(One Hand in My) Pocket-Sized Fiction Winners 2023
Editor’s note: For a bit more on our contest, read a note from EIC, Camille Griep, here.
1st Prize - Kik Lodge
On the off-beat
Drummer Boy’s gone missing, and Ms Mutch has gone feral.
She’s a tangle of red hair, stomping her heels on the skanky brown carpet of the music room.
When you’ve been missing this long, the probabilities, well.
We pour into class and stick our bags in a pile in the corner. I head to the back, sit behind the music stands. Others sit crossed legged by the window, whispering things.
Everything has been about Drummer Boy at school today. Where and how and why. Why.
It’s the last lesson of the day and everyone’s done in.
Ms Mutch doesn’t say a word. She’s stomping so hard her jewellery is jangling and the cymbals in the corner are making a tinny sound.
No wonder Ms Mutch checks herself into the psych unit most holidays. Too much discordance sometimes, she told Drummer Boy, who told me.
Two girls are on their feet now, looks like Lisa and Ame, the nice ones who have all the empathy, and they’ve started stomping in sync with Ms Mutch. Even the panes have started rattling.
Ms Mutch’s eyes, shot with blood, flash in my direction, and I look at my shoes, my arms hugging my knees. Now she’s brought her fist to her chest and is thumping it, on the off-beat.
Drummer Boy tried to teach me the off-beat on his snare drum once, but the off-beat’s hard. It’s about holding the weak beat, not keeping to the common pulse.
So lame to throw yourself in a river, if that’s what he’s gone and done.
So lame to not say a word.
A few more pupils are on their feet trying to mirror Ms Mutch’s syncopation.
Ms Mutch is thumping her heart because her love for Drummer Boy is a simple love.
Not like my love for him which is on and off, on and off.
A masterclass in confusion.
I kick the music stand over and Ms Mutch sees me and says, Right, Matthew, out!
Apparently I am the only one to find this harsh.
She stomps over to the door and opens it, sweeps her hand and fingers to motion me out, but I don’t want to be in the corridor with all my thoughts, I want to stay put and fill the silence with something, so I don’t move, I say no and I say fuck you Miss, and Ms Mutch stomps over to me, banging her heart off-beat, fever-eyed she bangs, fever-eyed she looks at me, right into my core, maybe she sees my love for Drummer Boy is uncut, she grabs my hand and takes it to my chest, motions my feet to stomp in sync with hers, and in my mind’s eye Drummer Boy is in the hollow of a bass drum, the one he places at an angle when he’s sitting on his swivel stool, and he’s saying don’t you just love the fucking boom of it, Matt?
~
Kik Lodge is a short fiction writer from Devon, England, but she lives in France with a menagerie of kids, cats and rats. Her work has featured in The Moth, Gone Lawn, Rejection Letters, Tiny Molecules, trampset, Maudlin House, Milk Candy Review, Splonk, Bending Genres, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and other very fine journals. Her flash collection Scream If You Want To is out with Alien Buddha Press. Erratic tweets @KikLodge
2nd Prize - Gabe Sherman
Apple Seeds
I am out walking the dog again. Early morning and the sun croaks, feeble but awake. The birds move about and chatter; the road is desolate and still. A rabbit stands on someone’s neatly manicured front lawn and watches us walk past like a dare. The rabbits are too complacent around here; they chew clover and go about their business as if there isn’t a dog — salivating, leaping in violent circles, fantasizing about first kill — right there. Grass carries dew heavy like a backpack, while the fog lifts as if pulled like a curtain on a string. Sammy shits on the sidewalk, tail pointed sharply up to the heavens — I always imagine dogs as nervous poopers. I am not walking this dog. I realize sometime after, with a poop bag in my hand, that my movement through the world feels automatic and stilted, like a person trying to remember how to be a person for the first time. I am stuck in last night, before I got high and watched Michael Laudrup highlights and went to bed, before I threw the dishes in the sink and thought I’ll deal with these tomorrow. I am in the living room, Uncle Leon across from me, lentils and chicken still scattered on our finished plates, stagnant in the other room. I am back at the first thought I had after he told me how great-grandmother died, after he told me how great-grandfather died: Having chosen to go out of this world together, did they hold hands?
~
Gabe Sherman is a writer based in New York. He loves words, scallops, and unfortunately, the Celtics.
Honorable Mention - Marc Sheehan
On Liminality
Each year the town raised funds for the public good by placing a junker car out on the lake ice before the thaw began. A betting pool was then organized about when the car would sink. In a rare example of the town’s early ecological awareness, the engine and gas tank were removed to prevent fluid leakage. That also reduced substantially the car’s weight, which extended how long the thinning ice would support it. Which, in turn, extended the betting pool’s window, increasing ticket sales. Once the weather warmed, volunteers took shifts as spotters to record the precise moment the car sank. One spring the ice got thinner and thinner until it disappeared, and yet the car remained. A television crew from the city arrived – which, had it not been for the unsinkable car, would have been its own miracle; no one remembered the station ever covering a village event before. Crowds gathered. Someone, apparently angry at the invasion of city people, stole a rowboat and set fire to the car, which stubbornly remained atop the water. Despite the crowds and the car now being an eyesore, the town council deadlocked on whether to remove it or not. An attorney advised that since the boosters who put the car on the ice formed a private organization, they had a right to do as they saw fit. And so, one morning it was gone. Despite reports of the car being towed and crushed, people preferred to believe it had been taken up in a kind of automotive rapture. Boosters reimbursed members of the betting pool who requested a refund. The story passed into folklore. With the advent of the Internet, sites published snapshots of the car, but they were grainy and blurred. Most people dismissed them as fakes. No car was ever placed on the ice again, only the usual fishing shanties, at least one of which each year fell through the spring ice when its owner failed to retrieve it soon enough. They were fishermen, after all, and only human.
~
Marc J. Sheehan is the author of two full-length poetry collections and two poetry chapbooks. His flash fiction has been featured on NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction series and Selected Shorts. His hybrid/flash fiction chapbook, The Civil War War, was recently published (2021) by Paper Nautilus. He lives in Grand Haven, Michigan. www.marcsheehan.com
Honorable Mention - Kathryn Kulpa
Switch
You meet a woman on the train and decide to switch lives.
Criss cross. Prince and the Pauper. The Parent Trap. You’ll be her and she’ll be you.
When you were twelve you wrote a story like that, about people switching lives for one week. One was a new mother. You never wrote about how she felt leaving her twin babies behind. You never wrote how anybody felt. You wrote about “mishaps.”
Switch! Was the name of that story. Your teacher gave you a B. Cute! She wrote. But far-fetched, no?
Switch is what you do with the woman on the train. The woman doesn’t look like you, but she doesn’t not look like you. Two women riding the train. Under the tunnel, over the bridge.
You think about twins. Lookalikes. Lives you can step into and drop out of. You exchange bare facts. Will that be enough?
The train seat is covered in a rough-fibered fabric, concentric circles and squares. Rust-colored, cranberry-colored, mustard-colored. They all fit into each other and so will you.
The woman you switched with left you notes on a 3 x 5” index card. The son will only eat sandwiches cut on the diagonal, not the square. He won’t eat tomatoes unless they’re peeled. The husband likes Tater Tots but not French fries. He likes nooners, sex under bright midday sun.
You throw the card away, because what kind of monster doesn’t like French fries?
You didn’t give her any instructions. You don’t care what becomes of your life. Let your work nemesis take your job. It might make her happy, for a moment, the way Gargamel would be happy if he destroyed all the Smurfs.
You imagine the morning staff meeting. The guilty few sneaking in late, reeking of cigarettes. LED lights that make everyone look hung over. Will the new you make it there on time? Will anyone think she looks different? Will anyone care?
Nobody looks at you as much as you look at you, your mother used to hiss, when she saw you studying your face in the magnifying mirror.
In your new life, you slice, but do not peel, tomatoes. You cube melons into chunks, humming a song your mother used to hum while she swept the floors, made the beds. Did she know the name of that song? Did your grandmother hum it?
Circles of squares. You peel potatoes, chop them into finger-sized sticks, tip them into a yellow ceramic bowl of water to blanch. You slide potato peels and melon rind into the garbage disposal, run the water, flip the switch.
The house you grew up in had a garbage disposal. Had a dishwasher that shook the floors like an invading army, but never died. Had a stove and refrigerator older than you, harvest gold. They never died either. You imagine them still in your childhood house, though people you don’t know live there now. You imagine them still breathing.
That night at dinner you serve grilled cheese and tomatoes, cut on the square. You serve French fries. You serve melon drizzled with balsamic glaze. Everyone eats the food you serve. Everyone says it’s good. The husband dips a French fry through a brooklet of balsamic. Licks his lips, eyes wide.
You look at the photos the woman on the train gave you. This is Gary, she said. Or was it Larry? This is Zachary. The man is tall with wire glasses, thinning brown hair. The son is stocky, with the kind of almost-white hair that will turn dark later. You look at the man and the boy. Are they the same husband? The same son? You can’t tell.
How many people are out there, living lives not their own?
There’s a bottle of wine, tasting of plum and pomegranate. Gary pours two glasses. Or Larry does.
Softly, softly, you hum a song your mother used to hum. You have never known the words. You follow Gary or Larry into the bedroom, dim the lights. Shut the door.
The next morning, you ride the train again. Over the bridge, under the tunnel. You see a woman who looks vaguely like you.
Criss cross, you say.
~
Kathryn Kulpa has work published recently in Dribble Drabble Review, Fictive Dream, and Ghost Parachute and forthcoming in Fractured Lit. Her flash chapbook, Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted, won the New Rivers Press Chapbook Contest, and her stories have been chosen for Best Microfiction and the Wigleaf longlist. She is an editor and workshop leader at Cleaver magazine.
Honorable Mention - Sam Crain
Tacit
Susan had an understanding of sorts with the older woman who lived upstairs. It was a big house; they both rented rooms. In wet-erase marker gleamed the schedule that allowed each tenant a turn for the kitchen and the washer-dryer. The different boarders did not comingle, the spaces common in name only. But Marjorie lived upstairs because she had come later than the rest. The extra flight of stairs hurt her hip, but she didn’t complain. Susan had learned so much by watching Marjorie shuffle, leaning hard on the railing with one hand.
Their understanding was never formalized with words. Marjorie could come into Susan’s room, anytime. She usually didn’t, but she was allowed. She had dark eyes, like a doe’s. For most people, that would be an insult, but not for her. Her hair was ash-grey and she wore it in a bun that always tumbled down by the end of the day—her hair was too fine for styling.
One particularly bad night, Marjorie had slipped over Susan’s threshold between rumblings of thunder, still wearing her work clothes, the only time she had come straight to Susan, with no intervening steps, recalling morbidly curious Susan from a magazine article about a haunted theme park. When she was furtive, Marjorie looked more like a doe than ever. Her tongue, a healthy pink, darted out to catch a drip of rain down her face.
If it were a tear, it’d be salty, Susan thought, but she was already out of her chair, fetching the towel from its hook by her sink. “We can’t have that,” she said, allowing Marjorie to dry off while she took the terrycloth robe from her closet. “Here.”
Majorie’s mute look of gratitude gave her eyes an unprecedented luster. Her hair came all the way down as she dried it, and she looked questioningly at Susan as she undid her shabby blazer. Susan brought a hanger. The blouse beneath was old-fashioned—cream rather than white, with buttons hidden under a flaring of ancient silk. It suited Marjorie exactly, even crumpled with wet.
“How was your day?” Susan asked as Marjorie undid those concealed buttons. There were eight of them.
Marjorie was a secretary. She’d worked longer at her company than anyone and knew more than she could ever say. Words came hard. “Good. And yours?”
The shirt was on its own hanger now, hung from the curtain rod, the drapes already closed against the lashing rain.
“Mine was fine, Marjorie.” Susan had never liked that name in the abstract, not til she’d met someone so suited to it that her very forehead, furrows and all, sounded it out. Marjorie had a flatter stomach than her shapeless serge skirt suggested. It was freckled. Susan wanted to believe—with a sudden, passionate intensity—that she had got those freckles sunbathing on a postcard-ready beach, devil-may-care and graceful, stretched out just above a tide-line the color of her hair. A small mole, almost flush with her skin, winked darkly from just north of her navel. Modestly, Marjorie donned the robe over bare arms and torso before shedding her bra and skirt from beneath it.
“Come here,” said Susan, indicating her bed, made up so tightly you could bounce a quarter off it, like in army barracks. At its foot was a chest with a pillow across it, so that it doubled as a bench. Scooching it out, Susan could perch on the bed with Marjorie in front of her, the drying hair lank against her terrycloth-ed back. Susan snagged a hairbrush from her nightstand and began at the crown of Marjorie’s head. Marjorie sighed but no words escaped her as the boar-bristles passed through her hair, tugging small knots free until each tendril lay in its proper place. Even knowing it was futile, Susan gathered the hair into three parts, plaiting them for the sheer pleasure of its sensation against her hand. Marjorie sighed again, and Susan tied off the braid with a thin ribbon of deep blue, knowing it couldn’t stay in.
None of them were allowed hotplates, but Susan knew Marjorie would never tell on her. She heated water and added packets of cocoa, stirring quietly in case the next-door boarder heard through the shared wall. She brought Marjorie a mug that still steamed, watching the blue ribbon fall away as Marjorie tilted her head to sip. The chocolate kept them silently together. The digital clock on Susan’s nightstand said it was past ten already. Without her needing to say anything, Marjorie rose to set her mug by the sink. A smile lit her face.
Susan did not want her to leave but could not ask her to stay, for the single bed was too narrow for them both. But she could make herself return the smile. Marjorie took her clothes from their hangers and Susan inwardly cursed herself for not laying them over the radiator that had fogged the window behind its curtain. She must remember, next time.
Still smiling, Marjorie nodded to Susan, hand on the doorknob.
It was a nameless desolation Susan felt as the door clicked closed behind Marjorie. Setting her own mug by the sink, she went to take down the bedclothes. Doing so, she saw there was no glint of blue against the off-beige of the boarding-house carpet. She searched carefully, but it was definitely gone. Inordinately cheered by this, Susan got under her top sheet, curling shrimp-fashion among her pillows. For a moment, she could believe Marjorie was still there, her back against Susan’s chest. No, Susan thought. That’s Marjorie’s bad hip. She turned over. There. That was right. Bless you, Marjorie.
~
Sam Crain lives in Fremont, CA. Now that she's finished her PhD in English, she's free to return to her first love, writing stories, which she does whenever she can steal her pens back from her cats. Her stories "Debts Discharged" and "Eyes Full of Promise" can both be found on Mythic Beast Studios, where the latter was a first-prize winner.
Honorable Mention - Zachariah Claypole-White
Obsessive-Compulsive
You have a Thought. And It will never let you go.
You wake up and the Thought is crouching on your chest. It’s a pathetic thing—all soggy-limbs and jealous eyes, pushing you down into the sheets. Every time you breathe the Thought rams into you, driving the air back out.
But.
You could stay like this.
(Couldn’t you?)
You need to piss, and the alarm will go off soon, followed by the second alarm (the one you always leave out of arm’s reach), but you won’t move. No. You’ll lie here, with your aching bladder and sweat-tight t-shirt, the Thought’s weight holding you still and close.
You walk to your commute and the Thought stays with you. It is in your throat. It scuttles across your teeth and waits—with arachnid-patience—for your lips to open, for any careless word to spill out.
On the train you wonder if other passengers can see the Thought. Surely, they can. Him! The man who caught your eye when you boarded. Or her—the woman who switched seats just a minute ago. (Did she move because of you?) She saw It. How could she not? The Thought is larger now; can almost take Its own seat. Soon It might.
You have a Thought. It is with you, in the office, at your desk. Your coworkers make coffee, argue over the good mug, and who’s up for cleaning the fridge (you volunteer). They do not have thoughts like this.
The Thought watches them. Oh yes, It always watches. It grows new eyes to peer into their successes. Catalogues them. Whispers each back to you: those you should have achieved and those you will never deserve. It is meticulous, spiteful. You chew your nails low and wince at the blood. The Thought giggles.
In the elevator, the new hire is coughing. She pushes the button for your floor and smiles. You have a Thought. It skulks towards you through the closing doors, wedges you into the metal box. The Thought breathes through hospital tubes, reeks of bile and industrial bleach. The elevator stops. Doors open. No one speaks.
The Thought is in your stomach, sitting like rancid meat. It guides you to the bathroom, to the medicine you keep nearby. It scuttles through your gut, doubling you over. You imagine skin distending, tearing, and all your small cruelties pouring out over the tiled floor.
You have a Thought. But you push It down, unacknowledged, buried beneath irrelevancies and distractions. You fill spreadsheets. Drink more coffee (despite the current therapist’s advice). You arrange papers on your desk from left to right, right to left. Try to make plans for the evening, cancel them before anyone can respond. You will not admit the truth: the Thought wants to be alone with you. And you want to be alone with It.
In an Uber home, the Thought takes front seat. You hear It in the snow-hiss between stations, in the radio’s promise of warming summers, a new strain of virus, the rising likelihood of drought.
You have a Thought. It leads you from the car and unlocks your door. Tucks your shoes neatly into the corner. Its footsteps fill the house like flocking birds. Do you notice how—as the days pass—the Thought has begun to walk like a man?
You no longer sleep. You close your eyes and listen as the Thought paces your room. Some evenings It stands over you like a concerned lover. Some evenings It slips into bed besides you. Slides Its fingers between your teeth.
The Thought looks like you, with unkempt hair and scratched glasses. When you stare into the mirror you can no longer tell who stares back—you or the Thought.
You miss work again this week, or maybe you didn’t. Maybe the Thought went in your place, and no one could tell the difference.
And perhaps you notice when I begin to move your hands, or when I first speak with your lips. Maybe, by now, you have simply stopped caring, not that it matters.
You have a Thought. And I will never let you go.
~
Zachariah Claypole White is a Philadelphia-based writer and educator, originally from North Carolina. He holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. His poetry and prose have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, such publications as Bourbon Penn, The Maine Review, and The Hong Kong Review. His awards include Flying South's 2021 Best in Category for poetry as well as nominations for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Zachariah teaches at the Community College of Philadelphia and the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College.
Honorable Mention - C.A. Coffing
Heat
I paint Katie’s nails red, the color of blood on sand. She rolls on her back, holds her hands up to the sun. “Look at that. These nails are electric, like us.” She turns her head to me and smiles, “Let’s swim.”
We swim in the lake; bits of algae tickling our legs. Our faces emerge again and again, fresh with drops of lake water. We climb on the dock to dry our wet bikinis, our legs stretch long, our feet pointing to the horizon. I tip my head back, let my dark hair fall between my shoulder blades. Katie piles her blonde hair on her head, loose strands fall across her face.
We play Frisbee in our bare feet, our tracks in the grass giving testimony to our youth as our bodies soak in the fresh smell of soil and stray leaves. We flirt with the boys we like and taunt the boys we don’t like. We bask in the gazes of men staring from picnic tables, as their wives gesture and talk beside them. Men glancing over their shoulders as they walk to the lake’s edge. Men turning their heads in our direction as they push their toddlers on swings at the playground. We drink with Jonathan — Rainier Beer poured into empty pop cans — and smoke one cigarette shared between the three of us. Our laughter rises above the motorboats and floats to the treetops, to the cloudless sky.
"The summer of eternity," Katie says. She holds up her hand. We touch palms, our fingers entwine. Jonathan snorts, tilting his head back. Our heels press into the soft earth, our bodies absorbing the heat and falling whispers. We stay until the sun grazes the top of the lake.
We pile in the pickup. Jonathan’s driving; Marlin rides up front. We sit in the truck’s bed with Samantha and Dustin. The wind whips our hair about our faces. We laugh as our bodies toss about, searching for handholds as the truck makes abrupt turns. Jonathan and Marlin have the radio up loud. Songs drift out the open windows. I hear their voices singing along.
My mom’s cooking pot roast when I get home, the oven contributing to the hot July kitchen. "You've been at the lake?" she asks over her shoulder.
"Yea. Why?”
She doesn’t answer. She’s returned to the pot roast, pushing a thermometer into its sizzle.
The television drones in the living room with the evening news. I grab the remote and scan the channels, falling back on the couch and putting my dirty feet on the coffee table. The telephone rings.
“It’s you,” mom says.
I pick up the phone beside the couch. “You see the news?” Katie asks.
“Not really. Why?”
Her voice drops. “Turn it to Channel 5. Now.”
“Why?”
“He took her today. From the lake. The lake. Shit. We were there. We were right there.”
“Took who?”
“A girl,” she says. “A girl like us.” I wrap the phone cord around my fingers. “Abducted. By a guy. A normal-looking guy. Older, you know, but normal looking. I mean, what the hell? She helped him put something in his car and he… he took her and now… well, she’s missing…” She pauses. “That could have been us. We can’t go to the lake anymore.”
“Did we see her?” I ask. “I mean… what did she look like?”
“Shit. She looked like you. Turn it on.”
I turn to Channel 5. The word Abduction rolls across the screen. “I see it. I think this is it,” I say. A female face fills the screen. She’s young with dark eyes, her long brunette hair parted in the middle. She looks like me. I look like her. I stand and cross to the television, stretching the phone cord. I touch the screen, put my hand against the picture of the girl, feeling the chill of the glass, my feet still on the orange shag carpet, sand between my toes, my skin smelling of lake water and tanning oil. The heat falls away. I picture Katie’s blood red fingernails wrapped about the phone. “Are you there?’ she asks.
~
C.A. Coffing holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University. A self-published novelist and playwright, she was a 2013 Santa Fe Writers Project Finalist, third prize recipient in Flash Fiction Magazine’s 2021 contest and a 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee. Living in a small river town, she spends her time waiting tables, dancing, writing and dreaming. She is an earnest eavesdropper who loves to write about the nonsensical.
