Flash Fiction Mood Ring: What to read when you’re feeling ineffable

Editorial Assistant Dana Jean Rider: I love flash fiction—usually defined as fiction between 500 and 1000 words—primarily for its capacity to conjure worlds while offering nothing more than a glimpse of story, a bite of character, or a morsel of plot event. The limited length necessitates attention to language, making flash a close cousin of poetry—especially prose- or narrative poetry.

Flash also subtly levels the literary playing field with its less intimidating word counts by inviting in people who are newer to the craft, or returning to it. When reading flash, you can often see work from people who aren’t certain about claiming the title “writer” and perhaps aren’t ready to unleash their short stories or novels into the world. This isn’t always the case, and the form isn’t new either. Flash has a long literary lineage—many well-known writers have written what we would now call flash.

Nowadays, when anhedonia and nihilism follow me around, pelting my brain with headlines and deadlines, I turn to flash for a glimmer of something else. A flash story is the perfect size to enjoy with your morning cup of coffee—instead of, y’know, beginning the doomscroll that will carry you (read: me) through to lunchtime. Below, I’ve linked a handful of pieces recently published at excellent venues for flash fiction, each complemented with a recent story, poem, or essay from The Cincinnati Review’s weekly online short-form publication, miCRo.

What to read when you’re feeling …

… like a creature, like hitting up the convenience store, or like a Mountain Dew would really hit the spot: “Creatures of the EZ-STOP” by Janice Leadingham in Flash Frog.

This haunting (literally!) two-part story elicits both pity and laughter, exemplifying that poetic attention to language I mentioned earlier with phrases like “big cluster flies that bump dully into everything” and “nubby putt-putt pencil.” I absolutely love the final line.

Complement with some microwave popcorn and “Reconnaissance” by Ellen K. Fee in miCRo.

… like you’ve lost your head and need to pick up a new one: “Let’s Not Lose Our Heads” by Jessica Klimesh in Ghost Parachute.

I love a story that resists simple metaphorical interpretation and lingers in its images—for example, I will be imagining a box of heads for the rest of the day. (I’m picturing one of those bargain bins for DVDs that Best Buy used to have in the early 2000s, messy and there to be rifled through.)

Complement your new head by putting on your selkie skin with “A Village Tries On Her Skin” by A. A. Balaskovits in miCRo.

… like deep-diving the Wikipedia page of a dead celebrity while at your dead-end office job, or like going home to see your family: “(They Long to Be) Close to You” by Binh Do in SmokeLong Quarterly.

Brb, researching Karen Carpenter to feel something. This story is so specific in its details yet I find it so emblematic of a broader (Millennial?) ennui. Check out the author’s interview linked in the piece as well.

Complement with a temp job and “Valedictorian” by Sarah Chin in miCRo.

… like “three souls crammed into one meat-cage,” or like you and your friends are stronger together: “Triple Body Walking” by Aishatu Ado in Fractured Lit.

This piece has some truly gorgeous prose and melancholic fairy tale vibes—appropriately, as it won Fractured Lit’s “Ghosts, Fables, and Fairy Tales” contest this year. I especially love the alliteration in the phrase “like lion teeth in midnight meat.”

Complement with more powerful, lyrical voice in “In Transit” by Bella Gibb in miCRo.

… like dating someone who shares your name, or like calling your dog “Cat”: “Darling, Darling” by Riddhi Dastidar in The Commuter.

Would a Rid(d)hi by any other name smell as sweet—or wreak as much damage on their partner’s feet? I love the early texting tidbits of this story as well as its central questions of selfhood and names. As dark as this story gets, it maintains a disturbing, absurdist humor.

Complement with a metaphor for violence in “Lion” by Nandini Bhattacharya in miCRo.