“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald’s quote has always resonated with me when it comes to literature. I crave stories that capture fundamentally opposed ideas and forces the reader to hold them up against each other, multiple conflicting realities both true and utterly false. To me, this is somehow the most human thing—to be both known and unknown, complete but unfinished. I think sometimes that the size constaints of flash fiction are particularly well-suited to getting at this inherent conflict, as we see in this Summer’s six selections.

In “It Doesn’t Budge,” Kelly Pedro unpacks the complications of grief that a daughter feels when confronted with a strange item that belonged to her father—an arm wrestling dummy. The dummy, which is both human and not-human, holds all of the inherent contradictions of her father—the ways he failed her and the ways he loved her.

“Downstairs Party,” by Zary Fekete also holds opposing truths up to the light. In an old Budapest apartment building, the neighbors are unbearably intimate while knowing almost nothing about each other’s lives. Fekete uses sounds so effectively to build out a whole world.

Meanwhile, in “Shades of Boy,” Rebecca Klassen uses surrealism to capture the awkwardness and ordinariness of two teens spending an afternoon with their father’s new girlfriend. As the father’s return to them gets delayed, and delayed again, and one of the teens begins to change color entirely, the reader is left only with the extreme discomfort of knowing the teens are neither well-cared for nor abandoned.

There is a lot of repetition in “The Man In Neon,” by Nick Marino. The man in neon is being built from the places he’s from, the places he’s going, and the way he changes as he journeys there. Each sentence reveals more, and yet there is enough conflict between the sentences to leave us uncertain who the Man in Neon actually is.

In “The Last Time My Father Spoke Myth,” J. Camp Brown examines the things found under the bed as well as the monsters who dwell in sleep. Everyone is at the mercy of myth in this story, no one fully in control of their destiny, even when they are given the tools to fight.

“Can I Confess Something to You?” Molly Weisgrau invites close rereading as the narrator recounts ‘That Thing That Happened’ at summer camp, beautifully capturing a child-like cadence and voice without becoming winsome. Something scary is lurking at the edges of beautiful, bright prose, and even as it’s becoming more clear the narrator is swirling away from it again. 

Carolyn Abram 
Guest Flash Fiction Editor