DailyFlash: ImMEDIAte

The man has a flashback to sitting in the backseat of a car with potential in-laws, the heat of a strange country on everything from the window glass to the material upholstery to the kid's clammy hand. The kid - not his, but yes his in this as-yet unbroken timeline - goes "Mommy says you're my Daddy now." It explodes in the car, an aftermath of silence, and the potential in-laws say something, he doesn't remember what; and he says something, he doesn't remember what. It doesn't matter. There's no rewind.

In the present timeline he sees the kid's face as it is now on the screen, and the face of his own as she plays in the corner of the room. She calls out a legitimate Daddy, and he is struck by his own complacency, and remorse. She wasn't the first to call him Daddy - how could he have taken the clammy hand so lightly? Not seen through the eyes of the kid? A well opens in his heart and he falls into the darkness, staring only at the kid's gaze, hoping they were young enough to forget him easily. His punishment; that they would or already have: unaware of the Daddy roaming the earth who would never forget them.

SHORT STORY: Cancer

Little Greg was eight years old when he developed a plan to save his parents’ lives. And it was so simple too! His heart thumped, imagining the scenario playing out. Would it go as he thought it would? Or would they laugh in his face? Once they knew he was serious they would soon clock on and change their ways. He was sure of it.

He chose a rainy day to emphasize his point, maybe with a pronounced cough or two. Outside the window, grey clouds laboured heavy across the sky, with the gentle pattering of rain striking the glass and windowsill and pouring from the gutter and into the street. The window was open a crack, and his father’s cigarette smoke feigned escape in slow-moving swirls, almost blue against the grey.

Read more: https://culturedvultures.com/short-stories-cancer/

Short Story: Ends Meat

There it was again – the smell. Barrick glanced at his father, who had his eyes closed but he probably wasn’t asleep, just too exhausted by hunger to keep them open. His cheeks were shallow, as though sucking air, his lips two thin lines of scabs.

                Father’s hemp shirt had become a shawl these last few weeks. The same was true for Barrick, his brothers and his sister.

                Finally, father’s eyes opened, his nostrils twitched, and with energy summoned from a dark place, he rose. “Again…” he said, barely moving his lips; tension in the jaw and scabs that would split.

                “I don’t know how they can do it,” said mother, head limp and resting on her raised knees.

                Father swung his legs from the bed and stared into space. The look was a disease, and they all had it. Barrick had seen it first in the faces of the eldest; at night, sharing a bowl of thin soup and disappearing as the first songs began, taking a bottle of moonshine with them. One by one, others caught the look and stopped turning up at all. He’d see them by day, afflicted by the vacant gaze as they sat beside the transparent wall of the dome. They’d stare at the sands but Barrick had no idea what they were looking at; perhaps they saw mirages of visiting caravans that no longer came.

Fiction into Art: Wings

Coming soon to issue 5 of GRAPHITE Magazine is Eliza Ivanova's narrative tutorial for this evocative artwork created from my dailyflash fiction piece, Wings.

Artist: Eliza Ivanova
Site: www.elizaivanova.com
Text:
“Instinctively touching her back, she felt coarse feathers bristling
through her skin, like acupuncture needles she was once
compelled to touch. That had been weird, but nothing compared
to this. She pulled on one nascent shaft and felt her skin peel
towards it. It was stuck, but she got the feeling that if she pulled
a little harder, it would pop, and come out in her fingers.
In the mirror, she shrugged her shoulder blades and feathers, black
– highlighting the opalescence of her pink skin – blossomed like a
blast of sudden spring. They grew, forming wings, knocking toiletries
from shelves and slamming like a fist against the window pane.
The window. The sudden urge to open it was overwhelming.”