Flash the Court

Tag: Structure

  • “Ben Stiller’s Friend Flipped Me Off at a Restaurant in New York City” by Rachel M. Hollis

    “Ben Stiller’s Friend Flipped Me Off at a Restaurant in New York City” by Rachel M. Hollis

    “Ben Stiller’s Friend Flipped Me Off at a Restaurant in New York City” is quite a long title for a rather short story. A microfiction, in fact. In 140 words, Rachel M. Hollis tells the immersive tale of an urban love affair, partially set in an “apartment, both cramped and impossibly empty.” And while the title may seem flippant, the narrator is anything but insincere.  —Court Harler

    Because I tried to take a sneaky picture of them on my BlackBerry. Blurry, lopsided, famous.

    Before Ben Stiller’s friend flipped me off at a restaurant in New York City, my boyfriend and I were arguing on West Forty-Sixth Street. He loved that the city never slept and I couldn’t remember the last time I had.

    Before we were bickering on a busy street, we were staring at our phones in our Williamsburg apartment, both cramped and impossibly empty.

    I didn’t realize what had happened until we got home and I opened the photo. Ben, ignoring us. His friend’s middle finger—perfectly in focus.

    “I still can’t believe we saw Ben Stiller,” he said, like it meant something. Like we’d had a moment.

    I packed a bag and left while he was still staring at the photo. He never looked up.

    RACHEL M. HOLLIS lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, child, and a deeply unmotivated dog. Her work appears or is forthcoming in River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, Midway Journal, Lost Balloon, Gone Lawn, Necessary Fiction, and elsewhere.

    Featured image by Wes Hicks, courtesy of Unsplash.

  • “Beth” by Shell St. James

    “Beth” by Shell St. James

    “Beth” by Shell St. James could be a contemporary, albeit chaste, roommate romance, but the narrator’s slightly elevated tone suggests otherwise for this flash fiction. In four dramatic scenes artfully condensed to their very essence, St. James utilizes poignant detail and evocative imagery to depict an indelible setting and deliver an unexpected storyline.  —Court Harler

    The first time I saw Beth, she was dragging her luggage through my front door, cursing like a sailor as the suitcase got caught on the threshold.

    “May I help you with that?” My lips twitched as I tried to hide my amusement.

    She pointedly ignored me, a spirit of fierce independence evident in her scowl. Palms up, I backed off and watched her struggle, squashing down my impulse to take the dratted case out of her hands.

    The second time I saw Beth, she was sipping a glass of Merlot, listening to my favorite piece by Chopin, with her eyes closed. I stood in the shadowed corner of the study, quietly observing, as the music inspired her to rise from her chair and dance barefoot across the room. I fell in love with her as the candlelight lit her face, her auburn hair swirling in a fiery cloud, her graceful limbs fluid and expressive, painting the air.

    That night I crept into her bedroom as she slept, unable to resist the temptation to touch her. I gently stroked her cheek, wishing I could confess my feelings.

    Her eyes flew open in alarm, and she bolted upright in a panic.

    Ashamed, I fled the room, retreating to the attic.

    The last time I saw Beth, she was packing her things, intent upon leaving. I broke down and wept, begging her to stay, but she looked right through me. At the door she turned back warily, her fearful eyes scanning the empty front room.

    “Please don’t follow me,” she whispered. “Rest in peace.”

    SHELL ST. JAMES is an author and artist living in an 1895 farmhouse in the foothills of North Carolina. Her short stories have appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, including Shenandoah Literary Magazine, Sci-Fi Shorts, Night Terrors: Scare Street (Vol. 12), and Creepy Podcast. Read selected stories for free at shellstjames.com.

    Featured image by Peter Herrmann, courtesy of Unsplash.

  • “Transitions” by Jennifer Braunfels

    “Transitions” by Jennifer Braunfels

    Writers must debate and navigate endless choices. In “Transitions,” a flash creative nonfiction essay by Jennifer Braunfels, the writer has chosen a particular point of view (second person) and a specific structure (a series of transition words) to guide the telling of a painful, powerful story. Ultimately, those craft choices enable the writer to express the inexpressible.  —Court Harler

    Now, I have something to tell you. You may want to sit down. 

    Soon, you’ll be diagnosed with cancer.

    In turn, everything will change.

    For example, instead of taking that school trip to Germany with your son that’s been planned for two years, you’ll begin chemotherapy.

    Yes, the ticket says you’re flying out tomorrow morning.

    But instead, at 3:30 a.m., you’ll drive your son to the transportation center, where he’ll board that plane without you.

    Of course, you’ll put on a brave face on the drive to Portland, telling him how much fun he’ll have. You’ll try to sound upbeat, even though you’re drowning in a storm of grief.

    Finally, you’ll arrive. Park. Help your son unload his suitcase. Ask him if he wants you to go in and help get him settled. He’ll say no, but he means yes. You know this. But because you’re about to break, you hug him. Then leave him.

    Unbeknownst to you, while you’re sobbing on the drive home, he’ll experience his first panic attack. Alone. A stranger will catch his limp body as it slumps to the floor. A detail he won’t share with you for weeks because “you already had enough going on.”

    At home, you’ll unpack your suitcase. Throw fistfuls of clothes around the bedroom in a frenzy, screaming.

    Then comes the first round of chemo.

    Later, with that poison snaking its way through you, you’ll become weak. Your mouth will taste of metal. There’ll be nausea that’s so intense, it’ll be hard to put into words for your husband, who is on the phone with the cancer center explaining your symptoms, because he’s convinced you’re actually dying.

    Sadly, for months, you’ll be bedridden. Not having enough strength to climb the stairs to your bedroom, you’ll take up residence in the office on the first floor. A prison without bars.

    As a result of treatment, you’ll become dependent on others for everything. Rides. Bathing. Cooking. Walking. A dependence you’ll detest.

    Eventually, they’ll cut your boobs off. You’ll awake from anesthesia, feeling like you have a truck parked on your chest. Four times daily, you’ll empty the surgical drain tubes jutting out of you.

    Next comes radiation five days a week for five weeks. Your skin will blister and boil.

    Understandably, you’ll have lows.

    However, there will also be highs.

    For instance, ringing the bell on the last day of chemo. Feeling stubble on your bald scalp. You’ll take a school trip with your son his senior year—this time to Iceland.

    Accordingly, your life will forever be in two segments, like lightning splitting a tall tree down the middle. Everything in two categories: Before cancer. And after.

    But you’re going to be okay. I promise.

    After, you’ll find joy in simple things. Uneventful days. Moonlit nights. Sunlight streaking across a wooden floor in the afternoon.

    Until then, know that I’ll be with you the entire time. I’ve got you.

    JENNIFER BRAUNFELS lives in Maine. Her first novel comes out in the spring of 2026 through Apprentice House Press. Her work has appeared in The Masters Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Stonecoast Review, and various other places. She lives with her husband, children, and unruly dog, Sissy.

    Featured image by Claudio Schwarz, courtesy of Unsplash.

  • “Bullet List for My Aged Kidnapper” by Patricia Q. Bidar

    “Bullet List for My Aged Kidnapper” by Patricia Q. Bidar

    “Bullet List for My Aged Kidnapper” begins with a gun and ends with a song. With a list form, Patricia Q. Bidar leads us down the long dark alleyway of time, where traumatic recollections ricochet off “bathroom sink[s]” and “stucco neighborhoods.” Both a prose poem and flash essay, Bidar’s hybrid piece seeks a semblance of peace, but does not grant absolution.  —Court Harler

    I did not provide my parents’ phone number for you to demand money they didn’t have. I provided made-up digits, only coming clean with your gun to my skull.

    I did not tell the police the whole story. Safe at the hotel where I worked, I answered their dark blue queries. Behind their eyes I discerned that I wasn’t the kind of victim they had to care about.

    • Did not disclose I’d been raped
    • Did not throw away my underpants, which remained unwashed at the bottom of the hamper until your sentencing day, when I torched them in the bathroom sink
    • Did not retain my name, fearful of being found
    • I did not have a safe relationship for decades. I scraped together abject connections—men who were beneath me, cocaine, weed, alcohol—sinkholes of regret

    I didn’t argue when men accused—the rare times I talked of it—Crutch! Fabrication! What they really meant was, What the hell you expect me to do?

    • I don’t leave my shutters open at night
    • Or during the day
    • I have not forgotten what I learned: sexual violence, like politically motivated torture, is human and intimate
    • Did not look for you until decades passed

    Once, you brutalized me. Now you are an old man on a dismal patio in the same stucco neighborhood as before. I am an old woman, in faraway but similar environs. We both arise early for the senior discount day at the market. We falter on stiff hips. We wait overlong before we INSERT CARD! and QUICKLY WITHDRAW YOUR CARD!

    At home, we rest our eyes. We doze. Outside our front windows, people flirt, fight, fling food wrappers on our patchy lawns or in our gutters. We mutter profanity to the weeds. Sing aloud, sometimes.

    PATRICIA Q. BIDAR is a native of San Pedro, California, with family roots across the American Southwest. Her work has appeared in Wigleaf, Atticus Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Little Patuxent Review, Waxwing, and Pithead Chapel. She lives with her husband and dog in the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Featured image by Mathias Reding, courtesy of Unsplash.