Tag Archives: short stories

Unsettling Tales Scoop 2023 Short Story Awards

Posted on by Standard

Alice Gwynn has won the 2023 Shooter Short Story Competition with her eerie, twisting tale, “The Ones Who Came Before”, while Edward Barnfield has come runner-up with his dystopian fiction, “Isolation”.

Shooter’s readers and judge, editor Melanie White, appreciated Gwynn’s atmospheric tale for its evocative descriptions and skilful handling of plot twists in a story with deeper undercurrents of identity and loss. Gwynn, a British ex-pat who lives in New Hampshire in the US, said via email that a trip to the UK last year inspired her piece, which is set in the grounds of an ancient castle. Gwynn writes flash fiction and poetry as well as short stories, and has previously published work in Prachya Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Consequence Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, and elsewhere.

Barnfield achieved second place in the competition with “Isolation”, a subtle dystopian fiction with creeping menace that contest readers found particularly convincing. Barnfield, a researcher living in the Middle East, has had work published by Roi Fainéant Press, Ellipsis Zine, The Molotov Cocktail, Third Street Review, Galley Beggar Press, and others.

In addition to the contest winners, two writers gained honorable mentions for their stories: Bethany Wren, for “Rosemary, Patron Saint of Honey”, and Joe Wheelan, for “Unravelled”.

Both “The Ones Who Came Before” and “Isolation” are available to read on Shooter’s website, while Gwynn’s story also appears in the Autumn/Winter 2023 issue of Shooter, which is themed “The Unknown”. Print copies of the magazine can be ordered at the Subscriptions page.

The 2024 Shooter Poetry Competition will open early in the new year, while the 2024 Shooter Short Story Competition will open mid-year. Until then, prose writers are welcome to submit flash fiction and non-fiction to the monthly Shooter Flash contest on a rolling basis. General submissions for Shooter’s Spring/Summer 2024 issue will open to all in the new year.

In the meantime, happy reading, and happy holidays from Shooter Literary Magazine!

Shooter Flash: “A Good Son” by Sarah Macallister

Posted on by Standard Reply

Peter couldn’t come home for Christmas because his wife dragged him to her family. Susan always played the victim, but she was no wilting flower; she was a parasitic weed.

My son used to be an easy child. No tantrums. Other mothers had to tear themselves away from their children at the school gates, from guttural sobs that made your ears bleed. I pitied those mothers, who’d failed where I’d succeeded. 

I remember the first parent-teacher meeting. Mrs Forsyth sat across from us, wearing a frown and short hair. She reported that our son had stamped on another boy’s head. Peter never behaved that way at home. I knew it must be a mistake. At other parent meetings, we heard that he pulled hair, hit, stole food, and peed on a girl’s coat. Mrs Forsyth clearly didn’t like him, so I moved him to another school. After that, there were no bad reports. 

I started as keys jangled in the lock. Harold whistled and threw open the front door. 

“Something smells good! Baked a cake?” He squeezed around the table and pulled me into his stout stomach. Fruity hops blossomed from his mouth.

“Been at Dopey Does?”

“Don’t you mean The Staggering Stags?”

We snickered together, as if this was the first time we’d made this joke. After I knotted my pinny, I glugged oil into the frying pan and ignited blue flames. Bubbles frisked in the oil and I slid raw meat to sizzle. I laid the table with chutney and a vase of dried honesty. We tucked in. Harold drank another pint and the amber beer glowed while he tipped back his head.

“Heard from Peter today?”

“No, he’s too busy. Working late, poor boy.”

Cake for pudding. Harold poured custard over his bowl. Steam spiralled while he rummaged for a spoon, clanking the cutlery, and shaking the table as he shuddered the drawer shut. I ate mine with a dessert fork.

Not long after Harold climbed into bed, he was foghorn snoring. The harder I tried to ignore it, the more frustrated I grew, until tears streamed into my pillow. Rain lashed the roof and windows, the wet whipping of a cat o’ nine tails. The doorbell rang. 

I swiped my cheeks and flurried downstairs in my nightie. I clicked the hall lamp. My neck shivered as I reached for the handle. It was so late. Who could it be? An outline blurred in the pebbled glass. A man’s height.

“Mum?”

Only Peter. I fumbled to unlatch and clasp the handle, ready with my welcome smile. My thoughts drifted to the kitchen. I opened the door and threw a glow into the seething chattering darkness, which swallowed it whole.

Rain-dark hair plastered his scalp and he looked white, sick. As I fell back to let him enter, my smile fixed, he planted himself on the threshold and leaked on the flagstone floor.

“Peter, are you alright?”

He shook his head and shuddered within the sodden coat. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine.

“You’re cold,” I said, desperate to shut the night out, but Peter only stood by the door and twitched.

“Come in, love.” He shuffled forward and I sealed us safely inside. I trundled off to the kitchen and flicked the kettle to boil, tipping bags into red cups. I wondered whether to give Peter some cake.

“I made a mistake.” Peter spoke slowly, each syllable dropping like the rain. He hovered under the kitchen doorframe, coat on and dripping wet. I could not make the kettle boil any faster. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I turned and smiled.

“What?” I asked, but I didn’t want to hear. “Wait, let’s get you dried off first.” I wanted to scurry for towels and clothes, but Peter was blocking the doorway as he answered my question.

“I made a mistake.” His voice broke and a croaking, throaty gurgle slithered into my kitchen, raw like uncooked meat.

“Oh, everyone makes mistakes, darling. Now let’s get you warmed up with a nice cup of—”

He looked me right in the eye.

“A mistake,” he spat back at me. “Susan’s gone.”

Something unfamiliar crawled across Peter’s face. A sneer. He was sneering at me. 

Boiled water steamed from the kettle, its innards raging with bubbles, until the dainty click snapped it off. I turned my back on Peter and poured the tea. 

“Would you like your bag left in?” 

He didn’t reply, so I took a teaspoon and squeezed the bag against the side of the cup before fishing it out. I was meant to say something. My pathetic mother, he was thinking, who can’t face reality, whose eyes are cross-stitched shut. I didn’t know what to say. 

I held the scalding cup against my palm, so the handle faced Peter. He could either take it, or watch my face strain to remain calm as hot china burned my skin. He took it like a good son.

*

Sarah Macallister has a Natural Sciences PhD and is now embarking on a second PhD in History of Art. Besides academic publications, she has had short stories published by Impspired, Flora Fiction and Literally Stories.

Shooter Flash: “Under the Rubble” by Lisa Geary

Posted on by Standard Reply

A chink lets in a shaft of dusty light. Irene, wedged inside, shifts her legs and shuffles her torso to turn around. Straining, she leans towards the gap to peer out: the land lies quiet. No-one on their way.

She settles back to wait, resting upon the hard ground. What if no-one comes? How long could she last? She feels achy already, and hungry. She listens for the thud of falling masonry, the crash of concrete in the distance. Right now only a thin thread of birdsong weaves its way through the cracks, into her dim crevice.

Earlier she’d been in school; a normal day. Her mother had picked her up, red-faced, a little late. Irene had whined to join her friends in the playground, but her mother hung onto her and marched her straight home. The grown-ups were always busy. Not wanting to go straight into the house, Irene had run away when they got home, out into the woods.

Now, Irene is bored of her game. She slithers out from beneath the pile of branches and brushes dirt from her pinafore. A few of the long sticks have become dislodged; she hauls them back into place, fortifying the entrance to her hideaway. She runs along the winding path, across the garden behind the house, and in through the back door. Her mother is making supper with the news on the telly.

Irene flops onto the sofa. “How long til supper?” she whines. Her mother is grappling with a steaming pot, hefting it towards the sink.

“Five minutes,” she says, taking in Irene and the television in one quick glance. “Let’s turn that off now. I can’t take any more.”

Irene rolls from the sofa and reaches to switch off the television, another evening of collapsed buildings and grey rubble upon the screen. Men babble in another language, hauling chalky debris. Other men pull a small body from the wreckage. The child in their arms, still alive, swivels a dark eye towards the camera. Irene meets her gaze. Behind the child, the edge of an arm juts from the jagged pile of broken concrete.

Within the mound, a chink lets in a shaft of dusty light.

* 

Lisa Geary has had fiction published in Wishbone, Sepia Journal, Spellbinder, Haunted Words, and elsewhere. She lives near Durham, where she is a member of the Durham Writers Group. Currently, she is juggling writing with the world of two new kittens and kitchen renovation.

Shooter Flash: “Twenty Blinks” by Sarah Sibley

Posted on by Standard 1

You feel the rain patter your cheeks and watch the grey clouds sagging above. The stubbled ground jabs into your back. 

*

There is a tearing, crunching sound nearby. You can’t turn your head but realise it’s your horse, cropping the grassy verge. You try to croak her name but nothing comes out.

*

Bella at university. Charlie in Manchester. But Hannah, at school. You’re supposed to pick her up after hockey.

*

You feel surges of agony and anger, simultaneously. But nothing from the waist down.

•

A soundtrack of blame is running through your mind, complete with the memory of your husband’s disapproval that you continued to ride after your children were born. You made a point of hanging on to one thing that was your own.

*

The rain has eased and the clouds are thinning out. The grey sky behind them is whitening. Watching the clouds becomes compelling.

*

The lane is silent, apart from Rosie grazing.

*

You wonder what your ex will think, even though he’s eight years out of the picture.

*

Your sister will have to fetch Hannah. Though the rain has stopped, your cheeks remain wet.

*

You as a girl, about ten, running down the tree-lined street where your parents lived, being chased by a barking dog.

*

There is an unfinished canvas in your studio, the ocean painted in loose strokes. You’d been working on the children playing in the sand. It’s shaping up to be one of your best pieces.

*

Hannah has inherited your artistic skills, but she needs to apply herself.

*

You heard the van barrelling up from behind. You stayed still in the saddle and waved an arm downward to signal he should slow. He didn’t.

*

Rosie has always been good in traffic but no horse can be expected to behave if a van side-swipes them at 40 miles an hour.

*

She’s moving, at least.  You can hear her, still cropping, a little farther away now.

*

Now and again you used to wonder if the risk was worth it. Worth the joy, the sense of freedom. The deep contentment. The beauty of the land. You don’t remember coming to a conclusion.

*

Watching the clouds from this angle is peaceful. You regret that you never made time just to lie down and look up.

*

Love sears your heart. Bella stumbling in the middle of her ballet recital, going on to win a standing ovation. The fear, rushing Charlie to hospital when he got stung by a bee.

*

Hannah’s delighted sweaty face, lofting the hockey trophy with her teammates last year.

*

In the distance, you hear a car coming down the lane, but the world has swivelled; the clouds, now, appear to float beneath you. You turn your gaze from the whiteout and look up to see higher.

***

Sarah Sibley is a writer and baker who lives in Durham with her family. As a cake artist, she has written extensively on baking for various newspapers and magazines. This is her first published piece of fiction.

Shooter Flash: “Drifting Apart” by Gordon Pinckheard

Posted on by Standard 1

You can’t get very far away from each other on a 33-foot sailboat. Graham was sitting in the cockpit, Linda on the foredeck. There were about twenty-five feet between them. They both wanted more.

There was a bump against the hull.

*

Out in the middle of the Atlantic, there was not much to think about. Only one person to talk with, to relate to, to be irritated by. Graham knew the right way to do things on a boat; he had taken courses, Linda had not. He carefully explained what she was doing wrong, but she ignored him. Her knots came undone, the sails flapped; they were not making the progress that he expected.

With only the two of them on board, watches were tough. Neither of them got much sleep. Alone in the cockpit at night, sliding between dreams and dark night, Graham had fantasies. Fantasies of freedom. The company of another woman, a younger woman, a better woman. Sometimes, a naked woman.

Linda was seasick. Pills did prevent vomiting, but she complained of stomach cramps and headaches. She refused to cook, unable to keep her balance down in the swaying interior.

“I’ll be glad when this is over,” she said.

“Over? Don’t say that. After this crossing, there’s the coast of Europe to explore! Wandering port to port. It’ll be great!”

“No,” Linda spat. “We’re using my money, and I say no. Once we’re across, we stop, settle down. Stop moving.” Her face was pale, taut.

Graham clamped his mouth shut. After a pause, he said, “OK, if that’s how you want it.” Looking away from her, he scanned the empty horizon, the ridges of endless waves. Freedom, he thought. 

That night he couldn’t entice any naked women out of the darkness. “My money” occupied his thoughts. He had shackled himself to such a wife! They had only spent a fraction of her wealth. What was to happen to his big adventure? An adventure he had dreamt of since childhood. Freedom was sliding out of reach. Linda wanted to trap him in a “normal” house. Was he man or mouse? No way! Feeling reassured, he smiled as he dozed, conjuring satisfying fantasies. Fantasies of unfettered freedom, spending money. Without Linda.

*

There was a bump against the hull. Graham looked astern, expecting to see something floating away in their wake. There was a partially submerged buoy, but it was following them, attached by a short length of rope. The rudder must have caught a drifting buoy. He turned off the autopilot and moved the wheel, hoping the rope would slide off the blade. The wheel was stiff and hard to turn; the rope must have jammed between the top of the rudder and the hull.

They dropped the sails and, using a boathook, Graham tried to pull the buoy and its tether loose from the boat. Failing, swearing, he lowered the inflatable dinghy from the foredeck. Maybe the rope could be freed working at sea level. He really didn’t want to have to swim beneath the boat. The oars were stored away down below; he’d manage without them. He was about to get into the dinghy, still swearing, when Linda said, “I’ll do it.”

“No, I’ll do it,” he said. “I do everything else; I’ll do this too.”

“Piss off! You don’t do everything. I’m fed up with you making a martyr of yourself. There’s no one else here to impress. I’ll be glad to get off this damn boat, even if it’s only for ten minutes.”

“OK, let’s see you do it then.” He sat down in the cockpit and watched her clamber over the lifelines, down the steps on the transom into the grey inflatable.

She caught the buoy’s rope and looked up at Graham. “You’ll have to move the dinghy forward,” she said. “I have to pull the rope forward, not back.”

He untied its painter from the stern and dragged the dinghy forward along the hull. He tied the line around a stanchion.

In the dinghy, Linda pulled at the buoy’s rope. It came loose, and she dropped it in the water. The partially submerged buoy and its rope drifted away from the boat.

“See? I got that done. I don’t need to hear any more of your crap. Now move me back to the stern.”

Graham looked down at her.

“Not hear more of my crap? Fair enough. Goodbye, Linda.” He bent down to the knotted painter.

Briefly, she sat frozen. Then she rushed to the front of the dinghy, balanced precariously on the inflated tube, and reached up to grab him. Her left hand caught his jacket while her right struck at his head. Ignoring the blows, he remained leaning forward, working at the knotted painter. With all her weight, she pulled him down towards her, pummelling his head. He toppled into the well of the dinghy, landing awkwardly. She fell onto his back, striking at him with both fists. He rolled over, protecting his head with his forearms while they struggled.

“For God’s sake, quit it!” The fear and desperation in his voice stopped her. The painter was caught around his arm – the loose painter.

They looked towards their sailboat, across clear water; wind was blowing the boat and dinghy apart faster than either of them could swim.

Silently, Graham moved to the stern, leaving Linda alone at the bow. The endless sea surrounded them, the horizon broken only by a single receding sailboat. There were about three feet between them. There would never be more.

*      *      *

Gordon Pinckheard lives in County Kerry, Ireland. Retired from a working life spent writing computer programs and technical documents, and encouraged by Thursday Night Writers (Tralee), he now writes anything he likes to entertain himself and – hopefully – others. His stories have been published by Daily Science Fiction, Gemini, Page & Spine, Allegory, Every Day Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, and others.

Issue 16: On the Body

Posted on by Standard Reply

The body is the house that we live in, whether it’s newly built or dilapidated, with sleek modern lines or sagging timbers. People might be content with the houses they inhabit, growing comfortable over the years in familiar rooms; others might be eager to embark on extensive renovations. We all hope to live in secure abodes but, without strong defences, their boundaries are sometimes breached.

Bodily contemplations inevitably revolve around fundamental milestones of birth and death, the physical dimension of love and the way we are perceived by others. Writers explore these themes and more in Shooter’s “On the Body” issue, our sixteenth edition of the magazine. 

Nolcha Fox opens the issue with her whimsical poem “Skin”, delicately depicting the membrane between our outer and inner lives. Elizabeth Tannen and Ruth Lexton craft lyric insights into childbirth and early motherhood, while Natalie Moores and Harry Wilding offer wry verses on physical desire and its consequences. Steve Denehan also provides a humorous interlude on the subject of temporary tattoos. On the darker side of bodily experience, David Holper challenges the suggestion that “America Is Not a Racist Country”, and James McDermott closes the issue with two poignant poems about the death of his father from Covid-19.

In addition to the issue’s poetic nuts and bolts, the spring/summer edition features the winner of the 2022 Shooter Poetry Competition: Jenny’s Mitchell’s “Female Dedication”, which revolves around hardships experienced by the narrator’s mother and grandmother. Mitchell has previously won the Poetry Book Awards; her debut collection, Her Lost Language, was named a “Poetry Book for 2019” by Poetry Wales and her second collection, Map of a Plantation, is on the syllabus at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Many of the edition’s prose writers skilfully combine humour and acute observation in their responses to the theme. Sarah Archer weaves comedy out of the despair of ageing (to forty-one years old) in her story “Ripe”. April Farrant challenges sexism and double standards in her political piece, “Set Menu”, while Mark Keane mines the strange standards of the art world in “Exhibition”. Sage Tyrtle considers how far a makeover might go in “Up Next on The Repair Store”. A sinister threat emerges in Nathan Breakenridge’s “Full of Trees”, and Alison Milner connects the dots of loss in her moving flash fiction, “Constellation”.

Several pieces of non-fiction also punctuate the issue, all very different. Ona Marae, in “No Apology Here”, provides a powerful account of the assault she experienced as a teenager and the wider prevalence of sexual violence in society. Robin Hall recalls financially challenging times in his L.A. memoir “Dance Like Everyone Is Watching”, about his brush with male striptease. And in the most literal interpretation of “On the Body”, Sally Gander considers the significance of tattoo art in her essay “No Commitment Necessary”.

Whatever environment you inhabit – cosy apartment or sprawling manor, stylish penthouse or sparse yurt – I hope you will settle down cosily within that most important of edifices, your own skin, to enjoy this diverse and compelling edition of Shooter.

To order a copy of the On the Body issue, please visit the Subscriptions page.

The 2023 Short Story Competition and general submissions to do with The Unknown are open to entries until September 24.

Shooter Flash: “King of the Castle” by Ben Shepherd

Posted on by Standard 1

Rain like ash began to fall in the glade. Richard ducked beneath the oak and curled into the arch of the split trunk. The rain fell harder, greying the view. He would wait. There wasn’t much to do but wait, anyway; the money was gone, all gone. What a way for a king to go.

Richard sagged against the rough bark, letting the ridges gouge, and stared across the lawn at the streaming stone of his home, his ruined castle. All he had lost – all he had worked for, taken from him. Governments! Bloody taxmen, baying for handouts. He hadn’t come from much, but he’d battled and built an empire. His mother had called him king, even as a child. A king deserved to keep what was his.

A door opened amid the stone flank of the house and a blond head, speckled with silver, appeared. Richard crabbed behind the trunk. The wet world was quiet, but thoughts still bellowed round his head, like a hound chasing its tail. He closed his eyes.

“Richard,” a voice snapped from across the clearing.

He opened his eyes to see the familiar iron figure, slim but rigid, like a crowbar. Her arms were folded, her back braced against the rain: Theresa.

“Hello Terry,” he said, aiming for lightness. His voice sounded strange, even to him. He couldn’t go out in public any more, among people interacting normally. He no longer knew how they did it.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she said wearily. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Oh?” Richard paused. “What is it?”

“It’s cold, at this point. That’s what it is.”

“I think maybe I’ll just stay here.” Meek, supplicating. He hated himself.

“Come on. Enough of this.” Theresa advanced across the glade.

“No! No!” Richard shrieked, hysteria spiralling. He shrank into the tree. “It’s raining! The water will come through the roof! We can’t fix it, Terry! You know we can’t!”

“Come on,” said Theresa, grasping his arm. The thin cotton of his sleeve, soaked transparent, clung to the bulbous knots of his veins.

Richard snatched back his arm. “It’s terrible, Terry,” he moaned, looking at her with limpid eyes, a washed-out blue. Theresa sighed.

“What is?”

Richard gazed at her in silence, shaking his head. The few wisps of his hair had come unstuck and waved softly, wilting to the wrong side of his temple.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “about the water. If it comes through again we can fix it.”

“We can’t,” Richard insisted. “We can’t afford it.”

“Richard, we can.” Theresa took his arm again. “Don’t be so ridiculous.”

“But you don’t understand!” he wailed. “You don’t know!”

“I know you did something very silly,” she said grimly, turning to march him back. He resisted for a moment, weeping, then allowed himself to be steered between the trees.

The kitchen was warm. Richard slid into his chair, compliant, while Theresa opened the oven. A cloud of mushroom and onions puffed out.

They ate quietly, rain pattering. Theresa felt the familiar wrench of yearning for the children, now grown, twined with relief that they weren’t around to endure what was happening at home. 

“You know,” Richard said in a reasonable tone, “if you would just let me explain – if you could understand the problems…”

He jumped as Theresa’s hand slammed the table.

“That’s enough,” she said. “There are no problems. Just ordinary things that everybody has to deal with.”

“Everybody doesn’t deal with this,” he snarled. “The roof is leaking! We’ve got rot in the timbers in the barn, the heater for the pool doesn’t work, the shutters don’t close in Samantha’s room…”

“It’s just maintenance.”

“… the dryer doesn’t dry properly!” Richard shrilled.

“It doesn’t matter, can’t you see?”

“But how are we going to pay for it? We don’t have the money!”

“We do have the money, Richard, for God’s sake!”

Richard cast back his head and started keening, an unnatural sound – like an elephant, thought Theresa wildly, or an old woman. A crazy, selfish old madwoman. Just like his mother.

“Stop it,” she hissed. “Shut up.”

The rage fizzed up like a shaken soda bottle and, through her fist, burst out upon Richard’s face. The faraway despair in his eyes flamed to bewilderment, then shock.

“You hit me!” he shrieked, scrambling out of his chair. “You hit me!”

Theresa tasted a brief surge of satisfaction, like a savory drop of blood. Swiftly, anger and sorrow soured the rush. He had driven her to this; what else could she do? Doctors were no help. He had brought this upon himself, and upon her. His selfishness would destroy their whole family.

She stood up and stepped away. Richard was quailing in horror, tentatively touching his face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Stepping towards him, she felt a stab of guilt as he flinched. “Let me see it.” A patch of red bloomed across the furrows of his cheek. 

“Richard,” she said, laying a hand on the crook of his arm, “it’s all so unnecessary.” His eyes flared, but he didn’t move, like a cornered animal.

“You wanted this house,” he spat. “You insisted on it. I didn’t want it. You wanted it, and now we have all these problems.”

“The only problems we have, Richard, are the result of you fiddling your taxes!”

“Fiddling taxes,” he scoffed. “That’s not…”

“You think the rules don’t apply to you,” Theresa stormed. “This is what comes from being raised in a crazy family. Who calls a child a king?” she sneered.

Richard stared, defiant.

“The problems in this house,” he started.

“There are no problems!” Theresa screamed. “You are the problem! It’s all in your mind!”

Theresa, his iron queen, broke down. Sobbing, she fled the room. Her tears triggered his own and, once more, Richard began to cry. Sooty streaks found the crevices in his crumpled face and filled them like runoff from a blackened river. One by one the stones of the castle in his mind came tumbling down around him.

*

Ben Shepherd has published short stories in Crimewave, Fictive Dream, London Magazine, and Magma. He was runner-up for Writing Magazine’s Grand Flash Prize, and is currently assembling his first short story collection. He lives in Leeds.

Shooter Flash: “Third Date” by Crystal Fraser

Posted on by Standard Reply

By the time the moths appeared, it was too late. Somewhere, buried in the folds of scratchy wool and inherited cashmere, immune to desiccated lavender and scent-faded cedar balls, eggs had already been laid. Larvae, microscopic, fed on the fabric, ate through it and, come spring, took flight in winged form. The small brown moths were the worst: a sure sign of holes to come.

Nina had already spied several of the pests that week. Now, she closed in on one marking her apartment wall, a tan smudge almost camouflaged upon the scarred, flaking paint. The moths never moved quickly; even if they did fly off, they fluttered weakly, like dust swirled by a subway gust. This one stayed put. Nina plucked it, rolled her fingers together and brushed off the remains. Particles of wing, paper-thin, drifted into the trash can beside her easel. It was too late to save one of her few pairs of silk underwear; with a little more larval lunching, Nina might pass it off as a crotchless panty. But she could, at the very least, take revenge.

She held up the undergarment towards the light filtering through the smut-greyed window, which was large but, as it overlooked the subway line and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, enabled more soot- than sun-trapping. Little holes sprayed the fabric as if it had been caught in a miniature drive-by. Given the amount of attention men had paid to her lingerie in recent years, it didn’t much matter; Nina may as well go commando. She felt mournful all the same, balling up the underwear and tossing it the way of its muncher. It was a relic of years past, a time when someone might have admired her in it but, despite the leaner body of youth, she hadn’t had the courage to flaunt it. Just to buy lingerie on rare occasions, to please herself. And now that she had dug it out to consider wearing it, it was no longer an option.

*

Crystal Fraser’s stories and essays have been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, MacGuffin, The Iconoclast, Potato Soup Journal, Flash Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches high school history in Indianapolis, where she lives with her husband and two kids.

Shooter Flash: “The Oak” by Jennie Stevenson

Posted on by Standard Reply

“And this is you,” says Eva, showing me into my new home.

It’s pleasant enough – The Oaks is very upmarket – but we both know what it really is: death’s waiting room. My things, already delivered, are the pitiful sum of an entire life: trinkets, books, photo albums I haven’t opened in years. At least my wardrobe is a rainbow of velvets and silks.

A vase of spring flowers stands on the table, from Eva, and my eyes prick with tears. How long has it been – if ever – since someone gave me flowers?

There’s a soft thwock from outside: my flat, on the first floor, overlooks the tennis court. A man in tennis gear is exiting the court, an elderly woman on each arm, laughing. His hair is white, but his shoulders are broad, his arms still muscular and tanned. 

“Found the quarterback,” I murmur. The kind of guy who would never notice me.

Eva laughs. “That’s Tom. He’s quite popular with the ladies.” I bet.

My new doctor arrives. I notice Eva stealing glances at him as he checks over my medical records, and I don’t blame her – if I were a few years younger, I might have flirted with him myself.

They leave and the room feels empty. I need some air.

*

When I reach the huge oak in the centre of the retirement village, I stop to rest my aching hips on the bench curving around its trunk. A voice startles me: the jock, a ribbon of sandpaper between his fingers.

“Hi. I’m Tom.”

He’s carving ornate patterns on the arm of the bench: leaves, flowers, birds.

“Oh! It’s beautiful. You’re a woodworker?”

He smiles. “Used to be. Still am when my hands let me. You?”

“I’m… I used to be a travel writer.”

He sighs. “I would have loved to travel. What was your favourite place?”

I laugh. “I can’t choose. It would be like choosing a favourite child.”

“Tell me about them.” So I do. I tell him about haggling for spices in the crowded passages of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, the drifting cherry blossom in Kyoto in spring, the dizzying cliffs of the Italian riviera. After a while he stops carving, closes his eyes and listens so intently I think he’s fallen asleep.

When I’ve finished, he asks, “Do you play chess?” When I say no, he laughs and says he’ll teach me. “Same time tomorrow?”

*

His chess set is exquisite. “I’ll make you one too,” he tells me. “My shelves are full, and if I offer to make anything for the ladies here they’ll only get the wrong idea.” Subtext: he can offer one to me, because he couldn’t possibly be interested.

“No grandchildren?” I ask, lightly.

He sighs. “No. I never – met the right person. I was engaged once, but for the wrong reasons, so I broke it off. You?”

“No. Same.” Our eyes meet – a fleeting understanding? Or am I kidding myself?

*

As the branches above us turn green, he teaches me to play chess, and then he carves a set for me. I bring my photo albums, the pages sticking together, and show him places I’ve been and known and loved, and sometimes he carves and sometimes he just closes his eyes and listens. 

Then he brings his photographs to show me: cribs that will become family heirlooms, a bookcase for an eccentric professor, a couple of fiddles he made just for the challenge of it.

One day, we find a couple locked in an embrace on what I’ve come to think of as our bench: Eva and the doctor. I wink at her as they disappear toward the doctors’ quarters.

*

Eva stops by our bench a few weeks later, smiling as she looks from one to the other of us. Above, the leaves are just starting to turn.

I ask about the doctor and she tells us that they’ve split. “I want to focus on work… and honestly? He’s kind of a dick.” 

Tom laughs heartily, but after she’s gone, his mood turns. “Sex before marriage, career before a relationship… It’s a different world to the one where we grew up. Makes me wonder how things could have been different…” He sighs. “In the next life, I guess.”

“Do you believe in reincarnation?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I just want to believe I could have a do-over. It’s only when you get to the end you realise what really matters.”

“What would you do differently?”

He shrugs again. “Travel?” He places his hand next to mine, and my blood fizzes. “Be braver.” He slips his hand over mine, and my heart judders in my chest. “And I hope… I hope I would have met you sooner.”

I turn toward him, and our eyes meet, and then he kisses me. And I’m aware of everything and nothing: the thousand sighing leaves above us, his hand cupping my face, the solid bench beneath us and the beating of my heart. He breaks off and smiles at me. “Same time tomorrow?”

*

I’m woken by hammering on my door. The world outside is cold and grey, shrouded in fog.

Eva. She’s holding something in her hands, but it’s her eyes I notice first: they’re swollen and red.

“I’m sorry. This should get easier, but it never does. And I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

His huge heart: a massive heart attack.

“I think he would have wanted you to have this.” 

She hands me the object: a carving of two figures on a bench, hand in hand, their foreheads touching, one with broad shoulders and still-muscular arms. I see the sharp crease in my trousers, the scarf in my pocket, my neat goatee: how clearly he saw me. How much love went into this. How much time we wasted. And across the bottom, the flowing inscription: To Jack, until the next life. All my love, Tom.

*  *  *

Jennie Stevenson is an English graduate currently working as a freelance content writer. Born and brought up in the north of England, she now lives in southern Sweden with her husband, where they are comfortably outnumbered by their children and pets.

Shooter Flash: “Gentleman’s Relish” by A. S. Partridge

Posted on by Standard 1

Ryan scrolled through his cache of hotties, looking for the girl eating watermelon. He’d accumulated mostly blondes and the golden manes blurred into a comet streak down the screen of his phone. Quickly, he scanned for the flash of crimson. He needed a quick reminder before their date, for which he was going to be late. Not that he cared.

There: the juicy bite, the tilt of the head, the sexily blackened eyes stopped him like a traffic light. Jana. They’d been messaging for about two weeks. The usual banter, followed by sexting, plus a bonus shot of her in a latex nurse outfit. 

Conveniently, Jana had agreed to meet him at the Looking Glass Cocktail Club, right around the corner from his apartment building, a new five-story development thrust up against a railway arch down a dingy Shoreditch side street. Ryan pushed into the cocktail bar and immediately spotted his date, perched at a corner table, crossed legs punctuated by four-inch stilettos.

“Heyyy,” she squealed, struggling upright to smooch him on the cheek and enveloping him in a fragrant mist.

“Jana. Good to finally meet you.” Ryan deepened his voice slightly. “Can I get you a drink or,” he nodded in the direction of her fruity concoction, “are you okay for now?”

“I’ll have another,” Jana purred, twisting a lock of hair around her finger.

Ryan went to the bar and ordered his usual, a Gentleman’s Relish – gin, something ginger, rhubarb bitters and a splash of tonic – and a Twisted Sister for Jana, with its exclamations of citrus rind. By the time they’d covered the standard topics of work, travel, and where they’d grown up, Jana was leaning into him, fingering the edge of his jacket.

“Your texts were really funny,” she said, “but I didn’t realise what a sweetheart you’d be in person.”

“No-one at work knows that about me,” Ryan sighed, looking deep into her eyes. “They all think I’m a robot. But I feel comfortable with you. You have such a calming energy.” Jana’s eyes grew large as she smiled back at him: widening pupils, a sure sign of attraction.

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured.

Jana seemed amused to discover how close by he lived, but she more than willingly tottered over to his place. They kissed in the lift, and by the time Ryan opened his front door, Jana was clawing him like a cat on a scratching post.

He’d tidied up beforehand. The duvet – a masculine brown – was smooth on the bed. The side lamp cast a dim glow. Ryan pulled her onto the bed and resumed kissing her, stroking her back until she was ready for more. Soon enough, Jana rose and started tugging at the buttons of his shirt. He eased off her top, plucking open the buttons of her jeans in preparation, then turned his attention to her chest. As he ran his hands over her curves he realised, with disappointment, that her bra was heavily padded. Quickly he reached around to unhook the back but as the bra fell away, Jana flattened him and pressed her mouth ardently against his.

He let her writhe around on top of him for a while, then flipped her over and reached into her jeans. Jana’s hips began moving more violently against his hand and soon she yanked herself upright, peeled off the rest of her clothes and began tugging at Ryan’s trousers. She seemed pretty intent; he might get away without using a condom. She wasn’t pausing. He was just going to let her ride.

When it was over, Jana collapsed beside him. She was panting and sweaty, but Ryan didn’t mind, now that it was finished. He let the dopamine wash him into a doze.

Later, he woke to Jana padding back from the bathroom, fully dressed.

“Hey,” she whispered, leaning over him. “I have to go.”

“Okay,” he said, feeling relieved. It was still ridiculously early; the sky past the edge of his blind glimmered weakly against the dark steel of the elevated railway tracks.

“Thanks,” she said, lowering to kiss him.

“Thank you,” he stirred himself to utter with sincerity.

The next few weeks were rammed as usual. He fit in a few fresh Tinder dates, keeping up the rotation. He thought about following up with Jana, but decided not to bother.

He was snatching lunch in the middle of a frantic day of meetings when his phone pinged and the watermelon materialised on his screen.

Hey Ryan, hope you’re well. Can we meet up this weekend?

Ryan smirked, fingers hovering. She’d probably been waiting for him to contact her while the frustration built to volcanic proportions. Why not see her a second time, he figured, starting to tap a reply. Toss her a pity bang. Then delete her.

He met Jana for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant along the roaring Kingsland Road. He was there first this time and failed to recognise her when she walked in, wearing a blue sweater, flats and a bare face. Pretty cocky to make no effort, he thought. She strode over and coolly kissed him on the cheek. Where was watermelon girl? All her flirtiness had dissolved.

“Red or white?” he asked, feeling disgruntled. He took his time scanning the menu. Not much of a face to look at tonight anyway.

“I’m not drinking,” she said, settling down. He could feel her eyeing him. Jesus, was she about to give him a hard time? Ryan figured he’d get a glass of the more expensive Sauv Blanc, if he was just buying for himself. A large glass.

“Maybe I should get a bottle anyway,” he said, trying to shift the mood. “I’ll drink for two.” Her face split into a satisfied grin. At last. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Perfect,” she said, opening the menu, “as it turns out that I’m eating for two.”

*

A. S. Partridge has published poetry, flash fiction, and short stories in numerous magazines including Aurora, Malahat Review, Popshot, Scribble, and others. She lives in Edinburgh, where she is working on a satirical novel about motherhood.

(Photo by Dainis Graveris on SexualAlpha)