Chelsea flash nonfiction

to unfold by Heather Emmanuel

Fabric does what it’s told if you’re patient, my mother says. She irons sitting down, in the corner of the living room with her back to the garden. She holds up the tumble-dried garment against the light, eyeing the creases like they’ll argue with her. And lose, always.

I am too small, too young, legs tucked under my hips on a plastic chair I’ll take too long to grow out of. She is meticulous in routine: wafting fabric onto the waiting board. Her palm flat, the other hand curled around the iron.

When she finishes a piece—one of my father’s nicer t-shirts—she holds it out. Wordlessly. I blink, snared, and scurry towards her outstretched hand. My fingers aren’t sticky—a mistake I’ve only made once.

I pinch the corners of the t-shirt and lay it on the empty coffee table.

She says nothing, but I know I am being watched. My turn. Corner to corner. Smooth out the creases. Tuck in the sleeves so it falls open when held to the light.

I smooth out the exposed seam and wait. Wait. For the flutter of fabric, for the light to dim behind it.

Instead, my mother clicks her tongue.

She doesn’t stand. The ironing board reaches her chest, hips perched on the edge of the chair, back straight. But her eyes bore into mine until I unfold the piece and try again.

My mother says fabrics remember everything. Denim resists. Cotton acts like it will behave, then doesn’t. Linen tries but curls in on itself. Like a baby, my mother adds. I don’t ask her why she thinks about folding a child to be put away.

The iron hisses, then breathes, then settles. I do the first two only in private.

We don’t speak in these moments. My mother prefers to complete tasks in silence, with the murmur of the radio dialed down. I mimic this. Unashamed, I hum half-formed tunes under my breath until my mother clicks her tongue at me in between pieces.

My mother’s clothes are lighter than my father’s. Yet it doesn’t make them easier to fold. I narrow my eyes as I align the seams, grateful for the myopia that helps more than hinders during these afternoons.

Sometimes, in the hollow aftermath of a finished garment, she watches me. Giving her wrists a break, she rolls them once, twice, her eyes fixed on me as I replicate the remnants of her teaching. My hands hesitate in their movements, anticipating the inevitable click to come.

I do not look at her even when I believe I’ve finished. I can’t. I hold out the garment like an offering—silent and expectant. My eyes stay down, past the shirt, past my feet.

There’s a pause.

I’ve done it right. I know I’ve done it right. Corners aligned, sleeves tucked. A rectangle utterly absent of wrinkles.

She takes it from me with caution only ever reserved for textures too delicate to touch.

And she unfolds it.

It sighs open.

The seams fall apart in her hands without protest. The rectangle—once so exact—loses its edges. The corners slip out of themselves, sleeves remembering their former shape more than mine.

She doesn’t look at me. That would make it instruction.

Fabric does what it’s told, eventually. I must be patient. I am patient.

I receive it from her hands.

I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath until the iron hisses. Quietly, I copy it. Behind my teeth.

 

 

Heather Emmanuel is a Black British writer of contemporary lesbian literary fiction and prose poetry. Her work is forthcoming in The Offing, SWWIM, Maudlin House, and Gone Lawn. You can find her at heather-emmanuel.com or at @heather.emmanuel8

 

Chelsea prose poetry

When a Fire Breaks Out We Talk of Its Causes and Effects, Imagining that the Fire Occurred Somewhere Between the Two by Joshua Gottlieb-Miller

Shawna says she’s always looking for a person’s single lowest moment, and you thought to mention your husband is in love with another woman, but not that, how you’d managed to think about anything else until months later, when your screensaver showed mountains you’d seen. Were they real? Or when YouTube asked you to choose between commercials for tax season or Direct TV, but you were stuck on that screensaver. Or when Shawna says she’s always looking for a person’s single lowest moment, and you thought to mention your husband is in love with another woman.

Pines blooming, transcendent. An autonomy, a monotony of early spring. Peaks purpled with enough light left for you to mistake the sky’s intentions. Clouds twisted above, sped faster. Down where dead yellow leaves hung this long, just for the maple to upstage itself with tiny orange buds. You wanted to take it all in, unhesitating, how little you cared if needles piled on.

It is possible you are still in that moment with Shawna, you will always be in that moment: bitter wind, the marsh grass shakes its head at the lake, still frozen, the street you lived on, the years you lived there. You wonder now if the mountains could prevent you from experiencing reality, just as the screensaver did, just as that city with the frozen lake you’d never forgive.

 

Joshua Gottlieb-Miller is the author of Dybbuk Americana (Wesleyan University Press, 2024) and The Art of Bagging (Conduit Press & Ephemera, 2023). He received his PhD and MFA in Poetry from the University of Houston, where he also served as a Poetry Editor and Digital Nonfiction Editor for Gulf Coast. From 2018-2019 he served as an inaugural Post-Harvey Think Tank Fellow at Rice University’s Humanities Research Center, representing folklore. He teaches at San Jacinto College, and lives in Houston with his wife and son.

Chelsea flash fiction

Counting to Ten in Japanese by Mario Aliberto III

Ichi, ni, san, shi… Benny’s only been a Wal-Mart stockboy a couple of weeks, part time after school, and he’s already managed to screw it up. He grinds his teeth, literally bites his tongue, listening to the dweeby Assistant Manager spout words like “progressive discipline” and “termination” and “reimburse us for our property.” How many jobs has he been fired from the past year? Two, but really it’s three if he counts the deli he quit before getting fired. Of course, he still threw a full Boar’s Head bologna tube (and a couple of punches) at the assistant manager’s face on his way out, but at least he wasn’t officially a deli employee when he did it. Progress, right? Whatever. He only works because his mom says she needs help with the bills. He breathes in deep that particular Wal-Mart scent of body odor and cheap plastic, and silently repeats, Ichi, ni, san, shi…

Counting in Japanese is the only thing that has stuck so far in a month’s worth of free karate lessons on Tuesday nights. He looks across the desk at the Assistant Manager’s stupid face, his dumb mustache, idiot necktie, and doesn’t think it would be difficult to karate chop the moronic look off his face. Ichi, ni, san, shi…Benny’s mom thought karate would help with his anger issues. Same as when she came upon Groupons for yoga. Or meditation. Or scream therapy. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he does feel less angry after karate. He hasn’t been tempted to punch any of the other stockboys, and not just because one of his knuckles might still be broken from his last fight (again, the deli assistant manager). His mom says it’s nice to see his smile. After all, it’s been over a year since his dad ran off with a pool tech at the Pinch-A-Penny he managed. Ichi, ni, san, shi…

Benny’s not really listening to the Wal-Mart Assistant Manager. He can practically feel the snug fit of the foam gloves he wore as Sensei counted off his punches on the practice dummy.  He hears the numbers in Sensei’s voice. Ichi, ni, san, shi… He told his mom about Sensei. About how Sensei is teaching him to count to ten in Japanese. Sensei is Japanese for “good father.” He thinks. He’s not sure. But he’s probably right. He’ll most likely ask his mom to sign him up for paid karate lessons once the free trial is over. He wants to feel like he feels after karate on Tuesdays all the time. Ichi, ni, san, shi… The Assistant Manager is still talking about how “pallet jacks aren’t toys” and “ghost riding company equipment off a loading dock” is a level three infraction. Ichi, ni, san, shi…

Manager is derived from the old English “bad father.” Benny only remembers how to count to four in Japanese. But soon he’ll learn how to count all the way to ten. He’ll get there. Eventually. If he keeps up with karate. “Who raised you to act like this?” the Wal-Mart Assistant Manager wants to know. Oh, Benny forgot, he learned one other thing from Sensei. Benny stands up. Tilts forward at the waist. Before a fight, you bow to your opponent.

 

Mario Aliberto III is the author of All the Dead We Have Yet to Bury (Chestnut Review, 2025), and his short fiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Fractured Lit, The Pinch, and other fine journals. A graduate with a Creative Writing degree from the University of South Florida, he lives in Tampa Bay with his wife and daughters, and yet the dog still runs the house. Find him online at marioaliberto3.com

Chelsea flash fiction

Uhura Among the Stars by Claudia Wair

Charlotte babysat her three young cousins after school until their parents got home from work. She was only 16, but to the children, she was a grown-up. She made them play quietly while she did her homework. Then the fun began. Arts and crafts, dress-up time, all sorts of games.

After playtime, they would all sit on the floral sofa, one child on Charlotte’s lap, one up close on either side, inhaling her scent of Jergen’s lotion and Juicy Fruit gum. There they watched Star Trek. The children loved Kirk and Spock, but they cheered when they saw Lt. Uhura.  She looked like them. She was smart. She was an astronaut. She was beautiful, just like Cousin Charlotte.

One day, the youngest said to her cousin, “You smell different.” Charlotte turned the TV on early. There was no dress-up, there were no games. She sat at the dining room table, head down on her closed books. She didn’t get up even when Uhura was on the screen.

A few days later, their parents said that Charlotte had to go away, and Mrs. Washington would look after them from now on.

“Is Cousin Charlotte sick?” one of the children asked. Their parents looked at one another.

“Yes, she’s sick,” their mother said. “She’ll come home when she’s better.”

Mrs. Washington wouldn’t let them watch TV; she said it was the devil’s work. She didn’t play games. She thought arts and crafts were too messy. She had no interest in getting the costumes out for dress-up.

Sometimes, the children would sneak into their parents’ room and watch Star Trek while Mrs. Washington slept in the easy chair. One child said Charlotte must have gone away in a spaceship like Uhura. One said she had gotten married to Spock. One child said, “No, she’s sick for real, or she wouldn’t have left us.”

Cousin Charlotte came home in the spring. She was thinner and walked with her head down. The children saw her at their grandparents’ house, and they ran to her shouting questions. She smiled and hugged them all.

“Yes, I’m much better,” she answered the eldest. “No, I didn’t live on a spaceship,” she told the middle child. And to the youngest she said “No, I can’t babysit you anymore.”

The next day after school, the children heard Mrs. Washington talking on their parents’ phone.

“A good girl wouldn’t have got herself in that situation,” she said. “Well, I know she won’t never set foot in my house.”

The children didn’t understand, so they slipped quietly up the stairs, turned the volume low, and watched Uhura among the stars.

 

 

Claudia Wair is a Black American writer whose work is forthcoming or has appeared in Vestal Review, Pithead Chapel, Astrolabe, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. You can read more at claudiawair.com, or find her on Bluesky @CWTellsTales.bsky.social and on Instagram @CWTellsTales.

Chelsea flash fiction

Cycle of Life by Francine Witte

A curl of a woman pouring a curl of water onto a garden patch. A square yard of soil that yields up some tiny shoots. Seed, then plant, then seed again. She tells herself this is the cycle of life. She stands in front of her trailer, and the trailer has windows like eyes that watch and watch. It is some kind of summer, and we know this by her dress, all cotton and flower, the sun shadows on a flap of laundry on the line, a caged-up bird that has forgotten how to fly. A stick of a man sits behind her. He holds up a fishpole, the kind he might have used when he was younger, before old age caged him in.

In a minute, a storm will whisper. The man will say, that figures. It is, he will say, some kind of summer and storms are gonna be. Now he can stop pretending he was going fishing and he and the woman, who has stopped her watering, go in the trailer. Outside the wind is building, and we know this by the punch flap in the sheet still hanging on the line. We know this by the creak of the birdcage swinging back and forth. Once inside, the man and the woman look at one another. Maybe he will love me again, she thinks. She wants to think. But a man is not a garden, a man is not a shoot.

After the storm, which will be much bigger than summer, bigger than firefly and bird chirp and wind coming out of the east, their turned over trailer with its blinded windows will be half a mile down. Rolled over and over, spun and died and died again. No cycle left for them here, the two of them flung onto the ground, fallen laundry. Near them, a birdcage broken, a bird that has flown.

 

Francine Witte is a flash fiction writer and poet, and the author of the flash collection RADIO WATER. Her newest poetry book, Some Distant Pin of Light, has just been published by Cervena Barva Press. Her work has been widely published, and she is a recent recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She lives in New York City. Please visit her website francinewitte.com. She can be found on social media @francinewitte. (Photo credit: Mark Strodl)

 

Chelsea flash fiction

Blueberries for Ralph by Maria Pianelli Blair

Jessa watched as the funeral procession piled into the limo. The widow remarked it was “a sign” that the driver had parked beneath the willow tree, since her late Ralph frequented the arboretum and willows were his favorite. But, as groundskeeper, Jessa knew better. The limo would idle there tomorrow and every day after. 

As the mourners departed, Jessa heard rustling stir from the grave. Four raccoons had perched upon Ralph’s casket, blueberries in hand. Inky jam smeared across the nameplate, pawprints streaked the mahogany. There were no signs. Only raccoons and blueberries, and the dead men trapped beneath them.

 

Maria Pianelli Blair is a writer and artist. Her collages are published in Contemporary Collage Magazine, FEELS Zine, and 45th Parallel, among other publications. Find her writing in Gypsophila Magazine, swim press, two-headed press, Pile Press, Prosetrics, Blood+Honey, and Querencia Press. Follow her @strange_sunsets or visit mpianelliblair.com.

Chelsea flash fiction

Taking Flight by Ellie Larsen

I was waiting with the other parents in the corner of the parking lot when our preschoolers floated out of the school. We collectively gasped, surprised to see the whole class, twelve children, shrieking in delight, bodies lifted, each with a brand new pair of wings. I scanned the crowd for Molly, imagining her wings were a soft, buttery yellow, her favorite color. The students fluttered about, each one behaving how you’d expect them to – the two besties with matching wings holding hands and flying in a circle; Juniper, the cryer, already sitting on the ground and sobbing, his wings drooping behind him; Rigger, kicking up near the roofline, wings beating furiously, trying to make it over; and then here she was, my dear sweet Molly, hovering near my shoulder with delicate yellow wings threaded with blue and purple, reaching to hold my hand. The two teachers followed them out, practically buzzing with excitement. “The time has come,” the lead teacher Erica announced. “We didn’t expect it to happen so early in the year, but one student’s wings emerged and then soon everyone’s wings were sprouting.” “How do we take care of them?” asked the parent who questioned everything at every school meeting. “We’ve put a handout in your student’s backpack,” said Erica and both teachers held up bunches of backpacks in their hands, because the children couldn’t wear backpacks. I looked at Molly, her blue eyes at my eye level, and then beyond to where her new wings were gently working. It was a not-rainy spring day and the sun’s rays caught the wings’ shimmer, creating an iridescent aura that was breathtaking. Her wings beat a little faster and Molly lifted a few inches. We smiled at each other. “Do you like my wings, Mama?” she asked.

“I love them,” I said, and I really did. This was the reason I chose this preschool, after all. When we moved to the area we didn’t know anyone, and a parent in a park near our house recommended it. I didn’t fully agree with all of its philosophy when I checked out the website, but the wings development spoke to my heart. How I longed for my own wings when I was younger, a strong pair to lift me up and away, high into the tree canopy. Unfortunately David didn’t agree with any of it, and it became the first major discord in our parenting philosophy, a bifurcation that only grew until we decided to separate. I squeezed Molly’s hand as I wondered what David would have to say about her wings. “Look, Mama, a bird!” said Molly, letting go of my hand. She got that determined look on her face and stretched her arms up and wide. Her wings beat faster and faster, her body jerking in a zig zag as she rose to the crown of a vine maple. I held my breath as I watched her, knowing practice would smooth out the roughness, like watching her take her first steps all over again. She got to the top and reached for a little black and white chickadee. The bird flitted off and Molly’s wings stopped. She started falling and I ran forward, ready to catch her in my arms. Just as quickly, they started beating again. I felt Erica there, standing next to me, her hand on my shoulder as Molly slowly lowered herself to the ground. “Molly!” I cried. I crouched down, enveloping her. I could feel her wings vibrating through the sleeves of my fleece jacket, the structure of them more rigid than I thought they would be. “You scared me.” “The bird flew away and I fell,” said Molly. Erica was still next to us, I think she was waiting for me to say something, but when I couldn’t get the words out she gently talked to Molly about staying safe with her new wings. Erica knew all about David and me; she had to, because a different one of us might be at pickup or Molly might forget something at David’s that needed to come to school. She also knew his stance on wings. I was grateful for her talking to Molly and for her talking to David too, when the time came. I stood up and took Molly’s backpack from Erica and gave her a hug. Molly rose again as we moved to the car. My daughter was flying.

Ellie Larsen writes stories about people who (usually) live in Oregon. Ellie also lives in Oregon, just outside of Portland, with her family. She’s currently working on her first novel. 

Chelsea prose poetry

Dream About Liza Minnelli Exclamation Point by Edward Thomas-Herrera

Dream you’re watching Liza wrap up a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. Dream of a powerhouse performance of New York, New York. Dream there’s a post-show party at the Mocambo. Dream the Mocambo didn’t close down back in 1958. Dream Liza asks you for a ride. Dream Liza can’t drive on account of her two hip replacements make it difficult. Dream telling Liza you’d be honored to give her a lift. Dream owning a red convertible. Dream your husband getting behind the wheel because he says you drive like an old lady. Dream you don’t care what he says. Not tonight. Dream that means you get to ride in the back seat with Liza Minnelli exclamation point. Dream the route to the Mocambo snakes through the scenic high deserts of the American Southwest. Dream it’s late at night – late at night in the scenic high deserts of the American Southwest where the only thing visible to you is the unpaved road ahead, illuminated by headlights. Like the opening credits to Lost Highway. Dream Liza sticking her head out the window to feel the wind whip through her jet-black hair. Dream neither of you is wearing safety belts. Dream how great it is to be in the presence of a bona fide show biz legend like Liza. Dream she’s regaling you with funny stories about Michael York and Martin Scorsese and Chita Rivera and Peter Allen and the Pet Shop Boys. Dream she repeatedly refers to her mother as Judy Garland. Dream that’s sort of weird, but OK. Doesn’t matter. You’re with Liza Minnelli exclamation point. Dream nothing else in the universe matters. As far as you’re concerned, this is the first point in the history of mankind that anything has ever mattered. Including Jesus. Dream Liza climbs halfway out the sunroof. Dream this is a convertible with a sunroof. Dream Liza beating on the roof of the car with bejeweled hands like it’s a bongo drum. Dream Liza belting out Maybe This Time. Dream Liza just radiates pure joy. Dream Liza is pure joy in human form. Dream you want to be like Liza. Dream you want to be Liza. Dream Liza hanging out the car window like some daredevil circus act. Dream the only things keeping Liza from flying off into the high desert night are the heels of her black patent leather boots hooked around the car door handle. Dream you’re starting to worry. Dream that’s not how a septuagenarian with two hip replacements should comport herself. Dream Liza could get hurt. Dream there might just possibly be such a thing as too much pure joy. Dream the car suddenly swerves off to one side and Liza goes airborne like balloons escaping a clumsy child. Dream you shout at your husband to stop the car stop the car exclamation point exclamation point. Dream what a nightmare. Dream having to explain Liza’s accidental death to a 9-1-1 dispatcher or the police or the folks awaiting her arrival at the Mocambo or reporters from People magazine or her legion of devoted gay superfans encircling the entertain-o-sphere. Dream how you’ll never go down in history as a poet now unless it’s as the poet who was with Liza when she met her tragic demise. Dream your husband hits the brakes just as you spot Liza climbing out of a ditch, covered in dust and gravel, smiling, laughing, exuberant, singing Liza with a Z at the top of her lungs. Dream she’s Liza Minnelli exclamation point and that woman’s a goddam survivor.

 

Edward Thomas-Herrera is a native of Houston, Texas where he attended Rice University and discovered boys, alcohol, and Expressionism – not necessarily in that order. Later, he moved to Chicago, Illinois where he discovered poetry and playwriting. Edward has a very long resumé of stage credits with which he refuses to bore you, but he’s happy to inform you that his poetry has appeared in Compressed, Tofu Ink Arts Press, Beaver Magazine, and The Account. (Photo credit: Phil Dembinski)

Chelsea flash fiction

The Box by Rachel M. Hollis

The jury summons arrives in the mail while I’m at my twenty-week scan, watching the curve of my boy’s spine.

I show up Monday, expecting to be excused. The judge disagrees. Six months’ postponement would only mean showing up with a newborn “on the outside.”

When I’m called to the box, I push my belly out as I sit, exaggerating the effort.

“Please state your name, where you live, what you do, any kids in your home.”

“Not yet,” I say, pointing to my stomach. No reaction. No dismissal.

Juror after juror is questioned. I’m still in. I panic, listing every excuse: ultrasounds, sciatica, peeing when I sneeze. The judge gives me a look. The bailiff calls the next name.

We’re sworn in.

The defendant wears an orange jumpsuit. “His choice,” the judge explains. He fires his lawyer before opening statements, then spends the morning scratching his eyebrow raw. Like he’s trying to erase himself.

“Those weren’t my drugs,” the man blurts, tugging at his sleeve as he cross-examines the officer.

The judge sighs. “That’s not a question.” His first of many warnings. We shift in our seats, eyes down.

“Did you know they weren’t mine?”

The officer doesn’t blink. “They were in your pocket.” I wonder how often that’s all it takes.

By week three, his eyebrow is red and swollen, his jumpsuit stained and wrinkled. I scan the courtroom for anyone watching him, worried about him, rooting for him. No one. He lowers his head to the desk, like he’s already been sentenced. As the judge reads instructions, I catch fragments: evidence, burden, credibility.

The twelve of us are sent to a small, windowless room that smells like sweat and sanitizer. I sit quietly as they debate the case, the testimony, his mental state.

The foreperson passes out slips of paper. I write guilty and slide it forward. They all match and the room exhales. Then empties.

I rest my hand on my belly, a hard kick beneath my palm. Like he felt the weight of it, too.

 

Rachel M. Hollis lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, child, and a deeply unmotivated dog. Her work appears or is forthcoming in River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, Midway Journal, Gone Lawn, Funicular, and elsewhere.

 

Chelsea prose poetry

Maurice, Come Back, I’m Waiting Tonight at the Boathouse by Gordon Taylor

Here is a memory. Our feet had the floor in a bar lavatory. Sean and me in the locked stall. My bare calves hugged the toilet base as I sat. He stood before me. His white, untied sneakers faced my scuffed brown cowboy boots inside a bunched blue jean. Our moans stifled.

Here is early Sunday afternoon in the park. The grass is trammeled. An elderly couple practices salsa steps near an encampment of tents, and small purple balloon flowers grow at the base of an inoculated Ash, trunk bearing an orange spray painted number.

I notice felled timber from last week’s storm, when the internet dimmed, and the subway filled with river. We’re hitched to the shiny, flat world of our phones, sitting cross legged on navy blue terry towels. Our lunch is greasy sweet potato fries. I have a fear of blindness.

What is the difference between hope and denial? After marriage equality, after so many doomed queer heroes, after hiding in stories of clandestine spies, how dare we consider divorce? I guess that is the yang of freedom.

I’m angry when lovers part before the credits roll. Sean says I’m addicted to the light of others, but describes a true optimist as someone who accepts shade. My napkin blows away. Don’t worry, Sean says, I have another.

Do we love the way Maurice loved Alec, the gamekeeper in the movie of the Forster novel? Lust like a life was at stake. I first saw Maurice when AIDS was killing us, when sex was an epic. Sean says the film is privilege porn, a British aristocrat scratching his nails across a taut workingman’s back.

Here, we’re swarmed by wasps. Their faces are my mother freaking in a stiff Elizabethan collar when Sean and me waltzed at my cousin’s wedding. Later in bed at the hotel, he whispered into my neck that I was his.

Next to the park is a string of cars. I notice two birds on the street, one with beak nestled into the wing of the other. Our dog James, the coroner, assembles the puzzle of a battered body, running away and returning with mysteries hanging from his drooling mouth, gifts dropped at my side.

He can smell sadness, the way elephants smell rain from miles away. First, he brings me a severed wing, jagged line of blood at the bite mark, matted feathers, a hooked beak, then a sharp pink foot.

I change into the corpse, leathered skin receding to bone.

There are no eyes.

 

Gordon Taylor is a queer emerging poet who walks an ever-swaying braided wire of technology and poetry. A 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have appeared in Narrative, Malahat Review, Poet Lore, Arc, and more. He writes to invite people into a world they may not have seen.