Flash Fiction Friday: The Needle and the Haystack

I. The Haystack "We're looking for a white van," the policeman said, looming out of his patrol car in with a glare. His face was made for frowning and he had the weight and bulk of a boxer in his full and violent prime. "Well,"  the attendant said nervously, "y-you've certainly come to the right...

Flash Fiction Friday: The Pickpocket Queen of San Francisco

San Francisco 1900. It had been five hours since Big Tilda had been arrested, and she was very upset. The police had locked her in an interrogation room without any respect for her status or so much as a by-your-leave and had promptly forgotten her. It was downright disrespectful. Insulting even. She was the Pickpocket Queen...

Flash Fiction Friday: The Greatest Detective in the World

In a long, narrow building at the end of a long, narrow street lived the Greatest Detective in the World. He had never solved a single crime, but in his long life he had read countless mysteries, and devoured every true crime novel and newspaper report he could get his hands on. And he had...

Flash Fiction Friday: In the Silence of the Muse

Alice always wore a mask when she played. Pure white porcelain, unadorned, and perfectly sculpted to her face.  She loved that mask. The coolness against her skin. The way her fingers danced. She was not Alice in those moments. There was no Alice. There was only the music. The mask gave her that. It freed...

Flash Fiction Friday: The Great Fire

The old man watched as the house burned. The fire spread from room to room in a crackling orgy of smoke and flames. The smell. The noise. The heat. There was a strange beauty to it—a fatal, blackening dance that consumed everything in its path. The old man was not sure how long he stood there...

Flash Fiction Friday: Along the Waterfront

They waited on the waterfront for Mr. Birch to arrive. There were five of them—distinguished men in long coats and expensive shoes. Their cars were parked down the road, and their drivers were milling around out of sight. None of them wanted to be there. Mr. Summerscale checked his watch for the third time and...

Flash Fiction Friday: The Last Flamingo Trainer

It was two o'clock on a Friday afternoon, when the flamingo trainer presented his card. He was a stout, little man with oil-slick hair and a dark woolen suit. "You may inform your master that Mr. Frederico Ardovini is here," he announced grandly. "The Greatest Flamingo Trainer in the world!" The old man who opened...

Flash Fiction Friday: The Girl Who Caught Lightning

There was once a little girl who could ride the lightning as easily as you or I could ride a train or a bus. Her name was Eve and she was six years old. She lived in a little house on the end of Menagerie Road with her mother, two sisters and a cat. Eve...

Flash Fiction Friday: The Bone Collector

The girl wakes every morning long before the sun rises. She is eleven years old, or perhaps twelve. Birthdays are for other people. People with parents and sisters and brothers. She sees them sometimes on the edges, walking hand-in-hand, laughing or talking or crying. The girl never laughs, and she never speaks unless to whisper...