Nestled in a forest of pieces of The Writers’ Cafe Magazine is my flash fiction. Walk quietly or you might frighten it. The theme of Issue 11 is “Into The Woods” and you’ll find an amazing amount of quality poems and stories to read.
Hollow
Category: Published
Reflecting Fire
Zeroflash published my story on the stand alone flash pieces page of their website. It’s the story of a photo found in the trash and a remembrance of the moment it was taken.
Leavings
In my opinion, when you have a piece that is 101 words, there’s only one good place to submit it. First published in June 2018, his story, though fiction, has a real character from my youth: a tree.
Leavings
by DL Shirey
The dreamy, slow circle of the overhead fan. The sound of a fly making lazy pivots on this hot afternoon. “Sweltering,” Mom would have said, “But the lawn won’t mow itself.” A push mower leans against the maple we named Old Man. His leaves cover the tall grass. The rake is just outside the screen door. So are the grass shears. Mom would have made iced tea, jangled cubes in the sweating pitcher to tempt me, to show my reward for doing her yard. I’m nursing a beer instead, satisfied, having trimmed around her headstone and raked up all the leavings.
END
Belts
This piece is less about being a band geek in high school and more about adolescent humor and bad judgement. It stars my pal Charlie Banks and kindly published by Twenty-Two Twenty-Eight.
Eye Contact
True story. I volunteer my time at a bookstore. We sell lots of used magazines, so it wasn’t surprising to see a stack of the British royalty mag, Majesty, show up. As I was unloading the box, there was a lonely copy of Confingo, a literary journal. I read it and thought I had something appropriate to submit. It was accepted and in May 2018 my flash fiction was in print. Confingo is a gorgeous, high-quality publication available in the UK and elsewhere. Here is the reprinted story:
Eye Contact
by DL Shirey
I thought shyness demurred her eyes each time I tried to meet them.
“I’ve had a bit of facial surgery,” she said, “When people look at me I always forget they’re not seeing what I used to be.”
She patted at the back of her head as if a hair was out of place. It was odd, the hair I mean; what I could see of it, at least. Plaited in thick ropes, it reminded me of dreadlocks, but there was no fleece or fuzzy texture to it, just smooth, bulky twines pulled up under a top hat.
The Sleep Game
I stepped away from the speculative to write this sweet story about a little girl and her auntie. Now, some might say I woke up on the wrong side of my word processor, but not Ariel Chart, the journal that published my story.
A Harmless Prank
This story is one that never would have been published without a draft or two (or three) presented to my writing group. Thanks to Craig, Emrie, Mireille and Steph for the candid feedback and patience to sit through yet another version. It was first published by Ariel Chart in June 2018.
A Harmless Prank
by DL Shirey
Morning came to the courtyard between iron bars of a skylight, brightening the floor outside his cell door. Finner dropped to his knees and touched his cheek to cold concrete, eyeballing the distance and angle from his door to Peralta’s. Finner had an idea how to cheer up his shipmate, then he wondered, are we still called shipmates on dry land?
Prisoners weren’t allowed to speak, so they wrote messages instead. Finner hadn’t traded words with Peralta for three weeks, not since their jailers confiscated the conveyance used to pass notes. When it was found, Finner took a beating, but it didn’t stop him from assembling another rig.
