“He’s not good enough for you,” her daughter said.
“Why, because he’s not your father?”
“No,” her daughter replied, “because he’s black.”
Tracy Thompson is a 25 year-old aspiring writer: short stories for the past few years and new at flash fiction.
They were so self-conscious they drove everywhere. Even to the store a block away. “I don’t have time,” they’d say. But that was a lie.
Dawn Corrigan still likes to walk to the store.
The old lady sighs at the sight of elastic-skinned girl across from her whose gaze is fixed on the gold band that strangles an aged finger.
Radhika Takru is 22 and enjoys writing on public transport, experimenting with tea, and staring at her shoes.
“The first time’s always scary,” he said. She nodded, not looking at him. They did it.
She didn’t expect the faces he made at the end, and some stifled laughter escaped.
Afterward, she tried to massage his neck. The boy said he could rub his own neck, thank you, and got out of the car.
Joanne Merriam (@joannemerriam) lives in Nashville, where she writes poetry and very short stories.