#flash nonfiction

[claybefree]

Tulip Poplar

Sorrow is my own yard

where the new grass

flames as it has flamed

often before but not

with the cold fire

that closes round me this year

William Carlos Williams- The Widow’s Lament in Springtime

Every spring I have to ask for the name again. Tulip poplar, Saucer Magnolia, something like that, you’d think I wouldn’t be surprised by her anymore. Whereas last week empty arms cast veins of silhouettes across a cold carpet of previous year's leaves, today I’m able to come home from a long day of work, and face her canopy of flowers, half open like teacups, and that is miraculous news. I take it as further evidence that after two years the sucking wound in my chest has finally closed.

Each March was a celebration, a maelstrom of pink hung beneath the blue, pinks so dark along thick shouldered leaves, almost purple, and then bleeding out rapidly to porcelain white, there was no ignoring it. I notched one end of an eight foot pallet we brought home into the main cluster of stems, six feet up and propped the other end with a door. Of course the kids never climbed into the blossoms, but we did.

Now everyone’s gone but me and the whole yard creeps more every year, abandoned gardens filled with weeds crawling out of their beds, privet’s relentless march choking everything in between. A cold wind brushes the tulip against the rafter tails outside my bedroom, waking me. Limbs resting on roof shingles, a stitch of yellow rope left from a swing I hung years ago cut deep into the bark like a tourniquet. Her blooms will turn brown and slimy and clog the already rusted gutters. Neither tree nor house belong to me but as far as I’m concerned, I’m the steward of both, for now.

So I spend sixty dollars that I do not have on a bright orange pole saw from Lowes which I run up into underbelly pierced with morning light, trying not to focus on saw teeth tearing past bark into white flesh, or sap raining onto my cheekbones. I’m grateful for the strength I have in my arms for this work today but I worry I got started too late in the season and the half dozen or more wounds I’ve left will become infected and kill her. Despite all this I work for the better part of a morning, and pile up branches tall as me in the burn pit in the middle of the yard. In the fall I’ll light it up and likely scare the new neighbors. The blossoms lining the crooked pile go for broke and open their white faces wide to the sun.

The days are consistently warm enough and the new tires on my motorcycle beg to be chewed up, but my heart’s not in it. Not yet. One morning soon I’ll blast out 64 sometime before eight thirty, get away from the Florida interlopers that keep trying to kill me and hit the Blue Ridge Parkway and adjacent counties on this side of the mountain- Nelson, Rockbridge and Amherst.

The best road out there is also the most dangerous, and yet with half a dozen ways up to the Parkway, I still find myself on route 56 more often than not. A million years ago I guess, before someone gave it a name, the Tye river cut a gorge out of the mountains, twisting impossibly through the rocks and at some point homesteaders ran a road alongside and named that 56. Highly technical, it’s not the curves that will dump me. Every rental cabin and vacation home has a driveway cut into the shale and sandstone hills which provide, after every good rain, an opportunity for gravel to spill out on the tarmac. If I’m not on top of my game that’s what will kill me.

But before all that, when it breaks off from the Rockfish Valley highway, 56 passes through a couple thousand acres of farmland on one side, and the Tye river on the other. For some reason I think a good bit about the people who work that land. Last year the fields appeared to be left fallow, two years previous, in the fall, thousands of pumpkins were left scattered and rotting on the vine, collapsing into orange pulp. All I could think was that the pumpkin patch contract fell through.

I want to find the old timers and see if anyone will talk to me about August 1969, when Hurricane Camille dumped two foot of water in three hours and drowned birds in trees. When the Tye jumped its banks, broke the back of every bridge that dared cross it and cut the census of Massies Mill nearly in half.

Sometimes I see the pictures they post and get jealous of my friends who travel abroad, but I’ve decided what I need is to ride a motorcycle entirely too fast through the middle of some fields in Nelson county every three months and do that in perpetuity. I’ve been in that valley headed home late in the day with the sun low under the clouds turning everything golden, worried that I’m too far out. I’ve encountered the Tye river in a spring flood, washing across 56 nearly to the point where I had to turn back and find another route. I’ve ridden it half frozen in a driving rain, tucked behind the fairing with a mother of three on the back seat holding onto me for warmth.

Back in 2022, at my lowest, whenever I talked about tulip flowers or graveyard moss carried home from a chapel where it crosses over the mountain and heads down toward Vesuvius, my closest friends would encourage me to move out. They’d point to the marks on the door casing in the kitchen chronicling each child’s growth, five years worth, both hers and mine, and yeah, I got it. My argument was I’d have to find something else just like it- a shed for my tools, a garage for my bikes, somewhere to write. I dunno, man, I would say, it just feels like I belong here.

One of these days, instead of waving to them on their harvesters, I’m gonna pull over and talk to one of these guys. Yeah me, a wild eyed weirdo biker from the city rambling on about something I don’t know if I could even put into words. The idea of the two of us having a shared language with a place, a connection, whether it be on a tractor or a motorcycle, bound by both sorrow and joy. The connection running deeper because you’ve seen it flood, seen it bake, seen it come alive every year in a blaze of green.

Clay Blancett, 2024

[ladystoneface]

lil excerpt from a new piece called Hypochondriac

[shannonpurdyjones]

Welcome to the official author blog of Shannon Purdy Jones, a bi writer and bookseller endlessly curious about the messiness of human history. If you like magical realism, historical fiction, and stories about women and queer people behaving badly, this is the place for you.

My current project-in-progress is Wyrd Weaving, an historical fantasy novel that takes place in northern Europe in the earliest years of what we now call the Viking Age. A raid rippling with unintended consequences entwines the fates of a least-loved jarlsson guarding a shameful secret, and the peculiar maiden his crew abducts--a young weaver plagued by prophetic visions whose suppressed abilities take root and flourish in the ice-rimed land of her kidnappers.

Wyrd Weaving's plot and magic system are inspired by and steeped heavily in spinning and weaving history of early medieval Europe. Since I too spin, knit, and weave, I post a lot about textile history and fiber arts in addition to writing-related content. I also co-own a really cool indie bookshop.

I am a proudly trans-inclusive, sex-positive, BIPOC-loving-and-supporting, man-and-amab-loving, queer-loving intersectional feminist. If you bring hateful, discriminatory, or puritanical nonsense, you will be blocked. *heart hands*

Published works to date:

A Wild Litany of Nightmare and Lament: a Substack Historical Fantasy Newsletter

The Honeysuckle Weave (horror/dark fantasy, weaving, Appalachian gothic short story featured in issue 20 of Grim and Gilded)

Eggs (flash essay on motherhood, death, and moths, featured in Hippocampus Magazine July/August 2024)

[agirlnamedbone]

C.D. Wright (The Poet, the Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, a Wedding in St. Roch, the Big Box Store, the Warp in the Mirror, Spring, Midnights, Fire & All, 2016)

[tribalephemeral]

The Set of Modernistic Identities

The Set of Modernistic Identities — Flash creative nonfiction and/or prose poem We get up and have coffee. We shower or not. Have that run or not. Turn on the TV or radio or other background noise. We drive to work or school or the grocery. We say ‘hi how are you’ and ‘im good’ and ‘thatll be seven fifty-one’ and ‘how was your weekend’. Occasionally we say ‘terrible’ instead of fine, but mostly…

[stormcellarmag]

WINNERS! of the 2023 Force Majeure Flash Contest — full announcement: https://wp.me/p1tViT-19z

1st Prize "Pre-Elegy for My Sister" by Whitney Koo 

2nd Prize "A Brief World" by Uyen P. Dang  2nd Prize "Bones" by Nathan Long 

honorable mentions: "Garden Statues" by Kendall Morris, "Midnight Zone" by Caleb Tankersley, and "Taint" by Veeda Khan.

[mychickendickk]

I wrote this while on a plane:

On this Day, I reached the stars.

On this Day, my face was nothing but glued to the window of my seat.

On this Day, I did nothing but envy those stupid birds, free the sky.

It's pitch dark outside, you can't see (shit) a thing, yet I could see All of the lights.

On this Day, I flew continents, some were in peace, and many were in wars.

Ever since I was young, I would always look up to the stars,

Tonight I am one of them.

11/22/2024

[skyborneveggie]

[academyoftheheartandmind]

Reflections

By Todd Adams I was watering our purple phlox with an absent mind, ruminating on things that might have been or worrying about those to come, when I caught sight of a dark shape flashing around my legs. I stood stock still, fearing it was a giant wasp or some other stinging creature, but then an iridescent, hunter-green form flitted toward the stream of water. My shoulders fell, my jaw relaxed,…

[vlad-theimplier]

I-93 @ I-95: A True Story

The minivan crawls, then swerves, jamming its fender into a putative gap in traffic. Horns greet the maneuver, but no one makes an editorial projectile of their Dunks. "Do You Follow Jesus This Close?" reads the bumper sticker next to the NH plate. Well, if He wedged his way into a mile-long line of cars six inches before the ramp splits off, I'd run Him off the goddamn road.

[matildazq]

Write the Year 2024—Week 36: Night Popcorn

The Poets & Writers CNF prompt from this week yielded this. At least it’s not Vogon poetry again. Title: Night PopcornWC: 500 The stove was ten feet from my bedroom door. Less than that when I moved from the boys’ room near the front of the house to the one off the kitchen that I shared uneasily with a sister. It would start with the snick of the light above the stove. Black knob on a harvest…

[shannonpurdyjones]

Flash Essay featured in Hippocampus Magazine!

I'm so excited about this piece finally finding its home! I was more nervous than usual about sending this one out, not least because it's more personal than my fiction, but for better or worse it's out in the wild! You can read "Eggs" in the July/August issue of Hippocampus Magazine.

[praktice]

My father tells me of another cluster of "his" mushrooms (wild enoki, Flammulina velutipes) growing in a grove near the house. He is surprised to have found them there and plans on bringing them home, to fry with onion and egg - something he eventually does at night when mom's already in bed and I am taking a shower. A whiff of onion in the air, and a nutty, fishy smell from the mushrooms will linger in the rooms of the house all throughout the night, a backdrop for our dreams.

So my dad tells me about the mushrooms he saw and I smile. I don't understand why he is so excited about them. He might have entered into some devilish contract with the mushrooms, he won't let any cluster of them grow by uncut. That's an interesting way to go. Sometimes I have so little will to lead my life that I think it would be nice to let some mushroom guide me and use my life. Really it's a desire for a god.

My brother doesn't understand dad's enthusiasm either. A certain nihilism has slid into our still young minds. Because what is there to do? Why anything? Caught up in the hopelessness of this transience that is the everyday, caught up in some despair.

The mushrooms are "my dad's" because he is probably the only person around who forages these. People usually go mushroom hunting in the summer and fall when the more noble specimens pop out of the ground. The mushrooms my dad collects are largely unrecognized and niche. I've never had them myself. Maybe it's the fishy smell that draws me away, maybe it's that I don't really care so a chemical imbalance. It's nice to see a cluster of orange mushrooms growing on a stump in a dark February forest but I am not very hungry for life anymore. Maybe next time I find them, I should ritualistically bring them home and prepare them the way my dad does. Maybe that's in 20 years and it will mean something to me then.

Now it's just something to write home about, home being "neither here nor there".

[kateub]

teen angst

for me, teen angst looked like a raw, visceral hatred for my prettier, more affluent peers. rich bitches who drove roaring broncos — a birthday present from daddy, the richest farmer in the county. girls who, come prom season, will roam the halls with too-warm spray tans and nails that click furiously on their phone screens. snakes in basketball shorts and boater shoes who treat their semi-circle of gripped whiteclaws like camp david.

i couldn't stand them, and i wanted nothing more than to be them. those girls were beautiful. they were smart, and teachers liked them more than me. they were never without someone to share the experience with — a friend to advise on prom dresses, cry on about the evils of #college app szn, and whine to about the boy in basketball shorts and boater shoes.

their lives were simple. they did school, cheer, hair appointments. their parents served warm, sit-down dinners every night. they had little siblings that annoyed them and parties to keep them busy. their last names bought them security.

they never had to wash clothes in the bathtub and dry them on the space heater. they never had to close the store at three and make it to school by seven. they never worried about how next month's rent was getting paid, and they never felt truly, deeply that the things they wanted were unattainable.

i thought they pitied me, and i hated them for it. they don't know me. my life makes me better, smarter, more equipped than them. i would never want to be them.

and yet, when i found myself in the midst of the elusive creatures, i fawned. i pretended. in my stained rags, i made myself like one of them.

[maddsuscript]

The Boyfriend I Keep

Written in my freshman year fiction writing class for our flash fiction unit but this is creative nonfiction, so I guess I always was pushing the boundaries of what it meant to practice, like this piece gets in to

Word Count: 486

At a glance: One day my mom told me that I needed to get a practice boyfriend before I left high school or I'd never be good at it (yikes!) and I didn't realize I was listening to her until it was too late

My boyfriend doesn’t know he’s a cop out. He doesn’t know that his basketball number is the only true thing my parents know about him. He doesn't know that he’s the nicest boy I’ve ever met, eye-opening, tall, dark and nerdy. He doesn't know about the pit in my stomach when I see a glimpse of it in the halls. He doesn't know about the back hallway I take to avoid seeing the rest, the causal way I walk down the tile with a book in my hand so everyone can see that that’s why I’m not checking my phone, the twist and turns I dash down to see the girl in my history class faster. 

He doesn’t know that I smile as soon as I walk through the door. He doesn’t know how badly I want to hold the hand that waves at me from her desk, how I talk to her about the texts she sent me last night while I was avoiding his, how it’s her face I see on the other side of the phone when he calls me after class. He doesn’t know that she’s the nicest girl I’ve ever met, eye-opening, tall, dark, and nerdy. He doesn’t know that she knows everything he doesn’t.

My boyfriend doesn’t know that I wasn’t his choice. He doesn’t know that I orchestrated us behind the scenes, that my mom orchestrated me through off handed comments about grandkids and grooms, each of us our own marinette trio who knows but doesn’t know what string is being pulled why. He doesn’t know how I can make him laugh so hard over a plate of spaghetti at dinner that night, how I’m exactly what he wanted.  He doesn’t know I say exactly what he wants to hear. He doesn’t know that I know I look like his ex-girlfriend, that I know he’s talking to another me under the table, that I’m thankful for her. He doesn’t know I wish I was him. 

He doesn’t know that I’ve had the breakup text sitting in my notes since I decided he was going to be my solution. He doesn’t know he’s being clingy, because he isn’t, he’s just being a boyfriend, so he doesn’t know why I’m being distant, why the only text I sent all weekend is a novel long. He does know I’m lying when I say it’s not him, it’s me, but he doesn’t know why it’s a lie. He doesn’t know that when I say I hope he understands, I don’t, that I want him to be mad, to be pissed like I was, to call me and scream, to fight me, not for me, to demand an answer, to tell me that what I’ve done to him is unforgivable, that I’m unforgivable, but he doesn’t know that. My boyfriend doesn’t know that his “I do understand” is the biggest thing he doesn’t know.  

[cuttysarkmag]

Welcome to the official (o-fish-al?) Tumblr for Cutty Sark Magazine. Expect lots of nautical puns. We are currently accepting submissions for our maiden issue. Tell your friends! Tell your family! Tell the world! Cutty Sark sails again! Learn more at cuttysarkmag.com