Here are some more flash fiction pieces. These three were published in G. W. Thomas’ wonderful Flashshot, which I recommend for a daily shot of … well … flash fiction.

MEMENTO MORRY
by Marian Allen

It nestled in the grass. I shivered at its empty eye-sockets — a tiny shiver for a tiny skull.

I had fed a squirrel all spring. Called him Morry. I hadn’t seen him since he and my cat hit the deck at the same time. This skull reminded me of him; it was about the right size.

I picked it up and found a stick. At home, I glue-gunned them together. Candle-snuffer. Very Goth.

My cat won’t come in anymore, not since a taper I had just put out flared up again and singed his tail.

Weird, eh?

HYENAS
by Marian Allen

This was a nice quiet hotel until two loudmouths checked in upstairs. I came out onto the balcony for a little peace.

Naturally, they came out, too.

I’m about to go in when I hear the guy upstairs and one room over tell them to pipe down. They laugh and get louder.

“Shut up!” he goes, and claps his hands twice–sounds like pop, pop.

No more noise.

“Thanks, man,” I call.

“No problem.”

I sit down to enjoy the quiet. Then two red streams trickle over the edge of the upstairs balcony, like two spilled glasses of sangria.

CYCLE
by Marian Allen

She loves driving on the freeway. Flanked by emptiness or parallel movement, she feels paroled.

She exits, and the iron grid of streets clangs around her. Traffic slows to a crawl.

Red and blue lights. Police vehicles triangulate the scene, but nothing stops her seeing the spoked wheels and crushed frame under the Toyota, handlebars reaching out like pleading arms.

Nothing stops her seeing, burned in her memory, fixed in her dreams, the burst of sun on chrome, the bike bearing his son by the woman he wouldn’t leave, and the steering wheel beneath her hands.

WRITING PROMPT: Write a paragraph with a squirrel in it.

MA