It Looked Better On Me

by R.K. West

My arch-rival, Cassie, left her sweater on the back of a chair in an empty classroom. It was a well-made wool cardigan, in the style that was popular that year, with an Inca-inspired pattern knitted into the back and sides. I wanted one, but the price was beyond my clothing allowance. Of course, Cassie would have one; somehow, she always had whatever I wanted, from perfect hair, to the teacher’s praise, to my now ex-boyfriend.

Classes were over for the day, and there was almost no foot traffic in the hallways. I picked up Cassie’s sweater, knowing that if I stole it, I’d never be able to wear such a recognizable item. I could take it upstairs to the Administrative Office and turn it in as lost and found. Instead, I carried it into the restroom. Ready to dash into a stall if someone came in, I tried it on and gave myself a whirl in the mirror. It felt solid and looked great. I could imagine how much fun I'd have in that sweater, with all the admiring eyes on me, and I was a little bit sad when I stuffed it into the trash can.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
R.K. West is a co-editor of Sudden Flash.

 

The Wear and Tear

by Richard Lehan

"What causes a hernia, Doctor?" Martin asked, curious. "It's not like I strained myself lifting something heavy."

Doctor Kang, the surgeon, had just finished examining the bulge protruding from the right side of Martin's groin.

"The abdominal wall weakened due to the wear and tear on your body." Doctor Kang, who was old himself, was bemused by the look of mild surprise on Martin's face. "Not an uncommon occurrence for a person your age."

"Huh," Martin responded. He prided himself on having no other visible signs of wear and tear.

"Welcome to the future, my friend." Dr. Kang laughed.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Richard Lehan is a fiction writer living in Massachusetts. Most recently, two of his flash fictions were published in May 2025: "A Labyrinth for the Pandemic" in Feed the Holy, and "Wandering Joy" in Suisun Valley Review. In addition, his one-act play "Conflagration" appeared in the Autumn 2024 edition of Rushing Thru the Dark magazine, his short story "Ambulatory" appeared in the Spring 2024 edition of Coneflower Cafe magazine, and another story of his "Ambulatory" appeared in Story Sanctum in December 2023 and was included in their year-end anthology "Tales from the Vault. Finally, his flash fiction "State Forest" also appeared in the 2024 edition of Stolen Shoes Literary & Art Magazine.

 

Flagstaff Incognito

by Clyde Liffey

My foppish dress and effete manner are only a disguise, he assured her soon after they met. I’ve crossed the Mafia, major gangs including MS-13, even the NYPD.

She liked his hands.

After thirty years of marriage, he died in their bed. He never suspected that she didn’t believe him.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Clyde Liffey lives near the water.

Time Zone

by Nina Welch

The bartender at Zelda’s, est. 1955, is a time traveler. Eighty-year-old Betty enters the bar at twilight and magically turns 21. She steps out and she’s ancient. She goes back in and orders a martini from the handsome bartender and is intrigued by his questions.

“What do you know about life?”

“Not much, I’m only 21 or am I?”

“Do you have any sense of time?”

“What do you mean?”

“Time in between.”

“I feel strange.”

“Like time standing still?”

“Is this the in between zone?”

“Yes, do you want to come go with me?”

“Not out the front door.”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Nina Welch’s short stories, Green Lizard Lounge, What’s Your Opening Line, and Good to Go, have been published in Literally Stories 2024 Anthology. Her poetry was published in Rats Ass Review, Aaduna Press for National Poetry Month, and Girls on Film and Fandango-8 chapbooks. She graduated, Cum Laude, from the University of Arizona in 2001 majoring in Media Arts. She lives in San Clemente, California and is a contributing writer for the San Clemente Journal.

 

Not a Fairy Tale

By Guylaine Spencer

Close to a large forest there lived a young woman…

No, let me start again.

It wasn’t a forest. It was a city park near the waterfront … with weeping willows, a beach, and a children’s playground. There were walking trails, too, that used to be popular with all kinds of folks. These days, though, it was mostly only the “residents” of the park who came here.

The woman wasn’t young. She had to be at least fifty. She lived in the park under a tarp held up by giant recycling bins and pieces of lumber she’d stolen from the neighbourhood. Or “borrowed”, as she liked to say. She’d accidentally burned down her last tent and was waiting for another one to be donated.

One day, she was stumbling along the sidewalk and spotted the Glow. It was purple and pink and about the size and shape of a man’s body and it just hovered in the air a few inches off the ground, in front of a boring apartment building.

She’d seen the Glow before, in the same spot, but had always ignored it. Nothing good comes from following things like that, she thought.

But this day, she was feeling sorry for herself—even more than she usually was. She hadn’t been able to sell anything (or anyone) and therefore was missing her special medicine.

So, when she saw the Glow, she decided to walk towards it. And then she walked into it.

Immediately, things started getting freaky. She’d seen visions before but this was unreal. The walls of the apartment building disintegrated in front of her eyes. For a second, she saw a flash of concrete and metal rods and heard clanging and drilling and men yelling at each other. Then, as if she was watching a movie, she saw a pile of stone and brick rubble appear. Finally, the last image firmed up and she was standing in front of a brick building with three stories, multiple gables, and fancy wooden trim. A stone staircase led up to the front doors. A sign on the wall read: House of Refuge. Without thinking, she walked up the steps and stood on the landing, too afraid to knock.

Suddenly, the door swung open and revealed a short, stout girl dressed in a floor-length gown with an apron and cap that looked like it might be a costume for a play set in the last century.

“Yes?” the girl demanded. “Well? What do you want?” When the woman didn’t answer – speech seemed to have abandoned her – the girl repeated, “Yes? Who sent you?”

When the woman still said nothing, the girl sighed and said, “Alright, then, you can’t speak. Or won’t? Well, come along, you’re lucky, we have a bed. Someone died last night. I’ll take you to Mrs. Sturdy. She’s the house superintendent. She decides who can live here and who can’t. You look like a good candidate … I have to ask, though. Where did you get those clothes?!”

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story was inspired by a building called the House of Refuge that used to stand near the waterfront at the foot of John Street in Hamilton, Canada. It was one of several buildings set aside for the poor in the early days of the city.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Guylaine Spencer’s fiction has been published in The New Canadian Stories Magazine, CommuterLit and Literally Stories. Website: https://guylainespencer.wordpress.com

 

The Call

by Celeste Budwit-Hunter

You sit on the edge of your seat during the call with Dr. Patel. “Recurrence,” “sarcoma,” “wait and see” swirl and melt into black. You Google the side effects of her promising new treatment and read “cytokine”, “neurological” — seven years ago, in the hospital room with faux wood paneling, you are just waking when you hear about seizures, sedation, intubation, how many days? They called your family, no guarantees you would wake up or be compos mentis when you did. Thinking clearly now, feeling the weight of waiting, you’ll be damned if you go down that road again.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Celeste Budwit-Hunter works for Johnson Space Center, where she edits procedures performed by astronauts and flight controllers. Having survived a rare cancer thanks to an unrelated donor, she celebrates life through photography, poetry, and hiking in the woods. Her writing has been published by Spider Road Press, Houston Writers House, in collaborations of Women in the Visual and Literary Arts, and upcoming in Synkroniciti.

 

Cleaver

by Huina Zheng

The first time I sleepwalked, I was seven. I only know because my mother told me later. She said that one night, while the whole family was asleep, I got out of bed barefoot and walked to the front door. My fingers twisted the metal lock again and again. Click, click. In the silence, it was loud enough to wake them. She grabbed my arm; my father dragged me back into the living room.

“Where are you going in the middle of the night?!” he shouted.

I kicked and thrashed. He lost his temper and slapped my back. I started crying. “Why did you hit me?” That’s when they realized—I’d been sleepwalking.

After that, it became a worry. They tried red thread on my wrist, calming soups, even tucked a yellow talisman under my pillow, but nothing worked. I’d still get up at night, drawn by something, always toward the door.

Then an uncle from the countryside visited. After hearing the story, he tapped his cigarette and said, “Put a cleaver under the bed. Blade out. Spirits fear steel.”

My mother hesitated. She never believed in that kind of thing. But that night, she slid the heaviest cleaver we owned beneath my bed. Its cold weight pressed against the wooden slats like a silent warning.

Strangely, it worked. I never sleepwalked again. The cleaver stayed there for eleven years. Sometimes I’d crawl under the bed just to look at it. Its blade gleamed dully in the dark, like a closed eye.

Before I left for college, my mother knelt beside my bed and reached underneath. She pulled out the cleaver, wrapped it in old newspaper, and handed it to me. I held it for a moment. The outline of the blade pressed through the paper. Weapons weren’t allowed on public transport. Dorms did inspections. “I can’t take it,” I said finally, and slid it back. She didn’t argue. Just sighed, and looked away.

That first night in the dorm, I woke in the hallway. My hand was on the fire door. The metal was cold. At the end of the corridor, the emergency light flickered green. My shadow stretched across the floor. Behind me, my room door hung open.

And in that moment, I remembered the cleaver under my old bed. But here, there was nothing. Just me. And a door that would open with the slightest push.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Huina Zheng, a Distinction M.A. in English Studies holder, works as a college essay coach. Her stories have been published in Baltimore Review, Variant Literature, Midway Journal, and others. Her work has received nominations three times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She resides in Guangzhou, China with her family.

 

Legacy

creative nonfiction
by Lev Raphael

When I wake up at 3am these days because of chronic pain in my knee or neck or hands, I think about my late mother in the morning. She died in 1999 after a long illness and she hasn't left. I see her everywhere, but especially in the morning. Her morning.

Auburn hair well-brushed, she would sit quietly in the L-Shaped Washington Heights kitchen with her back to the window as if she wasn't ready to engage with something as simple as the view of another six-story, cream-colored brick apartment house built in the Thirties. Or the small bowl of cottage cheese that waited for her spoon.

Reading The New York Times that my father had brought before he went to work, she would have a cup or two of instant Nescafe, take aspirin for her arthritis, and smoke her first Pall Malls of the day while she put herself together. The Yiddish words she used to explain it—"Ich muss mich zusamenstellen" literally meant "I have to assemble myself" and the phrase always seemed both weighty to me, and a little comic. In her red-and-white robe she might have been a human stop sign. STOP. Construction Zone Ahead.

I never thought of her as anything other than "together." Brisk, highly-educated, fiendishly well-read and speaking French, German, Russian, Polish, English and Yiddish, she was quick in her judgments and firm in her opinions. In the Nixon era she dismissed him as a fascist and said that a speech by his vice president Spiro Agnew was "like Stalin on a bad day."

She was in her sixties when her fingers started becoming gnarled and painful because of arthritis and she would gaze at them and sigh, "Getting old is miserable."

In my sixties, and after various surgeries, I feel far less "put together" than I was ten years ago, I can't help but agree with her. I don't smoke, but I have many pills at breakfast and can't even get to them or food before a few cups of coffee to clear my head. And I often have cottage cheese for breakfast, though mine is organic.

My fingers aren't twisted, but arthritis has wrecked both my thumbs and one knee. Taking stairs hurts, using certain tools hurts, and sometimes just rolling over in bed at night hurts.

Yet thinking of my mother, hearing her husky smoker's voice in my head, I feel oddly soothed. It's taken me years to realize that I am so much like her: though I don't smoke, I have more opinions than one person needs, I can't get my day going until I read the New York Times and have my coffee, and I speak several languages.

Pain is now another thing that we share.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Lev Raphael is the son of immigrants, grew up in Upper Manhattan and now lives in Michigan.

 

My House Smells Expensive

by Kali Abel

I caught the tail end of an Instagram ad this morning. “Make your house smell expensive!” it said, showing a small, white, plug-in cube, like an oversized Altoid in an outlet.

Make your house smell expensive. Oh, my house already smells expensive. Let me tell you how.

It smells of the dog’s morning breath, the only morning breath I can stand. The dog who cost me $1500 in vet bills two months ago when she tripped down the stairs, tore a nail, and then the scar tissue caused it to grow back deformed warranting its removal.

It smells of my daughter’s wet gym bag and her disdain for my advice that she needs to remove her wet cleats from the bag itself, not leave them in the trash bag I had advised she carry the previous month. It smells like $5 of Febreze and whole new sports bag for her birthday, on the heels of that brand new lacrosse stick. My advice, however, remains irritatingly free.

It smells of books, thirty or so from the library, but many more that were bought. It's an addiction that no one would dare fault me for, and if they did, they could be prepared to smell my wrath up and down the halls.

It does not smell like the dinner I thought my husband would make me for Mother’s Day. He was tired and playing a video game on the console I bought for $1,000 a few years ago as his Christmas gift.

It smells like laundry. The clothes worn once by one child before being washed, and the clothes worn 25 times by the other child before she is told they must be washed. It smells of detergent and the fresh ink of the water bill as the water heater clicks on for their meditatively long showers even while the washing machine still whirs.

Oh, my house smells expensive alright. Expensive in countless ways depending on the day, whose birthday is nearest, which holiday has most recently passed, and what the temperature is outside. So with all due respect, Instagram, you can take your oversized Altoid mint and shove it in your own socket.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Kali Abel is a political ecologist and professor at the University of Portland. She is much friendlier than she sounds in this particular piece......usually.

 

Behind Every Man

by James C. Clar

Isabelle had never been prouder of Edward. He looked magnificent in his elegant suit. Everyone commented as well on his magisterial bearing. He was, finally, the center of attention; attention that, in Isabelle’s opinion, was his due. Nor was Isabelle being ignored since the goal of everyone who entered was to be seen with her.

Edward was, of course, in the limelight because of her and the three drops of colorless liquid she had placed in his martini last week. As the mourners passed, Isabelle basked in the glow. It was true. Behind every successful man, there was a woman.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
James C. Clar is a teacher and writer who divides his time between the wilds of Upstate New York and the more congenial climes of Honolulu, Hawaii. Most recently his work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, Sci-Phi Journal, Antipodean Sci-Fi, Freedom Fiction Journal and The Literary Fantasy magazine.

 

Only Ever Three

by Ron Wetherington

There are only ever three things that Emily prays for at night, kneeling at her bed. To hear what the nightingale hears, to sing with the crickets, to see the world through the eyes of a damselfly. Her mother tries not to question this unusual longing, given her young daughter’s severe handicap. She seeks instead to quietly encourage more realistic dreams. But in her happy, tiny world Emily is stubbornly confident.

Occasionally, Emily disappears for an entire night, her empty room falling silent except for the soft chirping in a distant corner. And at times a cautious response.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Ron Wetherington is a retired professor of anthropology living in Dallas, Texas. He has published a novel, Kiva (Sunstone Press), and numerous short fiction pieces in this second career. He also enjoys writing creative non-fiction. Read some of his pubs at https://www.rwetheri.com/.

 

Shades

by Nick Young

Cool? Ha! You think you're cool? You've got nothin' on me, man. Whether chillin' at the beach or cruisin' with the top dropped, he's got me down and wrapped, you dig? No sun? No sweat. I'm ridin' high on his head. Top o' the world, the coolest of the cool.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Nick Young is a retired award-winning CBS News Correspondent. His writing has appeared in dozens of reviews, journals and anthologies. His first novel, "Deadline," was published in 2023. He can be found on Bluesky @youngnick.bsky.social. He lives outside Chicago.

 

Still Bound

by Huina Zheng

The dog had been chained in the corner of the yard for six years. The iron chain had rusted red, like a dried-up trail of blood. You can’t blame me—when he was just a puppy, he tore around wildly, scattering the neighbor’s chickens and even killing one. When I fastened the chain around his neck, I saw a flash of confusion and fear in his eyes. I should have felt pity. But the neighbor had shouted, “If you don’t keep that dog under control, I’ll stew him myself.” I did it to protect him, to make him good. I did it out of love, or so I told myself.

At first, he howled through the nights, the chain pulled taut, his little body rubbed raw from struggling. Every time I passed, I walked faster, trying to outrun the guilt. Later, his cries faded to a rasp, folding into the wind. And then, even the rasp vanished. In storms, rain poured through the crooked kennel roof. He curled into the puddle. If he whimpered, the rain swallowed it. Under the scorching sun, he looked like a sunbaked lump of clay, motionless except for his tongue.

He grew into a large dog but lay in that narrow patch of dirt, quiet as stone. I should have let him run, let his muscles remember what it was to stretch. I should have warmed his cold nose with my palm before the light left his eyes. But I only hurried past, the way you pass a plum tree that never bears fruit—there, but no longer seen. For six years, aside from refilling his bowl, I nearly forgot he was alive.

One autumn afternoon, I walked toward him with a key. When the lock popped open with a click, he didn’t even twitch an ear. I called his name. He looked at me. I felt dizzy. I touched my neck—no chain. But something still choked me.

My late husband’s face flashed: twisted with rage, fists flying, spit in his curses. Blow after blow, I shut my eyes, unmoving—like a dog long used to being kicked. Why did you make me do it? You know how much I love you! He shouted, striking again. I looked into the dog’s hollow eyes and thought: do I have the same dead fish stare? If I had struggled harder, could I have broken free? Or was I, like him, still shackled to the years I thought I’d outlived?

I looked at him. Obedient. Broken. Utterly resigned. “It’s over,” I whispered. The chain was off. And yet I wondered: how long would it take for us to stand?

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Huina Zheng, a Distinction M.A. in English Studies holder, works as a college essay coach. Her stories have been published in Baltimore Review, Variant Literature, Midway Journal, and others. Her work has received nominations three times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She resides in Guangzhou, China with her family.

 

Pick-Up at The Dump

by E.P. Lande

Every Wednesday I go to the dump; I call it Dump Day. It’s not that I have that much trash in the house, but with six horses, a week’s worth of wood-shaving plastic bags fills two 35-gallon garbage cans. Rather than let this accumulate, I designated Wednesday as my day to drive to the dump in town.

This Wednesday, as I was taking one of the 35-gallon cans from off the back of the truck, I heard an unfamiliar voice ring out “Aaron”. I turned, to a woman who had passed her first youth but still retained a je-ne-sais-quoi fascinating face that caused me to smile.

“Louise,” she said, “... Louise Neuland.”

“Louise,” I echoed, remembering the name but not the face. “What a nice surprise,” trying to place her, acknowledging to myself that I had known her ... sometime ago, just not exactly when.

“It’s been at least ten years,” Louise said. “You haven’t changed. I’m so glad to see you.”

While I couldn’t, with honesty, return the flattering remark — as I couldn’t remember her face from our last encounter — I set aside my garbage can and smiled, “Louise ....”

“You still have a bewitching smile, Aaron. It was one of your qualities that captivated me,” Louise demurred.

How could I possibly not say, “Louise, if you carry on, you’ll cause me to blush,” to which she came a step closer.

“What have you been up to, since I last saw you in your restaurant?” Now I remembered. With her husband, Louise would dine in my restaurant at least once a week; how could I forget such a loyal patron.

“After I closed The Chelsea Grill, I devoted my time to my animals — my horses, chickens, pigeons, and guinea hens — which I still do, and I write. What about you?” I didn’t ask about her husband as I wasn’t sure he was still in her picture.

“Well, you know Bob died ....”

“No, I didn’t; when?”

“Six years ago ... and while it is often lonely,” she stepped a little closer, “I have friends ....” and she came closer. “Do you live alone?” she asked in a hushed tone.

“Eh, yes. Since Janet died ....” I couldn’t continue; Louise’s gaze transfixed me.

“Why don’t we share a coffee,” she suggested.

“I would like that.” Looking at Louise, she suddenly appeared years younger, even younger than when I last saw her in my restaurant ten years before.

“Now?” she whispered.

When I didn’t answer immediately, she added, “At my place.” She enfolded my hand in hers and led me to her truck.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
E.P. Lande, born in Montreal, has lived in the south of France and now, with his partner, in Vermont, writing and caring for more than 100 animals. Previously, as a Vice-Dean, he taught at l’Université d’Ottawa, and he has owned and managed country inns and free-standing restaurants. Since submitting less than three years ago, more than 100 his stories — many auto-fiction — and poems have found homes in publications on all continents except Antarctica. His story “Expecting” has been nominated for Best of the Net. His debut novel, “Aaron’s Odyssey”, a gay-romantic-psychological thriller, has recently been published in London.

 

Book Begone

by Peter Gregg Slater

“Am I correct, you want this book banned?” the President of the Wonham High School Board asked the parent standing in the overflowing auditorium.

“Yes, from the classroom and the library. Like the Board did earlier this evening with Keith’s Prom Dress.”

“Give us more specifics.”

“Where to begin? There’s drunken driving, a fatal hit and run, adultery, violence against a woman, racketeering, a homicide, and a suicide. Plus a racist.” Murmurs of dismay in the audience.

The Board conferred, sotto voce. after which the President announced, “By a vote of 8 to 1, the Board bans The Great Gatsby".

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Peter Gregg Slater, a historian, has taught at several institutions, including Dartmouth College and the University of California, Berkeley. In retirement, he has devoted himself to creative writing. His poetry, fiction, parody, satire, and creative non-fiction have appeared in DASH, Workers Write!, The Satirist, Masque & Spectacle, and Defenestration.

 

Dinner Scene

by R.K. West

Jay was a waiter at some snooty dinner club.

It was a classy place where nobody bothered the famous people.

At a banquet honoring Cary Grant, Jay bribed the photographer to capture him in a shot with Grant.

He didn’t want to be obviously a waiter, so he set his tray down and maneuvered into position behind the actor.

In the picture, Grant was too handsome, contemplating his drink with a mischievous smile, and Jay looked like he was planning a jewel heist.

I haven’t seen Jay since 1981, and I lost my copy of the photo two or three moves ago.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
R.K. West is a Pacific Northwest writer.

 

Ten Inches of Steel

by William West

The lieutenant had said, “Remember, there must be absolutely no noise. If we encounter any of the devils, use your bayonet. “

A sensation of prickly cold transversed from the back of my neck to the end of my spinal column. Use your bayonet. The thought of those 10 inches of cold, blue steel always gave me that jellified backbone feeling. I recalled the grueling hours of drilling with that weapon. Growl when you thrust, they said, growl like a wild animal. Keep the bayonet pointed at your opponent’s neck and growl. I growled all right. Hour after hour, day after day, until my vocal cords became raw and I got so good that I was given an expert’s badge. Expert with the bayonet I was, but I knew that if anyone came at me with one I would drop my piece and run.

I reached a small clearing that I didn’t remember patrolling before. It was then that I saw him standing silently in the shadow of a tree not 40 feet away. He hadn’t seen me. I stepped backward and trod on a dry branch. His head jerked in my direction. I just stood there, wondering why he didn’t shoot. Charlie, I had been told, usually avoided face-to-face encounters. He must have seen how frightened I was. He advanced slowly, bayonet pointed at my throat, his mouth snarling. Growl. Why don’t you growl like a wild animal? That will throw fear into him. Damn you, growl. Growl, fool.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. He was about five yards from me and I knew he would make a thrust. He took two fast steps and made a long thrust. Instinctively I parried left, and came up with a vertical butt stroke that caught him on the jaw. He dropped his rifle and collapsed, lying on his back with my blade at his throat. Blood trickled from his mouth but he was still conscious. His eyes were wide and pleading. He didn’t look like a devil that way. Use your bayonet, they had said. Finish him quickly.

I couldn’t. It was too much to ask, murder. Cold blooded murder. I had never killed anything larger than a spider in my life. I had no quarrel with this particular guy. Should I kill him just because he was on one side and I on the other? It was crazy. I thought of the lieutenant, dead, perhaps. Lying in his own blood, killed by this devil or one like him. Kill him or be killed.

I could feel the sweat in the palms of my hands. Suddenly, my head cleared. I opened my mouth and growled. Growled like a crazed, starved beast. I growled, and made the lunge.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
William West is the pen name of an army veteran who spent forty years as a high school teacher.

 

The Duel

By William F. Smith

Unable to agree on their company’s future direction, two bickering business partners decided to settle their differences permanently by having a duel. Winner take all!

They were able to agree on weapons – revolvers – and a place – a deserted stretch of beach just where Old Ocean Road came to an abrupt end. There would be no seconds, no witnesses.

Howard Tucker was certain he would win because he considered himself an expert marksman who could knock the eye out of a gnat at sixty paces, the agreed-upon distance between the combatants when they would fire. He had never mentioned his skill to Jack Foxx, who considered himself an excellent shot.

“You go south and I’ll go north," Foxx said casually. “At thirty paces we’ll turn and fire.”

The two stood back to back, then began walking, Tucker counting the steps out loud. At twenty-five paces he sensed something wrong, turned around and shouted at Foxx, whom he shot through the heart as soon as the man turned to face him.

Foxx, dying, managed to raise his head to see Tucker sinking into the ground. Foxx had been sure he would win because he had arrived at the condemned beach well ahead of time and had removed all the warning signs. He knew that before Tucker completed thirty paces, the quicksand would suck him downward to death.

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
William F. Smith's stories, humorous verse and photographs have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mike Shane Mystery Magazine and Reader’s Digest. His stories have been included in several anthologies.