May 25, 2023

Cinders: A Love Story

By Keith Hood

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Perhaps we should not have done it. He’s been sitting in the closet waiting for her since 1993. His cardboard-colored container resembling an oversized Chinese take-out box with the requisite thin metal handle. The texture of his ashes, the texture of his life. Course bone. Teeth. Slag. Volcanic man. Volcanic ash. He died at sixty-nine. She died at ninety-six, outliving him by twenty-nine peace-filled years. Before placing her on the floor next to him, we remarked on the finer, more sand-like quality of her ashes as if she were waiting for a gentle ocean wave. Let the arguments begin.

About the Author

Keith HoodKEITH HOOD is a former janitor and window cleaner. He retired from a job as field technician for a Michigan electric utility after 32 years avoiding electrocution. Keith’s prose and poetry have appeared  in Blue Mesa Review, Quick Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, 50 Give or Take, and one sentence poems. Keith’s photography has appeared in Ontario Review, Helen: A Literary Journal, The Grief Diaries, Storm Cellar, and F-Stop.

Related Flash
close up shot of an owl perched on a tree branch

Listening

By Diane Payne

You waken to the sound of an owl hooting, two cats screeching, and the sound of humans crying, their grief whirling into the eternity of nocturnal voices reaching out…
bird on city street

Three Rings and a Window to Heaven

By Jacob Griffin Hall

“Three and a half months ago, we opened the door and sidestepped the bird. The poor thing had died right at the front step. It was terribly sad, I thought, to die. Even worse with a landlord who’d leave you to the insects.”

Young boy bouncing on a trampoline

[Sarah takes her niece and nephew to the trampoline park]

By Brendan Todt

“Sarah takes her niece and nephew to the trampoline park and for thirty-six minutes mistakes another boy in a blue tee and shorts for her nephew, who suddenly appears behind her to ask for money for a slushie, which she gives him.”

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This