In This Issue: Suzanne VincentHow Did I Get Here September?Stefanie Freele gives us the sense that our friend Bruce Holland Rogers may not be as mild-mannered as we like to think in How Did I Get Here Bruce. Abigail Shaw gives us Outside the Chase, a love triangle of sorts, involving a man, a woman, and Death. Katherine Clardy’s Vet takes social work to a whole new level. Shane Rhinewald’s horror/fantasy, Good As New, gives us a grim and visceral view of bullying. Our Classic Flash is the excellent The Lie by Holloway Horn: A true classic. Read more: HTML Flash 8/2012, #1: Stefanie FreeleHow Did I Get Here BruceOn the eleventh floor is a man named Bruce. On each floor, the coveted rooms are the four corners, the only rooms with two windows. Read more: HTML Flash 8/2012, #2: Abigail ShawOutside The ChaseThis feeling should be love. It is love underneath, but it’s wrapped in something hard and cold and perpetual. Death. Death’s followed Aaron for twenty years. Death came for Aaron’s father first, a cruel illness that halved his body (no more walks in the woods), laid him flat (no more car journeys to nowhere), muted him utterly (no more wise words), and finally sputtered him out like a spent candle. Aaron was seven, and he didn’t understand. Read more: HTML Flash 9/2012, #1: Katherine ClardyVet“He won’t hurt you,” said the girl. She sat cross-legged at the head of her bed, unicorn plush cradled in her lap, eyes wide and earnest. “He’s nice.” The nightmare’s tail lashed, and it curled around the girl’s shoulders. Resting its jaw atop her curls, it bared fangs that dripped with ectoplasmic venom. She giggled, swatting it away. “No tickling!” This was not what I had expected. Read more: HTML Flash 9/2012, #2: Shane RhinewaldGood As NewThe next day Lauren came home with two more holes — one above her collarbone, another in her upper thigh. Martin tended to them with peroxide and slathered them with antibiotic ointment while she vented about the girls at school. When he finished, he stuffed both holes with cotton because he’d run out of gauze and patted her cheek. “There, all better. Good as new,” he said, standing. He kissed her on the forehead, and she looked at him with her mother’s faded blue eyes. Read more: HTML Classic Flash #61: Holloway HornThe LieThe punt was moored at the lower end of Glover’s Island on the Middlesex side, and rose and fell gently on the ebbing tide. A girl was lying back amidst the cushions, her hands behind her head, looking up through the vague tracery of leaves to the soft moonlight. Even in the garish day she was pretty, but in that enchanting dimness she was wildly beautiful. The hint of strength around her mouth was not quite so evident perhaps. Her hair was the colour of oaten straw in autumn and her deep blue eyes were dark in the gathering night. Read more: HTML |