He detailed the dispensation of every finger. Bones. Major organs. Where to bury his eyes — a Malibu beach. For years I kept Marty on ice. Years. Who knew Marty had that sort of testament?

Marty was more than a snitch. He was family. A last request is a brother’s duty.

3 Things About This Micro-fiction

1. Strangely enough I find organized crime makes for dull prose. Even the motivations are cliche.
2. It’s all about the whacking. Dysfunctional families who whack.
3. So I don’t really like this piece. But I haven’t the heart to bury it.

I’m digging a grave, son. My life’s work laid bare. A macabre undertaking, but I’ve excavated this plot with an archaeologist’s care, with fine brushes and twine lines. Every artifact was artfully placed.

But who will fill your grave, I ask.

The old man bends brittle and weeps.

Not I!

3 Things About This Micro-fiction

1. Wrote this in under 5 minutes.
2. Who will be the person in the grave? Who will heap the earth upon him?
3. I allow myself one exclamation point each year.

For breakfast, Jayne and Smithy sample strawberry, blueberry, and peach flavored Frills.

Smithy removes sleep suppressors from his eyes. Jayne? Is that a neural stimulator? It’s holiday! Abner should rest. Trimester exams won’t start for another hour.

Jayne keeps the device cupped to her stomach.

She knows.

Every minute counts.

3 Things About This Micro-Fiction

1. I wrote the first draft on a walk around the park.
2. Neural stimulators sound like something from Star Trek.
3. Frills sound like something delicious but insubstantial.

Our flat Earth proved simpler.

But we couldn’t wrap our heads around those unrepentant cartographers. We toasted swift journeys and shipped their brigs over the horizon.

As expected, those rascals never found the bearing home. Their skulls roll around dry ocean beds.

Oh, we dammed the rivers. Another easy fix.

3 Things About This Micro-fiction

1. I was terribly exited after writing this piece.
2. It has an unreliable narrator! That’s the stuff of fiction.
3. Moral: Simple ideologies will require one “easy fix” after another.

I mistake a life full of empty kisses, spotting my lips. The merry-go-round of affairs.

The letters stop coming ending in xxx’s and ooo’s. You should visit, the kids are growing.

Then I bed one bastard too many. He sights my heart like hunting quail. I tremble in tall grass.

3 Things About This Micro-fiction

1. This story started with the ironic statement “a life full of empty kisses.”
2. This isn’t necessarily a cautionary tale.
3. Perhaps she has found a truer sort of love that frightens her. Or not.

Last night Bernard faced the salad. He unwedged its bowl from the fridge and wept over crisp lettuces.

Then he dreamed of Beatrice whisking a vinaigrette while he erupted over football.

This morning he reread the note. You should take care of yourself now.

What did she mean? Not that?

3 Things About This Micro-fiction

1. My favorite salad is edamame succotash.
2. One of those stories that involved a lot of editing.
3. I like these open-ended fictions with the suggestion of one or more interpretations. I’m not even sure myself what’s occurred.

Alone with her cats Nora addresses them while she studies the telly. What rubbish! What trash! Those people! Tsk, tsk!

The cats attend Nora with equal dissatisfaction.

Before falling, Archangel Tveriel — Nora calls him Fluffermuffin — would have seared the fat from her bones. Now he thinks, there are worse hells.

3 Things About This Micro-fiction

1. Writing teaches me all sorts of things, ie. that cats are fallen angels damned to an eternity of human companionship.
2. Although I’ve always known that cats are evil, I never could understand why they don’t nip out our eyes while we sleep.
3. They’re under some sort of metaphysical containment!

Jack and Jill first thrilled to kill when they impaled their father.

Mum died next. As you’d expect they swore, “Let’s see to each other.”

Jack fell down on a garden trowel, not once or twice — but thrice — while dear Jill mistook her pills, tumbling into the hereafter.

3 Things About This Micro-fiction

1. It’s a made for TV movie!
2. Adaptations are très populaire these days.
3. I hate writing in meter. I fudged it a bit here and there.

On weekends Otto reads. His recliner tilts back like the cradle of an astronaut prepared for liftoff. A beer bottle stands erect as a rocket on the table beside him. He blows a continuous plume of smoke as he works through the pack of cigarettes he will smoke. When hungry he microwaves a few dogs and sets a bag of chips between his legs. He carries his paperbacks with him to the bathroom and sits at length, not rushing anything. Only when Darla comes home from work does he stop. He places a finger between the pages to ask about her day. He listens patiently until Darla slips away to the coffee maker. He begins reading.

This time, however, Darla has found a novel in the library’s selection of new books titled Otto Reads. It comes from the literary shelf. Otto recalls that in the last book he read the villainous Massimiliano had been frozen in time and died from the shock of being thawed. Seconds passed, but to the villain his agony spanned weeks. As soon as Otto sees the book he experiences his entire weekend in a moment. His response is a tepid, “oh.”

“I know you’re not a big fan of hardbacks,” Darla says. “But I thought you might get a kick out of this one. It’s about a man reading a book. And that book is called Otto Reads, which is about the man who’s reading the book. And if you read the book it’ll be like you’re in a hall of mirrors. It sounds like science fiction, doesn’t it?”

Otto glances suspiciously at the cover. The covers of science fiction books do not resemble boxes of generic brand corn flakes.

“So what you’re saying is, you’re trying to drive me mad? Because that’s what happens in stories with mirror image devices. Inevitably a man is confronted with everything his psyche has pushed deep into the abyss of his soul in order to protect the fragilely constructed persona he wears in everyday life. Knowledge of the true self is like nitroglycerin. Bam!”

“Well, it’s just a book. It’s not like I’m forcing you to read it. I just thought you might like it.”

Otto’s destiny settles on his lap like a house cat with soft fur and claws. Darla suspects she may have been thoughtless in her moment of thoughtfulness. If she concludes that her concept of Otto is a misconception, she won’t blame the construct, she’ll blame the man himself. Otto senses the danger as certainly as if she had drawn a cigarette from her purse. It could easily have been a gun. Darla loves an idealized Otto. He mustn’t bring to mind that she married a lump of meat and gristle.

“No, darling Darla, I should read it. You’re my wife and you’re supposed to expose me to new ideas and new planes of reality to explore. I’m just saying, if I start to act odd–for me–you may be called upon to engage in spiritual battle for my sanity.”

“That’s a daily struggle for me.”

“Quite so,” says Otto. Darla starts toward the kitchen and Otto sneaks a peak at the first few lines. Otto suspected this was going to be the worst book he ever read. He could not be more right.

3 Things About This Flash Fiction

1. A sci-fi fan who doesn’t like hardbacks is itself the stuff of science fiction.
2. Otto is a palindrome. Did you notice that? Oh. You did.
3. The point of this is: Marriage is like a hall of mirrors where one is forced to see oneself in distorted, unrecognizable reflections.

A Hungarian dulcimer hangs above the lintel. It’s said that travelers stained by blood will produce a dour note. Such people are always welcomed with mead and sent to restful beds.

A spacious pillow awaits their heads. As always the innkeeper departs through the rear door.

His hounds sing brightly.

3 Things About This Micro-fiction

1. Research proves that a Hungaraian dulcimer is too large to hang above a lintel.
2. A Romanian dulcimer would not sound quite the same.
3. So I stuck to my original plan. Poetic license.