by Nancy Freund

RicRac and GrosGrain went to the beach. Stripes romped by their sides, bopping a beach ball. Gingham looked on, kept them safe, fixed them all a picnic, and laid it out. Ruffles came teetering along. Balcony bra and massive glasses. Flounced around. Pockets saw and stood right up. All the ponytails turned east to west, swung fast, then settled straight. Pockets jingled coins and puffed the pleats, puffed and puffed. Rattle-fingered all the little things in there. Oblivious, RicRac squealed and splashed, GrosGrain thrashed, and Stripes, as always, leapt about. Gingham bit a sour pickle and watched seagulls flying overhead.

An American-Brit in Switzerland, Nancy Freund is always hard at work on novels and essays, but she also loves flash. She has published pieces in Takahe Magazine, Jellyfish Review, Splonk, Hobart, Largehearted Boy, Reflex, London Independent Story Prize, Necessary Fiction, Ekphrastic Review, and the Short Story Anthology: Food, Migration, and Diversity. She has Creative Writing degrees from UCLA and Cambridge. She’s on Twitter @nancyfreund