Meeting at Night

Free Flash Fiction has released their first anthology of flash fiction pieces titled The Flashing Type . One of the stories included is a scribbling of yours truly: "Kind Alice." I am very happy to have had my work selected for this anthology. It is the first time anything of mine has been published in this format. Along with my story, there are 49 other pieces by very talented flash fiction authors. The best part: the whole thing only costs $0.99! It can be downloaded as a Kindle Edition here .

Today is the day I do it. I will say something to Tall Coffee, Black.     I will tell him something. That he's cute. That I like his choice. That he smells like home.     Something to start a dialogue. To show him I exist. To make myself an option for him.     It will happen today.     Okay, he's walking up. Do this, do this, do this, he's only one man, one guy is all he is, one guy with divine brown hair expertly parted to one side and held by just a touch of gel, one male with a voice smoother than vanilla ice cream on your throat in summer, one man with the smile I see every restless night when I can't sleep, he's only that man, the one.     “Morning. Tall coffee, black, please.”     “Yes sir, coming right up.”     I get his coffee, look at his face while he looks somewhere else, hand him the cup, and, again, for the 56th day in a row, I am silent, saying nothing of note.     “Thanks, have a nice day.”     I couldn't even muster up a You,

Alice was always very kind to me.     She and granny shared a house together for as long as I can remember. She had been friends with my granny since they were in grade school. They even went to college together in the late '60s. When we learned about bra-burning protests in history class, I thought of them.     Alice didn't come from money, but her husband had made quite a bit before he died. He had invented one of those things that no one knows about, but is used in half of the stuff we buy, some space-age polymer or revolutionary chemical protein.     So Alice did things for me.     She knew what my favorite candy was, Sour Patch Kids, and since I was nine she'd always have a bag for me when I came over. When I was twelve, she bought me a new bike, shiny and red with 18 gears, and she even bought me a new, soft, silicone bike-seat -- “That seat that came with it looks like a pain in the butt.” When I was fifteen, Alice gave me $500 at the beginning of summer an

My eyes don’t lie, and they say you’ve never been here before but my vision feels you all around me all the time, like you live inside me everywhere I go these days a passenger I will never drop off my couch. I smell memories of sex that never occurred here or did we, did you come out of my mind while I slept and have your way with me on top? My ears pick up the echo of a scream, an argument we had once, but never really, about me wanting you to leave with me for the other place where we do all things easy every night, where we love without any ties, where we cry only together for sad films. My fingers find you on me when I wake from short naps and your skin presses me down into my sheets of sweat so thick as you do me in waves of slow then fast in stages of love and regret in licks of no then yes and you never stop me when I pull you down with me into the salt water where we can’t drink at all but live forever submerged into one thing found when

The Reason I Hate The Shining Another night of fear Just like the last, just like the next Another gulp slides down her hatch Impossible to count how many there have been Another bottle hits the wall I hop, skip, and jump through the brown glass Escaping her fumbled attempt at capture A little soldier in a minefield, Running from the enemy My feet, somehow, are uncut I run, faster than when I'm on the playground I slam the bathroom door Booms, bangs, and bad words demand entrance I hide, curled up in the corner of the bathtub It feels weird here being dry, un-wet Like an empty throat waiting to be fed I wait It has been calm for a while I think I slip out of the tub, away from my refuge And tread across the the dirty tile towards the door As my arm extends for the knob, it happens The thick, shiny blade pushes into the door, almost all the way through I, aged eight, return to my cold tub and tease it with tears while my Mother tries to chop the doo

Mary liked the song. It was slow and brooding, like something Clapton might’ve done in the sixties, before cocaine became his master. Outside the hip little bar, people were sipping wine under big umbrellas even though it was dark out. Inside, there was no haze of cigarette smoke, and Mary didn't like that. She had seen all the old Bogart movies where the bars billowed with gray clouds.  Mary sat at a table near the small stage, alone, drinking. Nothing girly for her: tall glass of scotch, no ice. She fidgeted with her black, curly hair, but made sure not to touch the green bandana she had very carefully woven in to make her hair look messy. Before leaving the house that night, she’d looked in the mirror. Low-cut black shirt, skin-tight jeans, a touch of eyeliner, a dab of lip gloss, and cowgirl boots from a trendy thrift store where the clothes cost more than new ones. The word that came to mind when she looked at herself was “compromise,” but she wasn't sure anymore what

I wake up in a funk, some amazingly sad Radiohead song spinning through my head. I turn over. She’s not there. I look at the clock: “Ugh…” I pull the covers back up and close my eyes. The baby is crying: “Ugh…” I get up and cross the bedroom to her crib. Her little arms are flailing about, tears mixing with snot as she begs for attention. I pick her up, clean her face, and hum the song stuck in my head. She quickly falls back asleep. What do you know: the kid’s got good taste. I lay her back down and search for my wife. She’s not in the house. The car is still in the garage. There is no note on the fridge. I peek out the curtains of the back window. She’s in the backyard, bundled up, sitting on the bench. It’s January. I look at the thermometer: “Ugh…” I put on my coat, slip my feet into my boots, and brace myself before opening the door, half afraid of the cold, and half afraid of “why?” She hears the backdoor open and looks up, then right back down: bad sign. I tr

You asked me to stop talking about sex stop whispering about love to start talking about us. But can't I still talk about you? And how you smile grandly when I walk in your space even when I look scrubby and sleepy. Or how when we walk and your arm brushes mine I feel the sun exchange from your skin to my heart. But don't forget that day by the fence when you looked around first before tugging me into your body and I lifted you laughing into the sky where your hair is always at play. And the night the boundary blurred gray and we met for the first time beyond the box in an empty park where dusk engulfed your fears of loss and gave you to me for but only one hour as we held out for as long as we dared before your world rang you away from me again and reminded me of finality. So that night my inbox bumped up one digit and you were back in our space where we are free of ties and lives to just be alone inside each others' mind and hug with v

That moment, your new girlfriend discovers that all your Internet passwords are the name of your last girlfriend, that moment, well, it really sucks. That next moment, the one where she looks at me with beggar's eyes wanting to know if I still love my ex, that moment, yeah, is even worse. That last moment, where I look back at her knowing the truth, but not sure if I want her to know it too, that moment, sigh, I wanna lie. *This was actually the very first thing I ever had published. It appeared in the Daytona State College Literary Magazine called Aeolus . It is far from my best work, but it's important: this was the first step, a small one, but a necessary one.