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.