#flashfiction – The McNeese Review

Moo Speaks

Moo Speaks Robert Hamblin __________ There used to be three of us, but one left and didn’t come back. Now there are just we two. I miss her, I know he does. I can tell when he sits quietly on the couch where they often sat together. He just sits…

The Bigger the Cage the Larger the Lizard Will Get

The Bigger the Cage the Larger the Lizard Will Get Tiff Holland __________ 1. She comes home to find the cop running his new jean jacket through the gravel and oil in the driveway. He is trying to make it look weathered. He has already sewn Harley Davidson patches on…

Fences

Fences Len Kuntz __________ Stevie Nicks must be barking just to hear herself because there’s no one there, and then before leaving the house I am suddenly nine years old again and our own dog, Pepper, wants to bark but Mother has had its voice box taken out, she’s had…

Cemetery One Nighter

Cemetery One Nighter Paul Corman-Roberts __________ It isn’t the name she told you, the name that isn’t her real name but the name they told your friend, heartbroken back in the pizza joint you hit up where you first squeezed her thigh under the table out of your friend’s sight, neither of you knowing she was death, happy to clasp your fingers…

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride Angela Ball __________ Why did I not ask my father to stop at the drive-in to get my sister the foot-long hot dog she had asked for? Because when we neared it, “Ticket to Ride” was playing on the radio, and I couldn’t speak. Why not? The…

Good Friday and People Are at Their Telescopes

Good Friday Julia Johnson __________ Today even crueler than yesterday, you in your suit, tucked in, great and holy Friday. I keep you in the book I do not hold. The brave clouds roll in. Maybe you were meant to balance a glass on your head in my dream. Maybe…

From Inside Hollow Walls

From Inside Hollow Walls Melanie Whithaus __________ When we were young, my husband witnessed his friend die. It happened during the summer, right before the midwestern heat got too unbearably hot. I never knew this friend, except for that she loved pink and butterflies, as most seven-year-old girls do. I…

Machine Gun Secrets

Machine Gun Secrets Meg Tuite __________ Flee the folk who hunt us. It is endurance, hopping over deranged legacies and lack of fantasy to keep hidden within the tall, wet grass of expression. We examine the space before us. Spend more time at this then sleep. Privy to all songbirds,…

Cycle

Cycle Susan Tepper __________ Meditations on dear Petrov Set in 19th Century Russia during a time of war There is no beginning or end. Springtime grasses brown quickly only to be buried under snow. An avalanche. This cycle, dear Petrov. Having no one. How I do dread. Wishing to…

Tossed-in-a-Chair!

Tossed-in-a-Chair! Caleb Tankersley __________ Modern science is confirming more than ever what the ancients have always known: all the wheels and magnets and complex motors in the world can’t compete with the human body, a machine honed through millions of years of evolution. So, why not harness the body’s power…