POKRASS' Flash fiction, magic of loved and lost, humans and creatures.

THE DOG SEATED NEXT TO ME by Meg Pokrass (Pelekinesis, September 15, 2019.)

Pokrass' flash fiction has the magic of loved and lost, humans and creatures.

Imagine Flannery O'Connor would enjoy the dark wit of Meg Pokrass' THE DOG SEATED NEXT TO ME (Pelekinesis, September 2019). Here the usual mysteries; love, youth, age, the games people play with themselves and others, the texture of time and our bodies, are given strange life. Pokrass often writes about us as creatures. The wilds we are and inhabit may refer to "familiars." Canine, avian, insect qualities are guides of sorts for the women relating stories. One shelters under her lover's wing. Another disappoints her husband when she falls for a blue tongued squink instead of the idea of a new baby.  Some samples below.

The Rescue

He told her how his parakeet died, all at once, in the middle of a regular day. A bird holocaust. She could see, behind his words, such gorgeous, frantic color that she held his hand. There were so many stories he'd never tell her about other departures. He was busy trying to make her laugh, reaching for a joke, and it would work! She'd laugh her fluttery heart out, hand it to him from the tip of her tree.

Infestation

There was a large cockroach living in my heart, clinking its tender little legs, plotting escape. People's hearts are heavy with bugs they won't admit. Mine remembered everything--the early days of my marriage, dreams of growing old while holding fingers. Driving to Monterey, after his affair, I told my husband about the cockroach. "Smart, but not very optimistic," I said.

There's something about driving to a beautiful place, not looking directly at each other, watching the highway. He said, "I understand. There's a cockroach inside me too."

That night, I felt the tiniest part of me scurrying out, eager to be seen. His sudden disclosure had made my head spin. Under the motel sign, I heard two hearts chirping. We made love for the first time in years, the angels trying to bring us back to each other--as if we recognized a friend in the dark.

For those asking 'What is flash fiction?'  Wikipedia defines as  ..."a fictional work of extreme brevity that still offers character and plot development." Microfiction is an old form employed not just in English by Chekhov, H.P. Lovecraft, Hemingway, Cortazar, Vonnegut, P.K. Dick, Bertolt Brecht and Franz Kafka.

There are many writers in Spanish, including Oscar Esquivas and Argentina's Ana Maria Shua. In the Arab speaking world, there is Nobel Prize winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz. Oddly, only two women, Shua and Lydia Davis were mentioned, though I believe Flannery O'Connor wrote microfiction.  Peter Cherches' minimalist stories in Condensed Book (1986) are clever enigmatic fun.  

Take a look at THE DOG SEATED NEXT TO ME (Pelekinesis)

S.W.