It is my great pleasure to introduce to the readers of the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette a short story from a new guest writer.
Hello hello hello, my brother and sister bloggers and writers. Welcome to a new edition of the most dynamic flash fiction magazine on the internet. Look at all the great links, flash fiction stories, articles and commentaries that the PFFG offers it’s readership.
And if you are a flash fiction writer, I want to publish you. Just click on the Contest/Submissions tab at the top of the page, read and follow the guidelines and I will work with you to get your story into PFFG.
And I will continue to work with you to improve your writing skills so that not only will you have a better chance to see your work in the PFFG, but that you will also have a better chance of seeing your work in other publications, too. You can’t beat that with a stick.
Now for our feature presentation.
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Seatmates
I sat in the narrow seat of the commercial jet and tried to ignore the man sitting next to me. This was difficult as his body bulged over the armrest forcing me to keep my elbows pulled against my chest so I would not touch him.
The stale smell of cigarette smoke seemed to hang about him like a cloud on a mountain, and sweat dripped from his face in streams. I had already endured three hours of his presence and we still had hours of flight time left before we reached New York.
“I don’t like to fly,” he muttered.
I didn’t reply, hoping he would get the hint.
“I’m not just scared,” he continued. “I don’t like to fly.”
“Well, it’s the only way we can get to Europe these days.”
“I’d take a ship if they moved faster. Planes are fast, but they frighten me.
Thinking I might shut him up, I replied, “You should be scared. This kind of plane crashes all the time. I’m an engineer and I know this model is the worst.”
A drop of sweat fell from his bulbous nose.
“You know this?” he asked.
“They’re keeping it quiet,” I said getting into the story. “I wouldn’t be on this flight, but my mother-in-law broke her leg and it was the only flight I could get. To tell the truth, I’m really scared.”
He tried to turn in my direction, but was wedged tightly in his seat. “I don’t like this at all,” he wheezed. “God, I wish I had a cigarette.”
”We probably shouldn’t be talking about crashes, but a pilot friend of mine told me it was important to listen for a certain sound–most of the crashes happen after the crew hears something resembling a door slamming.”
“A door slamming? I think I heard something like that a little while ago,” he said tugging at his shirt collar.
Of course you did, stupid! We’re sitting close to the restroom.
“You heard it?” I said. “That’s really bad! I’m worried. I just hope we can land before anything happens.”
“What could happen? You know about these things, what could happen?” His breath came in gasps and he clutched the armrest with a bare-knuckle grip.
“The wings might fall off. It’s happened before. We land in a few hours, though–maybe we’ll be all right.”
He didn’t reply–he was struggling to reach the button to call the flight attendant. His face turned bright red as he tried to undo his seat belt and the wheezing got louder. Maybe I had gone too far.
“Can I help you?” I said.
He made a gurgling noise and slumped over in the seat–his body threatening to break the seat belt that constrained him.
This didn’t look good. I punched my call button and a flight attendant scurried down the aisle to our seats.
“I think he’s fainted,” I said.
She reached over and touched him, but he didn’t respond. I was beginning to notice a fetid odor.
She felt his pulse and then hurried back to the front of the plane.
I knew I smelled an odor.
She returned with the chief flight attendant who felt the man’s pulse and shook her head. “He’s dead,” she whispered to her co-worker. “We can’t let the other passengers find out. We’re five hours from any airport.
“Can’t you move him someplace,” I said. “I can’t sit next to a smelly dead man for an hour.”
“Sir,” the chief flight attendant said, “Keep your voice down. We don’t want a panic.”
“I am panicking,” I said. “Can you cover him or something? Can’t you move me to another seat?
“There are no other seats and we don’t have any blankets left and, besides, you can’t get out.”
She was right. There was no way I was going to crawl over the dead body sitting next to me.
The plane lurched slightly and his body shifted so his head fell onto my shoulder. I tried to shove him back, but I couldn’t move him.
“Sir,” the flight attendant said softly. “If you can just keep quiet and cooperate all this can be fixed when we land. Meanwhile, would you like a complimentary drink or peanuts?”
The End
Bio: Phil Richardson lives and writes in Athens, Ohio. Two of his stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Fiction. His work has appeared in print journals, in on-line magazines, and in eighteen anthologies.
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New Flash Fiction by T.M. Hobbs
July 31, 2010 — pittsburghflashfictiongazetteYes, another writer has decided to showcase work in the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette. Why? Because this magazine is the most dynamic flash fiction magazine on the Internet. Just look around at all the great flash fiction, articles and commentaries that are available to readers who appreciate good writing and writers who want to learn to write better.
Not only will I work with you to get your story into this magazine but I want your experience with The Gazette to help you get published in other magazines. Let me be your editor. Let me be your publisher. Let me be your mentor.
Everyone can’t write flash fiction. But if you want to write flash fiction, this magazine is for you. Read and follow the submission guidelines and send me something. It’s that easy. Let’s have a relationship. The Contest/Submissions tab is at the top of the page.
Now for our feature presentation.
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The Angel Of Ha Tihn
The days and nights blended together for me until I only saw black. The more we fought, the more I wanted it to stop. I felt numb inside and I didn’t know what it was to be human anymore, or even worse, what it was to be a man.
We had just come back from Laos after several days of heavy combat and were told we had two days of R and R before going back. I remember wandering through the streets in Ha Tihn looking at people as they tried to carry on with a somewhat normal life, if you could call it that.
But their eyes held their stories, a brother shot while trying to escape the madness, a sister taken and not seen again, a child trained to do the unthinkable. I didn=t want to see that right then. The next few hours were mine and who knew, they might be my last on the wretched place we called earth.
So I sat down on a crate near the marketplace and closed my eyes, listening to the jumbled tongues, speaking quickly with tiny voices, the sounds of bicycles speeding past, hitting every mud puddle in their wake, and the sifting sound of rice being measured out for sale.
When I opened my eyes, everything was moving in slow motion and for a moment I thought I was already dead and this was just the passage through which I must travel to reach my final destination, then I saw her.
Her long black hair was like silk in the night, black and shiny. Her face was dark, but not as dark as those around her. There was a beauty about her that made my breath hitch in my chest and I just stared. The moment her eyes found mine, she too could not look away.
I suppose we stayed like that for several minutes, both of us speaking words in our heads that only we could hear. Then it happened. My feet had me moving toward her until I stood just a few feet away.
ADo you speak English?@ I asked, continuing to look into her eyesCeyes that were the color of warm coffee filled with cream. She didn=t answer for a few moments, then she nodded and smiled.
There we were; two people trapped in the midst of the chaos and ruin, but for those few moments everything else was gone. I had no hatred of the place I was stuck in and she had no heartbreak over what her homeland had been reduced to. We were but two souls meeting for the first time, somehow calming the other.
AMy name is A=nh,@ she said softly, never looking away from me.
AA=nh. It means ray of light or light…..light ray,@ I said excitedly.
I mused at the chances of me meeting someone, a young woman, in that God forsaken place whose name meant >light ray,= and marveled at how ironic that was when my whole world had become so black.
AI=m Jack. It=s nice to meet you. Hey, do you want to get some coffee and talk for a while?@ I asked, hoping she wouldn=t think I was being too forward.
AYes. Yes, that would be nice, Jack.@
So we walked away together, going for coffee like it was the most normal thing two people could do. And for the next few hours, forty-eight to be exact, we were normal. We talked about our families, the weather, the next celebration that would someday take place in Ha Tihn, and each other.
By the end of those two daysCthe quiet in our storm, we had talked about everything we knew, so we just sat, holding hands and watching the sun set. It=s gold and amber canvas was streaked with red and burnt orange plumes.
She saved me that day, whether she knew it or not, and to this day, I never look at a sunset but what I see her eyes, the color of coffee with cream. I never saw A=nh again after that, but I often wonder if she was some sort of angel sent into the middle of hell to save one lone soldier. I guess I=ll never know.
The End
Bio: T.M. Hobbs lives in a small town in Northeast Texas. She has discovered her voice through writing fiction and loves to do so as often as possible. For her, writing is a way of traveling to places and times that would otherwise be impossible to touch and feel.
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You may have seen the phrase “show don’t tell” in this flash fiction magazine. I use it often. It refers to a technique of writing flash fiction that is truly unique. Don’t believe me? It was unique enough to win me a K. LeRoy Irvis Fellowship in 2004 that paid for my MFA in fiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh that also included over $900 a month for three years. That’s how unique “show don’t tell” is. I estimate that fellowship was worth more than $60,000.
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