Welcome to the twelfth issue of 10Flash Quarterly.
We have ten excellent stories this issue, but before I introduce them, I would like to present a bit of news. This will be our last issue.
No joke; it’s why I waited until after the first of the month, so that readers wouldn’t think the announcement was some sort of prank. It’s been a great three years. I had fun publishing the magazine, proud of the product and grateful for the opportunity to introduce so many great new writers. Even so, 10Flash has taken time and money away from other projects. And I’ve reached an age at which I don’t have the energy I used to have.
So this is goodbye. I want to thank all of you who submitted stories and stopped by to read the stories in each issue. For those of you with links to stories here, the archives will remain active for at least another year.
And now to this issue’s stories.
Fish and Bird, Current and Falls
fantasy by Liz Coleman and Ken Scholes
She comes to me in the middle of the night, in my dreams, and sometimes she whispers French in my ear. She knows I can’t understand, but she does it anyway and some mornings, still baptized in the cold sweat of visitation, I jot down the words I remember. None of them make sense despite those online translators.
Once an angel, now a ghost, she arrives on cat’s feet into my soul like that poet said and even though I know exactly how the night will go, I always hope for something different, something better. Something where my voice works, my tears flow, my heart aches and I beg the forgiveness I don’t feel I need when I’m awake.
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Taking the Wind
slipstream by Folly Blaine
Rob stood on the balcony of my parent’s timeshare and pressed binoculars to his eyes.
“They look so real,” he said.
I was sitting on the Queen-sized bed behind him, flipping through my mom’s Kaua’i guidebook. She’d marked all the sights she wanted me to see with strips of old medical bills–her little joke. I rubbed my eyes. The last time I’d seen her she’d looked so frail.
“Hey, check this out,” Rob said.
I left the guidebook on the faded bedspread and joined my boyfriend on the balcony. I could just make out the flutter of colorful wings and silver breastplates sparkling in the sunlight, graceful bodies tumbling from the blue sky to disappear at the ocean’s edge. Two police boats patrolled the perimeter and converged on a speedboat making a mad dash for the center.
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The Ultimate Solution
fantasy by Brian J. Hunt
The gun in my pocket dragged down my coat almost as much as the thought of what was about to happen weighed upon my mind.
The path leading to the falls was steep and my hip pained me more with each step. I stopped briefly at a lookout to watch my train finally depart the station below, and inwardly laughed at the folly of my having purchased a return ticket.
From my familiarity with this trail I knew the overlook at the top was near. It seemed right for this to end here, one of the few places we had shared our brief happiness. I was resolved to see this through. Having allowed him to ruin my life was penance for my sins, but now he had turned his attentions on an old army colleague of mine. Sullying the lives of others for what I had done was something I could not allow, not even for him.
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Bump and Run
crime caper by Lee Hammerschmidt
Just like football, driving is a game of inches.
I was almost past it when the Escalade made its move. I tried hopping out of the way as it started its left turn, but the left fender clipped me on the hip, sending me sprawling across the asphalt.
I looked up to see the driver, a blonde, thirty-something, trophy wife drop the cell phone she had been yapping on into her lap, a panicked look on her face.
“Oh my God,” she said, opening the SUV’s door. “I’m so sorry! Are you all right? I didn’t see you there.”
“That’s because you didn’t LOOK BOTH WAYS!” I barked. “And you were on your frickin’ phone! Hang up and drive for Christ’s sake!”
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The Insolent Biped
fantasy by Justin Blair
I tangled the brambles on the naked ankles of the hunter and the gatherer, clad in fat and fur. A saber tooth tiger at their neck—a mammoth, its hide prickly with crude spears, crushing the body of the klutzy caveman.
These outcomes made my mischief that much sweeter.
But most times they just picked themselves up with a staccato curse—looked around to see if anyone had seen them trip—and carried on.
Just as they do today.
Now they murmur a prayer of thanks they didn’t happen to fall off the platform in the path of the Q train or in front of a Ford.
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Dual Sunset by Three Waterfalls
science fiction by R.L. Robinson
When he walked through the ship, he did and did not. He experienced the colony barge through sensors and data feeds, his mind interpreted it as walking. He had never walked in his life. His interface tank was buried deep inside the Far Traveler. It was the only world he had ever known and it wasn’t.
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The grass was too green. The sky too blue, clouds too symmetrical and sunlight that was too yellow. Virtual rendered the environment based on experience. This wasn’t how things really were on the outside.
Rachel was there, waiting near a scatter of rocks in a field. She was tall with high cheek bones, coppery red hair and green eyes. His interpersonal ideal, as far as Jack knew it was the first time he’d been scanned to produce one, no one seemed to care what variants liked.
Jack had short thick hair. He knew no more than that about himself.
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Moving Away
science fiction by Evan Dicken
Annabel’s dad had told her that old Earth buildings were full of ghosts. Standing in the silent expanse of the ancient plaza, she almost wished he’d been right.
“It’s a mall.” In Wei’s Outsider accent, the word sounded more like ‘mole.’
“Actually, it’s mall .. like ball or tall.” Annabel’s voice echoed from the distant walls like the call of a passing bird. She shrank from the sound. Why would anyone ever build something so big?
“I’ve only ever seen the word.” Wei kicked a hunk of grey plastic into the mouth of a nearby storefront. Faded blue letters on the ragged concrete above the cave named it Gap. Annabel shivered.
She shouldn’t have let Wei bring her here.
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Flight of the Avia
fantasy by Annie Tupek
Dark shadows dart through the clouds, caterwauling on currents of air. Firva hovers below, between the sky and the sea, and tries to make the shadows tell her their names. She stretches her wings, eager to join the ritual, but this is not her time. The clouds are her dominion, the shadows are her female subjects, and she is old.
Nemene, Firva’s eldest daughter, fights in the clouds for dominion over the avia. If she succeeds, Firva’s dynasty will continue, the first year of the twenty-first generation of Darkwings. But if she falls ..
Firva does not want to think of such things. She strokes through the air on her back. Locked out of her domain, she can do nothing but feel the air flitter between her feathers and watch.
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Beyond the Water
fantasy by Sarah E. Olson
Carine lit up the room.
She sat beside me in the crowded cafe, sipping her latté as Parisians bustled past outside. When she inhaled, the tip of her cigarette burned the same fiery orange as her hair.
I felt plain in comparison. I traveled constantly, so reusability was key to my wardrobe. Today I accentuated my little black dress with a red scarf and hoop earrings, no match for Carine’s bright yellow sun dress.
Not that it matter what she wore, Carine’s light glowed from within. Clothes wouldn’t help me there.
“We go now,” she said. Her stilted English betrayed no sense of nationality. When I would ask where she came from, she would smile and say, “Beyond the water.”
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Wings Over the Suicide Rocks
slipstream by D. Thomas Minton
When the rice ships stopped coming from Japan and the soldiers began to build the pickets along the beach, Tomoko knew the Americans were close. The morning Sensei Hatori turned her away from lessons, she knew their arrival was imminent.
On her way home, Tomoko climbed the slopes of Mount Tapochau to watch the American ships gather on the horizon. White terns circled overhead. They would leave when the killing started. Tomoko spread her arms into the wind, but could not join them.
Soon, she knew, the bombs would fall like the birds in her dreams.
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