by T. R. Click

Carpe Mañana
by Richard A. Lovett

Starlings
by Michael J. DeLuca

A Hundredth Name
by Christopher Green

Rainbows and Other Shapes
by Patricia Russo

Flash Fiction will return in our next issue.

He takes a drag on an Russian cigarette, and waits for his cue,
this Japanese man in a foam rubber suit.

Gaffers mount studio lights, and microphone booms
while model builders rig warehouses along the wharves to explode.

The director makes another change to the script, shows it to the Japanese
man in the foam rubber suit, who nods and takes a drag on his Russian cigarette.

Sleek attack jets hang from delicate steel wires. Radio controlled tanks mass on the
water front to defend Osaka against the Japanese man in his foam rubber suit.

He stands and takes a last drag on his Russian cigarette. The suit
wranglers take the unfiltered butt and close the zipper on his spine.

No longer a Japanese man in a foam rubber suit, he is a rampaging monster no
science of man nor machine of war can stop.

In his wake he will leave well orchestrated devastation, scatter crowds before rear
projected flames and inspire awe in the minds of young boys not yet cynics.

As the credits roll, he will walk away and return to the sea, the painted sunset
on the canvas wall silhouetting him against its painted glow.

As an old man, he lives in a small apartment. His grandchildren ask, what was it like to
be a man in a foam rubber suit? He is quiet and thinks of a life many years gone.

It was work, he says after a while, it was a job,
and takes another drag on his Russian cigarette.