Sarah Crysl Akhtar’s shtetl forebears gifted her with the genes that impel her to make much from little. So of course she writes flash fiction, cultivates orchards on her windowsill and bakes fabulous shortbread. Her son gives her what’s immeasurable — the best of all possible worlds. (Less miraculous fruit of her labors has appeared on 365tomorrows, Flash Fiction Online and Perihelion SF Magazine, as well as on EDF; her posts on the craft of writing — including reviews of stories selected “From the EDF Archives” — have appeared on Flash Fiction Chronicles.)
He split her like a bloodwurst and left her like butcher’s ware — cold dead meat drawing flies. But Friedegunde my sister was more — not a surrenderer and not silenced. I held my scream, knowing she hadn’t screamed but… Continue Reading
Raythene was a stunner, her mother was a glory — lustrous, the pair of them. The grandfather — people called him Beautiful Joe, and you know what that means. Scare the shit out of Satan. If you claimed you weren’t… Continue Reading
No moon, no star was visible. Darkness laughed to itself. Mahguli scattered sharp-scented leaves on the fire. Sparks leapt like comets transversing a secret universe. Something saw Mahguli that hadn’t noticed her before. Greedy fingers stretched to pinch her ears.… Continue Reading
The brambles? Kept pigs out of the gardens. The story? Got my parents out of a jam. “My gosh,” I said to my aunt, “haven’t they bollocksed it up now!” She gave that ginger-and-lemon laugh of hers. “They can lie… Continue Reading
More than forty years, now, and if I knew how to draw I could draw you every detail of the scene. Maybe it was that look he had about him of the young James Coburn, and his perfect timing. Must… Continue Reading
“…a story, Mommy!” “In a house in the woods, far far away, three bears were living. “The father bear was big and tall with a big booming voice and big hard hands.” “Bears don’t have hands! They have paws!” “But… Continue Reading
I’d tell it this way: In that place, at a parallel moment, a troop of His Royal Vileness’s cavalry reached a village, poor but beautiful, looking for girls with the same attributes. His Wretchedness desired a new toy. There, ice-clear… Continue Reading
Raheel’s mother Parveen was unmatched for stubbornness but even she crumbled before fate. Yes, she said — the words like a scorpion on her tongue — find a Masood girl for my son. Her sisters had cunningly given birth to… Continue Reading
I still remember that awful moment, in school, when I realized mathematics is the language of the universe and I could barely speak one coherent word of it. I sensed its beauty, but could never commune with its soul. Mastered… Continue Reading
They’re like cats, I’d said. But who listens to kids? This was Phase Two — where hardship perks gave worker bee families like us houses we couldn’t have dreamed of back home. Ours was on a gloriously uncleared lot —… Continue Reading