Ice Man by Jan Stinchcomb She knows that all the travel will end him. She stitches his leggings and sews his hat, stuffs his pouch with dried mushrooms, and carves her sign into the handle of his knife. She uses…
I Was a Man Who Breathed
I Was A Man Who Breathed by Chris Milam She was statuesque with a face that could make a soulless man swoon. Or a soulless woman. Skin as flawless as fresh paint. Eyes that were hard and shiny like two…
The Convert
The Convert by Clio Velentza See the bridge hanging in the mist, its sleepy arch, its pale stones held together by ancient mycelia and roots. In this ambiguous light it barely exists. See the swamp under the bridge, how it…
Hidden in Darkness
Hidden in Darkness by Diane E Tatlock I am here. At the dank, doomed mine they pay money to see where I took my last steps two hundred years ago, to hear the tale for entertainment. A man recounts the…
Promiscuous
Promiscuous by Elizabeth Burton Callie stood cradling her granddaughter on her hip, watching the woman from the Board make little checkmarks in her book. The woman’s smile looked glued on, something she took off at the end of the…
In 1960…
In 1960… by Grace Palmer …my husband tapped the teaspoon on the crème brûlèè and the yellow crust cracked. Egg yolk and cream spilled onto the cloth and my stomach wavered. The foetus curled, I swear, somersaulting and dreaming in…
Plum Jam
2018 FlashBack Fiction Microfiction Competition First Place Plum Jam by Frances Gapper From our ladders we can see the plum-blue Malverns. The army’s bought up this harvest, still on the trees. We pickers are a crew: boy scouts, gypsies, PoWs, refugees,…
Ogdens
2018 FlashBack Fiction Microfiction Competition Second Place Ogdens by Gaynor Jones She scoops a clump of dirt-brown tobacco from the barrel and tries not to think of gunpowder. She pinches the right amount, packs it into the paper and tries…
Potato Masher
2018 FlashBack Fiction Microfiction Competition Third Place Potato Masher by Jake Sullins He’d found the stick grenade half-buried in mud in a bend of the Somme, in the days after Amiens, and he’d carried it clipped to his haversack through…
Casus Belli
2018 FlashBack Fiction Microfiction Competition Highly Commended Casus Belli by Melanie Haws John Haas went to war, aged twenty-three, a plumber’s helper, with a few dollars saved, and a picture of his Dresden-doll sweetheart he carried in his left breast-pocket; he…