This Month
May
Welcome to Flask and Pen Literary Magazine. We accept submissions of short stories, poetry and essays.
The Monthly topic for May is PB&J.
The Original Flask and Pen Project is complete! Our new one is in progress. Link to both from The Project page. The Project is a collaborative effort amongst Flask & Pen contributors and readers.
The June topic will be In-Laws. July's topic will be E Pluribus Unum. We are accepting submissions now at submissions@flaskandpen.com.
You must be registered to comment or submit. Upon registering your password will be emailed to you from WordPress. The registration tab is located on the right column.
Frogfish and Pinot Launched
Because we don't have enough to do already, we have (Keith, Peter and Barbara) have decided a to launch a site dedicated to food lovers called Frogfish and Pinot. Similarly organized to Flask and Pen, we accept stories, recipes and food thoughts from contributors such as yourselves. When you get a chance, head on over there and we'd love to hear feedback from our loyal viewers and contributors.
Filed under Monthly Announcement | Comment (0)Mary’s Secret
By Ashley Murrell
Children’s laughter and screams of joy drifted through the air around the playground on a warm spring day. Little hands flew up into the sky, expressing their hopes and dreams of the game that was most important that day. Lilly, the teacher chosen to supervise the kids’ outside time sighed as she circled around the playground for Larchway After School Enrichment Rooms. Keeping an eye on thirty children was never an easy thing to do. But today was her day to open the outside to assure the kids wouldn’t explode from not digging into the woodchips or bouncing the basketball off the hoop in attempt to hit her car.
“So how’s your day going?” David, her boss, called as he sauntered over to where she was standing.
“It’s fine as always David, how about you?” She asked, never letting her eyes wander away from the playground.
“Good. I’ve been working on one of my paintings and have been so inspired that I can’t sleep much.” His low laugh rolled like a ball down a hill. “So I’ve been hearing some plans from your portable.” He continued, ending with a smirk.
Continue reading »
Back to Yesterday
By Carly Marks
Wishin’ I could go back to yesterday
Erase the mistakes, swipe the residue away
Wishin’ I could change impulsive decisions
Laid back resolutions, needing revisions
Wishin’ I could have made different choices
For yesterday’s promises, using yesterday’s voices
Wishin’ I could tell you why we were sinking
Why I relished the moments without even thinking
Wishin’ I could go back to yesterday
Savor the times I pushed you away
Hold you close and ask that you stay
Cut off the bottoms and let them fray
Wishin’ I could relive yesterday’s feelings
Resting in my heart; hiding, healing
Wishin’ I could go back to yesterday
Cherish the moments; rejoice and replay
Wishin’ I could relive yesterday’s emotions
Yesterday’s spirit; yesterday’s devotions
Wishin’ I could tell you all that I was knowing
How my mind was aching, and my heart was growing
Wishin’ yesterday could be today
I’d tell you everything I meant to say
I’d give you the world, I’d hope, I’d pray
Without hesitation; without delay
Wishin’ I could express yesterday’s dreams
Presently seeping through the cracks and the seams.
Wishin’ yesterday’s doubts had not become today’s stains
Like wishin’ the clouds could wash away the rains…
Wishin’ I could go back to yesterday
I feel I should, I could; I may
The PB&J
By Bob Frazer
As with so many other questions I’d been asked since I arrived as a new immigrant to this country, I had no idea what a PB&J was, far less whether I’d like one. Being hungry had been mentioned, so I thought it could have been food-related, but then we’d also just had sex and were still lying quietly in the afterglow, so there was the possibility that she was proposing some sort of kinky, sexual deviation to which I might later regret having agreed. (And wouldn’t the best option be to say no to such a thing beforehand than to endure the awkwardness of stopping it after I’d consented?) I’d learned, though, that in these situations, the best thing was to say nothing, in the hope that a follow up question might give me more of a clue about what I was being asked; it must be better to appear momentarily addle-brained or indecisive than to appear to be either ignorant or stupid. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what she’d said – unlike that time at McDonalds when I couldn’t translate “Zitfer herert’go?” into anything and had to ask the server to repeat it an embarrassing number of times before the person in line behind me asked if I wanted to eat my order in the restaurant or to take it home with me – no, this was quite clear: Did I want a PB&J?
I waited, silently, in the hope that further information would be forthcoming. When she finally broke the silence, it was to ask if I’d prefer a BLT instead. Americans and their damned acronyms! “What are the other options?” I ventured. “Well, we’d need to go out for a BLT or almost anything else, but I have bread, and there’s peanut butter and jelly in the fridge.” My initial reaction was to think “At last, I know what we’re talking about!”, but it was soon followed by the realization that she was suggesting putting peanut butter and jelly together between bread. Sure, I’d seen Americans in hotels in Europe do things like put marmalade on their bacon, or sprinkle sugar and syrup on French toast, but the mere thought of combining these two ingredients - each of which I enjoy individually - to form one entity was entirely repugnant to me.
Since then, I’ve had a wife who was sick and hadn’t eaten for two days tell me that she’d like a PB&J. I got two slices of bread, put peanut butter on one slice and jelly on the other, but I just couldn’t bring myself to slap the two together, so I delivered them, open faced, and left the room before she could complete the heresy. I have kids who will occasionally request a PB&J, and if I can’t persuade them to make it for themselves, I make the same, open-faced delivery, and let them decide whether to ruin a perfectly good peanut butter and a perfectly good jelly sandwich by attaching them.
I don’t know if there’s a word – some sort of phobia – for those who have an instant and visceral reaction to even the thought of a PB&J, but if there is, I most certainly suffer from it.
Filed under Monthly Topic | Comment (0)
