Flash fiction. by Idle Ink

White Paint by Zary Fekete

Nick bought paint, white paint. Enough white paint, he thought. He also bought all of the brushes and rollers that the man suggested should go with it. The man knew plenty about painting houses. Done plenty of painting, myself. What you need is probably 5 gallons. Now, do you need brushes?…

Nick started with the back room…with the closet in the back room. It was a basement apartment. It was once part of the main house upstairs, but the kindly upstairs couple had turned it into a basement apartment for people who needed a place to get back on their feet. They had sealed off the upstairs at the top of the old stairs but kept the stairs themselves, in case they should ever want to open the place back up again. As it was, the stairs now just went up and ended against the wooden boards which sealed off the upstairs from the down. The stairs were there, but went nowhere.

Continue reading White Paint by Zary Fekete
Essay by Idle Ink

The Mother in the Mirror by Tia Slavin

I have never been able to see myself in the male narratives of existentialism. The question of my existence is a far more futile one than they write about. The human condition is for men. I reside in the female condition. The philosophical concerns are our bodies, our wrinkles. The men who will love us, hurt us, desire us. You see for women there are two deaths to consider.  There is of course the physical decaying. There is just also the death of you. The you who is the object. The you who is gazed upon. The female existence centres around your attractibility. This death is not an end. Merely a change in the state, a move in the lifecycle.

Continue reading The Mother in the Mirror by Tia Slavin
Fiction by Idle Ink

Bargain Spell by Jaime deBlanc-Knowles

In a small hamlet on the outskirts of the kingdom, there lived a boy without a voice. He could hear it inside of himself, echoing in his mind, but when he opened his mouth, all that came out were ice crystals. In his presence, people felt an awful chill and drew away. And so the boy lived in a circle of solitude, surrounded by others but always at a distance.

One day, the boy worked up the courage to go see the witch who lived on the edge of the village. He’d seen her from afar, riding her bicycle with its wide handlebars, but she never seemed to him quite what a witch should be. She wore pointy-edged glasses with green rims and favored gold earrings that brushed the tops of her shoulders.

Continue reading Bargain Spell by Jaime deBlanc-Knowles
Fiction by Idle Ink

Optic Nerves by Catherine Yeates

I used to think that the crawling sensation on my back was a symptom. It began as an occasional twinge and grew into an ache, passing from the base of my neck down to my lower back in waves. Perhaps it was some manifestation of anxiety or dread; it certainly occurred alongside those things. The unease in my gut. My clenched jaw. The tightness in my chest.

Those sensations hit me in turn as I suffered through my first Medical Neuroscience exam in graduate school. Dread overtook me when I reached the sixth question and realized I was woefully underprepared. I already had been subjected to multiple anatomy courses in undergrad, not to mention that my earlier courses as a graduate student had already covered much of basic neuroanatomy. Yet, I had not prepared for the specificity or style of questions on this exam and my skin crawled with anxiety. By the time I reached the section on brain development, my mind had gone blank. Sweat gathered on my brow as I contemplated the possibility that perhaps my own brain had failed to develop at all.

Continue reading Optic Nerves by Catherine Yeates
Micro fiction by Idle Ink

Paint by Sammi Leigh Melville

You used to say that the difference between falling in love and loving was paint. If you fall into a giant tub of paint, you’re covered in it — everything you touch will get an imprint of that color. But love is also an action: it is more akin to painting someone’s skin. If you’ve fallen into the tub of paint, any time you reach out to that person and touch them, you’ll be loving them. It’s inevitable. But if you’re outside of the tub, it becomes more of a conscious decision. You have to reach back into the tub to paint.

Continue reading Paint by Sammi Leigh Melville
Fiction by Idle Ink

What an Answer’s Worth by Tyler Plofker

I found the note, transcribed below, stuck in a yellowing copy of Jacques the Fatalist, borrowed from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library a few months ago. I submitted it to the online magazine you’re now reading because it seems to be what the author would have wanted—to make sure the contents continue on.

The note wasn’t dated or signed, but it looked fairly old (semi-brown, stained in parts, and wrinkly, but not falling apart).

Continue reading What an Answer’s Worth by Tyler Plofker
Fiction by Idle Ink

Half Past Regret by Rasmenia Massoud

Rhonda downed the convenience store espresso and tossed the can in the backseat as the dashboard clock blinked over to 6:03pm. It clanged and rattled when it joined the others piled on the floor. She popped open the glove box, snatched a handful of yellow Wendy’s napkins and wiped the windshield, which was now covered with a thick nicotine film. The haze might be considered dangerous to most people. To Rhonda, it was an inconvenience. A chore. Another thing she had to do to maintain and upkeep.

Cleaning. Showering. Keeping toenails trimmed. Being alive was a lot of work and it never let up.

Continue reading Half Past Regret by Rasmenia Massoud