Flash the Court

Tag: Setting

  • “Precious Alchemy in the Margins” by Denise Bayes

    “Precious Alchemy in the Margins” by Denise Bayes

    In her new flash fiction, “Precious Alchemy in the Margins,” Denise Bayes offers the reader a feast for the senses: the warmth of “the fox’s fur,” the slime and slither of the “molluscs,” and the mystical sound of “creatures gather[ed], playing instruments.” And in secret spaces, in “the marginalia” and “the cloisters,” sharp reminders of the unrequited, or the “lured,” refuse to remain unnoticed, shimmering “golden” like tempting treasure.  —Court Harler

    Clever Foxes

    Mosaic gold glints on the fox’s fur, tin and sulphur fused in magic by medieval scribes. I unfold from my study of the manuscript, blink into the darkness of the college library. Memories of my Reynard, the russet warmth of our undergraduate love nest.

    Fighting Snails

    In the marginalia, humans battle slimy molluscs. We always lose to the crafty creatures.

    They remind me of her.

    I remember her arrival at college, a Fresher slithering her way into the midst of our Medieval group, flattering him with her fake enthusiasm for Chaucer. How she listened wide-eyed to his words, flicking flirtatious glances at his golden hair.

    She lured him from me on silver threads.

    Bands of Animal Musicians

    In The Book of Hours, creatures gather, playing instruments. Scholars say they show the world turned upside down.

    My world turned upside down.

    Try for Fellowships, she told him.

    Academia is hungry for your words, she whispered.

    His head turned towards the glittering dream.

    The day they married in the College Chapel, I cloistered in the library until the last chords of dance music died. Trampled home across a carpet of crimson confetti.

    Warrior Women

    Now I head to my study through the quad, past the latest huddle of alumni reliving their glory days in noisy reminiscence under the curve of the cloisters.

    I freeze at the sight of him. My Reynard.

    His hand runs in a remembered swirl through tawny hair, now flecked with grey. My fingertips flinch, recalling the coarse texture beneath my palms. I remember his warm breath against my bare neck.

    He looks up just then, across the courtyard, straight into my eyes. The air shivers golden between us. 

    I step onto the manicured lawn, passing the sign.

    ‘Fellows Only.’

    I know he follows my every footstep.

    DENISE BAYES’s writing has appeared in New Zealand’s Micro Madness, Oxford Flash Fiction Anthology, Free Flash Fiction, National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, 100 Word Story, Thin Skin, Temple in a City, and Underbelly Press. Denise lives in Barcelona, Spain, with her husband and a cavalier called Rory, who is usually under the desk. Find her @deniseb.bsky.social.

    Featured image by kevin laminto, courtesy of Unsplash.

  • “Water Tower Views” by Liz deBeer

    “Water Tower Views” by Liz deBeer

    In “Water Tower Views,” Liz deBeer captures the intricacies of budding young love—it’s both charming and crude, both bashful and brazen. The reader is given a glimpse of young love’s potential future as well, which grows ever more complicated amid fraught family dynamics. Surveillance and supervision also act as key motifs in this bold flash fiction.  —Court Harler

    Pushing aside homemade floral curtains, I watch neighborhood boys bike toward our street’s dead end, supervised only by the town’s water tower, a silver globe atop long legs, like a giant metallic spider.

    The next morning at the bus stop, they laugh and elbow Billy, mimicking him climbing up the long ladder to the water tower’s top railing, swearing it’s over one hundred fuckin’ feet. How Billy spread apart his legs to pee on the wildflowers below, bellowing, “I can see the whole damn world up here!” They shake their pelvises as if they too are spraying Queen Anne’s lace and black-eyed Susans from the heavens. They suck on imaginary cigarettes, blow out phantom smoke puffs, hack from fantasy fumes.

    A few yards away, the other girls and I pretend we aren’t listening, aren’t visualizing a yellow stream watering the wildflower field, aren’t wondering if we could make smoke circles too or if we’d choke-gag-retch at all of it.

    When the bus pulls to the curb, the boys strut down the aisle to sit in back rows, as far from the driver’s view as possible. Sliding into a middle seat, I wonder what else Billy saw from the water tower. Could he see into our houses? Mom yelling at Daddy when he spilled spaghetti on the carpet? Or my older sister smooshed against her boyfriend on the motorcycle Daddy had forbidden her to ride? Or later, Daddy guzzling glasses of Seagram’s Seven and Seven, cursing the goddamn Mets?

    As we bump toward school, I wonder if Billy could see me from my window wishing I were with him, looking out over rooftops, yelling, “I can see too!” Or if he sees me now, thinking of him and the boys.

    LIZ deBEER is a teacher and writer with Project Write Now, a writing cooperative based in New Jersey. Her latest flash has appeared in BULL, Fictive Dream, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bending Genres, and others. She has written essays for various journals including Brevity Blog.

    Featured image by Dana Kamp, courtesy of Unsplash.