An archive of all of the flash creative nonfiction / flash CNF we’ve published over the years. Our flash category is specifically for pieces up to 800 words.
The ball of string fits reassuringly in my hand, smaller than a softball but just bigger than a baseball. Its perfect sphericity seems impossible against my palm, testament to the care and diligence with which it was wound.
I’m alone in my parent’s house, painting the first floor bedrooms where my grandmother and parents usually sleep.
If I want bread in this household, I have to go to my wife’s bed. I don’t mean to imply an economy of sex for grains, because that’s not the case.
When I used a dustpan to swish all the mice and rats to one side of the box, I thought about all the different ways to be a mom.
The dish is simple: raw egg yolks and equal parts sugar beat vigorously by hand or with an electric mixer, until the mixture is light and frothy.
At the end of each visit, I leave something behind. A scrap of memory. A knot of sadness. A shard of fear.
I keep thinking about this word: bifurcates. It means to split, like the heart splits into different valves or the bronchi split into separate lungs.
She waved her arm along a cabinet adjacent to the counter, filled with maybe 15 clear glass containers of loose tea, most with names I had never heard of.
It’d been almost two years since I’d moved to Colorado, two years since my father had laid eyes on me.
You see these people everywhere, anywhere you may have to stop or slow down: the freeway entrance, the freeway exit, the on-ramp here, the off-ramp there. Everywhere.
