It’s familiar, funny and scary at once, like so many everyday moments. This is a great example of how flash fiction as a medium serves the little dramas of our daily lives, like a woman negotiating friendliness and safety - both in terms of a man’s attention and the pandemic. Nancy ShortĪ story about intersection, connection, and the distance the present moment requires. I appreciate the artful way the writer describes a brief encounter which the protagonist is unsure about. While she does feel a kinship with the runner, his advance is too much for her. The reference to masking lands the story firmly in our current COVID era. And the impulse to ‘stay distanced’ neatly sums up the woman’s hesitation as well as our larger dilemma. Julie stepped back, “Um, can we stay distanced?” He picked her out on a street while she was wearing a mask.

She blinked into her mask today as he ran through another lingering look. She’d never seen him before - except the previous weeks, but felt a kinship at their shared routine. The past two Fridays, a runner had cut through her path at 8:30, glancing a steamy gaze. The frost thawed in sunbeams as Julie walked the blacktop. In 99 words or fewer, they’re wrestling with heartbreak, parenthood, jealousy, magic, the pitfalls of time travel and how to tell a story. But isolation and a storm of real-life drama hasn’t stifled entrants’ imaginations. The influence of the pandemic is visible here and there in the haul of entries, including our winner. Once again, our readers are the writers in the annual contest of narrative brevity judged by a team of story lovers: Booklegger owners Jennifer McFadden and Nancy Short, retired children’s librarian JoAnn Bauer, Eureka Poet Laureate and College of the Redwoods professor David Holper, and myself.

A door near here by heather quarles