defiance of the city and its artificial light.  The warm air was sweet with alyssum.  It reminded him of lilacs.  He thought of Tatum.  Was she still sleeping?  Perhaps she too had left the house.

(James Parsons is a writer living in Philadelphia.  When he's not writing you can find him on his bike, running in the Wissahickon trails, or coaching on soccer fields throughout the area.  He has a master's degree in journalism from Temple University.)

Domestic Situation (by Marylou Fusco)

After the baby finally stops crying and falls to sleep with little hitches and sighs, she remembers how she used to love being half naked in public. She wore shorty shorts and halter tops all the time if she could. A tinkly gold charm anklet and her toenails painted fire-engine red.

Now she’s sitting around in an old sweater and jeans waiting for Charlie to come home. Waiting sucks. Charlie said he was going out, be right back, and that could mean anything. It could mean fifteen minutes or an hour and a half. He could be picking up a pack of cigarettes or some diapers.

He could have a stocking cap pulled over his face, threatening a store clerk. The clerk sweating and fumbling with the cash. “Please, man. Here. Please, I got a kid.”

And Charlie would probably say, “The fuck? I’m not going to shoot you. I got a kid too.” Ha ha. He thinks he’s being funny.

There’s not much you can do to make a two rooms homey but she tries. Plants on the fire escape when the weather gets warm. Blue throw pillows here and here. When the case worker visits with her tidy notebook and sprayed black ponytail she blinks and looks around and around. She asks, “How about this? This domestic situation?”

When Charlie gets back he’ll smoke his single lonely cigarette in bed. The blue light pouring in from the window. Glass shattering on the street below them.  She’ll stand in that blue light and pull off her sweater. The fabric of her old bra straining against the weight of her new breasts. Every morning she leaks milk across her fingers and hides in the bathroom to taste its sweetness.

She doesn’t care about the gun in the dresser drawer, tucked far back beyond her good panties, doesn’t even think about it anymore because she knows how Charlie’s bones ache for one last hit. She knows how he still feels that pull in his guts and across every inch of his skin. That he resists and resists is the bravest, coolest thing ever.

When he gets home she’ll crawl under the covers with him, her flesh warming from the heat of his hands. Already she’s thinking; I forgive you. There’s nothing to forgive. We have a whole lifetime of doing the right thing.

(Marylou Fusco is a writer living in Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in Swink, Carve, and Rumble magazines.)

Through the Smoke (by Big Tuba)

Above the hum or beneath it I’ll survive.  

Looking around with more than just eyes.  

Trying not to see but to understand.

People scream and shout in happiness or despair or they might keep quiet while their insides burn.

A Rick Santorum bumper sticker screams to gay people of their evilness and lack of rights, expecting them to accept it all while he discusses ways to divert funding from public education and defends the home schooling of his own kids between sips of champagne.  This asshole wants to be President of The United States of America and enough people actually think he’d be a good choice for the job that he wins caucuses and stays in the race.  Please, if you’re out there, wake me up and tell me it was all a bad dream and I’ll laugh at the outlandishness of my own subconscious.  

Rationalize the lies and they become true to you.

People protect themselves and shield themselves and create their own little worlds.  I don’t blame them for that.  But when the vibe flattens and the masks come off that’s when I’ll engage, that’s when you’ll see me and I’ll see you and maybe we’ll understand.  For now I’ll just dance and look out through the smoke and try my best to live.  

(Big Tuba lives in Philadelphia.  He's been published on many a men's room wall, and he's friendly.)

My Father Laughed (by Wesley Jacques)

I sat where he usually sat, on the tattered armchair by the front window.  He stood there awkwardly asking me for his seat with his body language but wouldn’t say the words.  It was just a chair after all.  And I was his son, returned only for a moment, to sit and stare out the window he’d been stingy with for years.  The view was unremarkable: typical Queens avenue lined with American colonials and lower-middle-class bungalows.  But it was hard for him to feign disinterest while he stood there seemingly lost, with nowhere else in the house, in the world, for him to sit and find himself.

“You’s remember when we use to pick-up Anne from work at the hospital, the one by the Van Wyck?”  He asked the question like it was an answer to something else, in a thick Haitian-Creole accent that’d over time picked up New Yawk speech more readily than American-English.  I nodded remembering Anne as mommy.

“Nah.  You don’t remember,” he said with a wry smile.  Luckily, I wasn’t thirteen anymore, easily frustrated and provoked.  I could turn away and stare out the window to the streetlights flickering on and the sun setting slowly behind elm trees.  He went on, “One time, she called to pick her up because they fired her.”  He laughed, which I found strange due to an upbringing that hadn’t allowed me the privilege of finding unemployment any bit funny.  He lost his job in ‘95 and then even smiling was strongly advised against.  But he continued laughing.  “In the car, when I ask why, she tell me ‘because they’re racist!’”  I’m not sure I understood the punchline, if there were one, but he snickered loudly and finally grabbed another chair to finish his story seated.

All the nurses were West-Indian women like my mother and truthfully, she was fired for her poor work etiquette and attitude, which I surely believed.  “They catch her sleeping, while a man almost dying in the other room!”  I smiled like the sadist I am, sharing memories of my mother with my father, something I would never have expected in my hundredth year, let alone my twenty-third.  But there he was - smiling and laughing, thinking about her.  “She said if he wasn’t a white man, they would’ve let her continue sleeping!”  We were both laughing then.  My mother had always been blunt even when misguided.  She used the race card like she’d walked with Dr. King but still didn’t quite know the difference between George Washington and George Washington Carver.  “Silly Americans love their peanut butter; gon’ elect the man president for it. Ha!” she’d told me once while grocery shopping.

It struck me, while reminiscing, that my father had known my mother, they’d had some sort of relationship, may have even been in love.  I looked at my father then, sitting and smiling like a stranger, and the realization sent me reeling through memories of the latter days of their volatile marriage.

The new more romantic image mixed poorly with the old; the one left by the image of my mother battered and abused by a man that vowed in a suit in a church in a photo album in the basement to protect and cherish her ‘til death (en Francais).  My mother cried when her only son, thirteen, saw her swollen face in a gurney.

(Wesley Jacques has been writing short fiction for twenty years, not to be discredited by the fact that he is twenty-three.  Born in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, to Haitian immigrant parents, he was raised in a web of group homes, foster homes, and other non-homes. He has a master of arts degree in English literature.)

Pinkie Master's, Savannah, Late (by Conrad Ashley Persons)

Floyd Monroe was down there at Pinkie’s last night, lording over the place even though he was drunk on credit.  Stool came free on my left and nary a second later he was in my ear.  ‘Tessa,’ he says, breath like something’s underside.  ‘Tessa.’  I swiveled round and showed him my face. 

Floyd said he’s heard about my trouble.  Said he wanted to help me out.  He said something I didn’t understand.  He said there was poetry in a white lie.  And then he offered me a tip, holding up three crooked fingers.  I listened hard.  He said, ‘So you know, there’s a few ways to tell if a man’s lying.’

The bar bustled.  Budweiser six ways to Sunday.  That sound you get on a good break shot.  I drink nothing but beer because I fear getting drunk.

‘First way is the eyes.’  His voice crackled.  Like an Army radio.  ‘Some folks say they look up.  And to the right.  But truth is the eyes are sadder when they’re lying.'

Floyd went on, but I could barely hear him for all the ruckus of the jukebox.  And I was distracted.  All I was thinking about were them eyes of Terrance.  As unbending as something manmade.

Floyd has flawless teeth because they’re dentures.  He smiled in a way I would call wistful.  I smiled too.  And then I didn’t because I caught on that he was pitying me. 

‘Second way is the voice.  Man’s voice is always liable to be deep.  But listen to a lie. It’s light. Sing-song.’  The sound of a man calling your name.  Done a million ways.  Plaintive on the first date.  Familiar on the third.  Marriage comes and it grows tired, your name as a sagging balloon. 

‘A man who’s lying’s got ants in his pants.  Jittery.  Scratching itches that ain’t there.  That’s the third way you can tell.’  

Terrance had been a bundle of contempt.  Like his whole body was a balled up fist.  This made our time together a war.  And instead of tiring of its violence, I was grateful for its reprieves.  He had been my best customer.  My problem was in forgetting that he was only that. 

Pinkie shook the closing bell and the bar got rushed by everybody who didn’t need another drink.  I put my head in my hands.  Floyd went quiet.  His head dipped like an elk’s.  He put his small, brown hand on my thigh.  He moved towards me to speak.  But after all that Floyd ain’t have a damn thing to say.

(Conrad Ashley Persons, co-founder of Arkstone Publishing, has been published in the short story anthology Richmond Noir, blogged for The New York Times, and reported for the Guardian.  He lives in London.)