five microfictions

snow blind

He meant to take a powder, another run at it, despite “it” not looking so good. Snow blinded, clutching one pole (the other one missing, as well as one glove, one boot, one ski), he clung to the precipice, swaying on one leg. In the distance Sally (lovely Sally!) leaped and flapped, her whole body a semaphore—was she trying to tell him something or just making fun of him Then Quizno flashed by, tall and dashing, followed by Sam, Rick, and Schlomo, handsome all, laying down a single trail of powder like a bright zigzaggy arrow angling toward oblivion.

open city

Arrivederci! Tom yelps, waving his mangled hand, projector strapped to scooter as he angles off into the juttery night. “Open City” is our next scheduled feature save for a fused sprocket and shredded lamp: our chalet flattened, the bomb meant for the red cross clinic one valley over, where (it’s rumored) Il Duce, though hanged, now rests and recovers. Tom’s Nurse Nell’s beau: like us, she’s spy, cinephile, assassin, and—lately—film star: thirty feet tall without the screen, in a costume a cross between a nurse’s and ninja’s, wielding a scalpel like a scimitar.

Bombardiers salute, their weapon bays closed, and fly right past her.

flash fiction

dragon’s tongue

Cicada shriek and the bare trees tremble, blazing in the sun like an engorged eye. I stare at my ruined garden and swing wide the gate. Only one plant still stands, my last dragon’s tongue, the soil all about trampled and strewn with twisted roots and limbs.

Claw prints lead to the briar-and-nettle fence. Bloodied fur dangles there and I smile. I retrieve a trowel and pot from the garden shed and gently uproot the plant: its red-speckled leaves droop and stinging hairs writhe and flutter in the wind. I hold it aloft and take inside where I set it on the mantelpiece beside my parents’ twin burial urn.

~

“And you’re here why?” Liana says, hunched beside the fire outside her hut.

Night’s fallen. I tremble from the long, steep climb. 

“My garden’s done for, but I’ve saved the last dragon’s tongue.”

The door ajar, wreathes of green mist spill out, redolent of lavender, mugwort, sienna, rose.

My nose quivers and eyes tear. Liana herself smells of clay, ash, woodsmoke. I try to stroke her long skeined hair, but she swats my hand away.

“Stay here,” she scolds and goes inside.