Issue 03
flash fiction
“Strict Rules and Loose Guidelines for Concertgoing Post-Pandemic”
by Vic Nogay
“After the Rain in Brussels” by James Reade Venable
1. Do drink beer, but not too much.
2. Do dance, but only with strangers.
3. Do sing, but also listen.
4. Do stand too close to people; you don’t need to hold your breath.
5. Do look at people; study their faces.
6. Do see an ex, but do not approach.*
7. Turn around.
8. Do watch her watching you, but don’t make it obvious.
9. Do not get another beer.
10. Do not take a shot.
11. Do not text her from the bar.
12. Leave alone.**
*Because she will approach you and stand just behind so you can feel her heat but not her touch. The humid wavering will shimmy across your skin and you’ll stand, alone together, swaying in the cloud of it. She’ll say something—whisper it into the space where your neck becomes your shoulder, veiled only by the hair running down your back—but you will not turn around. Never, ever turn around.
**Please—I’m begging you.
*
Vic Nogay is a proud Ohioan, writing to explore her traumas and mis-remembrances. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Lost Balloon, Emerge Literary Journal, perhappened, Versification, Ellipsis Zine, and others. Read more at vicnogay.com.
James Reade Venable was born in Manhattan, New York. He has been published in Dodho, The Emerson Review, 86 Logic, and 3 Elements Review and is a two-time London Photo Festival monthly competition winner. He lives in New York City at the moment.