COMPLETES (2026)
Flash Fiction Stories
by Richard
Kostelanetz
[a genre between single-sentence stories and aphorisms? Must be strong enough to fill a page. Much depends upon imaginative design?
In
memory of two Jewish comedians: Mel Brooks (1926-) and Walter Benjamin
(1892-1940)
These
are what the title says they are–complete thoughts or complete fictions, as
well as thoughts that might be fictions and fictions that might be thoughts.
–Richard
Kostelanetz, Labor Day, 2026
After
one of my kids ran away from home, I did likewise, but to a different place.
The
watch on my wrist has been in my family for so many years that it stopped long
ago.
Unfortunate
I feel to have a family that spends money I haven’t earned.
When
my grandfather on his deathbed sold me his house for more than it was otherwise
worth, he must have died pleased that he’d made a shrewd deal.
Soon
after my new wife asked if I wanted to have “a large family,” all of hers moved
in with us.
When a reclusive celebrity wanted to
discourage newspeople taking a picture of him, he simply wrote a familiar four-letter
word in lipstick on his forehead.
Life
as a very short person is hard for even the most empathetic of us to imagine.
The central truth of my life is that
self-employment is like making love–very
good when it’s good and not so bad when it’s bad.
Every
night she left on her front foyer light for her husband who hadn’t returned in
ten years.
At
the end of a lousy new movie, a gunman entered the box office to get every
patron’s money refunded.
A
writer too old to be “promising” had better produce some masterpieces before
his admirers dismiss him as their lousy bet.
When
your unfaithful spouse or lover moves his stuff out, surreptitiously unhinge
the back door, just before it moves away, of his or her moving van.
Once
wanting to believe that women were scarcely different from men, I was corrected
by a lesbian vividly describing frustrations and disappointments, too familiar
to me, in her relationships with “girls.”
For
someone in love sitting down behind a desk is hard to do.
Whoever
bets on the end of the world will have trouble getting a pay.
A
fisher girl who caught several little fish said to the boy who caught a huge
fish, “Only one?”
As
tides recede, don’t be surprised to find more land on your oceanfront property.
Falsely
we imagine our ancestors unhappy because they survived without the
creature-comforts we judge necessary for a happy life, but how could the
absence of conveniences unknown to them hurt them?
For
too many inexplicable deaths, coroners and pathologists offer whatever explanations
that are currently fashionable, unfamiliar though they were decades before and
would again be decades later.
When
I awoke to find three beautiful women in my king-sized bed, I couldn’t identify
which one had loved me the night before.
The
great vision of Amazon.com as a retail company is that it would profit not
through sales as such but through prices so low it would develop such a huge
base of loyal customers that the value of its common stock would increase
enormously.
Whenever
I add rocks to my exotic garden, they die within a week.
So
unsightly was my blind date that once in her bedroom I had to get undressed
before she dared to do likewise.
On
his first time fishing he caught a bass so heavy that he needed assistance to
throw it back into the water.
When
a boastful man realized that he was talking about his extravagant illicit
activities to a policeman he exclaimed, “I’m the world’s biggest liar.”
A
lothario shark waded through slight fish until he scored a grand one.
The
prisoner receiving too many telephone calls was given an unlisted number.
When
a very fat person dies, the gravedigger screams hysterically, not for the
corpse he didn’t know but because he’ll need to dig a larger grave.
Refusing
to put my money in any bank, I kept bills and coins in a small room that, as it
filled up, eventually smothered me.
So
much sugar did I eat that even my false teeth developed cavities.
What
I envy most about Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) is that many of his stray remarks
had so much weighty intelligence that they, apart from his books, would be
respectfully cited generations after he was gone.
When
his new lover, a woman along in her years, insisted that she was a virgin, he
ceased believing anything she claimed about herself.
When
I awoke to discover that the sun had not risen as well, I knew that the world
had come to an end.
So
good are American companies at disseminating minority cultures that Jewish
jokes and black pop music are familiar to people who scarcely know any Jews or
blacks.
Around
his favorite hammock he built, brick by brick, a secure house lacking any
windows or doors.
Rescue
dogs rescue dogs.
The
best house guest never emerged from the host’s swimming pool.
Censorship
occurs only when powerful people lack confidence in themselves; otherwise, it’s
unnecessary.
Never
sure which of his many identities he might wish to use when, he always left his
house with at least ten passports, all issued to different names.
Both
economic socialism and alcohol prohibition are attractive ideas that as social
policy don’t work.
Though all people were created equal, they
become unequal in different ways to different degrees.
Creeping,
bleeding, screeching, weeping, deeply sleeping a cheeky queen sheep was.
To
reorganize all the stuff in their house, the family purchased a dumpster that
they filled until their house was so empty that they could begin refurnishing
from scratch.
So
skilled was her gardening that each blade of grass was a few feet high.
The
incontrovertible lesson taught by the study of history is that people don’t
learn enough from studying history.
Whenever
I plant a can of tomatoes in my garden, nothing grows.
Sunshine
cures maladies, both physical and psychological, without actually touching
anyone afflicted.
Every
dreary April I wonder if I’ll ever see the first of May and then of June.
Just
as those living imagine that the dead were happier, so do parents fantasize
about happier children and children about happier parents.
Everyone
knows what’s great, notwithstanding all the dummies who proclaim something
else(s) to be superlative.
The
key to a successful partnership is not gazing at each other or at oneself but
at looking ahead in unison in the same direction.
No
man’s a planet occupied only by himself.
Impose
too many restrictions on imaginative children and they will discover ways
around them, sometimes carrying strategies of noncompliant stealth into their
adult lives.
Most
great historical developments happen so slowly that they are recognized not as
they happen but much later.
Everyone
hopes to be smarter in his or her next life.
As
news coverage improved with the advent first of television and then the
internet, the state of the world seemed progressively worse.
The
great achievement of Western nations in the 21st Century was
conquering poverty, at least in their own countries.
What
I’ve learned best I wasn’t formally taught.
The
abyss into which you hurl yourself is floored with a cushion.
Aim
to be an intellectual touchstone so solid that no one citing you will ever be
contradicted.
For
some crazies the need for drugs can be as enslaving as any drug until the habit
is kicked.
The
trick of slavery is persuading slaves that they are living good lives, which
they feel they are, until some outside agitator or information tells that they
aren’t.
No
longer addicted to cigarettes he was addicted to nibbling at ashtrays.
Those
who think themselves “free” are often enslaved in ways they don’t recognize.
Read
a book of aphorisms from which authors’ names have been removed and then the
same aphorisms with attributions, and you’ll think you’re read a different book.
How
arrogant was God to think he could build without plans or a permit.
I’ve
always thought that whoever believes that reincarnation abolishes all worldly
troubles might be right.
Before
I became an artist I had six theories about how to succeed in art; but now that
I’m successful, I’ve no theories.
Stupefied,
his head got thicker and thicker from all the questions he hadn’t answered.
If
I twirl centripetally, everything negative will spin out of me.
Often
do parents wish that they could by themselves straighten his kids’ uneven
teeth.
[WHERE
DOES NEW START? (1/22)]
Sibling
relationships, because based upon inherited blood, should outlast partnerships,
based upon agreements; but the former don’t.
Most
people visiting their families, after many decades away, wonder how they ever
spent any time with them.
Politicians
want citizens to fear the damage of natural disasters while ignoring disasters
caused by politicians themselves.
Aspiring
to become a sex fiend, he couldn’t pass the physical.
Once
kids discover that their parents had been deceiving them, they learn to deceive
in turn.
There
are two ways to think: either to come to a conclusion or to reconsider a
thought.
To widowed randy grandfathers comes
the discovery that grandmothers can make love.
Underpinning
some “success” must be a secret that no one will ever know.
Sounding
from both in front and behind, he could sing duets with himself.
She
was Scotish; alcohol flowed through her veins.
If
bored by yourself, marry to be bored by someone else.
A
marginal entrepreneur lives in perpetual promotion.
She
was too pretty to condemn and too awful to commend.
People
whose only pleasure is business produce children whose only business is
pleasure.
And
soon there will be none.
Even
if an old car never starts, payments never stop.
The
only light visible at the end of the tunnel comes from an oncoming train.
Dumb
kidnappers erred in abducting someone whom no one wanted back.
To
refute the myth of his impotence, he dated pregnant women.
He
dozed through his daily afternoon nap.
The
public library moving across town encouraged its patrons to borrow as many
books as they wanted, returning them only after the relocation.
Advised
long ago to respect my elders, I’m finding it harder to find any.
Giving
up smoking makes me fume from my ears.
Only
when I declared my ambition to be a comedian did I get a laugh.
So
estranged did the couple become that if either one died, the other couldn’t
identify the body.
Women
thought him a “sex object” until he became a teenager.
“Farewell,”
he explained as he jumped into a very deep hole.
How
can a professional lion tamer find a tamer lion?
To
all undesirable invitations, either she or he responds, “Modesty forbids.”
A
vagrant arrested with forty bucks and an empty guy in his pocket is fined $40
for carrying a concealed weapon.
“Insufficient
funds” banks sometimes have.
So
many bathrooms did the mansion have that the hosts could seat eight after
dinner.
To
watching television pets become addicted.
One
captured dragon to another complained about “knights like this.”
For
decades our leaders tried to arrest high humidity.
My
sister’s pregnant, and I’m going to be a dad.
I
knew a whole lot that I can’t remember.
Spoiled
too young to drive, I steal only cars with
chauffeurs
in them.
I
go fishing; therefore, I lie.
Hired
for a great job on Monday, I was fired by
Wednesday
because the good guy hiring me was
away
on Tuesday.
In
a contemporary version of Goethe’s Faust, the
protagonist
sells his soul to the devil in the first act
before
spending the rest of the play trying to
convince
the Internal Revenue Service that his
paper-profit
was a long-term capital gain.
In
a “dog eats dog world,” mutts don’t return
telephone
calls.
So
cheap was a cheapskate that he went out into the
yard
on Christmas Eve and fired a shotgun, he could
tell
his kids that Santa Claus had killed himself.
No
reader risks putting down a book about attaining
immortality.
“Indecisive”
still might be most truest word for
myself.
Whatever
enters the mouth of an airhead quickly
goes
out one or another orifice.
Praise
pigs and pass some bacon.
In
a theater so small the performer taking a bow
hits
his head against a back wall.
So
long has a mother-in-law been residing with
a
couple that they’ve forgotten whose mother
she
is.
I
haven’t been wrong since I thought I might be.
I
haven’t been wrong since I was last corrected.
Once
the victim is erased, cop and crook can
shake
hands.
For
realizing spectacularly profitable
speculations,
he developed a formula that no one
else
would ever know.
He
was too busy to change his opinions.
From
your enemies expect to learn truths
otherwise
unavailable to you.
Vain
people prefer mirrors that make them look
better.
Men
are hanged for stealing horses that haven’t
left
their stalls.
Into
a requisite tall glass of water a lousy
lecturer
might want to dive.
Stay
with me; I want to feel alone.
Dumping
a child in a thick forest forces him to
find
his or her own way out.
He
had a winning smile but lost at everything
else.
Internalizing
everything, I cannibalize people I
don’t
like.
When
doctors gave me “two weeks to live,” I
wish
I’d bet against them.
Would
that I could watch battles between
malefactors
and malevolents.
May
knowledge that doesn’t bring power at least
generate
money.
For
most of life’s races, I scratched myself. :
If
dogs could speak, they might express their
displeasure
with dog food.
I
think I’m much younger than my twin sister.
A
beautiful young woman on the bus asked me
to
go out when I accidentally sat beside her.
Even
successful gangsters develop a sense of
their
superiority.
With
age an artist develops greater trust in
his
or her instincts, even if misguided.
One
in a thousand is the musician who gets
paid
for playing and the writer who earns
money
for his or her writing.
While
lovers admire each other, couples look
ahead
together.
A
truth familiar to veteran journalist is that
most
celebrity doesn’t last long.
Some
cultural reputations die when its
publicists
retire.
Put
on your résumé, next to titles that no
one’s
read, the production of books that no
one
will ever see.
Give
a surreptitious gold medal to anyone
who
can make your enemies disappear
without
your knowing about it.
I
didn’t lose my job as much as it lost me
when
someone else filled my seat.
All
false individual success can be attributed
to
nepotism, even if untrue.
Had
they not chosen to end their lives early,
in
2020 the writers Sylvia Plath would have
been
87, Anne Sexton 92, and David Foster
Wallace
58. S?
Veterinarians
and pathologists are doctors
who
assume their patients are deaf and
dumb.
s
Anyone
“over the hill” must have previously
climbed
a mountain.
Pity
personally charming people who, thanks
to
their appeal, are pushed into water over
their
heads.
The
more attractive the profession, the
crueler
its business.
Fewer
art lives decline from a decrease of
genius
than the evaporation of a sponsor.
For
a serious artist the list of moves NOT TO
MAKE
gets longer over the years.
Devoid
of enthusiasm, a life of making art or
writing
will be short.
A
young person entering politics will be
promising
for the rest of his or her life.
A
doctor treats what you have while a
specialist
wants you to have what he treats. s
No
serious artist lets imagination die in his
dreams.
?
The
better you are at completing someone
else’s
work, the more unfinished tasks will be
offered
to you.
To
an aspiring mortician, a funeral parlor
offers
an internship.
While
many can write poetry, only a few can
successfully
negotiate the obstacles of
publishing
it.
Few
artists ever feel that they were born at
the
right place, at the right time.
A
boxing referee counts seconds for seconds
to
hear.
A
loyal secretary knows more and tells less.
The
more successful an independent artist is,
the
more assistance he needs to employ.
What
other than “luck” accounts for the
success
of incompetent people?
Few
performers in passing shows survive for
long.
.
Experienced
is anyone who has successfully
negotiated
with the Devil.
Both
Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain began as
printer’s
devils who became devilish journalists.
The
principal benefit of success is leverage
toward
doing what you want most to do.
Whoever
runs after success will find it falling
behind
him.
Portrait by Leonid Drozner, artist
Richard Kostelanetz - Individual entries on Richard Kostelanetz’s work in several fields appear in various editions of Readers Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers, Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, Contemporary Poets, Contemporary Novelists, Postmodern Fiction, Webster's Dictionary of American Writers, The HarperCollins Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Directory of American Scholars, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in American Art, NNDB.com, Wikipedia.com, and Britannica.com, among other distinguished directories.
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