Flash the Court

Tag: Point of View

  • “Seven Flash” by Polly Walker Blakemore

    “Seven Flash” by Polly Walker Blakemore

    “Seven Flash” by Polly Walker Blakemore is a sequence of evocative snippets that stand alone (and together) as micromemoirs, or perhaps prose poems. Each of the seven segments offers an element of surprise, be it wry humor, clever wordplay, or sudden sentiment. Part of the pleasure of fragmentation is the sequencing itself—of not knowing what could come next.  —Court Harler

    The News, Warts and All

    Have you heard? Toads! They’re on six of the seven continents. Bless them.

    Under the Stove

    Under the stove I find a rubber band and a paper clip, a kernel of corn, a cotton swab, a toothpick, the seed of a tangerine, a thumbtack, the five of diamonds, a button the color of butter, a blueberry (softened, just a little), a corn flake (brittle, now), a marble with green and red swirling inside, dust.

    Toxic

    She had a cat. The cat got old and sick. The cat got sick of being old and sick. She got sick of the cat being old and sick. It wasn’t healthy. It was just normal. She just didn’t know it. Until she did. That’s how she explains it.

    Bother

    This fall I realized the leaves that fall from the oak trees weren’t the bother. The bother was the husband who got bothered by all the leaves that would fall from the trees and would frenzy himself into a lather blowing and raking them up for days and days, smelling like gasoline and sweat. It was his bother that bothered me. Now that I have divorced him, I can’t be bothered, with the leaves, and so many bothers that used to bother me.

    Grind

    She thinks about it every day. Extra coarse. Coarse. Medium Coarse. Medium Medium, Medium Fine. Fine. Extra Fine. With consistency similar to peppercorns, Kosher sea salt, coarse sand, table salt, fine sand, powdered sugar, flour. And the best brewing method for cold brew, plunger, cupping, cone, siphon, stovetop, Turkish. Instant.

    Crossing

    Just as all of the lights at this huge, sixteen-lane, four-way intersection near my favorite Dairy Queen change from green to yellow this afternoon, the man hitches his pants, leans into his walker, and begins to shuffle from the curb in his leopard-print fleece slippers and baggy barn coat.

    Sensed

    You know, it’s not so bad when you’ve a cold to lose your sense of taste for a few days. It takes the edge off, the salt, the sweet, the bitter, the sour, the umami everything. That’s what you tell yourself. It’s not so bad, to lose, you know?

    POLLY WALKER BLAKEMORE is a writer living in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the author of Visiting, a collection of writing from the journal she has kept for thirty-five years, about her time with her mother when her mother was in hospice. On Substack (@pollywalkerblakemore), she publishes a series based on her journal.

    Featured image by Jess Bailey, courtesy of Unsplash.

  • “Christmas” by Betty Stanton

    “Christmas” by Betty Stanton

    We can name a day, even a holiday, but can’t know what it holds for those other than ourselves. In “Christmas” by Betty Stanton, “the calendar doesn’t mean much anymore,” but a new name, “something secret—something with edges,” may mean everything to the character called Angel. In this gut-wrenching, enigmatic flash fiction, Stanton asks us to reconsider “real names” as well as their personal and societal implications.  —Court Harler

    She says her name is Angel. It isn’t. No one uses real names anymore. Real names are too soft. Too easy to scar. Too easy to burn.

    Her girlfriend goes by something harder now—something secret—something with edges. Something that breaks you open when you touch it and not the other way around. Angel writes that name in notebook margins, folds it into receipts and the empty packs of cigarettes. It keeps the shadows orderly.

    They have new coats. Army surplus green. Warm enough to forget what month it is.

    This is Christmas, apparently. The calendar doesn’t mean much anymore. Days run together, blur like spilled ink. One long gray smear of hunger and cold. Sometimes she sings. Sometimes they eat. Sometimes they make love.

    Sometimes they make money. They don’t talk about how.

    In her bag: two shirts, torn jeans, pens, pencils, ten notebooks full of black. This is survival. This is art. This is what’s left when the world stops remembering you.

    Angel sings when she’s happy. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it almost sounds like light breaking through.

    It doesn’t last.

    This is Christmas, apparently.

    Tomorrow will be, too.

    BETTY STANTON (she/her) is a Pushcart-nominated writer who lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She received her MFA from The University of Texas at El Paso and holds a doctorate in educational leadership. She is currently on the editorial board of Ivo Review.

    Featured image by Lawrence Aritao, courtesy of Unsplash.