There was a photo of my father slid into my dresser mirror for years. Hair slicked back, big. Posed in front of a carnival bust of King Kong on his dresser. A lit cigarette in its mouth. I still have it. Somewhere. Amidst the basement dust. What we become, he became.
Pulled up, when I was little, in a long blue Cadillac to drop off Christmas presents. A ray gun. A blender that never worked right. Then sped off for good. Those beautiful and terrible taillight fins. A shark’s. No longer circling. Slicing away instead, through those easy highway miles.
Robert Scotellaro has been published widely in books, journals, and anthologies including: W.W. Norton’s Flash Fiction International Anthology, NANO Fiction, Gargoyle, and many others. He is the author of seven literary chapbooks and two full-length collections: Measuring the Distance (flash fiction, 2012) and What We Know So Far (micro fiction, 2015). The latter was the winner of The Blue Light Book Award. A forthcoming collection of his 100-word stories is due out by Big Table Publications in 2016. He was the recipient of Zone 3’s Rainmaker Award in Poetry. Robert currently lives in San Francisco. Visit him at rsflashfiction.com.
A Quiet Courage 