by Brad Rose
Maryanne looked good in everything. It’s too bad she didn’t fire her deadbeat husband, when I asked her. Last night, I got home early and watched the news. The police believe the torched victim was not actually the intended target. You know how it’s always hot in Texas? I say, “Let it burn.”
6S
Brad Rose's two latest books are Momentary Turbulence and de/tonations. His website is here.
20200629
20200628
Endgame
by Rod Drake
So, get this, on a typical Tuesday afternoon, a black hole singularity suddenly pops into existence in my apartment. Its diameter was no more than the size of a pencil eraser, and it floated casually, about chest-high, in my otherwise normal living room. I watched it for a while, just hovering there in the air, pulsating quietly, noticing that it was pulling random dust motes inside its event horizon to who-knows-where. Eventually I decided that I should probably capture this tiny pocket universe. So I trapped and sealed it in an old Rubbermaid container and put it on a shelf in my bedroom between tattered copies of Stranger in a Strange Land and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Who could have known that such a simple act would cause all that it did to the universe (multiverse?) when the great multitude of miniature black holes came searching for their missing companion.
6S
Rod Drake has some other 100-word flash fiction here.
So, get this, on a typical Tuesday afternoon, a black hole singularity suddenly pops into existence in my apartment. Its diameter was no more than the size of a pencil eraser, and it floated casually, about chest-high, in my otherwise normal living room. I watched it for a while, just hovering there in the air, pulsating quietly, noticing that it was pulling random dust motes inside its event horizon to who-knows-where. Eventually I decided that I should probably capture this tiny pocket universe. So I trapped and sealed it in an old Rubbermaid container and put it on a shelf in my bedroom between tattered copies of Stranger in a Strange Land and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Who could have known that such a simple act would cause all that it did to the universe (multiverse?) when the great multitude of miniature black holes came searching for their missing companion.
6S
Rod Drake has some other 100-word flash fiction here.
20200627
Cold Season
by Randeep Dhiman
No matter how many times Jill swallowed, she could not soothe the scratchiness that sat like a burr caught in the back of her throat. She could feel her left eye twitch each time her attempt to breathe clearly was met with these barbs of resistance, and could feel a fever rising, too, creating tiny beads of sweat on her nose and a dizzying chill as she sat wedged between the commuters on the bus. No doubt they were all watching her, she thought. She reached into her sweater to retrieve one of the tissues that lurked, pre-wadded, in all of her pockets, and tried to dab inconspicuously at the accumulating shine. The man to her left coughed and shifted. Best to get off at the next stop and walk the rest of the way.
6S
Randeep Dhiman thinks she's coming down with something.
No matter how many times Jill swallowed, she could not soothe the scratchiness that sat like a burr caught in the back of her throat. She could feel her left eye twitch each time her attempt to breathe clearly was met with these barbs of resistance, and could feel a fever rising, too, creating tiny beads of sweat on her nose and a dizzying chill as she sat wedged between the commuters on the bus. No doubt they were all watching her, she thought. She reached into her sweater to retrieve one of the tissues that lurked, pre-wadded, in all of her pockets, and tried to dab inconspicuously at the accumulating shine. The man to her left coughed and shifted. Best to get off at the next stop and walk the rest of the way.
6S
Randeep Dhiman thinks she's coming down with something.
20200626
The Stool
by Luke Wilson
I buy a stool from a car boot sale; it has three legs, is upholstered in sweaty faux leather, and has a button in the middle of the seat. I get the seat home, sit on it, and yelp with pain as a sharp object breaks the skin of my behind. I run my fingers over the red seat of the stool, and I find that to one side of the button, a pin like object is embedded in the stuffing in such a way that it doesn't protrude through the leather unless pressure is applied. Gingerly, I investigate further, and find it to be a syringe which is half full of an unknown brown liquid. I take the syringe to the police, and they send off its contents to be analysed as a matter of urgency. When the results come back, they tell me that the syringe was contaminated with the HIV virus.
6S
Luke Wilson works as a software developer for a semantic web company, holds a degree in theoretical physics which he doesn't use, and spends some of his spare time trying to write.
I buy a stool from a car boot sale; it has three legs, is upholstered in sweaty faux leather, and has a button in the middle of the seat. I get the seat home, sit on it, and yelp with pain as a sharp object breaks the skin of my behind. I run my fingers over the red seat of the stool, and I find that to one side of the button, a pin like object is embedded in the stuffing in such a way that it doesn't protrude through the leather unless pressure is applied. Gingerly, I investigate further, and find it to be a syringe which is half full of an unknown brown liquid. I take the syringe to the police, and they send off its contents to be analysed as a matter of urgency. When the results come back, they tell me that the syringe was contaminated with the HIV virus.
6S
Luke Wilson works as a software developer for a semantic web company, holds a degree in theoretical physics which he doesn't use, and spends some of his spare time trying to write.
20200625
Spade
by Nathan Tyree
Had I known that you would be coming back, I would have done some things differently. Perhaps I would have been nicer to you. I guess that, in retrospect, I should have given you more of my time; more of my affection. None of that seems all that important now. Now I can see that there was only one thing that I really should have focused on. I should have buried you deeper.
6S
Nathan Tyree's work has appeared in Flesh and Blood, Doorknobs and Body Paint, The Flash, Bare Bone, Wretched and Violent, and The Empty Page: Stories Inspired by the Songs of Sonic Youth.
Had I known that you would be coming back, I would have done some things differently. Perhaps I would have been nicer to you. I guess that, in retrospect, I should have given you more of my time; more of my affection. None of that seems all that important now. Now I can see that there was only one thing that I really should have focused on. I should have buried you deeper.
6S
Nathan Tyree's work has appeared in Flesh and Blood, Doorknobs and Body Paint, The Flash, Bare Bone, Wretched and Violent, and The Empty Page: Stories Inspired by the Songs of Sonic Youth.
20200624
Wishing I Was There
by Barry Pomeroy
Yours is not a real country; it belongs to the US, which is to say it belongs to us. Your people are small and dirty, and covered in flies. I send them money on late night ads, which they use to fornicate in glass jars full of marbles. Monkeys spit in your parliament and your laws are made by dicing; your traffic lights work by the stars. You have no civilization, only rocks and champagne, and lizards in the desert that no one will admit are there. Once I get the money for a ticket, I'll come as soon as I can.
6S
Barry Pomeroy authored the novel Naked in the Road, and his shorter work has appeared in Treeline, Freefall, Cosmetica, Bards and Sages, Insolent Rudder, Tart, The Tiny Globule, Willows Wept Review, Writing Shift, Ulterior, Oddville Press, and Word Catalyst.
Yours is not a real country; it belongs to the US, which is to say it belongs to us. Your people are small and dirty, and covered in flies. I send them money on late night ads, which they use to fornicate in glass jars full of marbles. Monkeys spit in your parliament and your laws are made by dicing; your traffic lights work by the stars. You have no civilization, only rocks and champagne, and lizards in the desert that no one will admit are there. Once I get the money for a ticket, I'll come as soon as I can.
6S
Barry Pomeroy authored the novel Naked in the Road, and his shorter work has appeared in Treeline, Freefall, Cosmetica, Bards and Sages, Insolent Rudder, Tart, The Tiny Globule, Willows Wept Review, Writing Shift, Ulterior, Oddville Press, and Word Catalyst.
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