by K Chiucarello | Oct 28, 2020 | news
Flash is known for its tricks, the way it sneaks into our subconscious as an ‘easy’ task. Often when I’m reading through our queue I’ll come across cover letters from submitters who are just getting back into writing and think that flash is a natural way to start again, given how short the stories are. What they don’t know (yet) is that great flash reads so naturally because that writer has been condensing their stories for years, tightening and tightening into a concise tone, sharpening details until they cut deep, carving out arcs that take only a few hundred words to come down from. Flash packs the hardest punch around because of its containment and because of that we, as flash writers and readers, find ourselves consuming tens of hundreds of stories a year, all neat within different confines of genre. Given the turn of weather and the impending doom of the clocks lurching forward (and, one may dare to say, the horror of our political climate), Tiny Nightmares comes with good horror tidings, demolishing any neat genre bracket you hope to contain it in.
Released by Catapult and edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto, Tiny Nightmares holds 44 delectable stories that worm their way into day to day horrors. Broken into four sections aptly named Heads, Hearts, Limbs, and Viscera, Tiny Nightmares pulls shorts from some of our favorite darling indie presses, reprints from Gigantic, Paper Darts, Electric Lit, and countless others. The anthology kicks off with “Guess” by Meg Elison. While at one point this story may have read as a preemptive tale of a fortune teller that has come into too much power, the story now reads as a foreshadowing bode to our pandemic, with a mass wave of unavoidable death trickling over the land. From there, the collection does not let up in the ways it takes horror and spins it into everyday occurrences. “Jane Death Theory #13” by Rion Amilcar Scott weaves footnotes, notating very real cases, into fiction to tell the story of coverups within the police force. “Instrument of the Ancestors” by Troy L. Wiggins examines the way generational and childhood traumas can haunt us until death. Theresa Hottel, in “The Wheat Woman”, takes us to rural America in an isolating story of a mother and daughter bound together by blurry violent thoughts.
Interspersed amongst the heavier stories of implied gore and grit are gems of humor. In Ben Loory’s “Pictures of Heaven”, Loory unravels at deadpan speed landing on two lines that leave the reader in a bloodied Heaven. “The Barrow Wight” by Josh Cook discovers frozen limbs discarded in the snowbanks. Cook leans into the absurdity and playfulness of horror when introducing readers to found limbs. “Then…(fuck it) the other foot dropped.” Cook quips. Hilary Leichter pulls us through a wildly dysmorphic world as humans turn into dogs, dogs into humans. The levity that Leichter achieves through prose twists all the more deadly once the end paragraph stops us in our tracks. The common thread that ties all of these stories together? The trademark universality of fear reigns supreme throughout. Tiny Nightmares understands how quiet descriptors can pile into towering monsters. The way the archive is ordered is no mistake. This collection systematically confuses and distorts the reader with each new reset in story. It mimics horror’s mutable form, packed with anxieties, ticks, laughter, violence. This small book is meant to be tucked inside of your coat pocket all winter long, ready to be passed around the evening’s bonfire. It is meant to travel campsite to campsite, with drops of warm whiskey straight from the flask. It is meant to sit bedside for the nights we are stranded inside with ice and hail hitting hard against windows. Perhaps it’s even meant to be taken to doctor’s appointments. It is there, in our mundane world, that this book does the heavy lifting, placing a finger on what we shield our eyes to each day. Within each other and ourselves the real horror awaits.
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by Exodus Oktavia Brownlow | Oct 26, 2020 | flash fiction
Honey, Mississippi 1949
When it gets cold in the south, mama wakes you up much earlier than she used to, and here you are now having to help clean the hog head sitting in the kitchen sink.
Its tongue is long, and black-beige-brown.
Its teeth are broken-glassed, and grey.
It’s grinning a terribly-split smile at you that makes you happy it’ll be in the stove soon.
Mama starts to look at you in that way. A kind of way that you’ve become accustomed to, now.
See, mama is much different with you since you’ve changed.
In the months before, she’d been like a freeze pop to you—all full of brightness and color, sugar and syrup. In the early morning, she is like a freeze pop once all of the good stuff has been sucked from out of it—all empty with dullness and pale, bite and bitter.
She’s become the tossed away bits that nobody ever finishes, or chews up on.
“You at that age, you know,” and the way that she says this is part-telling, part-threatening. “Come heah.”
You are already here, beside her, but she means closer so that she can see, so that she can do.
With her hog-juice hands, without washing them first, she touches you.
Moves to your breasts to see if they’ve gotten any fuller.
Reaches for your hips to feel for their roundness.
Presses her fingers to the lower parts of your belly to see if a hardness has started to grow.
Every time she does this, you have to keep your head facing her, still, if you carry a stankness in your face she’ll slap it right off you. If you cry, she’ll ask you what you cryin’ for?
In your head, you are screaming for her to stop touching up on you!
How, you ain’t been doing nothin’!
How, just because you’ve changed don’t mean you’ve been wantin’ to do somethin’!
When she is done, she replies to all that you’ve been shouting inside of yourself, washing her hands now that her inspection is complete.
“This ain’t never been your body, guh. Ain’t you know that?” She looks at you. “These,” she points to your breasts, “Are for them babies you gone have. Them,” she gestures to your hips, “Are for them babies to ride up on soon as they old enough to hold they own head, and that right there,” she points to the place below your belly, the place where you now bleed from. “That right there is for both them babies and ya’husband.”
“And both of em’ll use you all up. ‘Fillin’ you up with something that you don’t even want! That you ain’t even healed all the way up good enough to receive! One baby on one titty, and ya’husband on the other!”
And she is going on, and on now.
Not even talking to you, but talking to any and everything—the plates, the pans, the breakfast biscuits with plenty of butter.
You cannot move until she is finished with all her fussing, even though she will shout at you when she notes your respectful stillness to get to doing.
The hog head sits in a cast-iron skillet, gets slammed into the stove.
Blistery Popping-Pink Skinned.
Greasy Dahlia-Cut Grinned.
by Noa Covo | Oct 22, 2020 | micro
We feed the ghoul behind the elementary school crumbs of bread and throw sticks at it to make it dance. We watch its grotesque movements, our heads ducked down, squinting in fear, until our mothers call us for dinner, garbled words painting a language that skips down the street and rings in our ears. We cringe as foreign words sneak in, marring the pictures we have painted for ourselves on the walls of the elementary school, our language in big block letters, our parents’ language woven in the cracks of the pavement. Our mothers tell us to eat until there is nothing on our plates and we sneak what’s left into our pockets.
Our mothers ask us where we’ve been over dinner and we mumble names, our mothers shake their heads and tell us, don’t spend time with them. We know the rest of us are being told this as well. We know each of our mothers think all of the other mothers are crazy and we know that our mothers know we have discovered the ghoul and we gather crumbs of bread, of shaking hands, of voices whispered in the night, of letters that roll wrong on our parents’ tongues and we slip all of it into our pockets. We feed the ghoul and we eat what is left so that one day we will be big enough and strong enough to watch it dance without turning away.
by Jan Stinchcomb | Oct 19, 2020 | flash fiction
Goth Nanny
The baby sees black eyeliner circling dead eyes that teach skepticism, or something more sinister, a desire to detach from society. The buggy is covered in black satin. Goth Nanny likes to hang out by the cliffs, along the sharp stone edge, in view of the murderous sea. She communicates with the baby using a sign language of her own design, one heavy with menacing gestures. A smirk drags down the blood red corners of her mouth as she reads pavement-thick Ann Radcliffe novels. Later they will go to the graveyard, the only place where Goth Nanny smiles wide. In the meantime the baby sits up and shakes the nanny’s thermos of espresso, enjoying the sloshing sound it makes, and noticing (because this baby will be an audio engineer), the distinct difference between the crashing waves below and the secret splash inside the cold metal cylinder.
Ladybug Nanny
The baby lives with the awareness of impending flight. Early on this baby has learned that cuteness does not equal goodness. Fly away home, the nursery rhyme goes, introducing the baby to images of fire and missing children. Sometimes Ladybug Nanny arrives home in triumph, looking like a chubby red sportscar, carrying diapers and ice cream and Prosecco, but the baby is not fooled. This nanny was hired to stay, not leave, and there is no reason to praise her return. Fortunately the baby is an entrepreneur who uses everything life throws at her. “Fly Away Home” will launch the realty business that grows into a brokerage, then into a construction firm, and finally into a village of minimalist red buildings on stilts that address urban density while gently persuading people to fear flood over fire.
Spider Nanny
The baby is in love, just as the mother predicted, though the mother’s friends are horrified. Social workers are called in but disappear with a chilling consistency. Everyone admits that the spider silk layette is beautiful, and even the judgmental neighbor leaves her linens to be mended by Spider Nanny. How can you beat eight eyes?, the mother asks, determined to shame all those who dare criticize her. I hired a nanny who would help my girl for life, one who would show her how to handle men. The friends look around without speaking. Nobody knows who the baby’s father is. Nobody ever mentions him, not at birthdays, not even at the big graduation party, after the baby has completed her fancy fashion degree on a weaving scholarship.
Octopus Nanny
The baby never wants for anything. Each arm of Octopus Nanny holds something different: a bottle, a hammer, a plush heart toy, a thermometer, an astrolabe, a pacifier, a cell phone, a baby. They spend half the day at the city aquarium, the rest on the teal loveseat. The parents feel unneeded, unwanted. Sometimes, in the dark, they wince at the sensation of tentacles kissing their skin while strong arms anchor them to the bed, forcing their union. Often the mother wakes, screaming, then runs to the nursery, where the baby is neither drowning nor suffocating. He sleeps the sleep of babies while Octopus Nanny lurks in the temperate nursery aquarium. Does she ever sleep? The mother struggles with jealousy and resentment until the day she realizes, while listening to Jacques Cousteau, that the octopus had no choice but to become a nanny. Motherhood would have killed her. The mother races to the nursery to apologize and finds the baby playing with eight different piles of toys, turning effortlessly from one to another, never losing his place. Someone has been teaching him to multitask, preparing him for his life as a construction manager and single dad.
Punk Nanny
The baby likes to gum Punk Nanny’s stiff lavender mohawk. The baby takes a biscuit and dips it into the mug of milky tea that seems always to be cradled in Punk Nanny’s right hand. She hangs from the chains on his black leather jacket. Punk Nanny is patient. His clients always speak early, in polite sentences, though he himself says little. It’s all in his smile, his mother explains, when she drops by with carnation bouquets and strawberry tarts. He was born to be a nanny, like all the men of our family. Punk Nanny’s mother flicks her wrist so that her many diamonds catch the sunlight. She is about to leave for the airport. She and the baby’s mother shake hands, smiling and nodding, but something unpleasant hovers between them. Is it competition? Distrust? Perhaps it is merely the yearning to stay with one’s own child, which neither woman is able to do. The baby senses something is wrong, but instead of crying, she rises on two sturdy legs and walks for the pure joy of it, refusing to choose a career path.
by Shingai Kagunda | Oct 15, 2020 | flash fiction
Planting Season
“But what if?” Woman leaves the unfinished question hanging in the air, touching her swelling stomach. Man already knows what she is asking. “We will find a way to make it work. We always find a way.”
Heavy Rains Season
The baby smiles and she coos and they know she is one of them. There is a rumour that those born during the rains tend to carry that memory in them. The parents do not want to know but they know.
Harvest Season
“She said her first word at Kresh today.”
Man responds. “Hmmm, yes? What did she say?”
“Tomorrow”
A word that is banned. Man inhales sharply. “Where did she hear that? Woman?”
Woman’s gaze wanders on the ground. “We always knew, didn’t we? But we didn’t want to voice it.”
Man shakes his head furiously. “No, no, no. Someone must have said it within her hearing. The instructors?”
Woman throws her hands in the air. “Man listen, we knew there was a chance she would be… but… we took the chance anyway.
This is on us.”
Dry Season
It is decreed that the revolting word ‘yesterday’ shall also be removed from all speech. History only serves as a distraction. Anyone found speaking of anything other than today; other than now, deals with the full hand of the law.
Hunting Season (A lesson in silence.)
“And I must never…” Woman stops speaking, waiting for daughter to finish the chant they practice together on several occasions.
Daughter sighs. “…Say anything that was, or anything that could be; only everything that is.”
Woman touches hand to daughter’s chest.
Daughter fidgets impatiently. “Can I go now?”
Woman drags finger until it is settled on left breast, touching skin, feeling the little heartbeat drumming steadily underneath. “Hear me and hear me good. I say this once.”
She drums the little chest pacing it to daughter’s heartbeat.
“Tuh.Tuh.Tuh.
This is.” She draws out the words. “This is and I cannot imagi- think of a time where it will cease to be. Protect that it is at all costs. If you must speak…
“I know, I know.” Daughter responds quietly. “Only speak of now.”
Planting Season
Daughter is older now. Multilingual in the languages of imitation, amnesia, and silence. Daughter still hears voices. “Remember… Imagine… Yesterday… Tomorrow”. Daughter ignores voices.
There are screams sometimes. The hunted who speak in memory and imagination. There are rumours that there is a chamber where they are tortured, burned, little bits of their skin erased, over and over and over again.
Daughter will not be like them.
Stupid daughter.
Has never been like them.
No, get it right.
Is not like them, is not like them, is not like them.
Heavy Rains Season
Man is dead and woman cries. They say she cannot remember out loud but at night she dreams and daughter hears. Woman has had a lifetime of practice taming memory and possibility but the subconscious has a way of undoing all practice.
“I have loved you. I will love you.”
Harvest Season
And when it rains the voices get louder.
“I was your grandmother.”
“And I your great.”
“Do you let them forget me, child? As if I wasn’t part of the militia needed for this country’s freedom. Now the nation, independent, lets our memories rot. Treat our histories like the dirt on which you tread.”
“Hush sister you are overwhelming the girl.”
“There is someone you should hear girl.”
Man’s voice takes up the space left by the women. Softly at first. “Daughter?” a little louder.
“Hello?”
She does not respond, tries to ignore—thinks of woman breaking down— breaks down, it cannot be, it is not. It is not.
Dry Season
…
Hunting Season
And they say woman is going mad. She talks when she is awake as if she is asleep. They say it is that memory blood she carries, passed down by her mother. Tainted blood, a pity that it is showing up only now. They are watching her, watching her closely.
And whenever daughter is with woman, daughter whispers, “And I must never?”
And they finish it together, slowly, softly. “Say anything that was, or anything that could be; only everything that is.”
by Nancy Stohlman | Oct 14, 2020 | news
Flash Myth #1: Smaller Is Easier
Let’s debunk Myth #1.
Housed in the Chicago Institute of Art are the Thorne Miniature Rooms, tiny replicas of actual historic rooms painstakingly crafted on a scale of one inch: one foot. You press your face up to each of the 68 windows and gaze at the fully formed world inside— complete with exotic woods, fabrics, chandeliers and intricate, hand-woven rugs. The attention to detail in each room would be impressive even at life size, but the true fascination is the fact that they are just so damn tiny!
One of the reasons people love flash fiction is because, like the Thorne Rooms, there is something awe-inspiring about entering a perfectly formed tiny world. When done correctly, tiny is part of the art: the Mona Lisa on a grain of rice, a sculpture of Charlie Chaplin balanced on an eyelash. And it often requires more skill from the writer, not the other way around. Creating something tiny takes a different level of expertise and precision.
Sometimes when people discover flash fiction they assume: oh, it’s cute, it’s small, it’s easy. But to fully appreciate flash we must assume mastery: the story is small because the author has decided to tell it this way.
Flash Myth #2: Readers Have Short Attention Spans
This is probably the most common flash myth. But readers aren’t enamored with flash fiction because they have short attention spans—that’s like saying the sculptor of the bonsai tree didn’t have the attention for a full-grown tree, or that people who eat sliders don’t have the attention for a quarter-pound hamburger. Maybe, just maybe, they like sliders and bonsai trees?
In the same way, readers love flash fiction because it’s complex and breathtaking and accomplishes so much in such a tiny space.
In fact, flash fiction requires a more sophisticated reader. The story demands the reader to “pay close attention”—every sentence, every word takes on a new significance, if only for the limited number of them. The reader must jump the gaps, fill in the blanks, follow the breadcrumbs, and inhabit the purposeful spaces left by the writer. Which means that flash fiction is cultivating a new symbiosis between writer and readers, on and off the page.
As readers, we’ve gotten used to sitting in the audience and being entertained. But it’s nearly impossible to passively consume flash fiction. Leaving things unsaid and undigested requires effort and interpretation; the reader steps out of the role of voyeur and becomes an active participant in the story. It’s this act of interpretation that keeps art vital—no longer just watching from a darkened audience, flash fiction invites the reader up on the stage, hands them a tambourine, and tells them to keep up.
Flash Myth #3: Bigger Is Better
“Important” literary works are big. Therefore, some people still dismiss flash fiction as trivial. How could anything important be accomplished in such a small space? Flash fiction is good for barroom bets, not for serious literature.
The implication here is the more we have of something, the better it is. War and Peace is “important”: it’s long, it’s hard, it’s complex, it’s 1,200 pages. But Old Man and the Sea is only 120 pages and won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Should we assume that Tolstoy worked 10x harder than Hemingway or that his work is 10x more important?
The truth is they can’t really be compared. Flash fiction should be judged on its own terms. It’s meant to be digested in one sitting—it encourages speed, not languishing. Longer literature is meant to be enjoyed over time. But flash fiction doesn’t look for sweeping vistas. Flash fiction is not the epic saga. Flash fiction is that guy on the beach with the metal detector. We don’t need to know his history, we don’t need to know what he looks like. Just tell us what he finds.
by Amorak Huey | Oct 12, 2020 | micro
I’m scratching my name in the pew with my car key. I’m daydreaming about what it would be like to have a robot arm. Or a robot heart. I’m sitting while the believers line up for communion. I’m not invited, which is fine. The only flesh I want in my mouth is yours. I am a visitor in every room I’ve ever entered. I keep waiting for the pastor to say something about how we should treat each other, but all he ever talks about is how important it is to believe. To accept. To submit. It seems heavy-handed to say the next thing that happens is the passing of the collection plate but it is the next thing that happens. It’s too easy to be cynical. It feels like a trap. You consume the body and blood of Christ and return to your seat. I can’t remember whether you think this is literal or metaphor. I’m afraid to ask. I have never said aloud that I don’t believe in your resurrected savior or the magical land in the sky with gold streets and floating souls. I can get behind the love thy neighbors and the shall not kills and so forth, but not so much a magical man picking winners or losers based on how they spend Sunday mornings. The robot heart would be great, honestly. Unbreakable, resilient. I already know how this is going to end. You and me, that is. It’s going to hurt. Imagine, though. All those steel gears and steampunk valves, churning along, keeping the body alive without a murmur.
by Melissa Goode | Oct 9, 2020 | flash fiction
The kitchen lightbulb shatters above our heads. The filament burns red and fizzles to nothing. It is an explosion from light to black. We breathe hard in the aftermath, check each other for broken glass and he says to me, I can’t be here anymore.
#
Chicago-Read is still another five minutes away. I drive. In the passenger seat, his eyes are closed. The orange lit streets dissolve into the November night.
The radio plays, “With Or Without You”, his secret favorite song. It pulses in my fingertips. He says, don’t turn it off, and Bono sings that he can’t live.
I close my hand on his thigh and squeeze. Even through his jeans, he sears me.
#
The polished hospital floor reflects the fluorescent tubes and my headache throbs. It smells here of antiseptic and humanness.
At the front counter, I give his name, date of birth, psychiatrist. He stands beside me, carries his overnight bag. We could be checking into a hotel.
“I know it’s late,” I say to the nurse.
“Makes no difference here,” she says.
“24/7 service, right ma’am?” he says.
The nurse eyes him. “Right.”
A vent above us gushes arctic, stale air. He shivers inside his coat.
#
He is Every Man. His voice used for radio and television ads about male impotence, alcoholism, testicular cancer, bankruptcy, depression, suicide. He told his agent he needed two weeks off and had to battle for the time.
#
In his hospital ward, I kiss his lips and they are dry. He is already a patient. He says, go now please go, and shuffles to the bathroom, decades older.
In the parking lot, I cannot find our car. If he were here, he’d remember where we left it. The top level is empty. I move to the edge and before me the city shimmers and fizzes golden, silver, endless. The metal balustrade is perfectly scalable. I whisper-sing “Amazing Grace” and snag on wretch.
A plane roars overhead, low. It approaches O’Hare, certain, with calculated speed and angle of descent. Landing lights shine bright white. Wheels unfold from its belly.
#
Sunday morning. The tulips he bought are now overblown. Their violet petals fade, wilt and fall to our kitchen table, until only the gold-black stamens remain. Violet is the color of remembering him years after he’s gone. A petal drops and it is loud.
#
From the hospital, he phones, says, there is too much light here.
I say, it’s alright it’s alright it’s alright.
And it isn’t, I know.
#
Sunday afternoon, four p.m. The bleak-desperate-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life hour. I visit Barnes & Noble, sip full sugar Coke. My footsteps sound the word, dis-con-so-late. My high school students walk like this, weighed, shackled. Ir-re-deem-a-ble.
I spin the display of postcards and here is, “The Threatened Swan”, dated 1650, by Jan Asselijn. The swan’s wings are outstretched, luminous. It defends its nest of eggs against a stealthy black dog. The swan’s neck is arched, its beak open on a hiss. Feathers fly from its wings.
I buy the postcard, pin it to our fridge.
#
He calls me, says, I cannot hear my voice.
I say, I can hear you, honey.
#
Over radio and television, he tells me where to find help. He provides phone numbers, websites, tells me I am not alone.
#
We swim in green water in my dream, inside a deep cold pond. Gray wavy shadows fall on us. We are wholly submerged, suspended.
I wake and decide we were not underwater, instead we float on the surface. We are buoyant! We cannot sink!
#
For the first time since he was admitted, he agrees to see me. I bring him many of everything—Snickers, Twix, Doritos, Rolling Stone, underwear, socks, T-shirts—they could be things for a teenage boy.
I bring him the red blanket from our bed. His fingers trace the wide-white stitching around the edge.
He barely looks at me.
I regret it as I say it: “I traveled for miles in an aggressive Uber and the traffic is abysmal.”
Now he looks at me and I see the boy.
#
We watch television, slumped in his hospital bed. Our heads rest on his pillow, the red blanket pulled to our chins. I press my face into his neck, say, I should have brought you flowers. His skin is chilled, chemicals leach. I need to take him home, to a near-scalding bath, scrub us clean, make us taste of lavender, oranges, of Italy in the sun.
#
I want him to give me a show, his show. The slow one. I don’t care which way it goes, whether he starts clothed or naked.
#
A swan in Ireland stopped traffic as it hugged warm car hoods, mourning the loss of its mate.
He says, “Why are you telling me this?”
“Okay. No more fucking stories about swans.”
“Jesus. We’re not swans.”
I take his hand. “Why do you get to choose the metaphor?”
Here is his first smile in three weeks.
#
Here is my apology for this life—two million germs on the bathroom floor under my knees. His fingertips touch my hair and I don’t know whether he wants more or wants me to stop.
#
The television scientists have nothing good to say about the world’s population or the planet.
He says, “We’re all fucked.”
“It will get better.”
“Will it?”
He drops his heavy head to my shoulder. His living brain right here, cerebral circulation delivering oxygen and nutrients.
#
He sleeps beside me. The nurses have not yet kicked me out. The television plays a black and white movie—The Philadelphia Story. Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart dance together in the dark garden, drunk. He holds her close, his hand spread across her shoulder blades. Their steps are nimble, graceful, as they dance slowly around the rim of the pond and they do not fall in.
by Matthew McHugh | Oct 5, 2020 | flash fiction
Sometimes the name they give you is all wrong.
It’s really just meant to be a simple, two-word phrase to let people talk about a particular shade. “Honey, do you prefer Autumn Sand or Copper Slate?” or “Can I get two gallons of Alpine Storm?” “Is Harbor Mist available in semi-gloss?” We all have numbers, but you can’t use those in conversation. “I’m going to do the walls in 0973-016, the trim in 0975-732, and the wainscoting in 0984-283.” No, names are better. The marketing people figured that out long ago, and they were right. But they don’t always get it right with each one of us.
“Carrion Clay.” That’s my name.
I know.
We’re not even named by a person. Nobody looks at 3948-032 and says, “Hmm… this will be Desert Almond.” 0783-971. “And this, I’ll say is… Tropical Shadow.” It’s all done by computer. A word from Column A and a word from Column B. Gradations of orange are Tangerine Sunset, Florida Citrus, Honey Sherbet, and so on. Reds are Crimson Veil, Summer Valentine, Cherry Carnation, etc. Everyone seems happy with it. Everyone but me. Carrion freakin’ Clay.
I’d rather be just 0920-734, but I can’t choose how people perceive me. They pick up my swatch and make jokes. “World’s worst boxer!” “Name something you find at a preschool for vultures.” “Ooh, let’s do the door with this and the frame in Zombie Golem.” I’ve heard them all.
I am a microscopic shade off Sierra Amber and Twilight Sandstone, yet no one will ever let me near their baby’s room. No lowly office drone will hand-sponge me in their bathroom to create a faux marble effect, the one stroke of creativity that keeps their soul alive. I will never be the ambient hue a family subconsciously associates with the concept: home. Brushed Chestnut may. Even Mocha Gravel stands a chance. Not me.
Once… once, a woman browsing through a sample binder stopped on my page. She traced the edge of my eggshell latex finish with her fingertip and lingered on me. Her eyes took on the unfocused drift of one lost in imagination, and I knew she was picturing me in her hallway or bedroom. And, in that moment—that beautiful, accurséd moment—I dared to hope.
I dared to wish for that instant of consummation when she would step back, roller still in hand, and survey with satisfaction my final coating, a smudge of me just below the bandana on her forehead. And I would have served her for years (10 True-Guaranteed™), witness to her private joys and sufferings, until we both began to gray, old friends bound together deeper than any promise by countless hours in one another’s company.
This, and immeasurably more, I would have given her, had she but chosen me instead of Arizona Dusk.
Now, I simply wait. The third quarter sales figures will have reached corporate headquarters by now, and I am surely earmarked for discontinuation. I welcome it. Honestly, I do. Not everything that exists is promised a meaningful existence. I will pass away, literally, not having left a single mark upon this world.
If there is anything more, if there is anything beyond the misbegotten life I have known, let me be wiped clean and arrive fresh in that new place, my name forgotten, my number filed and lost, where I hope only to have the chance to shine.
by Amy Barnes | Oct 1, 2020 | interview
I’ve always thought of flash fiction as conversations where each exchange reveals or obscures, builds layers, introduces intimacy, teaches, grows curiosity. “The Bitter Kind” authors Tara Lynn Masih and James Claffey take that conversational flash level to a more expansive place in their novella-in-flash. Each individual flash connects with the next, chats with the reader through contrasting characters through time. The two main characters Stela and Brandy share their individual dreams and burdens; the flash novella format acts as a perfect setting for the seemingly improbable — a ship captain’s daughter and Chippewa orphan revealed through flashes about family secrets and ghost wolf hauntings. Through the skillful word and character creation of Masih and Claffey, readers converse with identifiable, yet unique characters. To learn more about the inspiration and process behind the novella, I interviewed Masih.
What is the significance of the title? Speak to the process of choosing it.
I’m glad you asked this, as we love the title. I pulled it out from James’s section. We don’t want to give too much away, but the bitter kind refers to a type of lemon. It fit so well with the lives of our two characters, their constant “battle” for love and the bitterness of what they face throughout their lives. I love titling books and often look to the manuscript itself for lines that resonate. I can’t recall the other choices, but this one we both loved the most.
How did you decide the length/novelette-in-flash form?
We began the project in flash form. We collaborated on a flash story (“Eighteen Crosses, One Madonna”) that combined two characters from our short story collections published by Press 53. When we decided to expand it, we knew we could come up with more material but did not want to make a commitment to a full novel. He was writing his debut novel at the time, and I was working on multiple book projects. So it made sense to write a novella. Well, it became a mighty short novella, and near the end, I stumbled on the term novelette, which fit our page count much better. We like the sound of it better, too!
What is the significance of the cover photo/design? How did you choose the artist to create it?
I’d rather the reader decide the significance of the cover photo, but we do want to recognize Ashley Inguanta, the photographer. We’re both big fans of her work. I’ve tried in the past to get her work on a cover and for one reason or another it didn’t work out, so we’re super grateful to Gloria Mindock at Cervena Barva Press for approving this image. We all just think it’s stunning. Dark and erotic and sensual and it draws you in. Makes you wonder.
There is so much encapsulated in this novelette that it feels like we get an entire novel. How did you determine the formatting? The date markers as “chapters”?
We had no idea how people would react to our little fun project. We really just followed the format we’d chosen for the flash story, which was to write alternate sections back and forth. We knew we’d use our flash skills, which often means lots of white space and big gaps in time. We had to ground the reader in the era it began in, so hence the use of dates. And we wanted to call attention to the most significant date of all, the one where they meet up, so that became Part 2.
There is something seamless as the reader moves between the two storylines. At the outset, the characters themselves seem disparate but you manage to connect them and focus on their personal stories. How did you find the balance and juxtaposition between the characters/the alternating between the two main characters?
It’s one part work and one part creative magic. We kept going on this project because we worked well together and these two characters just seemed to need more attention. And they worked well together on their own, but not completely. We each did many edits to make sure it felt authentic and that all details were accurate. As for the balancing act, it was pretty instinctive, though we both pointed out now and then when the other one had too much of a gap in the writing or when something didn’t make sense or was from the wrong time period.
A collaborator is a built-in, trusted, objective editor.
What research did you do to add authenticity to the stories?
I can only speak for myself on this one, but I did a lot of research on the Landless Indians in Montana (who I’m happy to report as of the beginning of 2020 are no longer landless) and Frontier Town, where Brandy works for a time. I have been to Montana and to the ghost town where Brandy also works, so it was easy to write about that setting. For Frontier Town, I was lucky to find an abundance of online history and images.
Ending on “for how long?” is such a poignant and yet, open-ended closure. How did you decide to end the stories at that point?
That’s a good question, as the original story actually ends differently. Again without giving away the ending, I’ll just say that sometimes as you are writing, you just know you’ve gotten to the last line, that everything that comes before that line has prepared you to write that last line. It doesn’t always happen that way, but when it does, it’s a mystical feeling. I had that when I wrote the final line. And luckily James felt it was the final line, too. He opens the book, I end it. Or, rather, Stela opens, Brandy concludes.
How long did you work on the novelette?
From beginning to end it was 8 years. We had to take breaks to attend to other projects. Hard to believe, but these kinds of books can take a long time to find a home. We tried the contest route first, which took over a year (we were lucky to place as a semifinalist in Conium Press’s chapbook contest), and as it wasn’t picked up, we began the general submission process, which again took well over a year, and we continually edited even into pages
Any other details to share?
I’d like to let fans of audiobooks know that Blackstone Audio will be coming out with an audio version, read by Siiri Scott, who does an amazing job. She knew just how to read our prose. We’re grateful Blackstone took this on as it’s an experiment for them, to publish something this short. And we are super grateful to Cervena Barva for the gorgeous paperback. And thank you to Fractured Lit for your interest. You guys are off to a great start!
BIOS:
Tara Lynn Masih is a National Jewish Book Award Finalist and winner of the Julia Ward Howe Award for Young Readers for her debut novel My Real Name Is Hanna. Her anthologies include The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction and The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays. Where the Dog Star Never Glows is her collection of long and very short stories, and she’s published multiple chapbooks with the Feral Press that are archived in universities such as Yale and NYU. She founded the Intercultural Essay Prize in 2006 and The Best Small Fictions series in 2015.
Masih received a finalist fiction grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, an Inspirational Woman in Literature Award from AITL Media, and several national book awards including an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for her role as an editor.
James Claffey grew up in Dublin, Ireland, and currently lives in California. His collection of short fiction, Blood a Cold Blue, is published by Press 53. He is currently putting the finishing edits to a novel set in 1980s Dublin. His short fiction piece “Skull of a Sheep,” which first appeared in the New Orleans Review, is in W.W. Norton’s Flash Fiction International. His flash fiction “Kingmaker,” which first appeared in Five Points: A Journal of Literature and Art, also features in W.W. Norton’s New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction. “The Third Time My Father Tried to Kill Me” was published in The Best Small Fictions 2015, and he was a finalist in The Best Small Fictions 2016. His work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, and when not writing he teaches high school English in Santa Barbara.
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