“Finger Lickin’ Good”–flash fiction, Difficult People

Finger Lickin’ Good
 
 
          Zazu had been reading her latest lover’s email. Well, more precisely, he’d been sharing the office male circle of humor, which had a fair number of juvenile sexual references. And there was this one new guy, a lawyer, who through his own obsessions always seemed to try out original lame verbal jokes [...]

“Hard To Get”–flash fiction, Difficult People

Hard To Get
 
 
          “Celia, please try not to be available, so easy.”
          “You mean hard to get?”
          “Well, yes. Let me pursue you. Fight me. Make it a challenge to possess you.”
          “I can do that, sweetie but I don’t wanna fight too long. Remember that cottage in Maine. The neighbors thought a homicide was [...]

“A Friendly Cup of Joe”–flash fiction, Difficult People

A Friendly Cup of Joe
 
 
          I am alone in this. I started the tunneling about ten years ago. I told no one. You tell someone, it’s gonna screw up. You know what I mean? Actually, I may have first thought up this escape, oh, fifteen years ago. I’m almost there now. Inches to go. It’s [...]

“Burning”–flash fiction, Difficult People

Burning
 
 
          Definitely a burning in his private parts. But certainly not an STD…no, he’d been “safe”. That whore in Vegas at the PC Trade Show, Millennial Pizza, that software that’s almost as much fun as pepperoni and anchovies.
          “Hey, mister, we’re here to please…take this demo disk with you,” she had said, something about the [...]

“The Woman in Question”–flash fiction, Difficult People

The Woman in Question
 
 
          Let it be a lesson, Theron, let it be a lasting lesson. Your mother is an A Plus woman, highest standards on the domestic scene. I am writing you to say, yes, to say no, don’t marry this woman. I took that fatherly responsibility of checking on her family through certain [...]

“Sleepwalking”–flash fiction, Difficult People

Sleepwalking
 
 
          Just too late I tell you. Just too late. Waited too long to get started. Got left behind. The town’s left with rank amateurs. All that shifting around, all that number and tango, all that high stepping lust and pride, where the hell was I? Buried in some corner, in some wall, white out. [...]

“Wail of Sirens”–flash fiction, Difficult People

Wail of Sirens
 
 
          Jill’s lesbian lover, Tommie, the “man” in her life, she joked, was stalking her. She was chain-smoking Kools down the street in her Ford pickup right now.
          Yes, a lesbian cousin Eve was visiting Jill’s straight roommate Cassandra, and yes, Cassandra was at work because she was a ball busting investment banker [...]

“Baby in a Box”–flash fiction, Difficult People

Baby in a Box
 
 
          In some hot house corner of her imagination, in dreams, in reality, weren’t imagined scenes possible memories from another life?
          She shivered. This was something horrid, impossibly possible, the time she had a baby and put It in a box. A yellow brown cardboard box. And the baby, a girl, [...]

“Dr. Sock Monkey”–flash fiction, Difficult People

Dr. Sock Monkey
 
 
          Dr. Sock Monkey was a good listener. He said practically nothing during therapy. I didn’t mind of course. I had plenty to say. I liked the sound of my own gritty voice. I just refuse to have a name to tie me down; that way I can roam around the universe and [...]

“Bones”–flash fiction, Difficult People

Bones
 
 
          Bones. That’s what they called me. Trombone. Old name. I don’t care.
          Get some education, my Daddy always said. What if’n your lungs and lips they blow out?
           Shit. They mostly never did. Mouth, lips, lungs…bones…blowin’ soft and slow. New Orleans sound, you got it? Uh huh, that’s what I hear when I wake [...]