Flash 2/2009, #1: Jay Lake
Golden Pepper
Death came on black-feathered wings for a woman in Port Ruin. She was the wife of a simple man, no great magos, or strategos of the armies, but rather a reseller of spices traded from the sun-drenched south. Yet when Death arrived in the last minute of her life, he found the man standing before her bed, waiting for him. Read more: HTML PDF
In This Issue: Jake Freivald
My Not-So-Funny Valentine
Stories of love dominate the month, including the Classic Flash, but there’s nothing Harlequinesque about them. Bruce has a new column, too, and a poignant story to exemplify his point. Also a note on Bill Highsmith’s outstanding contribution to our blog, some thank-you’s to those who help keep us running, and a wrap-up of the Preditors & Editors poll. Read more: HTML
Flash 2/2009, #2: Robert Borski
The Scarecrow’s Inamorata
Yes, it’s true what the crows say. My heart is filled with straw, my brain is imminently combustible, and I hang from a gibbet in a field of green, like a criminal, legs broken and dangled beneath me. It is also not blood that animates me, but the wind, such brief motion being just enough to scare away all but the more brazen of birds.... Read more: HTML PDF
Flash 2/2009, #3: Tony Rogers
The Universe Has It In For Harry
Harry and Sheryl passed each other on the stairs in the bed and breakfast. “I felt like I had known you all my life,” she told him later.
“Like we had grown up together in a small town. What are the odds?”
“It happens to me all the time.”
“Falling in love in a bed and breakfast?”
“Letting good things happen...” Read more: HTML PDF
Short-Short Sighted #9: Bruce Holland Rogers
Zoom! Writing A Lifetime In A Page Or Two
In this issue, Bruce Holland Rogers makes time fly by focusing on a lot of time in a small space. He uses a poignant 300-word story, “Dinosaur”, as an illustration. Read more: HTML
Flash 2/2009, #4: Bruce Holland Rogers
Dinosaur
When he was very young, he waved his arms, gnashed the teeth of his massive jaws, and tromped around the house so that the dishes trembled in the china cabinet. “Oh, for goodness sake,” his mother said. “You are not a dinosaur! You are a human being!” Since he was not a dinosaur, he thought for a time that he might be a pirate.... Read more: HTML
Classic Flash #15: Punch, May 28, 1919
A Spring Idyll
If wound stripes were given to soldiers on becoming casualties to Cupid’s archery barrage, Ronnie Morgan’s sleeve would be stiff with gilt embroidery. The spring offensive claimed him as an early victim. When he became an extensive purchaser of drab segments of fossilized soap, bottles of sticky brilliantine with a chemical odour, and postcards worked with polychromatic silk, the billet began to make inquiries. Read more: HTML PDF
