Published by Associate Editor on May 31, 2016. This item is listed in Flash, Issue 30, Issue 30 Flash

A Window Into The Mind

by Lorraine Allan

It was a crowded city street on a busy Saturday morning. Shoulders scraped shoulders, feet kicked the heels in front of them while others sped past the lackadaisical strollers. With my head down I bumped against one pedestrian and was pushed by another. I raised my head and watched a sea of eyes penetrating my forehead. My hand slapped across my temple. Those that were prying now looked away. Their faces blushed, no doubt ashamed they were caught glimpsing into my most personal secrets.

The crowd was filled with people trying to bore their eyes through my hand. But I wasn’t going to let them in. These are my thoughts, my mysteries, my ideas and I wasn’t ready to share. But still they stared. I pushed my way across the crowd; bodies collided as I went against the tide. A side street came into view and, with a few quick steps, I made it around the corner.

Small human clusters sauntered down the short alleyway. A few open doors, one led into a book store, another a ladies boutique. I took the last door where coffee beans wafted through, and the chairs held the odd patron. A small round table down the end lured me deep into the cafe.

With great care I searched my perimeter and saw no threat. Cautiously, I lowered my hand and exposed my forehead. No one turned their attention toward me and a low breath escaped my lips. From the side I saw someone approach. No need to send a message, my hand flew across my forehead.

She stopped at my table and raised her eyebrows. “Would you like to order, hon’?”

“Ah, yes. A double shot latte and a ham and cheese croissant. Thanks.” I stared at her as I felt the beads of sweat pop across my upper lip.

She looked at my hand. Here was another peeping Tom snooping through the open window of my mind.

Was there nowhere safe?

—«»-«»-«»—

Lorraine Allan is an Australian writer. Her first novel is still in the polishing stages and in the meantime she has turned her hand to writing short stories.

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Published by Les Weil on May 25, 2016. This item is listed in Flash, Issue 30, Issue 30 Flash

The Fail

by Troy Blackford

I’m the biggest YouTube star of all, though no one has seen my face. I’ve never appeared on any talk show, but you all know my name. Every time a teenager rides his bicycle off a second floor roof, or tries to jump a twelve-foot canal and doesn’t quite make it, I am there. Every time a dancing girl gets hit in the face with an unexpected basketball, or a man shatters a priceless relic on live TV, I’m in the background, laughing voicelessly. Every time a news anchor says “Officers fucked the man—cuffed, rather,” mine are the invisible fingers that twist their tongues.

I am the Fail.

I’ve been around as long as creatures have been attempting to exert their feeble wills. The cat who pretends, nonchalantly, that he didn’t really want to make it all the way onto the countertop. The bird who thinks a window is an open gateway. I take my thrills where they come.

My hands have always found business enough for them, long before the dawn of humankind. But things certainly got interesting, to say the least, ever since you folks started to wander the earth, upright and full of misplaced confidence. There almost hasn’t been enough of me to go around.

The larger the goals, the more spectacular the failures. And I have been right there, loving every minute of it. Every cannon that blew up in the shipmate’s face, every pair of scissors that found their way between the ribs of some overly anxious art teacher: that was me. I am the intersection of intention and limitation, the immovable object that blockades aspiration’s path with decisive finality.

‘Cruel,’ I have been called by some. And cruel I may be. But there’s a need for cruelty in this world, for why else should I take such pleasure in what I do?

Though I may seek sensation—along with satisfaction, its partner—I have never sought celebrity. Rather, it found me. I have not been alone, you see, in the mirth I take in the frailties of your kinsfolk. If anyone laughs louder than me at my successes, it is you yourselves. This mean little injustice has always given me disproportionate joy. As my toothless grin leers down at those afflicted by my hand, I can always count upon the laughter of crowds. Is it petty, to take such glee in bearing witness to so small a weakness? Then ‘petty’ is a label I shall have to live with.

Yet never in a hundred thousand years of taunting your kind, did I ever expect to dress myself in such glamorousness. It has been a rapid and not altogether ungratifying transition. However tawdry and unbecoming the fame now ascribed, I take pride in noting that it is not fleeting. My fans, I’m happy to report, are both consistent and rapacious.

The technological marvels that have enabled your species to befuddle itself to no end have also, to my surprise and lasting pleasure, made me the biggest thing going. If a drunk is about to teeter off a third-story parking garage parapet, it’s easier to record the schlub’s descent than it is to lend a helping hand. If a stage collapse is imminent at a heavily-attended concert, the odds that it isn’t being recorded by dozens of spectators are slim to none. What once I did solely for my own personal gratification is now performed for a virtual audience of millions.

My only problem is, as you might expect, a matter of scale. Where do I go from here? Don’t get me wrong: I take pride in what I do, and I enjoy it as much as I ever have. But when one starts to receive adulation from the masses, one always finds that mere blandishments cease being enough. One begins to crave accolades, recognition. And that is a profoundly difficult thing to come across in my line of work. I mean, people will laugh at a bicyclist who grinds his face into the asphalt when his handlebars come off in his sweaty fists, but they don’t exactly nominate the faulty bike for a Golden Globe.

So, I’m at a bit of a loss, here. I have plans: big, big plans. But I need to find the right outlet, the right marriage of subject and audience. That’s where the real money is.

I’m talking, of course, about Tragedy with a capital ‘T’. Failure is sweet, but the real star of our memories and our regrets is the Inescapable Tragedy, the Ineluctable Mass Atrocity. We enshrine such events, singing eternal, bleak paeans to them in marble. That’s the closest to an award I can hope to obtain.

So, yes. I’m working on a few things. But, in the meantime, doesn’t that gymnast practicing in her apartment look like she’s awfully close to landing on that scented candle burning away on her coffee table?

It’ll have to make do, at least while I put a few things together.

—«»-«»-«»—

Troy Blackford is a writer living in the Twin Cities with my wife and two young sons. He has twenty-three published short stories—to be found in places like The Missing Slate, Inkspill Magazine, the Mulberry Fork Review, ‘Fireside Popsicles‘, and the Halloween-themed anthology A Shadow of Autumn—as well as an assortment of longer works available on Kindle and in paperback.

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Published by Les Weil on March 9, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 29, Issue 29 Flash

Black Ghost

flash fiction by M. C. Tuggle
The hovertrain whispered to a stop at the Cemetery of the Republic. The doors slid open, and I saw before me two lines of people stretching from the platform to the casket. It reminded me of running the gauntlet at military school, and I froze. Something sharp poked me in the shoulder from behind, and I turned and gave Mom my best glare. She out-glared me and motioned me forward. I walked.

Mom probably thought I’d hesitated out of childish anger since we’d argued on the ride to the cemetery. My face burned as I stalked past the mourners, elderly men and women in grey-and-green uniforms from the Montana-Iowa War. As my mother and I scuffed over the dry grass, my anger magnified and deepened at her and the silly ceremony I was now stuck in. Two weeks earlier, I’d turned 12. She shouldn’t treat me like a child.

Mom had said, “This isn’t about you, Jemmah. It’s about your grandfather.”

“None of the other cadets follow Bright Path. They’ll see the news vids and laugh at me.”

“Let them laugh.” Mom held her chin high. “Some of us still believe.”

“Giving dead people presents they can use in the ‘Great After’ might’ve made sense a hundred years ago. Not anymore. When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

Mom had the same grey eyes as my grandfather, and the same devastating stare when angry. “I want you to participate. If not for yourself, then for him.”

My daydream dissolved and we stood in the sunlight beside my grandfather’s closed casket. The Bright Path priestess motioned for silence, then called out lines the mourners repeated. I stood respectfully, though I did not say the words of the old singsong chant. But almost all of Grandpa’s war buddies joined in. It amazed me that even these wrinkled men and women in uniforms from a nearly forgotten war could utter such nonsense.

The priestess, a small woman in white robes, stooped and pulled a flamer from a tattered cloth bag. She stood and lit torches at each end of the casket. The priestess stared at the ground in silence as white smoke curled at our feet. She looked up and said, “What gifts do you have for Charlton Loomis to use in the Great After?”

An old captain shuffled up to the casket, a young woman at his side. The woman handed him a plasma rifle, which he gripped in both hands. He stood straight and said, “Charlton Loomis, please accept my field piece. Watch over us, and use this to keep us safe.” He placed the rifle on the casket, and the woman held his arm as he crept back to the line. I heard several sniffles.
Another man placed a gorgeous antique pistol, a shining .44 Magnum, on the casket. I clenched my eyes in disbelief. What a waste.

Ten old soldiers in all made offerings. It was one thing to honor a fellow soldier, but to throw away treasures made no sense.

The priestess nodded at my mother, who strode up to the casket. She faced the mourners with a hunting knife in her hand. For a few seconds, she said nothing, only stared at the ground. A few of the mourners coughed. Then Mom looked up. “I want my Dad to have the knife he gave me when I was six. He made doll’s heads from pine with it, and showed me how to carve traps, and to defend myself. Without those skills, I would not be here today.”

Mom turned to the casket, placed the knife on top, and touched the casket surface a moment.

I took a deep breath. The smoldering torches filled the air under the canopy with the strong scent of cedar.

Mom returned to my side and leaned close. “Your turn, Jemmah.”

I stared at her. She stared back. I shook my head. Even if I believed, I had no present for my grandfather.

Mom took my hand, and dropped something into it. I gazed into my open palm at the tiny gift, a black hook with a silver spiral along its length, and tufts of white and yellow feathers sticking out. It was my Black Ghost fishing lure. For a fleeting instant, I stood on the banks of the Am River learning how to cast for brown trout. My grandfather, with his one-of-a-kind way of blending military preparedness with infinite patience and kindness, taught me how to fish, how to gut and clean my catch, and how to cook it.

I looked back at Mom, who mouthed the words, “It’s not for you. It’s for him.”

What could I do? I strode up to the casket and faced the assembly. Holding the tiny lure before me, it was all I could do to keep a straight face. “This,” I said, “is a fishing lure my grandfather made for me.” I gulped air and searched the sky above for words. “Grandpa, if there are rivers in — in the Great After where you’ve gone–”

My lips moved, but I could not speak. My chest tightened, and I let out a loud sob. This was the first time I’d admitted that Grandpa was gone. I didn’t know what to do. Foolishly, I tossed the lure onto the casket. I turned back toward the assembly with my head bowed. No doubt people were laughing at me. I looked up. Through wet eyes, I saw the old men and women stand straight, shoulders back. I knew that look. It was one of respect.

I wiped my eyes and treaded back beside Mom, who had this mysterious smile on her face. The priestess continued talking, but her words darted past me like mayflies on the river. A comforting but puzzling realization occupied my mind. Mom had been wrong. Letting go of the lure wasn’t for my dead grandfather. It was for me.

Maybe one day I would explain it to her.

End

M. C. Tuggle is a writer in Charlotte, North Carolina. His fantasy, sci-fi, and literary stories have been featured in Space Squid, Kzine, Bewildering Stories, Mystic Signals, Fabula Argentea, and Fiction 365. The Novel Fox released his novella Aztec Midnight in December, 2014.

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Published by Les Weil on March 9, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 29, Issue 29 Flash

A Simple Task

flash fiction by Astrid S. Nielsen and Tommy Fransgaard

There was grass breaking through the flagstones. Ilyich stared at it, unblinking. Grass, slowly clawing its way from darkness into light, unstoppable, even in his shadow. He felt that thing again, gnawing inside of him, that…feeling. His bony fingers clutched the hilt of his sword harder, and with the point of it he scraped away the grass. Though it would come back. It always came back.

He froze; he could feel their eyes, the others like him, skeleton figures clad in rusty armour and dark robes billowing slowly about them.

I did not move, he would have said if the silence between them had not been as old as the death they shared. I do not feel, and the wind doesn’t whisper to me. About riding to battle on a misty morning, with a beating heart.  The warmth of a fire.  Lenji’s laughter.

I am not Ilyich. I am only my master’s will.

But his master’s will was failing.

So many they had been to begin with, left here by his master to guard the bridge across the chasm and whatever secrets lay on the other side. They had stood here waiting, waiting, waiting for the enemy, and the stars had not changed, and he had thought that neither would they.

Then a skeleton warrior suddenly ceased to be anything more than just bones, falling rattling to the ground, truly dead. Slowly, their numbers dwindled. And now, so few of them remained. Now, bones and pieces of rusty armour were scattered about the rocky ground as if it’d been the scene of an ancient battle.

But that was yet to come.

He straightened, resumed his pose, hand resting lightly on his sword, gaze fixed on the ridge and the shadows between the pines. There would be movement there, one day. The enemy would come. His master’s will might be failing. But he would not.

◊ ◊ ◊

The dwarf scout Kalmen Orefall looked back over his shoulder, then turned and leaned on his axe.

“What in the bottom of Abyss did he have to go and do that for. Taking a cannon along,” he grumbled through his teeth as so many times before.

They were out of sight, for now, the baron’s brat of a youngest son and those fools who didn’t dare tell him what an idiot he was. Who were tripping over their feet to help him. With his cannon. Kalmen sighed. Somewhere down that steep path winding its way between the pines, they were still struggling to drag that damn thing along, he could tell by the scrambling noises and the swearing carrying through the wood. Not that he would have expected them to give up.

“A cannon is our mightiest weapon. I’m not going without my cannon,” the young Lord Greyrock had insisted.

Fool that he was, Kalmen had answered he’d better stay home, then.

And then it became a matter of principle.

The baron’s youngest son was… Well, the baron’s son, even if he did not posses any other qualities. The baron had thought a harmless mission, one that couldn’t possibly fail, might just be the thing to give the boy some sense of valour. And when an old parchment was found, speaking of an ancient artifact of great power hidden in this deserted part of the mountains, far from enemy lines—it had seemed just such a mission.

Thoran Blackhammer, who was the only one in the party besides Kalmen not keeping to the young lord’s slow pace, scratched his grey streaked beard. “Maybe we should go back and help young sir Greyrock with the cannon?”

Kalmen raised a bushy eyebrow, looked his friend in the eye. They both burst out laughing.  “Good one, that.” Kalmen wiped at a tear at the corner of his eye. “Well, let’s see what lies ahead.”

They continued, crested the ridge. And froze.

There was a bridge across a chasm, just like the parchment had described it. In front of it, though, a plain of bones stretched out, a small army of undead gathered in the centre. The red burning eyes of a wight lord met Kalmen’s. He felt the back of his neck prickle, cursed under his breath. “What’s taking them so long with that cannon!”

End

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