Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette

Hello, my brother and sister bloggers and writers.  The Old Soldier is here with the Friday edition of the Gazette for you, bringing you the best in flash fiction, articles on writing flash fiction and articles on blogging for fun and profit.

The flash fiction story is short but it has all the elements of the short story in it.  It has description, tension, characterization, a setup, a buildup and a payoff.  It is concise.  It is tight.  There is no wasted motion.

Explore the site.  Let the Gazette be your one stop site for all that is flash fiction.  Just look at the tabs at the top of the page to find something of interest.  The Gazette is published every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  Subscribe to get your flash fiction fix four times a week.  And now for a sad love story.

A Hemingway Hero

It was night and the rain came down hard on the twinkling lights of the Steel City. The young man stood in his briefs at the window as shadows danced about the unlit bedroom of his off-campus apartment on the eighteenth floor of a steel and glass building. He watched the rain and the lights as the young woman slept in the bed behind him. Both were graduate students. In the morning she was returning to a university on the west coast.

The young woman stirred. “Sweetie,” she said. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Trying to get use to living without you.”

She was silent a long time. The bedroom was filled with the sound of the falling rain. She said, “Come back to bed. Come back to bed and I’ll try to make it better.”

“Better? That won’t make it better. That’ll only make it worse.”

“Not even better for a little while?”

He watched the rain and the lights of the city. When he graduated he would teach in the city. He would live in the city. She would live on the west coast.

“Well,” he said, “maybe for a little while.”

He knew nothing could ever make it better, not even for a little while. He turned and approached the bed anyway. It was the brave thing to do.

This Is A Site That Pays You Money To Write