Flash Fiction Home
Archive VIII – Apr-Nov 2024
Archive VII – Jan-Apr 2024
Archive VI – Sept-Dec 2023
Archive V – Apr-Sept 2023
Archive IV – Jan-Apr 2023
Archive III – Oct-Dec 2022
Archive II – Aug-Oct 2022
Archive I – Jul-Aug 2022
When mother turns out the light, the shadows from the window light wake the man in the wallpaper.
Sometimes he whispers to me, telling me the things he wants; the bones in my fingers, the #blood behind my eyes.
It’s when the Wallpaper Man is quiet that I’m most afraid.#vss365 pic.twitter.com/R6rJM2esN8
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) December 31, 2023
We tell stories, not around the fire but about it.
Each log adds a chapter and we try to predict what will happen, but the fire itself is the narrator.
It’s a slow story and we are drawn in by the silences; the ending unsure as it may come from a log not #yet placed.#vss365 pic.twitter.com/Xy4pC1lPZ9
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) December 16, 2023
The Cupid that shot us ended up living with my wife and I for a while and we learned a lot, like, while #volant, many couldn’t soar, only hover a foot off the ground.
“Just cuz you have legs, can you run a marathon?” he asked, belching while finishing the last beer.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) December 11, 2023
The old woman in rags shooed me off the bench in the park in Paris and uttered what I didn’t realize was a curse at the time… “Jamais de #denouement”.
I can’t remember what happened next.
And I’ve not been able to retain the ending to any story since.
Or have I?#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) November 30, 2023
Nan waved to us from the window; she rarely came out to see us anymore. Uncle Ed always said she was not well.
When he passed we found that she’d been dead for a year, hooked up to cables and wires at the window; a mashup of Home Alone, Psycho and #Weekend at Bernie’s.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) November 25, 2023
The fox told them to count the seconds, but this was also backwards.
“The #lightning is meant to come first, is it not?” Portia asked. Charlie’s grip tightened in her hand.
There it was, the flash. The treehouse shook.
“The thunder is getting closer,” said the fox.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) November 23, 2023
She knew everyone in her global cabinet was a #sycophant but didn’t care.
The world was not ready for a woman to lead it and with the alien horde advancing, she had bigger problems.
So what if her cabinet had two faces, the aliens had five, and much sharper tongues.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) November 21, 2023
She had a gifted tongue but to hear every #language she knew, and some she didn’t, spoken all at the same time took the breath out of my ears.
The bedframe crashed to the floor, the old priest’s hand shook. The veins in her face and neck bubbled.
The devil was winning.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) November 16, 2023
The walls smell of absinthe and sex; the Club provides a #tranquil space for those who want to indulge in mysticism and experiment with their soul.
In the rainy street just outside, people bustle by, unaware of the magic that thrives in the back of the bodega.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) November 15, 2023
She puts her little hand in mine as we stroll across the park and my mind is suddenly filled with images of a space #beyond our own; faces melting under an exploding sun.
I let go of her and the images disappear.
She looks up at me.
“You saw it too, didn’t you daddy?”#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) November 2, 2023
Once they knew us, not what our bodies were made of but our true #constitution, our inherent will to exist, the greys sought to befriend, not exterminate, us.
They were all we knew of the universe.
Had we known about the greens we might have chosen a different ally.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) November 1, 2023
I write how I feel about you – the page is stained with the blood, sweat and tears of unrequited love – and hide the note in your gym locker and await the #thrill of it being found.
The press conference does not disappoint.
The investigators have no other leads.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 31, 2023
The vines crept up the bedposts of all the residents in Clemon’s Gulch and wrapped themselves lightly around ankles.
Dreams were full of #beauty and peace; the vines receded before dawn.
The life expectancy in Clemon’s Gulch is 20 years more than the national average.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 29, 2023
At the carnival, away from the fun and candy floss, there’s a small booth, homemade.
“Take a #spin,” the gaunt man in the top hat calls.
The wheel is halved; one side says flourish, the other says #wither.
A man spins and turns to ash, blowing away into the night sky.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 28, 2023
There’s something beautiful about an afternoon #wander through the cemetery near my son’s house; the well-kept grounds, the lack of traffic, the quiet.
I do the sums on the gravestones as I pass, looking for stories.
When I reach my own I grow tired again and lie down.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 23, 2023
The shower glass is fogged and I have shampoo in my eye and, for a second, squinting, I see the #shape of you at the sink, brushing your teeth.
But it can’t be you. I know this.
I wipe my eye and the glass and the not-you is gone.
The not-you is everywhere these days.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 17, 2023
You’ve been in a dive like The #Scotsman before: sticky floors, day drinkers, ordering anything other than chips to eat raises eyebrows.
When the greys came, they didn’t contact world leaders or governments, they came here and judged humanity on the regulars they met.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 13, 2023
It was a magical place. Whatever you planted in the #ground, a tree would grow bearing more of it as fruit.
Oranges, toy cars and mason jars.
Belle loved her little brother so much she couldn’t wait for the tree to grow. She ignored his screams as she buried him alive.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 9, 2023
Nona gave me a kiss, then kissed her finger and touched it to the #sigil carved into the wall above the bed.
She’d done that ever since I was a kid and I never asked why. I asked her now.
She leaned in and whispered:
“To keep your dreams safe from mine.”#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 7, 2023
I regret how I said goodbye. Face flushed, heart racing, a storm inside me unleashed.
I meant it. Every word.
Until I didn’t.
Now I know only this #endless cycle of guilt and regret and happiness and guilt and there are no more goodbyes because you’ve taken them away.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 2, 2023
The gap where the cushions meet in the couch is not comfortable to sit on, and I like leaning to the right, so I’ve shifted to the other arm and now here we are, months later, night after night, not touching, and that gap has turned into a #chasm I know not how to cross.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 27, 2023
Lucy peered into the dustbin looking for the source of the muffled sound. She removed a take away tray and it became clearer: #chanting.
She leaned in and a skeleton hand rose from the trash, grabbed her by the face and pulled her in.
The lid closed lightly.#vss365
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 26, 2023
The next universe over knows nothing of the #colours of the rainbow; everything is a shade of everything else.
Slate-grey indicates love, licorice is envy and jet black is anger.
We watch them through the Versavision and imagine what they’d look like colourized.#vss365 pic.twitter.com/vGtOrZrG3r
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 21, 2023
In a long-locked room in Uncle Henry’s estate we found a model of our solar system, the metallic orbs rotating in their stands.
As I moved closer I nudged the table and the #sun dislodged and rolled under the cabinet.
The light from the windows suddenly went dark.#vss365 pic.twitter.com/mVuOQmO2YN
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 16, 2023