Tag: Creative nonfiction

Stuck in the Middle: A Flash Memoir

“Tell her that she’s not my friend anymore,” Tina, who was sitting to my right, said.

I turned to Linda, who was sitting to my left, “Tina said that she’s not your friend.”

“Tell her I don’t care,” Linda said. “She’s not mine.”

I turned to Tina, “She said she doesn’t care.”

“Well, tell her I don’t care either and that she’s a liar.”

I turned to Linda, “That you lied that one time and she doesn’t care.”

“She doesn’t?”

“No,” I said.

Linda looked around me, to Tina.

“You don’t care that I lied?” Linda said.

“What?” Tina said.

Two minutes later.

“Yes, you were, Marc,” Tina said. “You were trying to get us to fight.”

“But you told me to tell her all that.” I said.

“You didn’t tell her everything I said.”

“I did.”

“You’re mean, Marc.”

“But I didn’t do nothing.”

Life Lesson #2: Drama loves company. Do as little favors as possible.

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Bubblegum Complex: A Flash Memoir

Age 35

Third store I’ve been to and no sling bag. Now I gotta walk out this place empty handed, wondering if the clerk thinks I’m just here to steal.

“Can I help you find something,” the clerk said.

“What?” I said.

“Is there something you need?”

Age 7

I headed down the aisle that led directly to the counter, clasping the piece of stolen gum. The exit was to the left of it, and I would have to pass Chadi as he stocked a carton of Pall Mall. But he turned before I could leave the aisle, making eye contact.

“What do you have?!” Chadi demanded.

I stood still, body pointing towards the exit, “Nothing.”

“Open your hand!”

“I don’t have nothing.”

“You steal from me?!”

“No.”

“Show me what’s in your hand.”

I opened my hand.

“Why you steal from me?!”

“I was going to give it to you later.”

“If you would have asked me, I would have given one to you. Why didn’t you ask?”

“I don’t know.”

I couldn’t run for the exit. I lived right around the corner. He could tell my parents. For the next minute, or maybe more, or maybe less, I let him scold me. He made me put back the candy and told me to leave.

“Next time I tell your parents. Okay?”

I nodded.

“Go.”

Age 35 continued

“No,” I said to the clerk.

I grabbed a travel-size shampoo and showed it to her.

“Thanks.”

I paid for it at the counter.

Outside the store, I stared at it.

Color protecting shampoo. What heck am I gonna do with this?   

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New Bike by Marc Alexander Valle*

New Bike

10-year old Devin Maguire held onto his BMX handle bars and stared at my new bike, “Your dad got that bike from a thrift store.”

“No he didn’t!” I said.

“Yes he did. I can tell.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Yeah, cause there’s marks on it.”

“He got it from K-Mart.”

“Okay, which one?”

“The one down the street.”

“I know all the bikes at K-Mart. I didn’t see that one there.”

“Well, that’s where he got it from.”

“Did he tell you he got it from there?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Cuz, my parents don’t shop at thrift stores!”

When my dad came back from work, he told me that he bought the bike from a thrift store. The same store we’d been to several times that year.

*Previously published in Lehigh Valley Vanguard

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