Richard Leis

Category: fiction

  • “From Them Prostrate I Flee”

    Book cover for Stories We Tell After Midnight Volume Three with list of authors, title, edited by Rachel A. Brune and an image of a skull and skeleton fading into the black background

    “I don’t have any trouble remembering my dad, though. I have no trouble remembering his rage, my fear, and the way the ground opened up and it was the only way out that April night in 1987.”

  • “Goodbye to Rock”

    The Molotov Cocktail Elemental Flash Issue cover with a golden person or god perhaps on fire descending into a green gas or the atmosphere of a planet, with other planets or moons and a starscape in the background

    “We remind them that road trips and human exploration lead back, without adding ‘if all goes well.’ Ride an explosion, walk on another rocky surface, collect some samples, more vials, return with the samples on top of another explosion. We can be there to cheer them on.”

  • Flash Monster 2020 Short List

    My flash fiction story “A Bird Watcher’s Guide to Malformed and Buzzing Things” earned a spot on the close-but-no-cigar shortlist shout-outs for the annual Flash Monster contest from The Molotov Cocktail!

  • Flashpocalypse Short List

    My flash fiction story “The Canal” was shortlisted for The Molotov Cocktail’s latest quarterly flash contest: Flashpocalypse!

  • “The Yogurt Swimmer”

    Coppice & Brake book cover with illustrated crows standing on top of an illustrated doorway open to a picture of trees stand stark and tall in the snow

    “A snout breaks the surface of Greek yogurt in the 32-ounce container I have freshly opened and set on the counter. It sniffs cautiously, then sneezes and sprays yogurt everywhere. I yell. It pokes its entire head out and chirps. Mel is at daycare, Bill at his office. I’m between jobs and spend my days…

  • “Rail Work”

    “You ended up back here at the train station after you burned your mom’s house to the ground. You sit down on a bench under the eaves, and the dark clouds that followed you back drop a curtain of rain between the platform and the tracks. The vanishing point of the rails isn’t far off…

  • “The Center of Dirty”

    Screen shot of Cold Creek Review website with title of publication and an wintery creek and forest scene on 28 March 2018

    “Rachel hung up on her mother while she was telling Rachel about her niece’s birthday party. The abrupt silence was packed with glass. Rachel stared at the dark screen of her phone until the greasy prints bothered her. She wiped the phone across her jeans and set it face down on the table. It rang.…

  • New Short Story: “If Everyone Was Standing Outside My Door” on Hi

    Brick wall in front of carport and mountains in Tucson, Arizona

    “If everyone was standing outside my door, there would be people six deep between my door and the brick wall that separates the apartment complex from the parking lots and roads of this suddenly populated land.”