Tag Archives: short story

Shooter Flash: “Winter Camp” by Gary Finnegan

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The middle distance absorbed her gaze. Her sleeves, her nerves, frayed. Moths had chewed holes in the coats of the children; the children had eaten nothing for days. Days had been given to a journey, to the mantra, ‘Things will be better when we get to the camp.’ 

Now, her five-lined brow, like sheet music without a note, knew hope was a hollow lie. To be hungry and afraid and uncertain and on the move was the second-worst state of being. Hungry, afraid, uncertain and stationary was worse by miles. 

‘Did you wash those hands,’ she said, clawing at the paws of the youngest, fussing at a tap. ‘Got to wash those hands every time here, okay? Every time. Or you’ll get sick, like her.’

She nodded towards the next tarp, the day-old home of a family nursing a preschooler through the vomiting bug that was pinballing its way through the camp. 

Her own youngest straw-haired child stood passive and slack as her mother worked the gaps between the child’s fingers with a cement-coloured flannel. 

‘Did you change that vest,’ the mother asked. ‘Gotta change damp vests or you’ll get sick.’

She was curt, she knew that, but child management was the only available task and had to be done with vigour. It was, she reminded herself, in the children’s interests that their mother maintained standards. If you slid into apathy, you accepted death’s call.

The child was silent, and had been since they arrived. The three of them – the father having stayed behind – filed down the line until they reached an unribboned tent. There they tied the piece of cloth collected at the gate around a pole ‒ their claim on nine square metres of shelter, open on one side to the brown dust and ceaseless flow of human anguish. 

‘When is food coming, Mom?’

The older child, listless now, spoke for her sibling, spoke for everyone in the camp. The mother changed tack, opting not to lie, not to say, ‘Soon, love, just wait another while.’ 

Instead: ‘I don’t know.’

Would it have been better to stay and spend their hope under a familiar roof? As she wondered, an unwelcome competitive instinct surged within her at the sight of more new arrivals. ‘They need to shut the camp,’ she exhaled in a whisper. ‘Place is full.’

How many could be fed here? How many could make it across the border when it reopened? Who would decide who stayed, who went, who ate, and how much? 

She could do nothing. And it killed her to seek help while wishing it were denied to others.

‘Come here to me,’ she barked at the eldest child. ‘Those socks need changing.’ 

*

Gary Finnegan’s fiction has appeared in Litro, The London Magazine, The Phare, Roi Fainéant and Flash Fiction Magazine. He is the winner of the Frazzled Lit Short Story Award 2025 and received an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland in August 2025. He has an MA in creative writing from Maynooth University and is working on a novel. 

Shooter Flash: “Whiteout” by Julia Carver

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The ski lift bumped Rick onto its metal bench and toted him skyward. Glittering slopes fell away, frosted runs and dark crevices of trees winding down to the valley floor far below. In the distance, toy cars pulled into the parking lot from the snaking highway, which ribboned back along the edge of the foothills, over the frozen river and behind the humpbacked mounds of earth that sheltered town.

As they’d put the newspaper to bed later than usual the night before and he’d woken to a whiteout, Rick figured he could be late for the weekly editorial meeting. The editors would gripe but after three years of covering small-town courts, cops and haemorrhoid-inducing council meetings, he didn’t care.

He propped one ski on the footrest and let the other swing, gently rocking the chair. The landscape lay silent and serene, air refreshing as ice water. He nodded to a beat in his head. He’d left his headphones in the house this morning, as well as his ski gloves, hustling to get out of there while Candice was in the shower. She was wigging him out with all the baby stuff, having ramped up her mission since turning thirty.

He couldn’t imagine having kids. It just didn’t compute. He figured it would happen some day, sure — later, down the line. But this was his first job out of grad school. He was living in the now; the future was a nebulous concept hanging somewhere in the distance, blank and unfathomable as the winter sky.

The chairlift groaned and, with an icy scrape, clanged to a halt. Rick’s chair bounced and he stopped swinging his leg, waiting for the cable to resume its uphill tow. He craned his head to see what was happening at the base. No-one was in sight and no-one else appeared to be riding the lift, either.

Rick sighed and settled back. Empty quads dotted the way ahead to the exit ramp, an aerial ellipsis that marked time between the end of one run and the start of another. He blew into his hands and watched the thickening snowfall settle on the swaying chairs. He would miss the whole meeting at this rate, but whatever.

A crimson ski patroller was flashing down from the lift tower, carving swift turns beneath the stalled chairs. He slid to a precise halt under Rick, skis perfectly parallel.

“How you doing up there?” he called. “You alright?”

“Yup. What’s happening?” Rick called back.

“Bullwheel’s stuck. We’re takin’ a look at it. Just be a few minutes I reckon. Otherwise we’ll have to get someone out here to evacuate you. You ok to hang tight for now?”

“Yeah,” said Rick, startled at the prospect of being winched down like a cat from a tree. “How will—” he started, but the patroller had pushed off already, surfing the sparkling snow drifts around the chairlift pillars like powder waves.

Damn, he thought, a cold crackle running over his body. Why in hell had he come out here before work? He could have gone to the meeting, on time, and driven out here afterwards to hit a few runs during lunch.

The fingers on his left hand were tingling now, a pins-and-needles sensation. What if he didn’t get down soon? His fingers were nipped; soon actual frostbite would set in. What if he lost fingers? How would he do his job?

Candice would leave him. She was already disgruntled; why would she stick with a digitally-compromised freak? She might have to support him. Would loss of fingers qualify for disability? This thought calmed Rick slightly. Benefit money. Ok. He could take some time, write a novel. That might not be so bad.

He peered down at the ground: it was a solid fifty, maybe sixty-foot drop. This was crazy; he was stranded. His phone was sitting in the car. No skiers had gone by in thirty minutes.

To the east, he could see skiers riding the Marmot lift. Because Thunder was down, everyone was avoiding the area. Rick’s goggles began to steam up. He worked a rigid finger behind the lens to wipe it clear and finally spied someone, a snowboarder, carving turns down the Ampitheater run. 

“Hey!” he shouted, waving his arms. “Hey! Over here!” The boarder had seen him, had cut away from the centre of the run and was sliding towards him. She sent up a powder spray as she swung the board round sharply and edged to a halt. She pushed up her goggles.

Oh god, Rick thought.

“Rick?” The girl peered up at him, first in disbelief, then amusement. He found himself, momentarily, flashing back to their last interaction, when he’d laid into her for missing an assignment at the courthouse. “What’re you doing up there?”

“Hi Jaz,” he said. “They sent you out here?”

“Mike heard ski patrol was gonna evacuate someone over the scanner,” she said, slinging her backpack onto the ground and fishing out equipment. “Told me to come get the shot.” She grinned, fitting lens to camera.

“Come on, Jaz,” Rick said. “Give me a break. Mike’ll flip his lid. Can you go get ski patrol instead? I’ve been sitting up here for over half an hour. My fingers are about to fall off.”

Jasmine cocked her head. “I’ve got to get the shot, Rick,” she said.

Two patrollers swept towards them towing a rescue sled. “We’re gonna get you down,” called the one from earlier. Jasmine planted her snowboard next to the pillar, trudged through the snow for a better angle and started snapping the rescue mission. Rick wished he’d jumped when he had the chance.

The patrollers slung a rope over the lift cable. One of them rooted himself into the snow to belay the other, who climbed up to Rick’s chair. “Howdy,” he said when he reached the top, strapping Rick into a harness with expert efficiency.

“I could probably just climb down myself,” Rick grumbled. Jasmine was clicking away.

“Gotta strap you in. Safety regulations,” said the patrolman, signalling his partner to let out the rope. Dangling Rick between his legs, he rappelled them both earthward. Rick felt like a bit of meat on a line: editorial bait. His legs buckled when he reached the ground.

He dreaded to think how he would explain himself to Mike. His job, his relationship, his life — everything seemed suddenly, thanks to one innocent matutinal detour, to teeter at the edge of a crevasse. He dug his poles into the snowpack and pushed off, quickly, to catch up with Jasmine.

“Jaz!” he called out, drawing level. She’d strapped her pack back over her neon jacket and was rocking her way downhill in the slouchy, rhythmic manner of snowboarders. “Jaz, just say they evacuated the person before you got there. Don’t show them the pictures.” She turned, but Rick couldn’t see through the tinted lens of her goggles.

Jasmine pulled ahead. Snow was falling in fat, heavy flakes, whiting out his view. Like broken bar lights, her neon form started to sputter behind the curtain of snow. Whatever, he thought. He’d catch up with her in the parking lot. Right now, he’d just try to focus on the short run he was going to get, and forget about the other stuff. It was really blizzarding; he could hardly see five feet in front of him. The earth, the sky, the world was white: a blank, empty void, full of nothing, and he was skiing right into it.

*

Julia Carver is a former news reporter who lives in Gunnison, Colorado, with her husband and two dogs. She has published fiction in the Whitefish Review, Salt Hill, Helix, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a novel.

Shooter Flash: “River Without Current” by Thomas McEvoy

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In Mama’s last letter, she wrote that there’s no opportunity at the Napo River Lodge, where Papa works. She warned that if I continued to live with Papa, I would end up like Yolanda, chopping vegetables in the kitchen, or Maria, who cleans rooms every day. She even asked him what future our girl has at the lodge.

When Papa finished reading the letter, he crumpled it and threw it into the bin. I had to flatten it and read it alone. I wanted to talk to Papa, to ask him when I could go and join Mama, but I was afraid. I’d seen the look on his face as he read it, and I didn’t want to see that again.

The Napo River is all Papa knows. He wouldn’t leave because there’s nothing else for him.

That night, I used a flashlight and cocooned myself under the bedsheets, going over every word about Mama’s city, imagining the hotel she worked at and the school I’d go to. Papa had homeschooled me all my life, but I yearned to be part of what Mama described. I fell asleep thinking of the capital’s smooth, asphalted roads.

The next day, I told Papa we should go out searching for caimans, just the two of us, like we used to when I was younger. I figured that way I could talk to him, convince him to let me go and join Mama.

“We’ll go another time,” Papa said. He’d been out all day bird-watching with a group of Americans. Americans are the most demanding clients, but they tip the most, so Papa makes an extra effort with them. 

Then I lost the letter. I’d kept it under my mattress so nobody could find it. I’d read it every night, thinking that if I did, I would dream of the city. It was my way of bringing what I desired into existence. The letter was gone. I wondered if Maria had found it. I didn’t want to say anything in case she read it or told Papa. Instead, I tried to remember the letter, word by word.

One evening, Papa finished dinner with the Americans and looked for me.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re going caiman searching.”

I didn’t feel like going anymore.

“You wanted to, right?” Papa said. “Fetch your light.”

My flashlight was a prized possession. It was silver and looked out of place in the jungle. That’s why I liked it. It was a gift from a Dutch tourist, one of many who pass by for a couple of days, never to be seen again.

We set out in the canoe without a word. We knew the right spot. As we approached, we lifted our oars and shut off our flashlights. We floated on the river without a current, bathed in total darkness. At night, the Amazon comes to life. You hear the loud and constant buzz of cicadas, the croaks of frogs, and the howling of monkeys deep in the jungle.

Papa believes caimans are stoic. I didn’t know what that word meant until he explained. Caimans like to stay close to the shore, partly submerged in the river, motionless. Usually, the crest of their head, spine, and tail is visible. If you make a sudden movement or sound that scares them, they will lash or disappear quietly in an instant. The trick is to mirror them and relax. Papa showed me. If you do, they’re happy to lie still as you shine on them, their eyes blazing like marbles of fire.

“Papa—”

He turned on his flashlight. “There they are, look.”

Two caimans huddled together by the bank. The distance from their orange eyes to the tips of their long tails showed just how large they were. We illuminated their leather bodies, staring into their unblinking bright eyes. It was a game we used to play: shining on the caimans to see how long they’d stay.

We kept our lights steady, trying not to frighten them. After a couple of minutes, the bigger caiman went under without a sound, like a silent submarine. We focused on the remaining caiman, trying to extend the moment. The canoe ebbed side to side, mimicking Papa’s slow and deep breaths. Then the second caiman left.

“They’re gone,” I said, disappointed.

Papa closed his large hand around mine, placing a worn piece of paper in my palm. The weight told me what it was: Mama’s letter. It wasn’t Maria who had taken it from under my bed. It was him. He knew I’d been reading it.

“I wanted you to have it back,” Papa said quietly. His voice sounded like the creak of the canoe, something old and strained.

I berated myself, feeling as though my nightly rituals with the letter had sealed my fate. Holding it again, the city’s pull faded, replaced by guilt. 

“It’s time,” Papa said softly, as he picked up the oar. 

A man of few words, I knew this was how he let me go. I placed the flashlight in front of me, but I didn’t switch it on, not wanting him to see my face. I grabbed my oar to help us back. I opened my mouth to speak, but the jungle drowned me out.

*

Thomas McEvoy is a Paraguayan-born British writer who has lived in Panama, Honduras, Ecuador, Japan, Canada, Spain, and England. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Liverpool. His fiction has appeared in J Journal: New Writing for Justice, Scoundrel Time, and Collateral Journal.

Shooter Flash: “Lisa’s Little Lie” by Steven Bays

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The wheels of the gurney squeaked as an aide moved Lisa to recovery. Half asleep, she stirred, then moaned and curled into a fetal position. She pulled the sheets over her shoulder and stuck one foot out from under. When she saw the blue hospital sock, she remembered where she was. A feeling of nausea overcame her and she cupped her hand under her chin. A nurse noticed and held a small kidney-shaped bowl, just in time for Lisa to vomit.  

“It’s the anesthesia,” a nurse said. “It’ll pass. Drink this.” She gave her some apple juice. Lisa tried drinking but the nausea came back. She closed her eyes. “Could I have some ice chips instead, please?” she asked. 

Lisa did better with those. They soothed her thirst and she no longer felt sick.

The nurse asked, “Are you ready for a visitor?”

Lisa nodded, and her boyfriend Peter came in. He sat on the edge of her bed. 

“You okay?” he asked. “You don’t look so good.”

Lisa nodded. “Yeah, just a little nauseous.” 

Peter waived his hand. “What smells?”

“I puked. Sorry.” 

“How do you feel?”   

“Like I was out drinking all night.”

Peter waited until the nurse stepped far enough away that she couldn’t hear. 

“No, I mean now that it’s over. Any regrets?”  

“Peter, not now.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just having a hard time with this.”

The nurse came back to check on Lisa.  

“When can she leave?” Peter asked. 

“As soon as she can keep something down, use the bathroom. Won’t be too long.”

Peter had always been good to Lisa. She knew that someday he would ask her to marry him. Even now, after what she’d put him through. He’d brooded about her indiscretion for days but he forgave her. Still, he didn’t want her to have the procedure. She remembered the argument.  

“It’s not right. It’s a sin. We’re Catholic for Christ’s sake. I don’t care if it ain’t mine. We’ll get married, and I’ll adopt it.”

Lisa knew she wasn’t ready to be a mother and doubted Peter would make a good husband.

“Who’s the father?” he’d demanded.

“Does it matter? I made a mistake, I’m sorry. Can we leave it at that?”

“I know the guy. Is that it?”

“No, you don’t. And it’s better if it stays that way.”

“Can you at least tell me how many times you cheated?”

“Once.”

“Once?” 

“Yeah, imagine my luck.” 

“Does the father know?” 

“No. And I’m not telling him.” 

The nurse brought some apple juice and asked, “You feeling better yet hon?”  

Lisa smiled yes. As soon as the nurse stepped away, Peter asked, “Are we still going to Brian’s?” 

“Yes.”

“Why? Do we have to?” 

“It’s close by and I can rest. Don’t worry, he’s working. I have his key.”

“I’d rather take you home.” 

“Are you kidding?” She whispered so no one would hear. “You want me to sit on that train for a freaking hour? My mother will flip out when she sees me like this. What do I tell her? Oh, I skipped work to have an abortion? No. Take me to Brian’s.”  

“Is he the father?”

“Keep your voice down. No. Just a friend.”

They were silent for a bit. Peter worried whether he could ever trust her again. Lisa’s guilt about what she’d done to him made her wonder if she’d made the right decision.

The nurse broke the silence. “Do you think you could use the ladies’ room?”

Lisa said yes, and the nurse walked her to the bathroom.  

After being discharged, they took a cab to Brian’s.

“I’m gonna take a nap,” she said. Lisa went to the bedroom and climbed into Brian’s bed.   

Peter watched TV in the living room. After a while, he stuck his head into the bedroom. Seeing Lisa awake, he asked, “Are you okay?” 

“I could use some Tylenol,” she said. 

Peter checked the bathroom. “None in here. Guess I’ll run out and buy some.”

“Look in the kitchen.”

Peter did as she suggested. He looked in the cupboards, shuffling things around, searching behind cereal boxes and cans. Utensils rattled as a drawer opened, then slammed shut. The noise stopped, and Lisa heard the tap running. Peter walked into the bedroom holding a bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water. 

“Here.” He handed it to her. Lisa took two pills and then gave back the empty glass.  

“I thought you said you’d never been here before.” He stood with his arms folded in front of his chest. “How’d you know where he kept the Tylenol?”  

Lisa frowned. “I didn’t. It was a guess. Don’t your folks keep any meds in the kitchen?”

“I don’t know if I can believe anything you say.”

“Look, I’m not lying. I’ve never been here before. And Brian, first, he’s not the father, and second, he’s just a good friend from work.”

They started arguing again. The same argument they’d had when she first told him of her infidelity, only more heated. 

“Yeah, you’ve been fucking Brian,” Peter said. “Who knows how many other guys you’re screwing behind my back.”

Stung by his accusations, she decided to tell him the truth. At this point, Lisa didn’t care if she hurt his feelings.

“I wasn’t going to tell you who the father was, because,” she hesitated. “Well. I figured keeping it a secret from you would be the best thing to do. So, I lied. I never cheated on you. The baby was yours. If you knew you were the father, you’d never let me have the abortion.”

Peter raised his hand to strike her. Lisa stared at him, daring him. He froze for a moment, then dropped his arm and stormed out of the apartment. 

*

Steven Bays was born in Greece but at the age of two immigrated to the US, where he was raised in Brooklyn, New York. He always dabbled in writing but took it seriously after retiring from a thirty-five-year career in telecommunications. He enjoys long walks, listening to music, working out at the gym, and playing guitar in a rock-and-roll cover band. His stories have appeared in various online magazines.

Shooter Flash: “Red Light Green Light” by Johanna Bernhuber

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Mornings were always rushed, but Angie was particularly antic today – racing around, playing, not getting dressed when asked for the twentieth time. Susan had ten minutes to get her to school and she wasn’t even dressed yet herself.

“Come on!” she bellowed, as Angie tore past wielding a set of streamers like the Olympic torch. “Get dressed now!” And before she could push it away: You little shit, she thought. 

Delete, delete, delete, she thought frantically and froze. She could hear nothing but the sound of Angie playing, still not getting dressed.

Susan hurried to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, peering closely into her eyes. Her heart seized when she perceived, deep within the right pupil, a speck, not of green, but of red.

She ran into Angie’s room, where the child was finally struggling into her sweatshirt. Susan grabbed her slim, warm body and hugged her tightly. “I love you,” she said. “I love you so, so much.”

“Mom!” Angie protested, squirming. “I’m trying to get dressed!” But her little face was smiling, and when she finished pushing her arms through the sleeves, she threw them around her mother’s waist and returned her hug.

Maybe it’s alright, Susan thought, stroking Angie’s smooth hair and dropping a kiss upon her head. It was just a small blip. Maybe nothing will happen.

“Come on,” she said gently, kissing her one last time. “We’re going to be late.”

Together they got up and got ready to leave, Susan gathering Angie’s backpack, water bottle and jacket while Angie strapped on her shoes. She threw on a long coat over her pyjamas. The house looked like a hurricane had hit it, but Susan resolved to tackle the mess later, once Angie was safely in school.

They reached the door, opened it, and were halted by a man dressed in gray on the doorstep.

“No,” Susan gasped, clutching Angie. 

“Mrs Harber,” the man said. “We received an alert of a verbal infraction.”

“No,” Susan gabbled, “it was nothing. I was just trying to get Angie dressed and now she is, you see, and we have to get to school. She’s late as it is. We must get going, will you please let us by?”

“Verbal infractions need to be followed up,” the man said, waving forward a woman, also in gray, who waited behind him. “Let’s have a little chat.”

The woman held out her hand to Angie. Susan hung on.

“You musn’t,” Susan gasped. “She’s very well looked after. I look after her, all the time, every day. I love her, you mustn’t take her.”

“We just need to speak with your mom,” the woman said to Angie, ignoring Susan. “You come with me. I’ll get you a special treat, would you like that? But come now otherwise you might get into trouble, and you don’t want that.”

Angie looked up at Susan. Her hazel eyes, always so beautifully clear, shone with worry. Her mouth quivered. “Don’t worry Mom,” she whispered. “It will be ok.” She eased from Susan’s arms and went with the beckoning woman, who led her to a van parked on the street in front of the house.

Susan tried to go after her, but the man in gray blocked her path.

“Shall we?” he said, gesturing into the house.

Susan sobbed, Angie having melted from view, and turned helplessly to retreat into the house, collapsing on the nearest sofa. The man perched on a neighboring armchair and leaned forward.

“Mrs Harber, I am Agent Blain,” he said. “Do you know why I’m here?”

“Yes,” Susan said, miserably. “But it was only a split second, a careless moment. I was frustrated. It didn’t mean anything. I love my child, more than anything. It was just a moment.”

“Mrs Harber,” the agent said, “life is made up of moments.” He paused. “That’s why moments are important. Do you feel unable to perform the day-to-day duties of motherhood?”

Susan shook her head vigorously. 

“No, not at all. I mean, I’m fine – I’m in control. I’m happy.” She smiled awkwardly, against the tears. 

“You may think it’s just one thought, but our research shows that actions – negative actions – don’t occur without the negative thoughts that precede them. With right thinking, right actions follow.”

Susan nodded, kneading her hands in her lap.

“It won’t happen again,” she said hoarsely. “It’s never happened before.” Forcefully, she pushed I’m not lying I’m not lying across her brain.

“It’s true this is your first infraction,” said Agent Blain, standing up and adjusting his jacket – the one all agents wore, with the high, circular collar. “And as such we will return your child to you, with a warning. But we will, you understand, have to take some precautions. Including placing you under elevated watch.” He moved to the door and, as he opened it, Susan could see the woman in gray leading Angie back up the path to the house. 

“You’d better get this one to school,” the woman said, releasing her with a pat on the back.

“Yes of course,” Susan said, flooded with relief. “Right away. Thank you.” She knelt down to hug her daughter close, but felt Angie stiffen.

“Are you ok?” she asked, pulling back to look at her. In the background, the agents’ van pulled away from the kerb. Angie looked slightly dazed.

“Why did you think that?” she whispered.

“Oh sweetheart,” Susan said, feeling stabbed through the heart. “It wasn’t about you, it wasn’t. It was just – you weren’t cooperating, and I felt stressed. I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t something I said.”

“But you thought it.” Angie’s voice rose.

“That’s not the same. You can’t always control your thoughts.” She hesitated, then added, “But we do have to try.”

“That’s what the lady said.” Angie looked up, frowning, and met Susan’s gaze. Looking into her eyes, Susan caught her breath.

Deep within Angie’s right pupil, surrounded by the soft flecked gold of her iris, glowed a bright speck of green.

Which then, within Angie’s accusatory face, abruptly flicked to red.

* 

Johanna Bernhuber is a psychologist who has written for the Chicago Sun-Times, and has published short fiction and non-fiction in Whitefish Review, Ginosko and Denver Quarterly. She has three children and lives in Illinois with her husband, one dog, and too many books.

Shooter Flash: “Pool Wolf” by Robin Dennis

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I pull the handle and the door nearly comes off in my hand. I take a plate as thin as a sucked Polo, thin enough to crack over your knee. Just the weight of it puts me off my dinner. 

Dad’s busy at the sink like all this is normal. Maybe it is normal for him now. But if it’s normal now, then it must’ve been normal before; you can’t just change who you are. All that time he must have been pretending, hiding the fact that he can live like this. 

He turns to me, then turns back without speaking, like I’m miles away. There’s barely enough of him to dry up the dishes. 

*

He takes me to his room in the attic. He shows me the banister over the stairs. He puts my finger on a groove in the wood. He asks what I think made it, the groove in the wood. 

We sit at the table, and I can’t leave until I eat. In Africa, kids are starving. They lie with flies in their eyes, bored as horses. I guess it’s normal for them. 

*

Wednesday’s swimming, so we go to the pool. Dad pays us in and sits on a fold-out bench with his fists on his knees. 

I bob in the water, swim to and fro. The wolf doesn’t seem to be here today. I ask someone if he is, and he says no. Underwater, I open my eyes wide enough to check the grates, blood beating in my ears.  

*

In bed I watch Steven Seagal put holes in people and roll their bodies off his boat. I can hear him in the attic, the man who was here before. I can see him on the stairs, a rope round his throat – perfectly still, as though he’s floating. The plates are his. The plates and pretty much everything else. He made the marks and the rips on the lino, broke the cupboard door. My dad just came and took it all. 

*

The wolf’s back on Wednesday, walking on hind legs and running his claws along the walls – plaster crumbling, wires pissing sparks. One’s dancing like a snake, shooting fire across the tiles, and I wonder what’d happen if it went in the water. Sparks falling like upside-down fireworks, glutting the bottom with gold. 

He takes a woman’s head off and her girl starts to cry. She’s young, maybe five. He takes a bite and drops it, then disappears round the corner to the little pool, through the footbath that connects the two. I look to my dad, but his bench is empty, folded up. A lifeguard’s already coming over with a bucket and mop. 

* * *

Robin Dennis is from the East Midlands, and teaches English in southern Germany. His writing has previously appeared in Stimulus Respond.

Shooter Flash: “The Last Day of the Rest of Your Life” by Johanna Bernhuber

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It’s the first day of middle school and you’re still in bed. I laid out your clothes for you last night, warm from the dryer and freshly folded. Now, I pour your juice, flip your pancakes, and call your name for the third time. You already sleep like a teenager, though you’re one year and two months short.

Summer has been long. Your hands are more used to a fishing rod than a pen. Every day you trail grass and dirt into the house from your sneakers; your bare feet spatter chlorine trails across the kitchen floor. School seems like an impossibility after two months of total freedom.

You slouch to the counter and eat, monosyllabic. My upbeat chatter bounces off you like a cartoon forcefield. You carry your breakfast things to the sink and I give you a hug, which is momentarily accepted. I’m proud of you, I say, feeling the bird bones of your shoulder blades beneath the thick sweatshirt. You’ll do great. 

I hustle you out the door and grab my own keys, handbag, scarf. You hoist your new bulletproof backpack over one shoulder. We play your music in the car as you gaze out the window: wide front lawns, trees dripping crimson leaves. The right turn to your old school, where we turn left. You can probably ride this journey on your bike but not yet. For now you’re safe in my car.

I pull up at the kerb and can’t resist smoothing your hair, though you shrug me off. A big kid now. Have a good first day sweetheart, I say. You get out and swing your backpack over both shoulders. 

When you shut the car door, you stoop and give me a small wave. I can tell from the look on your face that you’re being brave, masking the nerves. A new school, new kids, new teachers. Part of you wants to get back in the car and drive back to summer, even as you lope toward the stone steps. I put on a big smile and wave back, thumbs up. I keep looking, and waving, just in case you look back again, one last time. 

You climb the steps alongside the other kids and all of you wait, one by one, to pass through the metal detectors, into the unknown.

*

Johanna Bernhuber is a psychologist who has written for the Chicago Sun-Times, and has published short fiction and nonfiction in Whitefish Review and Denver Quarterly. She has three children and lives in Illinois with her husband, one dog, and too many books.

Shooter Flash: “In the Wake Of” by Elizabeth Vidas

Posted on by Standard 1

She caught Stan coming out of the bathroom, one hand down his pants as he fumbled with his shirttails.

“Stan, come with me,” she said. “I have something to show you in the hydrangeas.”

Not the most seductive line, but Stan was her second-to-last target, she was tired, and he would certainly follow her into the bushes or under the kitchen sink if she asked. Sure enough, in five minutes she had undone his carefully tucked dress shirt, and he was grasping at her breasts with puffy palms.

Stan was the twelfth man Louisa had kissed that night. Most had been easy marks, though the professors were suspiciously self-assured: they grabbed her waist or hiked up her leg as if used to younger, suppler limbs. Only one – a grad student – had seemed ill at ease. He’d stammered, acting calm, but there was sweat on his mustache. She’d reconciled herself to a quick peck.

She crossed the lawn to the bar, a fold-out table draped in white cloth. Pouring a martini, she glanced around. Her garden looked well, of course. The Cambridge wives chatted vigorously next to the hydrangeas, determined to play at normality. Their husbands stood beside them, subdued. The pockets of guests had thinned out – Louisa smiled into her drink, thinking that soon she would be in a Manhattan studio. She would call Hannah from social-work school, and they would meet at Café Figaro. Maybe she would even look up some Sacred Heart girls; she assumed they were still on the Upper East Side. Scrutinizing their perms and reminiscing about Sister Margaret’s mole might be a laugh. 

She eyed her final target. David was standing by what she called the baby fountain, a cherub holding a bird bath. She stepped from stone to stone on the garden path until she reached him. He looked down as she approached, giving his Dark and Stormy a swirl. They watched the amber tornado settle in his glass.

“This is one of your better parties,” he said.

“Well. It’s not every day one’s husband retires from teaching and married life.”

He sighed. “Louisa.”

It was petty, but she wouldn’t admit it, so she looked towards the garden instead. The last of the guests were leaving: some gave fake, cheery waves while others walked determinedly towards their cars. 

“I kissed all your friends.”

“You did what?”

“I kissed all of them. Paul and Jared were a little gropey – I think they’re used to a student set. And Aaron was mechanical. He’s been handsome for so long, he must rely on muscle memory now. Stan was greedy—”

“You kissed Stan?”

“That’s what shocks you?”

“Louisa, what are you doing?”

“I’m kissing all the men. Because after twenty years, I don’t owe anything to anyone. I didn’t join the wives’ book clubs or go to your colleagues’ asinine lectures—”

“So I’m responsible for that? Twenty years ago you were so prophetic you thought you’d save yourself the trouble?” 

“I didn’t save myself from anything.”

The porch light went on, and Louisa glanced over automatically. Inside was the sofa bed where he’d been sleeping. Each morning he was gone by the time she woke up; seeing his reading glasses on the wicker table always gave her a stomach cramp. Just two round lenses, but somehow they conjured the arc of his lips, the hair between his eyebrows he refused to pluck.

“I’m going to kiss you, David.”

He said nothing, looked at the porch lights. It amazed Louisa that he was leaving her for an older woman – an unattractive one, no less. She’d seen her at the university, gray bob and blue blazer. Louisa put a hand between his shoulders and turned his face towards hers. His mouth was motionless, his eyes unfocused; she suspected he was parleying with Elaine in his mind. She kissed him, and they were back at the café in the Village, where she’d leaned across the checkered tablecloth as he’d described Plato’s chair. Where he’d confessed how he’d been scared of the man-sized monkeys in Wizard of Oz. He was squinting through his glasses at the opera; he was folding them into his pocket before grabbing her by the vest, kissing her in front of the Washington Square Arch, and she knew she would follow him to the end of the earth, into any hydrangea bush, or onto the porch bed, as she did now.

*

Elizabeth Vidas is a writer and teacher living in Montpellier, France. Her short story “Smoldering” will appear in the upcoming issue of Western Humanities Review.

Shooter Flash: “Meta-metamorphosis” by Andreas Smith

Posted on by Standard 3

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from awful dreams he discovered that he had changed in his squalid corner into a little man. He stood on his two pale legs, stretched out his two pale arms, stifled a scream, and nearly fainted.

This was no dream.

In the opposite corner his parents were fast asleep, head to head, their antennae lovingly entwined and their hard brown backs glinting in the first rays of the sun. Nearby his young sister, half sunk in the soggy green morsel of bread she had been sucking on for the whole of the previous day, looked almost angelic as that same sunlight crept towards her under the kitchen cabinet. All three slept on contented, engorged and satiated with life’s bounteous harvest, as if nothing at all could go wrong in this, surely the best of all possible worlds. It was, then, a typical morning in the life of a normal, happy family of cockroaches.

But something had gone wrong – something terrible. Gregor shivered, pulled a piece of foil from an old ball of dust and hair, and wrapped the foil round his shameful nakedness. A rusty pin, for months lying barely noticed in the den, he now took up and thrust through the foil to secure it.

His sister stirred first and, seeing the thing her brother had become, emitted a deranged clicking noise as she frantically pursued herself in circles. Not that the parents were much calmer: they scrambled out of the den onto the kitchen floor at the sight of their son’s transformation, their beloved handsome son, now this… this monster. The father, recalling his position as master of the den and realising, as cockroach patriarchs always have, the danger presented by the vast desert of a recently mopped kitchen floor, forced his wife back under the cabinet to the safety of the den, with its moist, fetid air, rotting fragments of food, and years of dirt drifted into random heaps. The three huddled together and, afraid even to blink, gawped at Gregor. He stretched out an arm, friendly or threatening, it mattered not: his father, drawing on his old reserves of cockroach courage, dashed at his son, butted him in the groin, and knocked him flat. Never was a snout put to better use than this! Meanwhile, wife and daughter, instinct conquering fear, rolled everything roundabout towards Gregor’s corner – dust balls, breadcrumbs, meat and cheese pellets, spent matchsticks, mucus-encrusted tissues – till Gregor was imprisoned behind a barricade of rubbish. He got up, brushed himself down, once again secured his modesty with the rusty pin, and peered through a gap in the barricade. “Father, mother, dear sister – it’s me, Gregor, your beloved son and brother!” At the awful noise, incomprehensible and unearthly, the family backed off. Certainly it was a Gregor, but of what sort?

Mother’s tears seeped.

But time moves on. Gregor’s sister, hunger again gnawing at her belly, crawled over to her putrid soggy green breakfast and sank her face in it. Mother poked her wet snout through the gap and, despite everything, gazed lovingly at her son. He was busy tidying up his corner, as if disgusted by the lovely filth in which he had been fortunate enough to be hatched. It pained her to see how ungrateful he now was as he gracelessly paced back and forth on his thick and ugly white legs, his once comely face now an ugly mask of disgust and disapproval. Father, dining on a dainty morsel of rotten bacon and occasionally glancing through the gap, suddenly brought up the contents of his stomach and, no doubt stirred by fatherly obligation, vomited them towards Gregor (his only son, after all). But Gregor, even more disgusted than before, ignored his father’s offering. Let him starve then, like the countless ungrateful wretches before him!

As the days passed and the old normality became a faded dream, the family learned to bear their affliction. It was unfortunate that Gregor’s mad repugnance at filth and squalor had led to his living quarters deteriorating into a state of the utmost cleanliness (his poor house-proud mother could hardly bear to look), but even more disturbing was his rejection of any food at all, even the splendid lump of cat vomit his sister, at immense effort, had barged all the way across the kitchen to the den and then through the gap – only for her beloved brother to turn his back on her! So, while they gorged themselves on the fruits of the earth, Gregor, whose share of these fruits was his by right, became thin and weak, and was soon just a bag of bones, whining and wheezing and muttering gibberish to himself in his corner, the food that he once relished no longer the equal of his fastidiousness. No one now bothered to shore up the crumbling barricade: only a fantasist would look upon its pathetic prisoner as some dangerous monster, plotting evil against the world as he lurked in infernal cleanliness.

It was the mother’s mournful scrabbling which announced Gregor’s final end. There was much moistness in their eyes that morning, though it soon dried up. Life goes on, after all. They considered eating Gregor, but an old taboo, its origins lost in the mists of time, held them back. His parents dragged the corpse to the cat bowl at the far end of the kitchen. On returning to the den, they were pleasantly surprised to see that their daughter, stretching her many legs and tucking into a tasty titbit of something or other, was on the verge of becoming a fully grown cockroach in her own right, indeed a great beauty.

*

Thus did Hermann Kafka, canny businessman and father of Franz, an obscure author, strive to outdo his son, whose literary ambitions he scorned. But the son was more cunning than the father imagined: he stole his father’s crude fairy-tale, turned it on its head, and wrote a Metamorphosis of his own.

* * *

Andreas Smith has published stories in several UK literary magazines, including Monk and Storgy. He has also written several novels and is now represented by the David Grossman Literary Agency in London. He lives in County Durham and works as a freelance editor, though he sometimes travels to India for several months at a time to write in cafes while drinking chai and watching cows pass by.

Shooter Flash: “The Silence” by A S Partridge

Posted on by Standard Reply

The baby was crying. Again. Susan had just sunk into sleep ten minutes before – blessed, blackout unconsciousness – and was now wrenched back to the surface by those piercing, incessant cries.

“No,” she moaned, pressing the side of her face deeper into the grubby warmth of her pillow. Laundry, among other things, was overdue. “Shut up.”

I can’t take it any more, she thought, groggily, as the cries escalated. It was the four-month sleep regression. Apparently that was a thing: sleep regressions.

Something that had not been a thing, for Susan: The Golden Hour. Her son, instead, was whisked straight to NICU and intubated through a perspex box. Another thing, but not for her: The Letdown. In Susan’s case it applied purely in the emotional sense – no breastmilk, no oxytocin hit. After weeks of squeezing and pumping, she’d accepted defeat and resorted to formula, despite the exhortations of a parade of nurses, breastmilk advocates and healthcare visitors. One more thing, for the record: a Partner. No dad’s better than a bad dad, Susan frequently told herself. Plenty of women struggled with unhelpful mates, she knew; but in her alternate universe, in the dead of night, there was a pair of hands to lift the screaming baby from its cot and remove it, somewhere else, out of earshot.

The baby continued to cry, louder now, no doubt needing a nappy change, a feed, a cuddle. It was incessant, relentless. “Shut up!” Susan yelled, shoving back the bedclothes and propelling herself upright. One sleep cycle was all she needed, a straight ninety minutes, then she could cope. Just one. On top of four months of broken sleep, it had been several nights in a row of waking hourly. Hourly. Her brain felt scrambled, swollen, bulging within the confines of her overheated skull.

She stormed around the bed to reach the cot on the other side, her vision swimming in the dark. The lump of her child lay within, wailing mouth aglow in a shaft of moonlight slanting past the edge of the blind. Seized by fury, Susan gripped the wooden edge of the cot. “For the love of god,” she screamed, for the third time, “shut up!”

The silence fell so immediately that Susan took a moment to register it. Then she wondered if she was, in fact, dreaming, or if she’d had a stroke. Had she fallen instantly deaf? For there lay her child, mouth open, the image of a squalling infant – yet no sound emerged.

Shocked by an icy jolt, Susan reached in and picked up the boy. He remained frozen – not just mute, but stock-still, a stone statue in mid-scream.

“Jakey,” she said, clutching his swaddled body to her before holding him aloft in the moonlight. “Jakey! Wake up!”

She pressed her ear to his chest and there, fast and soft, fluttered his heart. Raising him to her face, she felt the whisper of his warm breath upon her cheek. She sank onto the bed, cradling his small form – her darling, her beloved. The room whirled, so quiet that Susan could hear a faint ringing, like tinnitus.

She drew back and placed the baby gently on the bed, unwinding the folds of his swaddling cloth. His fists lay tightly balled, bent legs stiff in the air. Mindlessly Susan changed his nappy and flashed onto the memory of changing a plastic doll in prenatal class, a class that purported to prepare you for everything yet only proved, in retrospect, to prepare you for nothing.

With the baby clean and wrapped up again, Susan gathered him to her chest and slid back into bed. His mouth remained open wide, soundless; body warm yet unmoving. Susan drew the covers over them both and leaned back into the pillows. Tucked up warm with the curled animal of her infant at her breast: this was the dream of motherhood, the very picture of parental bliss. The maternal fantasy, the ideal.

The silence was a gift, surely. It couldn’t last long; ideals never did. So Susan resigned herself to sleep, and sank numbly into blackness. Reality would return soon enough. It had to.

*

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.