Content warning: Due to the historical themes explored, this story contains trigger warnings for depictions of self-immolation (Sati), violence against women, child marriage, and sexual assault. 5. Sati /ˈsʌtiː/ n. Sati is a former Indian practice, in which a Hindu widow threw herself onto the funeral pyre of her deceased husband, thereby burning herself to death. 4. The last choice the women of her village had to make was how they wanted to swallow their deaths. Mounting their husbands one...
Even after the checkpoint raids, after the night the militia kicked down every door in our neighborhood and dragged everyone into the street, even after the sky turned red with smoke from the burning cotton fields and the water tank cracked open, spilling what little clean water was left into the dirt, Raja still believed—maybe stupidly—that he and Nadi would find a way out together, that they’d sneak past the fences under the cover of the prayer calls, or maybe...
A new low for group therapy. We thought it couldn’t get worse than Christina forcing us to bake brownies. Eat brownies. She divided us up: flour team, sugar team, Ghirardelli chocolate team. Everything full-fat, oily, the granules sticking to our butter-slick hands like the wet sand projects she’d forced us to make last week. Christina saying, “What if you tried licking your fingers? Licking the spatula?” Crazy bitch. She cut us huge, fudgy slabs, no corner pieces allowed. “How does...
No. This should end the conversation, though you might feel like a jerk for not expanding on your answer. It can come across as harsh and rude, and you don't want to make her uncomfortable. You can soften the blow by adding a lilt to your voice or drawing out the nooooo like you're disappointed but don't want to talk about it. Delivery is key if you choose this one-word response. 2. Ya know, I don't, but I...
Mom fed dried apricots to the family of raccoons under our house. Sometimes I crawled under the foundation, lay starfished in the wheatgrass, and waited for them to bite. They never did. Mom dragged me out, and I emerged with a spider in my hair, or a milk snake coiled around my ankle, beetles squashed onto my dress. “Do you want rabies?” she said. When she was young, her brother got rabies and took a bite out of her wrist....
SmokeLong Quarterly has been dedicated to publishing the best flash narratives since 2003.
September 2025
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Jump in anytime! It’s free! Join the SmokeLong workshop community for a mysterious month between November and December that we’ve christened Promptember! We’ll be meeting several times a week online with write-in and open mic events at various times to suit participants around this spinning globe. And the wonderful thing about Promptember is that it’s… Continue reading Promptember Nov 8-Dec 14!
Colette Love Hilliard is a writer and English teacher from St. Louis, MO. She is the author of two blackout poetry collections—A Wonderful Catastrophe and Celestial Timpani—and her work is featured or forthcoming in HAD, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. Among other things, a photo of her dog can be found at colettelh.com.
