Bag of chips for lunch. On the schoolyard, he imagines a gun that is completely silent. Maybe it looks like a phone. He practices body positions that let him aim unnoticed. His strategy would be bullies first, no marks left on them. Everybody running to help because—no signs of danger. Nobody suspected. Then he might do some others. And at home, when the yelling started, he would at least know he could make changes if he wanted to.

It feels good to imagine fairness. Good to remind himself of where his father keeps the key to his gun safe.

Daryl Scroggins

has taught creative writing and literature at The University of Texas at Dallas, The University of North Texas, and the Writer’s Garret, in Dallas. He now lives in Marfa, Texas. He is the author of This Is Not the Way We Came In, a collection of flash fiction and a flash novel (Ravenna Press), Winter Investments: Stories (Trilobite Press), and Prairie Shapes: A Flash Novel (winner of the 2004 Robert J. DeMott Prose Contest). His poems, short stories, and creative nonfictions have appeared in magazines and anthologies across the country, including Blink Ink, Cutbank, Eastern Iowa Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Star 82 Review, and Third Wednesday, among others.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Spring, microfiction by Daryl Scroggins in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022)

⚡ Writer Boy, microfiction by Scroggins in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 4, July 2020); nominated by MacQ for Best Microfiction 2021

⚡ Face of the Deep, ekphrastic prose poem in MacQ (Issue 3, May 2020)

⚡ Field Trips, flash fiction in KYSO Flash (Issue 12, Summer 2019)

⚡ New to School, microfiction in Eclectica (Jan/Feb 2018)

⚡ Two Fictions: “Almost Baptized” and “Against the Current” in New Flash Fiction Review (Issue 10, January 2018)

⚡ Eight Stories: A Mini-Chapbook at Web del Sol