Flash Fiction Online #119, August 2023

“Let the Field Burn” by M.C. Benner Dixon (nongenre, not reviewed)

“Nancy Shreds the Clouds” by Phoenix Alexander

“Little Fish, Big Fish” by Jennifer Hudak

“Of Tales and Dreams” by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, translated by Aysel K. Basci (nongenre, not reviewed)

Reviewed by Mina

Two bitter little pills.

“Nancy Shreds the Clouds” by Phoenix Alexander is beautifully written but depressing as hell. Nancy can hear the clouds, they judge her every action but offer no help or solace. Fuelled by rage, she ignores them and finds a way to shred them and everyone in her life, whilst she’s at it. A soul with nothing to sustain it may turn to revenge and destruction. But where the real punch is for me, as in much of business life, the worse Nancy behaves, the more successful she is. How a monster is born.

“Little Fish, Big Fish” by Jennifer Hudak adds the power of a creek to the mother-daughter dynamic. The narrator returns to her home town to help her mother. Her daughter is called by the creek to become something else, as the narrator once was. The narrator was stopped by her mother but she is too late to stop her daughter. It is difficult to see the daughter’s transformation as a good thing, as she is too young to know what she is choosing. An unhappy, resentful tale.