Tag: short fiction

ISSUE 13: MARCH 2017

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction ~ 1 Comment

IMG_7934Flying Man
By Matthew Duffus

Pants and shirt pressed, tie tucked between the third and fourth buttons, he pedaled into the March wind. Once around the town Square, he dodged traffic and cut down a side street that would dump him onto the main quad in plenty of time to turn in the work he’d spent the weekend compiling before his 2 PM Calculus I lecture. His advisor had warned him not to go down the rabbit hole of Rajnipal’s Third Theorem, but after two years of proofs and equations, he was about to come out the other end. He’d be famous—reasonably so. Not cover of Time famous, but well-known enough to snag one of the ever-dwindling number of tenure track jobs on offer at flagship institutions.

Just as he squeezed the handbrake in preparation for the turn onto University Avenue, a car door swung open before him, followed by the chatter of a cell-phone-holding coed. “Can you believe she wants me to pay for the dress myself? I mean—oh my God, something hit me!” Continue reading “ISSUE 13: MARCH 2017” →

LOST IN TRANSLATION WRITING CONTEST!

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction

IMG_7933Prompt: the dubash
No Entry Fee
Word limit: 500 words, excluding title
Deadline: JUNE 15, 2017
Submissions: email to
brilliantflashfiction@gmail.com

Prizes:
50 euro first prize (or equivalent amount in your currency)
25 euro second prize
15 euro third prize
Judge: KJ Hannah Greenberg Continue reading “LOST IN TRANSLATION WRITING CONTEST!” →

ISSUE 2: JUNE 2014

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction

IMG_7032You
By Madhumita Roy

My monologue is directed at You.

Because You sit on the other side of the desk with a smirk on your face, which makes You resemble my cat, Ludo, when she smiles. New research claims that animals can smile and, therefore, I believe both You and Ludo are capable of smiling.

On rare occasions your smirk evolves into a wide grin.

These occasions are as follows: when rain-forests burn; or tsunamis wreak havoc in Asian countries; or when two hundred girls are abducted and threatened with rape.

Your face is extremely annoying.

Although there is a halo around your enormously big head, I think it is an illusion you have masterfully created to cut an impressive figure for a credulous crowd. You are not God, Godhead, Godfather, Godly, God-like, or any goddess. Continue reading “ISSUE 2: JUNE 2014” →

ISSUE 1: MARCH 2014

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction

IMG_2527W E I G H T
By Dawn Lowe

I saw a Good Samaritan beside the road and stopped the car.

He held a sign: SPACE SUIT FOR SALE

He was old, thin and wasted. The space suit lay in the dust at his feet, white and shiny, a US flag on its chest.

“How much?” I asked.

“$1,500,” he said. “Cash.”

I put the space suit in the back seat of my car and the old man got in beside it. The suit, seated like a passenger, was three inches taller than the Samaritan.

“Where’d you get it?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I was an astronaut.”

“What’s your name?”

“Does it matter? Once you’re grounded, they all forget.” Continue reading “ISSUE 1: MARCH 2014” →