Special Issue: 2021 New Flash Fiction Prize
The Shrinking Husband by Dara Elerath

My husband is shrinking. He seems to get smaller each day and we both pretend not to notice, for to notice would be to draw attention to the fact that he may grow too small to make love to me, then I will be forced to carry him like a child.

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Every Invisible Threat by Melissa Bowers

Five hours ago, we put the car in reverse and rolled gently backward to watch the deer. A doe and two fawns, slender-necked and alert, unfazed when our toddler called, Hi Bambi, hi!

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Creation Myth by Em J Parsley

Grace O’Leary of Appalachian air knits a blanket for her wife. The wife, upon its completion, runs her fingers over it, calluses catching on rough wool. “Your grandmother made this,” she says.

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Box by Natalie Warther

We emptied an old bankers box and put our parents inside. First his, then mine. They shook their fists, but they were no bigger than salt and pepper shakers, so, really, what could they do?

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Hermit & Bleeding Faucet by Ana María Shua

With the population now well aware of the physical and mental benefits of asceticism (low cholesterol, bradycardia, a delicate sense of happiness, spiritual fulfillment), everyone wants to become a hermit.

Initiation by Stuart Dybek

The doors snap open on Addison, and the kid in dirty hightops and a sleeveless denim jacket that shows off a blue pitchfork tattooed on his bicep jogs forward beneath a backward baseball cap and grabs the purse off a babushka’s lap.

Fun House by Robert Scotellaro

She’d gotten the fun house mirrors at an auction and had them put up in the spare bedroom.

The Girl In Purple by Bobbie Ann Mason

Near dawn, Dennis Moore saw the iron gate to the courtyard inch open and the wisp of a girl squeeze through, clanging the gate behind her. Two minutes later, on the boardwalk, she halted as if for an invisible dog, then resumed her dog-walker gait. He followed her...

Lady Gaga Considers the Shrimp Scampi by Steve Almond

There were fifty thousand little monsters screaming for an encore, Spaniards, Germans, skinny little French boys, Italians making wet sounds with their tongues.