by Susmita Ramani
On Monday, having just been released from a seven-year prison term for robbery, I was supervising a museum heist with a bunch of guys, many of whom I’d met on the inside. On Tuesday, while rushing to meet a fence named Ralph in the Flatiron District who was supposed to sell me fake IDs so my co-conspirators and I could quickly flee the country after the heist, I fell into one of those hatches behind bagelries from which flour wafts up to pedestrians, but the cloud that enveloped me was radioactive. On Wednesday, I was in a coma, and a nurse named Mabel read me the full English translation of “The Little Prince.” On Thursday, I awoke, feeling refreshed, remembered the story Mabel had read to me, and was stunned to realize that I now had superhuman strength and could make myself invisible. On Friday, I finally finished the paperwork to get out of the hospital (which took so long, I nearly used my newfound abilities to vanish), learned that I was able to run, fly, and swim at supersonic speeds, really checked out the city, and realized how crime-ridden it is. Over the weekend, I took Mabel for a flight around the city, designed myself a costume with a cape, tights, and mask (in aquamarine spandex with yellow lightning bolts), put it on, and began my new life of listening to the police scanner from the roof of my high-rise, silhouetted against the moon by night, ready at any moment to leap into the fray and fight for the people, starting with foiling the museum heist and telling my former associates to stay clean or else I’d have to take them in.
6S
Susmita Ramani’s work has appeared in over thirty different publications, including Six Sentences, and she has a novella coming out in 2026. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband, two teenage daughters, and a dozen pets. See her WordPress for fiction and Instagram for poetry.
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20250701
20210410
A Satisfactory Disguise
by Susmita Ramani
The aliens were sure their disguises were perfect: they both looked like blonde coeds with curves that wouldn’t quit. They went to a frat party at a nearby college campus, where they introduced themselves as Jen and Jane, and were plied with drinks that neither of them could consume, as it would make them spontaneously combust, so every drink went into the nearest potted plant. But they learned how to tap a keg, which weirdly came in handy both eons later and eons earlier, when they had engine repair work to do on their spacecrafts. They listened to “small talk,” consisting of how much each frat brother could bench, who was the biggest “weekend warrior,” and whether it was ever acceptable to send a drunk text on purpose (the consensus being "maybe"). Jen was told by five different guys, and Jane by four, that she was “the only girl I’m talking to.” Ultimately, Jen and Jane deemed it a successful party for data collection purposes, though Jen got thrown up on, and Jane had to throw a Sigma Chi brother out a window for putting his hands on her bazookas (which housed actual bazookas, so you see the problem).
6S
Susmita Ramani's work has appeared in The Daily Drunk, Secret Attic, 50 Word Stories, Vine Leaves Press (50 Give or Take), Nymeria Publishing (winner of March 2021 poetry contest), and other publications. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children. Follow her publishing escapades on Twitter.
The aliens were sure their disguises were perfect: they both looked like blonde coeds with curves that wouldn’t quit. They went to a frat party at a nearby college campus, where they introduced themselves as Jen and Jane, and were plied with drinks that neither of them could consume, as it would make them spontaneously combust, so every drink went into the nearest potted plant. But they learned how to tap a keg, which weirdly came in handy both eons later and eons earlier, when they had engine repair work to do on their spacecrafts. They listened to “small talk,” consisting of how much each frat brother could bench, who was the biggest “weekend warrior,” and whether it was ever acceptable to send a drunk text on purpose (the consensus being "maybe"). Jen was told by five different guys, and Jane by four, that she was “the only girl I’m talking to.” Ultimately, Jen and Jane deemed it a successful party for data collection purposes, though Jen got thrown up on, and Jane had to throw a Sigma Chi brother out a window for putting his hands on her bazookas (which housed actual bazookas, so you see the problem).
6S
Susmita Ramani's work has appeared in The Daily Drunk, Secret Attic, 50 Word Stories, Vine Leaves Press (50 Give or Take), Nymeria Publishing (winner of March 2021 poetry contest), and other publications. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children. Follow her publishing escapades on Twitter.
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