101 Words

101 Word Short Stories

Take a Seat

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He walks in through swinging doors like it’s the old west at high noon. He feels like checking his heels for spurs but thinks twice because he’s tired of levity and aching for conversation.

Across the bar, one patron sips a beer, the dim light catching on the amber liquid. Her chestnut hair hangs to her shoulders and tiny wrinkles adorn her eyes. Smiling with anticipation, he glides across the room, sliding on his bated breath.

He’s been waiting for so long, it seems the inevitability is just a drink waiting for a refill, so he orders and takes a seat.

— Patience

Flash Fiction Sunday Edition – Issue 1

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Welcome to the first Flash Fiction Sunday Edition!

The goal for this weekly serial is to highlight great Flash Fiction from around the web and expose readers to new authors and publishers. Each week a rotating cast of curators will highlight their favorite stories from around the Flash Fiction scene.

Without further ado, here is your Sunday reading.

Flash Fiction chosen by Les Weil of 101 Words

Both of these stories are from Doorknobs and Bodypaint. The name of this magazine might seem a little odd, but for 77 issues, Doorknobs has offered some of the best flash fiction on the web. Check out the wonderful archive of stories by over 400 authors, spanning over twenty years.

“Master Builder” by Beverly Vines-Haines via Doorknobs and Bodypaint.

How often do we overlook excellence when it shows up in ordinary things.

“The Nice Guy” by Dan Jackson via Doorknobs and Bodypaint.

Do you believe in Karma?

Flash Fiction chosen by Mallory Smart of Maudlin House

“Quantum Entanglement” by Alexandra Pasian via theEEEL by tNY.Press.

tNY.Press is known for defying conventional standards on all things literature, so it’s not so surprising to find a great piece like this on their site. Good flash should always be a snapshot. It can be a feeling, a time, a place, an awkward glance some dude gave you on the subway — anything. This piece is an instagrammed death wrapped in sepia: gut wrenching yet somehow warm.

“Death Too Will Die” by Robin Wyatt Dunn via Literary Orphans.

Any piece that uses the word ‘penumbra’ in a semi-accurate way deserves to be acknowledged. So I liked this piece for that and its poetic feel. It’s featured in Literary Orphans new issue: Strummer (fists up for the Punk Rock Warlord). It’s another piece about death but this one manages to be more patient with less words. I liked it for the imagery and the flow.

P.S. I’m not obsessed with death, everyone else is.

“Burn Me, Love” by Alexis A. Hunter via Freeze Frame Fiction.

This piece is a bit longer than what I usually go for, but it’s still cool because none of the words are filler or fluff. This was put out by Freeze Frame Fiction and I was pleasantly surprised. This is my first time reading anything by this publication, so it was definitely new territory for me. I liked the pace and how the story is told in stages. It’s a good jilted read.

A Wonderful World

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The man stopped walking and clutched his chest, leaned towards the facade and collapsed. Guttural cries escaped his clenched teeth as I passed by. I looked over my shoulder and there he was, surrounded by people, everyone taking a few extra steps around him.

No one stopped.

When I got home, I stood by the window and looked out. The man died surrounded by people, of that I was sure, and the ambulance would not arrive until the next day, when his pockets were empty and stomach kicked up his throat.

Louis Armstrong sang on the radio, “What a wonderful world.”

— Anton Hildingsson

Sophie

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Sophie was besotted. There was no other word for it. She hung on his every word. Smitten, his mum would have said. When he left the room her eyes followed him, and when he re-entered, the room lit up.

Every night, cuddling by the fire: he with his warm, knitted jumpers and she with a blanket, keeping the cold and the rest of the world at bay. When he glanced down at her, she melted.

He reached over, gently stroking her head. “Come on girl, walkies!” Sophie bounced up, and, with her tail wagging excitedly, followed him out into the garden.

— Louise Edensor

Veronica

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“You’ve got the wrong girl.” I stepped back from the crumbling walkway.

He looked at me, his baby blues switching from glazed and unseeing to defiantly crass. “No, it’s you, Veronica. We used to skate down at the Roller Lounge. You were so elegant, so beautiful.”

My mind was racing; was he just confused? “Sorry, sir,” I said. “I’m not Veronica.”

His face flushed a dark plum. “Don’t lie to me! I heard you that night. You … you were wrong. I had to correct you.”

He moved closer, and suddenly I knew what became of Veronica Kristal all those years before.

— Emily Clayton

The Wonder Years

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The day I turned nine I received my very first pair of bell bottoms. They were groovy, I dare say; bright white and turquoise, fitting just right as they hung off my hips and flared out at the knees. I wore them the entire day and into the next. I was, after all, a flower child of the 1960s.

As I struggle to get through this thing called life, I wonder what ever happened to that bell bottom girl. But, like looking into a 3D picture, I relax my mind and eyes and find her there, hiding behind the wonder years.

— Mary Mack