FLASH PARTY
 
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FEBRUARY'S THEME (OR NOT): HEAT
 
Blanket Seas by Dominic Knight.  They bask on towels, baking in the rays. Her eyes are closed behind her sunglasses, blissfully enjoying the waves lapping at the sands. He sits up, downing some water; feeling its slight chill down his throat as he swallows. Setting the bottle aside, he glances to her, taking in the sight of her skin. Smiling, he continues to let his eyes roam her form; from the curves of her hips to the way her cheeks have some beaded sweat.

Licking his chapped lips, he thinks back to their sea of blankets. It was morning when he searched for her, their lips meeting and their skin yearning for the other. Together they could dance, but apart, they were clumsy.

Reaching out a hand, he brushed it past her navel, returning to lay on his towel with a hand resting on her. Her eyes must have opened as she cracked a smile and ran her fingers through his hair. There wasn’t a need for words; just a touch of reassurance. Smirking to himself, he shut his eyes. They could swim again later.  FP


The Treasure Hunter by Mary J. Webster.  Susan sat back on her heels next to the hole she’d dug and wiped the sweat from her forehead with a dirty hand. This had to be the place; the metal detector had pinged at just the right frequency... there was definitely metal buried here.

Susan got down on her knees and started to dig through the damp dirt with her hands, not wanting to damage the buried object with her spade. She braced her left hand on the statue that was opposite the hole and reached down so far that her right shoulder and head disappeared. Her fingers brushed over something and she grabbed it.

She sat down and brushed the dirt off the treasure until it sparkled in the sun. Something rustled in the bushes behind her and she turned around in time to see the canine leap towards her, teeth bared.

She let the panting dog lick her face for a moment, then she pushed him out of her lap before standing to fix the mess in the flowerbed. Susan put her treasure in her pocket and glared at the dog. “Don’t you ever bury my keys again!”

Smoke by Jack Swenson.  Everything is at sixes and sevens. I go outside, and there are no birds. The sky is gray with smoke. It's hot, and the hills across the street are dry as a bone. I go back into the house, turn on the television, and listen to one of the candidates for President say that his opponent would be willing to lose a war if it meant winning an election. A preacher moves into a house across the street, and I check with a neighbor to get the dirt on them. Harry says the preacher’s okay, but his wife is crazy. She’s got a brain tumor. She’s going to have an operation. “They go in like this,” Harry says, and he sticks a finger in his mouth. I go home and tell my wife about the new neighbors. It takes all kinds to make a world, she says. My wife and I have different temperaments and different ways of thinking. She lets things go; I store things up. I tell her I'm like a garbage truck. I get full of garbage, I need a place to dump it. "Well, don't dump it on me," she says.


Subjectivity of the Always by Bobbi Lurie.  Without aesthetic distance, sometimes I would eat the meals in military precision. Mostly I would leave things on the tray. Happy if there was sherbet, disappointed to see a grisly piece of chicken, sliced by a nurse with a black plastic knife if I asked.  Always the appearance of jello on the tray. Always jello, red or orange or green. On the rare days without jello there might be chocolate pudding. Once in a while there was vanilla. Coffee or hot water with an envelope of hot chocolate mix and a slice of lemon in addition to it. Always.  FP


Fantasies by Katie McGuire. “He’s coming back,” she coos, looking somewhere just over my shoulder.  She’s announcing it to no one in particular, to the world.

I blink and shake my head.  “Sorry?”

“He’s coming back,” she repeats.  Because that clarifies it.  When I don’t immediately respond with joy, she turns blank eyes to me and explains, “He’s going to take me to Boston.”

I can only picture the scene on my lawn, when the sheriff showed up just thirty seconds after Beau found out he was going to be a father.  “He’s not coming back,” I respond automatically.

She ignores me.  “We’ll settle in and I’ll have the baby there.”  She grins.  “Perfect.”

Possession, intent to distribute, drug trafficking – he broke almost every drug-related law on the books.  There were whispers of federal prison, of ten, fifteen, twenty years behind bars.  I remind her gently, “Shauna, baby, he got arrested.”

“…and we’re going to teach the baby to ice skate, just as soon as she can stand…”

“Shauna,” I interrupt sternly, “he jumped bail that night.”

“…he coming to get me, now that everything’s all ready back east…”

There must be a way to knock some sense into her.  “No one’s seen him since,” I force through clenched teeth.  This crazy act is already jumping up and down on my last nerve.

“…he has a job set up, and everything!”

“He won’t risk jail time for you or that mutant in your womb!” I cry out.

Shauna isn’t too happy to hear that. FP


Trading by Susan Tepper.  After supper in the summer we traded baseball cards outside. My brother had the best ones and the other kids would give ten for his one. He was a cagey trader. I found it all rather boring. I only stuck around because there was nothing else to do. Plus I scooped up bubble gum that often fell from the cards to the ground during the haggling over the cards. My brother screamed loudest. He was stocky and strong. He brought Mr. Chips our German Shepherd along as mascot. If someone got out of line Mr. Chips growled. It kept a lid on things. Until the night Richie from the city came. He was visiting his cousin Louie for the week. We all stood under Mrs. Carney’s big tree. The spreading one with the caterpillars. Every so often a caterpillar would fall on the sidewalk or someone’s head or their back. We were used to it. Richie was afraid and started to screech and carry on. My brother screamed he should shut up he was spoiling the action. Mr. Chips barked loudly. I found a few more pieces of gum that were still nicely wrapped and slipped them in my pocket for later.  FP


Last Three Years by Lorissa Davis.  “Okay son. But this is the last time” He laughed as the five year old crawled to the dinner table and onto his back.

The child’s smile was wide. “Daddy, now!”

But just before he got the chance, the door suddenly broke in. Two men in suits walked to them. They grabbed the child off the man’s back, shoving him in a large black bag, and walked out the door.  

Even now, the child is still nowhere to be found, yet the father has spent the last three years searching for the only thing he has left in the entire world, his child.   FP


Unhep by Meg Sefton.  A man comes to my door. I open it and say halloo, like that, because I was expecting my parents. I cross the threshold as if he were a party guest. I can't stop myself from acting how I'd already decided to act.

The man steps off the porch and, jumping, slaps one of the gutters on the front of my house. "See this?  The flashing is bent. I could fix this, sixty dollars. I just helped your neighbor. I can help you today, no problem."

I do not believe a word he is saying. I don't even know what he's talking about.
"Look," he says and jumps and pulls in another place. "Your gutter is coming down. It's falling off."

I had been too vulnerable and friendly. I am carrying my little dog in my arms. I feel insecure without my makeup. I had taken my glasses off. My parents think glasses are unfeminine.

I tell him I'll talk to my husband.

Later, when my ma arrives, she says why didn’t you say your husband was in the back curling 200 pound dumbbells with each wrist. 

The other night when I was cheering at my son’s baseball game, she said I was being uncool, déclassée. Ma made all our clothes when we were little. She cooked all our meals. She knew how to do everything. When she was young, she smoked and drank. I did that too when I was young but I'm sure I did it wrong.  FP


What He Says to Her During Sex by Robert James Russell.  The cheetah is the fastest land animal.  That’s what he says to her during sex, right before she climaxes, right after she says to him in throaty breaths, “Tell me something.”  The fact is, he doesn’t particularly care for cheetahs, nor was he even aware of said piece of trivia until a few days ago when he heard it on TV, but there it is out in the open, and he doesn’t see anything wrong with his answer, seeing as her request for “something” seemed to be a bit vague.  Now she’s giving him that look of hers, that bewildered look  she does so well, and he can’t understand why, and then she pushes him off her, angry, and grabs her clothes, calling him a jerk as she dresses, telling him not to call her again. He just sits there, watching her dress, thinking about cheetahs, not so much about her, and he tries to picture what they look like, but can’t quite make them out.   FP


The Queue Jumper by Lily Murphy.  A sizeable crowd had assembled at the bus stop and a sizeable amount of rain fell.  The bus came right on time as an orderly queue took shape. The queue contained a mixed bag of society’s best and worst, school boys, university types and ordinary shoppers, then one of society’s worst arrived: a queue jumper.

The queue jumper took the form of an elderly woman and as I was about to board the bus she pushed her ancient frame in front of me. The dismal weather provided heavier rain but I decided to challenge the queue jumper. ‘Excuse me’ I said, ‘you have jumped the queue.’

The old woman swung herself around to face me and my eyes nearly went blind with the sight they had fixed upon. She had the most repugnant expression across her loathsome face, hair jetted out from the base of her chin in as much viciousness as her sneer which showed teeth were at a minimal in her mouth, yet her tongue  was razor sharp and it spat the most repulsive profanity into my face.

I was left in shock from her undeniable ugliness and the heavy expletives she threw at me. Such was my shock that I got on the bus without paying. As  I sat at the back of the bus I fell out of a state of shock and fell into a state of worry. The next stop the bus made I quickly jumped off, back out under the hard hitting rain. FP


Sharp Spoonfuls by Nick Javy.   The nurse pulls loose the first vial of blood from the valve tapped into Costa’s vein. She hands it to him as she fishes for another to fill for more bloodwork. Costa, he feels his own blood in his hand. Lifts it in front of his eyes. Gently touches it to the tip of his nose. He thinks it’s strange the way the fresh blood is precisely his own degree, Fahrenheit. He rolls the vial slowly across his cheek and thinks he hasn’t ever felt as close to a person as he does to this inanimate canister holding his blood cells.
    The nurse works nimbly and, seeing Costa’s expression, skips the small talk required by the Bedside Manner Best Practices handbook she’s had since undergraduate school. She’s seen this kind of thing before. It’s always the people getting blood pulled for the HIV workup. These lonely high speed, high risk people. They’re vital and take big bites out of the world one sharp spoonful at a time. They live at two-hundred miles per hour. Sleep rarely. Coffee and cigarettes for breakfast. Without fail, they are lonesome.
    Costa feels the blood he holds against his face cool smoothly. He feels flustered and insecure. Costa, his eyes are shiny the way prisoner’s eyes are shiny with isolation following a high speed life.
    The nurse pats Costa on the shoulder they way she would a son. “Good luck, young buck,” she says softly. His eyes penetrate in return.  FP


A True Story About a Place he Used to Live by John Sheirer.  It was another summer Sunday afternoon, no breeze, just sweltering air. An old man shuffled along the cracked sidewalk ahead of him, talking to himself.

As he passed, the old man said, "Right buddy? There ain't nothin' in Athens, Ohio, is there?"

"Nope," he said, wiping sweat and walking faster, "never was."  FP


Resentment by Jamie Loftus.  When Lucia was a little girl, she’d fold a crane every time she dreamed about running away, buying the dance shoes she’d never dared and taking off. Now, she folded one every time she remembered that she could have. 

It was something Dan had found endearing about her room the first time she’d let him in her room, all arched eyebrows and coy laughter. These days, he tip-toed gingerly around them as Lucia would fold another white crane, occasionally trampling one when he was running late. 

“You look nice, Lu,” he said, pecking her on the forehead.

“I look like I belong in a music box,” she responded, letting her fingers trace the thick tulle Miranda had picked out for her bridesmaids. 

He shrugged and headed into the bathroom; it had been easy to correct her early on, but the effort was now wasted.

“I don’t know why you’re such a bitch to her, she gives us front-row tickets to all her shows. Show a little gratefulness, hun.”

“I know.” She could see Miranda’s toes, clad in the shoes she herself had been too afraid to buy up close season after season, quadrupling the cranes in the quiet household. 

Lucia took a drag on her cigarette and picked a thin bird up, letting the ash catch and smolder the crane flailing in the stiff air of the apartment, trailing down the beautiful dress. Tulle smoldered and a crane was crushed underfoot with each and every step. FP


Steam Heat by Janet Yung. The last heat sputtered from the radiator sometime around four o’clock on Wednesday.  Of course, Louise had no way of knowing this when she opened the door returning home from a hard day at the bank sometime around six, having missed the first express bus.
     Running down the street, she spotted its tail lights and raised her arm crying out “wait”, but the noise of the street and crowd pressing through the doors, seeking shelter from the biting cold blowing through the concrete and glass canyons, drown out her sad appeal and she stood, shivering at the stop until the next one rumbled through the slush from the recent snowfall.  Her only consolation, the dry heat her old building would provide.  Sometimes so hot, windows had to be cracked open in the middle of January.  “Not tonight,” she smiled, slipping in her seat, opening her book.
     Once inside the sanctuary of the cramped apartment, an abnormal silence  rose up to greet her.  “It feels chilly,” she thought and slipping out of the heavy gear comprising much of the season’s wardrobe, gingerly tapped her fingers on the silver fixture in the corner.  “That’s odd,” she said, more boldly moving her bare hand along the pipes, bending to turn the knob designed to adjust the steam.
     “The furnace is out,” the owner’s wife replied at Louise’s call.  And, unable to offer any idea when it would be repaired, Louise was left to ponder her options in a frigid world devoid of heat.  FP


the heart would have unnatural reverence by Jerry Ratch.  The heart would have unnatural reverence, exalted, bursting with evil, rolling in sloth, if it did not at once reveal its innocence. I saw you again, on the morning of the sun. It was you, or your double, or a son you might have had. Your beautiful blood that the knowledgeable sun has caressed.

The white moon is dangling by a thread tonight, and I close my eyes and listen to it undress, and the full images flow over you from the past with their own white shades of paleness.

I understand that greatness is obtained from random living, and arises from such star sweetness, the wetness coming down, dropping to the ground in utter dark under the starlit temptation night-planned life. In the manner of a lion you looked around you. In the manner of a wolf. I understood how you were from the very beginning, and how the western wind caressed you, playing across your lips, your eyes, your hair.  FP


Letting it Be by Dion Berry.  When he sang that Beatles song with more soul than any white boy should have, and the red head in the back of the room couldn't close her mouth from gushing over him, I starting clapping a little slower. I taught him every note, every run. I thought about how glad I was to be too old for this back and forth,
but when I realized I was simply too old, damn, that was like getting dumped all over
again.  FP

Bungo-Bungo by Michael A. Kechula.  Frank wondered if the cannibalistic  Bungo-Bungo Tribe really existed.  He headed to Gavooloo Island to investigate.

Hacking his way through jungle thickets, he found a cave.  It seemed the perfect place to spend the night.

After making a fire, he heard dogs barking wildly. Dogs meant people.  People meant Bungo-Bungo tribesmen. He put out the fire, scrunched into the far recesses of the cave, and waited.

Frank didn’t know about the cave’s other entrance. The whack to his head came as a surprise.

He woke inside a pot. A fire blazed beneath.

“I have herpes, syphilis, leprosy,” he hollered.  “I’ll taste lousy.  Besides, cannibalism causes madness and tribal extinction.”

They didn’t understand English.

Frank became 30 gallons of chunky soup, 150 patties, 28 pounds of jerky, and 500 sausages. This was sold at tribal-owned, franchised, jungle snack stands.

Turns out the Bungo-Bungos aren’t cannibals. But the surrounding tribes are.

Bungo-Bungos are industrious entrepreneurs, meeting the demands of hungry customers.  FP

Frigid by Matt Rafferty. Wind buffs howl off wave tops; aerating seawater freezes beard scruff and stiff iced rubber raingear cracks as I spider from closing bait freezer hatch to clinging bait chopper chassis. Slow thawing fresh squid and mackerel mix that skeleton fingers hand scoop into bait bags.

Boat meets wave top, scuppers fill and the space between deck planks and steel boat body overflow. Cracks between planks squeeze out ocean water gun geysers shoot up my broken rubber band left leg. Soaking wet sweat pants chill nerve transmittance; thick blood pulses slow.

Turning into crashing I grab aluminum landing ramp and assist in crab pot shake-n-bait and line flake. Buoys disappear behind stern wake. Sodium deck lights illuminate twelve feet into black night devoid of Orion’s starlight; GPS navigate. Crow’s feet eyes wrinkle against the weight of pot toss unseen splash ear crane.

Exhaust stack belches and defrosts rear of raingear during an eight minute break between on deck duties and potato bake flip flop smells of cheek hair sizzle. Wind chapped skin burns before it touches hot metal. The feeling is different, something besides cold awakens a thousand muscle spasm pin prick lock jaw club foot shuffle. My teeth are accustomed to biting through frozen Hot Pockets.   FP    


Ghost Hunters  by Salvatore Buttaci.  They don’t exist. The curious with their sensitive instruments who claim to have made contact with ghosts; those who walk the empty dark halls of abandoned houses presumed haunted, the men and women steeled with their conviction that, within the walls of condemned mental institutions and shut-down penitentiaries, the spirits of those who succumbed to horrendous deaths can be contacted, conversed with, voices captured for the world to hear and tremble.

They don’t exist because no one has seen them transcend their world into our own, despite what these para-explorers claim about how icy cold a room becomes or how a harmless shadow is in truth the shadow of a ghost trying so diligently to communicate.

Between the living and the dead is an insurmountable wall neither side can climb nor pierce nor wish away.

We have never seen them here, on our side, between which time and timelessness marks a line neither side can traverse. These seekers have never crossed it except in that last moment of their lives when they too join us, for all eternity, marching in our unending army of ghosts.   FP


Horse Flesh by Neila Mezynski.  Long lovely white socks half way up all four. Millie legs. Obedient girl, a thing of beauty girl. Cheesy moon, apple pied sill, brown dog rabbit, clover hog on mud. Jim visits. To be rode. She don’t mind when he saddle and cinch, tight, tightly, run hard on field with tall grass scratching sock legs. Blue day sun wind rushing ears train sound fast by. Spurs tapping rapping, faster, fastest, sweet rock trees scream red orange. Fence. Massive horse weight, acrobat Millie somersault on air, no net. Jim and Millie. Sound of massive horse weight thud roll green grass scratching sock legs, open red gape eyes sharp wide.  Lovely blue day on massive weight in sun with Jim.  FP


Meeting the Mother by Cath Barton. The stifling hot room was full of people. All dressed in white and cross-legged on the floor. There was a curious smell in the air, sickly, sweet and somewhat akin to vanilla. Someone gestured to me to sit down and I squeezed in between two sour-faced women. My awkward Western legs caught someone in the back and she whipped round in sudden anger.

This was not what I had expected. In my mind peace and love didn't look like this. I pulled my scarf over my head and joined in the chanting. Just do it, I told myself.

After what seemed like half a day but was probably half an hour there was a noticeable change in the atmosphere. People were getting restive. I looked up to see a door at the far end of the room open and a large woman enter. So this was The Mother. Everyone was getting up and moving towards her with their heads bowed, and she was embracing them one by one in the famous hug. It looked as if she was crushing the life out of them. As they were released the faithful crumpled away.

Did I want this? Well, I'd come all this way, so I might as well join in, I thought. I joined the snaking, murmuring queue. But before I reached The Mother a bell rang and, quite abruptly, she turned and left.

Definitely not peace and love. Time for me to go too, I thought.  FP


Falling off the Roof by Sally Reno.   We are all in the living room, waiting. Bobby, me, Bobby Jr., Maeve, and four year-old Mack. We are quiet and still…Mack is not even fidgeting…but alert, not relaxed, waiting for something.

   There is a thump on the roof right over our heads, which I momentarily mistake for a clap of thunder. Then, a rolling sound like squirrels dropping acorns on the roof, but much louder, a little slower, and somehow floppy. Finally, there is another thump, this one sort of muffled, out on the front lawn. Bobby and I move toward the front window. The children turn around backward on the couch to look out.

   On the lawn, a shaggy hummock that had not been there before rises up, separating itself from the grass. It is some primal chthonic beast or some born-again road-kill. It  sways, ripping itself free from the earth, shaking off clots of dirt, grass and other things. As the thing lurches upright, I can see now that it is an old woman with snake eyes… a dead old woman with snake eyes and peeling flesh. She is putrid and maggoty. She is coming right at us. She is my mother.

   Burning with terror, I back away from the window, bump into Bobby. He takes hold of my shoulders and whispers, “Get your coat.” The children are now all looking up at us, Bobby and me. They are round-eyed, expectant. Only Mack still stares out the window. He bounces and squeaks, “The babysitter’s here!”  FP

He Took an Oath  by Paul Beckman.  They speak of Doctor D. as noble, healing, loving & kind. I tried to think of those things when his nurse called and said that the great man wanted to speak with me.  Hold, she said.

While on hold the great man’s lulling voice read from his latest book. His words were noble, loving, healing & kind.

Hi Dr. D. said right before chapter four and he sounded businesslike, not at all like the hold doctor. We’ve found a malignancy. Probably got it all but make an appointment & we’ll double check. Questions. No. Hold for the receptionist.

While he lovingly & kindly read I waited afraid and daydreamed of Marcus Welby, Dr. Kildare & Ben Casey and other movie and TV doctors who sat across from their patients face to face after an examination to impart this kind of news. I’ll get right to the point they always said.

I hung up the phone as the great doctor was beginning chapter 5 in his hypnotic comforting voice.

I stared at my telephone and then I spoke to it aloud, aloud and shaky.  I asked my telephone— "So tell me, telephone, tell me, how long do I have? Give it to me straight."

Minutes later the phone rang. I was afraid to pick it up. FP


NOT A BAD NIGHT AT THE BAR by Meg Tuite    I flinch as the corpulent gremlin next to me starts shooting paranoid shit in to the air all around us. A frontal scan of his brainwaves aren’t even close to waving so much as punching through the night some load of crap about a life never lived as a private dick when anyone can easily see the public dick in him. I listen to the circling map of this flagrant mouthpiece and his mania of political explosives beginning with the Chinese-Walmart pact, which he nicknames the third world war. Displays of plastic poison mark a clear route back to the dollar a day labor of billions who export these packaged time bombs all over the US of A just waiting for the cataleptic stupor of our brainless comrades to suffocate themselves with their own cheap ass-Walmart soaked greed. Save a few pennies, kill continent-masses of brain cells and now I’m starting to like this chronic Randy Quaid on speed, so I buy him a few shots of vodka and narrow in on his tirade as each snowdrift of a hoax blows over me and soon we are blasting through time with Bush senior sending battalions into Africa and the West village in NYC to start the AIDS epidemic, until he’s slapped back each of his shots and sucked us all the way down to his goddamn son of a Barbara.  FP