Forensics
by R.K. West
They say that it isn’t possible to get rid of blood, for two reasons: first, it is pervasive, spreading out and soaking in, penetrating the corners and crevices, leaving tiny drops and flecks on unexpected surfaces; and second, it resists cleaning, undefeated by ordinary sprays and detergents, made even worse by bleach or ammonia. The only way to get rid of blood is to confound it with more blood. The two bloods will blend together, much the way decaf and espresso in the same cup create a single confusing beverage.
Using my own blood would be counterproductive, so I must turn to one of the neighbor’s chickens, and I am surprised when this makes me feel both squeamish and guilty. As the blood drains from the headless little feathered corpse, contaminating the red-brown puddle in the kitchen, I realize, with regret, that it is not enough, and another bird must be sacrificed. The carcasses go into the trash bins, where, of course, they will be quickly discovered, but I plan to answer questions about them the same way I will answer all the other questions: "I don’t know."
R.K. West is a Canadian-American writer who lives next to the Columbia River.
Credit: Originally published online at Six Sentences.
Let There Be Light
by James C. Clar
In the annals of Oneida County there appears an entry dated February, 1901: Fire at the Grand Hotel. Loss considerable. A clerk’s sentence, thin as a matchstick. Yet I have found that some lines, when struck, ignite. From this one I have imagined the following episode. Whether it be history, parable, or some hybrid creature of smoke and memory, I cannot say. I submit only that each generation risks betrayal by the miracles it inherits too quickly. Modern technology, like its primordial precursor, fire, need only be misunderstood once.
The name of my story’s protagonist is uncertain. I will call him Elias Ransom, only because that name appears twice in the guest registry of the wedding that drew him to the city.
Elias came from the North Country, that antique and reticent province where winter lingers like a creditor and innovation arrives with the hesitancy of an unwelcome guest. In his village, darkness was dispelled by candles and kerosene lamps. Although held at bay, Night there was never truly defeated.
By contrast, Utica proclaimed its modernity with noise and flame. Streetcars clanged their passage like armored insects, and the buildings climbed upward not out of faith or ingenuity but out of hubris.
Elias arrived in the afternoon, and found himself lodged at the Grand Hotel. The structure’s rather pretentious name belied its modest three stories. A young bellman in a collar starched to the stiffness of authority greeted him.
“Wedding guests are on the second floor, sir,” he said. Elias followed, feeling as though he had entered not a hotel but a mechanism, something wound tight and humming.
In the room, the bellman turned a small brass knob. Light leapt forth, not kindled, not coaxed, but summoned. Elias nodded, barely concealing his confusion. The bellman lingered, hand extended, in expectation.
“Will there be anything else?”
“No, thank you,” Elias replied. Unsure what to do about the bellman’s hand, he reached out and shook it.
Alone, Elias studied the lights. No wicks, no visible fuel. The flames hovered inside glass globes like captive ghosts. He accepted this as one accepts a rumor: provisionally, and with unease. Finally, he reasoned it to be a municipal improvement of the kerosene lamp.
That evening he attended the wedding. Elias celebrated with determination, as though by indulging fully he might prove himself equal to this new world. Returning to his room afterward, he prepared for bed. When he reached for the lamps, he did what long habit dictated. He approached each one and blew. The spectral flames vanished. Satisfied, Elias crawled under the covers and slept.
The gas that gave life to the lamps, however, refused to slumber.
Hours later Elias awoke, disoriented. He reached for his pipe; the familiar briar worn smooth by years of use. He struck a match.
Witnesses claimed to have heard a sound like thunder waging epic battle with itself. The walls split asunder and the windows surrendered their glass to the street. However briefly, the Grand Hotel achieved the luminosity of a small sun.
Astonishingly, Elias Ransom was found alive beneath a collapsed beam.
“It’s nothing short of a miracle,” said the fireman who dragged him free. “Not a scratch on him. Still had his pipe, too.” The Grand Hotel was rebuilt with electric lights, which were deemed less fickle than gas. Elias lived another fifteen years. Those who knew him claimed he had acquired a peculiar habit: before extinguishing any light, he would pause, as if listening for something sinister beneath its glow. He never again slept anywhere but home, where the darkness, at least, behaved as expected.
James C. Clar is a writer and retired teacher. In addition to his contributions to Sudden Flash, his work has appeared most recently in Bright Flash Literary Review, Flash Digest, After/Thought Literary Journal, Freedom Fiction Journal and The Yard Crime Blog.
Defiance
by NR Schmidt
Jeremy Hockman’s first tattoo was given on his friend Marcus’s bed, during a house party, while Marcus’s parents were out of town.
It was done with a real tattoo gun, bought by Marcus’s brother DeAndre, and stolen by Marcus while DeAndre was on a date to the skating rink.
It was shittily drawn Sonic the Hedgehog, if it can be called that, which proved that even a professional’s tools cannot cure the shake in an amateur’s hands.
There are other things that come with training, like wound care and bedside manner.
When Marcus was done, he bounced his friend off the bed and yelled, “Next!”, his voice wafting over the deep stereo beats and smell of keg-beer.
Jeremy walked off with fourteen-year-old swagger, proud of his ritual completion.
Three days later, Sonic was infected and started to leak sticky white pus.
It was probably because Jeremy had followed a group of girls down to Lake Michigan and jumped in at the Point.
That night, he made it home, opening the swing door in the back just so much so it didn’t squeak, and got into bed, his mother sleeping off her bottle of wine in her favorite chair.
As the days passed, he hid his wound under baggy jeans. He didn’t scratch even though it itched like hell. He spread some playground mud on his pants so the pus wouldn’t show through.
And he thought he was fine.
Until the fever started.
And his PE coach made him go to the office because he was limping.
And they made him go to the hospital.
And they made him roll up his pants.
And they made him show them his leg, now swollen and purple.
And at the next house party Marcus threw, Jeremy got there late and struggled to get his wheelchair through the door.
NR Schmidt is a writer originally from America's West Coast.
Miracle Pill
By M.D. Smith IV
After an aimless stroll through the park, where pigeons strutted with more romantic confidence than I’d ever possessed, I returned to my apartment on a crowded sidewalk. I found a note slipped into my jacket pocket, like fate delivering me a business card or a secret confession. It looked rubber-stamped and slightly crooked:
A new pill that lets you be the man you want to be. Women can’t resist.
Below that, in smaller print, an address on Thirty-Fourth Street—the side of town where paint is peeling, and streetlights flicker like they’re tired of living. At the bottom: Results guaranteed or your money back.
Through college and into my early twenties, I had been a spectacular failure with women. I collected polite rejections the way some men collect baseball cards. I had heard every variation of “you’re sweet, but…” known to humankind.
The address led to a narrow storefront wedged between a pawnshop and a tattoo parlor. A hand-lettered wooden sign read: “Miracles for Sale.” I chuckled at such modesty.
Inside, incense hung in the air like cheap fog. Behind a desk sat a woman dressed as a gypsy fortune-teller, complete with jangling bracelets and a dramatic patch over one eye.
She slid a tiny bottle toward me. “It alters your pheromones,” she said. “Like animals in the wild. One pill under your tongue. It will last seven days.”
“One pill?” I asked.
“One,” she emphasized.
I handed over three hundred dollars, telling myself desperation is just courage wearing ragged clothes.
Outside, curiosity overpowered caution. Instead of one pill, I popped three beneath my tongue and waited for magic to bloom.
It bloomed.
The first woman I passed stopped mid-stride, inhaled as if she’d caught the scent of fresh bread, and smiled at me like I was the last lifeboat on earth, and walked closer to me with her hand out.
I felt the rise in my pants. This is what I’ve been missing.
But then another. And another. Within minutes, women were turning, circling, drifting toward me as if I were gravity itself.
Compliments flew. Hands brushed my arm. Phone numbers were written across my palms. Someone kissed my cheek. Someone else hugged me so tightly I gasped to draw a breath.
The crowd thickened. Laughter sharpened into shrieks. My miracle bloomed into a siege, and my rise now deflated. I broke into a run, dodging grasping hands, my heart pounding like a kettle-drum. The swarm followed, a tidal wave in perfume.
Gasping, I ducked into an alley and hid behind a horrible-smelling dumpster until the noise drifted away. Then I sprinted back to the shop and burst through the door.
“You’ve got to help me!” I shouted.
The woman looked up calmly. “Did the pill not work? Want a refund for the unused portion?”
“It worked too well,” I said. “I took too many. I need an antidote.”
Her single visible eye sparkled. “Oooh,” she purred, turning slowly toward a shelf behind her. She lifted another tiny bottle with one pill in it.
“This one,” she said, sweet as fresh honey, “will cost you three thousand dollars, and sorry, no checks. Cards have a ten percent surcharge.”
M.D. Smith of Huntsville, Alabama, writer of over 350 flash stories, has published digitally in Spillwords, Flash Fiction Magazine, Flash Phantoms, and many more. Retired from running a television station, he lives with his wife of 64 years and three cats. https://mdsmithiv.com/
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