—Michael Dickel I look at the time on my phone. “Time to get the girl,” I think. So sit up in bed, swing my legs over the side, and put on my shoes. I see my wife working on her computer as I walk into the living room. […]
The Palm Reading after The Toad’s Garden (Is a Rose Press 2016), my fourth book, gathers flash fiction written in recent years (much of it for this blog)—from a series of surreal memoryscapes (featuring the woman with a beard and her friend, the metaphysical toad) to flash thrillers […]
This originally appeared in Fragments of Michael Dickel Sept. 2014. Thank you to G. Jamie Dedes and The BeZine for giving it a new, broader audience almost two years later! Author’s note: Sometimes, our children tell us things that they see or know, and we don’t have faith in […]
. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The clock sounds. But time has stopped here. It ended when night fell over us all. We thought that time had pressed on, but this was an illusion. The spreading of blood across a full moon and darkening of a sun had fooled […]
Why she was late for dinner… A bag falls to the sidewalk, glass shatters, wine spills—a ghost woke and walked by her, a forgotten moment now scented by shiraz evaporating on hot cement. These days she simply shrugs off such occurrences—hidden minutes pour out along her path wherever […]
The following flash fiction responds to a prompt (the photo above) from the Short Story and Flash Fiction Society, for their second flash fiction contest; the story is 392 words, not counting the title (or this blog-post introduction). Moshe is our son’s name, he is three (almost four), and […]
Humans? Two-legged dwellers of the Earth? It’s your Creator here. I know, I know, it’s been awhile since you’ve heard from me. I’ve been busy up in the Oort Cloud. I thought about coming down in a blaze of Comet-ic glory, ride the fiery chariot at the head […]
Flash Fiction on the theme of Ison, the comet.
Nematode Garden Crisis “While most of the thousands of species of nematodes on Earth are not harmful, some nematodes parasitize and cause diseases in humans and other animals. Also, unfortunately, there are many that attack and feed on living plants.” —Organic Gardening.com The garden-shutdown, precipitated by a minority […]
The woman with a beard contemplates the Toad’s garden in relationship to the decline of empires and the inevitable sound of martial music. Soon the trumpets of war may or may not blow. What we know for certain is that we do not know for certain. Two erstwhile […]
As Far as I Go Mingled in dark hoops of time, moving faster against lashes of space drawn out then foreclosed as the speed of light calls, casting shadows of reality into the heat of the moment to cool against that woman, Eleanor Rigby, who waits at the […]
This is the last day of July, and so Flash Fiction Month ends. There will be more flash fiction here on the blog, as well as experimental writing, short essays, poetry, and the other bits an pieces that make up the fragments of Michael Dickel. I hope that […]
The penultimate day in Flash Fiction Month, and here’s another story in traditional narrative form, more or less. Sort of Eleanor Rigby meets Penny Lane minus Strawberry Fields, with a very weak hint of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Only I’m not John Lennon or Paul McCartney. […]
This one feels a bit clunky to me, but perhaps that’s because the end of Flash Fiction Month fast approaches, and I’m worn out. I’ve written a lot this month—thank you to those who have read my forays into a world resembling fiction and stayed with me. Thank […]
Continuing in a more conventional narrative mode, this Flash Fiction Month post gives a bit of a vignette that reveals more about the characters, probably, than anything else. The action follows a pattern in a number of these posts, of someone leaving a relationship, with some trivial insight […]
I continue to write various odd little pieces for Flash Fiction Month. Those interested can click on the Flash image to the left to see the Flash Fiction Month page on Facebook, complete with its prompts and links. This piece comes closer, in my range of styles here, […]
So, Flash Fiction Month continues, and perhaps so do I. Once upon a time, as a college student, I walked across the Art Deco-era Washington Avenue Bridge from the East Bank to the West Bank of the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities campus. I came across a palm reader […]
Another new piece for Flash Fiction Month. Surrealistic pillow this isn’t, but it’s some sort of grief and memory exploration of the subconscious. Surrealism in the theme of a variation on a Beatles song. Woke up, got out of bed…wrote a flash fiction bit for your reading. As […]
Nothing Remembers
by Michael Dickel
At Indie Booksotres
The Palm Reading after The Toad's Garden
by Michael Dickel
At Indie Bookstores
War Surrounds Us
by Michael Dickel
At Independent Bookstores
Midwest / Mid-East
by Michael Dickel
At Indie Bookstores
Meta/ Phor(e) /Play 