Guernica/PEN Flash Series

The series is a collaborative effort in which both journals publish the best flash out there.

Treatment for a Story

"She curls up in bed. Pulls the dirty sheets over her and starts to doze...Starts to doze until the room pulls her awake, overpowers her with its clutter, its… More

The Voice of Silence

There were no voices to be heard, no words or fragments of sentences coming from the couple sitting there. Until I realized, with a quick glimpse, that they were… More

Three Strikes

I dropped from the skies or from heaven—whatever was closer at the moment—at the doors of the Kremlin library to research, and the clerk, an army major with a… More

Phoenix

It was my job to kill rats. To tie rats inside a metal and leather machine that held them tight, still. To stick a cigarette in their knife-point… More

In Love, Post-Apocalypse

For a long time, Nathalie’s outline has remained calcified in the bed with her ghost. The weak sun illuminates its contours and every morning I leave the sheets loose… More

Maureen

Instead of looking at his face, she looked outside. It was raining, what looked like yellow rain on a darker yellow sidewalk. I'm getting married again, he said. We're… More

Hunger

There's a story told of my voice that says it was bought from a witch, the result of an occult surgery. I am said to treat it nightly with… More