• Flash Fiction

    Dreams of Home

    I was riding a bike. Or gliding. Or doing that walking without walking thing, like characters in a Spike Lee film.Whatever it was, I was doing it on the old street back home, where I grew up. In that place where dreams are made, it all looked like it did the last time I drove the drive and walked the walk so many years ago. The only difference was that it was all … older. The houses that were old then were absolutely ancient now.I stopped in front of Mrs. Sales\’ house. It was boarded up and weeds were the…

  • Flash Fiction

    A Feminism Conundrum

    If this post makes you angry, you might consider your own positionality rather than mine. After all, this is my space, which you are free to vacate whenever you choose. I simply ask a bit of decency and respect — that if you disagree, that you do so appropriately.That said, here\’s the thing. There is a difference between feminism and ol\’ school Gone with the Wind \’femininity\’.It seems to me (again I say this: my space, my queries, my conundrums) that a person cannot shout \’feminist\’ out of one side of the neck, touting the need for equality and access…

  • Flash Fiction

    16 November: AI – The Creator, Now the Creation

    Dr.Hobby made … things. In a future-time when artificial beings were created to do everything from mining to cleaning to babysitting, he took the next step and made David. Visiting the page above, you\’ll see a clip from the film where David, Dr. Hobby\’s greatest and most tragic creation, is abandoned by his \’mommy\’. It is a weird scene in which Monica (who is, David\’s … what shall we call her, his adopted human parent?) plans to take David back to the factory where he was made but instead sets him free in the forest. I\’m sorry I didn\’t teach…

  • Flash Fiction

    14 November: The World Takes

    A former colleague of mine contacted me several weeks ago, knowing I am pretty much a sucker for all things diversity-education-related. He was organizing a tour of schools in my area for several of the people who work in his department. I connected him to some people I know and their tour was organized.I emailed to find out how it went and he said it was a success, blah-di-blah, and that he hopes to maintain a relationship with the city.At which point, my fingers disconnected from my brain and I went on a rant: Agreed, especially since the [organization] has…

  • Flash Fiction

    13 November: The Trees Speak for Themselves

    I spoke to the young man and his dad as they raked leaves into a multicolored pile on their corner lawn property. I thanked them for pointing me to the nearly invisible path that led into a dark patch of forest. I had a meeting to get to. Somewhere in there. The darkness deepened into the appearance of evening as I walked down the middle of the dirt path. I reached a semblance of a crossroads: to the left, there was still light dappling in through the leaves and thick trunks; ahead, the gloom deepened and I could see movement.…

  • Flash Fiction

    12 November: Look Within

    There is hope within.  Some days, it might not feel like it — when turmoil causes physical aches and pains the likes of which no gym trainer could ever produce — but like they say in the Prego commercial, it\’s in there. Time passes and in the twilight, thoughts turn inward to what is missing, what fell short. But also, there\’s light in there — brighter than the darkness offered by twilight, by what is missing, by what fell short: There is hope in there. Think on those things and know that what the twilight offers is not all there…

  • Flash Fiction

    8 November: A Dream in a Dream

    I looked at my legs, amazed that so many moles would have developed overnight. I touched a few, gently, rubbing my fingers across the rough surface of first one and then another. I blinked and in the span of time that my eyes closed and opened again, the moles had multiplied until they covered nearly all the skin from my upper thighs to my knees. They overlapped and some were tall — raised to higher than two Oreo cookies stacked atop one another, and similar in appearance: dark under and above with a white middle. I wondered if they were…

  • Flash Fiction

    5 November: Dreams …

    The rock was heavy but not: it had a hole in it.In the hole were two small scorpions, pinkish-gray. They were sleeping.I carried the rock around the house and showed the scorpions to the dogs. They were not impressed.The scorpions woke up and the war began — I flung the rock and flapped my hand as the smaller of the two scorpions had crawled out and onto my flesh.I crushed them: one by dropping the rock on it and standing on the rock, the other by stomping.I lifted the rock and saw a dark stain on the rug from where…

  • Flash Fiction

    3 November: Old But Not Out

    Aches and pains do not stop my show. One day, I will have a stylish walking stick and will stroll-hobble to my hovercar. I will continue to pilot myself, even after those who are infants today are little more than dust. When I squint at products on store shelves, other patrons will call me \’mummy\’ behind my back and I will smile. No Guinness Book record, just the joy of long life.

  • Flash Fiction

    Tug-of-War, or, When a Story is Only Interesting to You

    My suckerfish, (allegedly) properly known as a plecostomus, was not impressed that I was cleaning the tank this morning. If a person wanted to be picky, that person could suggest that the suckerfish had not quite been doing his job because if he had, there would be no need for said person to scrape the sides of the tank.I dared not scrape too close to where he had sucked on but it mattered not. He stayed right there, stuck to the lower north side. Over the past month or so, he has developed a taste for fish flakes; he stays…