He put me up on his shoulders so I could see down into the freeway. They had built a park atop it. They call that a freeway lid. And tall walls made of red brick to dampen the noise. Inside the park all the old Russians sat on grated metal seats and whispered to one another under the cover of juniper bushes happy to co-conspire. A few men in wife beaters hung from the bars of the exercise platform and...
I hadn’t understood how it would feel when I nursed my baby and the oxytocin caused my uterus to contract in an effort to reshape itself, and my friends who’d nursed babies said oh yeah, it feels like the baby is still inside still kicking, and it felt like a memory, but not of kicking, of when I carried so much possibility in my body, and then I carried the possibility in my arms, and now he is older and...
Posted signs warned DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS, but I couldn’t stay away from the one-footed brown pelican menacing the pier. Depleted from liquidating my dead mother’s things, I used the money from the pathetic estate sale to book a weekend at a Floridian Airbnb, right on the water. I wanted more than anything to feel the bird’s loose nubby pouch, its quilled feathers. I yearned to massage ointment into its stump and watch it endure my devotion. Yesterday, I...
My fire pit glows in the darkening backyard, corn cobs–Kayode’s favorite–roasting atop the coals. Fresh off the airport taxi, he slides past the rear gates. I help him prop his luggage against a wall and throw myself into his arms–to remember his scent. The pinewood on his corduroy evokes no memory. His hug fails to bruise my spine. And when he says I missed you Mom, it sounds rehearsed, his accent diluted. We sit on white plastic chairs flanking the...
(1) “Do you know why our hands get pruny in the shower?” My nephew, Jack, dimples up at me. He collects facts like gold coins, showing them off when I visit. This trip, I’m at his house for three days: many facts to come. It’s the first time you’re not with me. “Early humans hunted in water,” Jack answers himself. “It gives us a better grip.” He squeezes his little fist, demonstrating. It’s one of his more evocative facts. I...
SmokeLong Quarterly is dedicated to bringing the best flash narratives to the web, by widely published authors or those new to the craft.
June 2022
I have so much to tell you. SmokeLong Quarterly will be 20 years old in 2023, so we’ve already started celebrating with our summer-long event A SmokeLong Summer. Two hundred and eighty flash writers have drafted so many stories in the first three weeks already, and at least a couple of these stories have already… Continue reading New Front (continue reading)
A SmokeLong Summer
From May 30 to August 28 2022, SmokeLong is going to host a superworkshop. We want to spend the summer with you, the flash community. Our workshops take place on a devoted website where you can create a profile, interact with the flash community, and take part in group discussions on craft, but A SmokeLong Summer will be much more.
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Vincent Anioke is a software engineer at Google. He was born and raised in Nigeria but now lives in Canada. His short stories have appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Carve, Pithead Chapel, and Bending Genres, among others. He is the 2021 Austin Clarke Fiction Prize Winner and was also shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Find him on Twitter at @AniokeVincent.
