Flash Friday

#9 Friday, February 17, 2012

The miner sucks what he can from the butt. There is a stem of smoke lifting from the crackle of the paper cylinder. Fifteen-minutes’ break isn’t what it used to be. The cigarettes cost $0.25 a piece now, and fifteen minutes is still just fifteen minutes. Silver, oil, cigarettes—all subject to inflation, but not the holy minute. How they’ll quake when they discover the cigarette break is a threat to capital. Once they learn how to commodify the clock, though, the tobacco farmers will all switch back to cotton.
—Don Gabon

#8 Friday, February 3, 2012

“Hold on—I’m counting—”
He thumbs a wad of bills—
Satisfied, he stuffs them in his pocket.
“Now—your daughters.”
There’s a pause.
“Yes, they’re all accounted for. But in the process we had to neutralize them.”
Another pause.
“First we turned them into plastic. Then we shrunk them down real small. Then we stuffed them into plastic balls.”
Pause.
“Plastic balls. On sticks. They’re at the market place.”
Pause.
“I don’t know for how long. I don’t know how much. But if they were mine—I’d get down there real quick.”
—Chris Fradkin

It is mid-morning when I first walk by the brightly festooned display sporting toys and games even the ‘world’s biggest kid’ could gleefully play with; big bouncy balls, whistles, and plastic viewfinders. I stare, thinking of stores with high tech games that engage the user but not the imagination. Strumming the guitar I relive my dreams of being a singer, trying on a small cowboy hat, I remember crouching behind the wall waiting to ambush the bad guy. What great childhood memories.  Later as I pass by on the way home, I see practically everything is sold. I smile.
—Raline Starc

He went to the markets for exercise; he did not go to buy anything. The stands buckled under the weight of wasted money and expendable foreign labor. Nonetheless, every afternoon after the streets exhaled the morning traffic, he passed an hour observing the flotsam of impulse buyers. Never was he ¨looking¨ at the products peddled his way because then the question would arise, ¨Well sir, what are you looking for?¨ and to that he couldn´t respond politely. He did his loop and returned home to the mail, the inevitable dinner, and whatever book had been garnering the most dust.
—Kurt Hoberg

All year, she sold her wares; all year, things were slow.  Now it was so hot, no one even came to market.
The wind felt like bus exhaust.  The ground shimmied in the heat.  Even the table itself seemed to rise off the ground.No wait, she now saw that it was no mirage:  The balloons were lifting it, the umbrellas catching on the strong wind. She leaped onto the table before it took off without her. But still it rose. Ah well, she said as she sailed higher.  No worries.  She would land in a more prosperous place.
—Nathan Long

No thank you. I have enough cheap plastic shit. The only toy I’m interested in playing with right now is this Frisbee in my hand. But unfortunately I can’t do that at the moment because your booth is in the way. Excuse me.
—Gabe Wigtil

#7 Friday, January 20, 2012

Been years since Washington abandoned the edge. Budget cuts and
rust-belt insurrections forced their hand. We whistled as they
dismantled the spotlights, the gun towers. We mooned the trains that
carried off the probes and rolls of concertina wire. Even the wall,
military-grade steel, was removed for other purposes. They left one
thing–a row of box-cars, husk of empire. People on both sides come
together, use them as shelter. In winter, visible for miles, a blue
line of campfire smoke. It signals—you are welcome here. This is
refuge.
-Justin Bendell

They were railroad cars,
stretched for miles.
Inside I heard their cries.
For the first few hours–plaintive,
for the next few–growing urgent,
for the next few–desperation ruled,
and then there was no more.
-Chris Fradkin

Four thousand tons
of potatoes cross
the freest country
on Earth, through towns

that still offer ‘Freedom fries’—
to punish a nation that refused
to be in the mess
we’re still trying to exit.

They come from Idaho,
but, because we are
American, we eat them
here in this desert,

those atomic bombs of the
heart we’ve yet to recognize
as real weapons of mass
destruction…

I seem to have lost my train
of thought.  Something about how
‘Freedom fries’—as if we knew
what we’d have after war

would be ashes.
-Nathan Long

#6 Friday, January 6, 2012

The postbox overgrown with sedge and foxtail barley is ornamental now. This is not some Pynchon conspiracy theory. I want to say, ‘Long live snail mail,’ but I realize it’s 2012. Down goes ephemera. Down goes the candy cane, sticky stub of boiled sugar. Lean in, all-squinting, all-curious, and read the iron flag: ‘Beginning Christmas 2012, Santa will be receiving wishlists by email only.’ My daughter shakes her head, clicks her tongue. She won’t be keyboarding her wishes off to some Santa @yahoo.com, vulnerable to insult from mailer daemons or agents of the Patriot Act.
-Don Gabon

#5 Friday, December 23, 2011

Tjay. Whaj-a-ya loog-it-a-me-foe? Why-don-cha-mine-uh-yuh-own-bis-niz? ‘Ts-rite. Coz-Im-nod-bath-a-in yuou. [pawdz] Im j-st klein-in ut this hll. Klein-in ut this rez-in hll, thin-sun oblee-za oblee-zee. [pawdz] ‘Ts-ay. Dz-uh-wah-nh tse-mee cht-ayk m-eye bagh-tseyet? Dz-uh-wah-nh tse-mee cht-ayk id gn-ow? [pawdz] Jh-loog. Em-cht-ayk id — m-eye bagh-tseyet — jd-sz ph-oo yuou. Jd-sz ph-oo yuou. Dj-yetz. Em cht-ayk id — m-eye bagh-tseyet — jd-sz ph-oo yuou. Oo-phth. It-pth eemz eye-m thdr-un’n fl-ate. Eye-f-gd-oft-go. B-tjay. Whaj-a-ya loog-it-a– Tjoh. Di-tph-oh-ged-id. [wlkkf-thuh-wey]
–Chris Fradkin

I am trying to do everything right here Mr.
Yet you want me dead. Pollution, pesticides, acid rain, I hate them all.
I wear green.
I eat green.
I stay away from meats.
I jump and hop; I lose myself in the green grass.
I don’t wish to be adored my friend, for I know I am not pretty as a butterfly. I want you to look at my color and see the message I am trying hard to convey.
Don’t you see it yet?
Save the world. Keep it green. Like me.
–Kulpreet Yadav

How is the grasshopper?
Green, sleepy, or watchful?
Grasshopper? -Dreaming!

How is the grasshopper?
Green, resting, or waiting?
Grasshopper?- Homeless!
–Donna Ryduchowski

#4 Friday, December 9, 2011

The cold grit of subterranean concrete most impressed me, not the bland scent of grass and cultivated dirt wafting through the tunnel. I and a huddled group waited for the beckoning, weighing ourselves against gravity, jumping, somewhere in the void between fire and frying pan.

Over the crown of our helmets hung the devil. It smiled in spite of the noose. We batted and punched at it, sending it swinging like a pendulum, like a bell. Then we were called, and went hollering through the tunnel. But after departing the devil still hung there, all teeth, eyes, and appetite.
–Kurt Hoberg

Monday, in the spring, and the country of Lithuania are the most common day of week, time of year, and location to commit suicide. Obese people are less likely to commit suicide than thin people. It has to do with leptin. So we can make inferences about the Sun-Devil although these numbers provide an impersonal distance. Statistics are almost as bad as unearned clichés and Sparky is a proper noun, not a digit.

Anyway, a Carradine-esque five finger asphyxiation took Sparky out. Accidental death. At least he died happy, with a smile on his face, doing what he loved.
–Drew Maurer

14 grams of styrofoam
inside a hollow shell
a smile forever frozen
on your face

a fork of morning velvet
on a hand that cannot grasp
where’s the purpose
where’s the place?

are you no more than an advert?
are you no more than a clown?
are you asking questions existential?

as all things come to pass
so all things come to be
but then you wonder why
the rope was really needed
–Chris Fradkin

#3 Friday, November 25, 2011

Louis jiggled the cord leading to the input. It didn’t work quite so well these days. The cord was frayed, revealing tiny copper veins ripped apart inside. Better than the output—his kid had jammed something small in there and he couldn’t work tweezers in to remove it.

Louis looked out the window at the windmill turning slowly down the road. Input, output. The sun splayed down all over the place, cracking the earth apart. He rotated the cord around, seeing the symbol light up. Power.

It was like everything. You just had to find the sweet spot.
-Sam Price

I remember—down to the buttons on their shirts—how they stretched Jenny cross the camper shell and poured the gasoline. As she was choking, they passed the muscatel. Then they heated up the branding irons and passed round the cigars; you coulda sworn one of the three’d just had a baby. When Jenny cried “Please let me go…” they trudged back over to the shell and took turns with the red hot on her pale white stomach. When their names were thus inscribed, they flung the final match, and as the flames rose through her hair, they genuflected.
-Chris Fradkin

I drive when it’s dark. I drive when the sun’s up. I drive when the sun goes down. There’s too much on my mind. My world is in tatters. I am broken, like raindrops. Like I can never become what I was.

Soon it’s morning: all yellow, warm and cord-less. There’s no phone, no computer, no boss, no girlfriend… I run into the shack, turn on the turbine, cook my own meal. It’s heaven. But wait a minute, haven’t I lived here before?
-Kulpreet Yadav

Trees, scattered carelessly,
Sand, buried in the grass,
And the windmill, abandoned
By the wind,
Like my heart by you
-Donna Ryduchowski

#2 Friday, November 11, 2011
 

Like the bright bodies
of bees, the unnamed idols

of saints upon the altar
are in facsimile, are

vulnerable to la lumbre
de las velas.  Not aloud

to her daughter does she read
the marginalia in a blue

geological volume:

hints that between the
white-stoned churchyard

and the torn window screen
of the back porch door,

the idyll disintegrates,
becomes a bit

of Tucson earth.

Under sandaled feet
of children bent amid

the desert rocks, footprints
by the wind

are shrouded, as are
the powdered secrets

of all-American
vestal virgins.
—Alicia Salvadeo

She found them on the road, coming back from Nueve Piedras: thirteen-hundred figurines, painted up like Jesus; in their centers was a shipment of cocaine. “Mom,” she phoned her mother. “I think I’ve just found Jesus.” Her mother dropped the phone in her excitement. “I knew you would, someday,” she said. “Good Lord, I always knew.” Then her daughter slid the needle in her vein. “Thank you, Lord,” she told her mother, “for this sinner now is saved.” Then their conversation shifted to the weather.
—Chris Fradkin

Jewish man seeks
woman without crosses
on her walls, around her
neck, tattooed on her flesh.
No altars, kitschy
or not, either.
—Kelly Nelson

Lucia moved here from Thibodaux. Came from Evangelicals.

“Daddy’s gonna teach the savages,” she told us at recess, all circled round. When Daniel Farris made fun of her Goodwill shoes she held him down, pressed a rock against his cheek until it broke skin.

I take her to the Secret Spot. All the cracked statues with their dusty eyes, and me watching her face, hoping she’ll be impressed. She shrugs and puts her mouth on me. If this is grace I don’t know what to do with it. I take off, down the hill, more falling than running.
—Delaney Nolan

#1 Friday, October 28, 2011

     

He called her soul aphotic, then threw their clock radio at the television. Two days later he left her for good. She sat on the stoop of the Pueblo Hotel and cried. But soon after that she decided she liked the metaphor. The plants left on her windowsill always died. Regardless of season or sunlight. So she tossed away the barren, dirt-filled containers and took to caring for her broken appliances. The Color TV sign atop an old electronics store that she could see from her window didn’t light up and she imagined one day she’d fix that too.
—Ivan Loughman