Posts in 2017
Last Supper

When he dreams now, all of his dreams seem tied to food, and all of the food is tied to memory. And the dreams he remembers most clearly are the ones that go back a long way, to the farthest jurisdictions of memory. Back to when he was a boy in Augusta, short enough to pass beneath the counter without bumping his head.

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flash, 2017SLMJake Sullins
Mother

When my mother says it’s nice to see me again I know she means her love for me could fill a lake, because when she told me she left a lizard in my room it was a crocodile…

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flash, 2017SLMChristopher James
Clean Girls

Caitlin enunciates the words mother and kitchen and mopping like each syllable has scrubbing properties, like she’s flossing with vowels, cleaning her mouth out for Mr. Gilcrest, our drama teacher. She hopes he’ll notice her A-plus-elocution and become her love slave.

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flash, 2017SLMRuth LeFaive
Loss Prevention

Things had gone bad, and toilet paper was out of the budget. Luckily, Griff's place was a quick walk from Walmart. At any hour he could crash in, deliver a clenched hello to the greeter, and, a few steps later, void himself in a corporate environment. No men's room door, just a labyrinthine entryway; no paper towels, just weapons-grade blowers; and best of all, no questions. 

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flash, 2017SLMBrett Stuckel
Dorian Vandercleef

When you're a failure at everything else, write a novel. That was the first line of my novel, spoken by Dorian Vandercleef—musician, artist, and social provocateur. My main character would never achieve fame, but I was confident this novel was my ticket to literary stardom.

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flash, 2017SLMJosh Denslow
Rope Burn

If Tara hadn’t crossed the rope bridge that bounced over the dry creek, she wouldn’t have agreed to go whitewater rafting with David and her camp counselor and the camp counselor’s girlfriend with the long, red highlights. Tara wouldn’t have laughed after the water roared in her face and the cold clapped away her breath.

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Unnamed Notebook

Although he has observed her in the hallway before (usually sporting white earphones, cord trailing to the iPhone in her back jeans’ pocket), today is different because she also clutches a notebook, the expensive kind (what is it called? mole something?) he saw on a Barnes & Noble display a few weeks earlier while shopping with his parents, and observing this girl again

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Koosh Motel

Mom worried that Gertie didn’t have any friends. Gertie never asked to go to someone’s house, and the avocado green phone that hung next to the refrigerator never rang for her. She didn’t talk about other kids from school. She didn’t talk much period.

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Lies My Babysitter Told Me

"Your parents told me I could have a pool party on my last night,” Lori said.

She finished rubbing baby oil into her legs and spritzed her hair with Sun-In. I treaded water. My parents hired Lori to look after me so they could “work on their marriage” in Hawaii …

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flash, 2017SLMErin Striff
The Dare

Here is Lacy in the Snacks aisle of the drugstore, a cornucopia of sweet and savory goodness. Here are the enticing rows of potato chips, corn chips, pretzels, cookies, cakes. Here are the brightly lit refrigerators with their myriad juices and colas and wine coolers.

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Do You Understand What I Am Saying?

Back in Minnesota, my mother is preparing to preach a sermon to her conservative congregation about how it is God's plan for us to welcome Muslims into our communities in no uncertain terms. She fully expects to be booed out of the pulpit and possibly fired, but she is doing it because she knows it is right.

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flash, 2017SLMKaj Tanaka
Teachable Moments

It’s a shameful thing to discover your ten-year-old stepson sucking face with his foot-tall Princess Amidala doll. In broad daylight. For anyone walking by his room to see. I’m quiet at first; I’m not here to give the kid a complex.

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flash, 2017SLMKara Vernor
Dissonance

It was at exactly 2: 22 Mountain Time when all the dogs started barking and howling, no growling, no whining, and the Light Sleepers woke first, and started yelling hush, and the more Concerned Sleepers got out of bed to see why their dogs were barking…

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flash, 2017SLMDiane Payne
The Long Way Home

That night, I heard the sound of someone being killed. Not simply dying, being killed. It was a scraping, metal sound. I was the last to leave work that night, locking the back door behind me.

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flash, 2017SLMCathy Ulrich
One Night with Mr. Clean

Picture this: you go to drinks with Mr. Clean. You’re attracted to him—he’s serious, quiet, laughs softly at your jokes. “We could go back to my place,” you say. Mr. Clean nods, not that enthusiastically. He’s playing it cool.

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flash, 2017SLMAmy Silverberg
They Call Them Budding Toes

We Californians don’t know volcanoes, at least not the active kind. We don’t appreciate the viscosity of molten lava, for instance. We can’t distinguish between lava and magma, though we’re fairly certain either one can kill you.

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flash, 2017SLMMarléne Zadig
Remember That

Put the brush down for one goddamn second, her father says. But she doesn’t. She won’t. She stands by the kitchen window and pulls the brush through her hair, thick and wavy, the glory of it all fanning behind her in the sunlight like a mermaid’s.

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flash, 2017SLMShasta Grant
Devoured

I am standing on the corner in my blue flannel nightgown that I’ve had since high school, waiting for the bus to come in. Cesar is on that bus, I know it. I saw him get on at Geary and Van Ness when he switched from the 28-Geary downtown to the 43-Van Ness to the beach.

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