His hands are driven by the fervor of obsession. It is the same unrelenting force that drives a drug addict to push the needle into his flesh and a gambler to hemorrhage her funds on the chance that he might, someday, see some benefit. It’s the same toxic pressure that forces an obsessive-compulsive to repeat … Continue reading The Mask
Tag: Flash Fiction
You Don’t Love Me
“You don’t love me.” She sits on a padded dining chair that she has brought to the living room from the kitchen. Her arms are folded over her breasts. Her left foot bobs in the air, her legs crossed in the form she has perfected over the years to look at once the most elegant … Continue reading You Don’t Love Me
Questions
Lana appreciates her happiness. She knows most people like to be happy, but sometimes she doesn’t feel like they truly realize the extent to which happiness is important in life. She watches her friends pursue other things so actively that she wonders whether happiness actually matters to them at all. She worries that they won’t … Continue reading Questions
As Good
He wondered, "Why can't I be as good as her?" She seemed faster, stronger, smarter, nicer, more skillful — Better. He didn't account for the good inside himself, because it seemed less-good than hers. He didn't even see his good, because hers seemed better, and so he saw himself as not-good. As bad, because he … Continue reading As Good
Her Own Creation
She lives in a cloudy glass sphere. Through its walls, she catches brief glimpses of the world outside. This is enough, perhaps, to give her a vague impression of it, though it cannot be said she truly knows that world. She knows only her sphere. She knows they way her own voice echoes inside of … Continue reading Her Own Creation
Wart
She had a wart on her back that she hated, because she thought it was ugly, and she thought having something as a part of her made her ugly, as well. It was a small, brown, bulbous wart, out of sight except when she observed it in the mirror, and barely noticeable to others. At … Continue reading Wart
Some Men Are Meant for Murder
I wouldn’t say that we have a “military family,” but two members of my family have served in the armed forces: my father, and my mother’s brother. They served during the same time period, in the same country, yet they never knew each other until my father started dating my mother. Despite that, they shared … Continue reading Some Men Are Meant for Murder
