Nonstarter
100-word memoir
“I’m telling you now,” my wife said, “since you’ll find out eventually.” I poured coffee and looked outside. February, Southcentral Alaska. It would be dark for hours yet — and bitterly cold. “I used your email,” she said, “to contact a vasectomy-reversal surgeon.” I sipped. “Why?” She shrugged. “Thought it’d be weird to use mine.” Snow clung to the birch trees surrounding the house. Nothing moved. “I didn’t mean using my email.” Her smile withered. “Isn’t it obvious?” I considered the darkness in my cup. “I thought we’d agreed.” A silence was birthed then. It grew for years — until we divorced.
A happier flash memoir from back then:
Jim’s Taco Fund (Trying not to be a starving artist)
Buy me some tacos and I’ll name my second-born child after you: $5 covers a day’s worth of tacos or $3 buys me a fancy coffee!
“Nonstarter” first appeared in Five Minute Lit on February 23, 2022.
