Ivory Children

By Joe Baumann

Elvi and Andrus don't have mirrors in their house.
Zoe climbs The Very Tall Tree.
Thimbles fits in a tea cup.
Sally cannot die.
And Yeni fins a small thunderstorm in the breadbox.

Fourteen pieces of fantastically human flash fiction gathered together to enchant and engage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Bird Chapbooks
• Release date: Jun 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301138449

Joe Baumann

Joe Baumann’s fiction and essays have appeared in Passages North, Third Coast, Electric Literature, and many other journals. His debut short story collection, Sing With Me at the Edge of Paradise, was chosen as the inaugural winner of the Iron Horse/Texas Tech University Press First Book Award. He possesses a PhD in English from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and lives outside St. Louis, Missouri. He can be reached at joebaumann.wordpress.com.

Book preview

IVORY CHILDREN

A Flash Fiction Collection

By Joe Bauman

Published by Red Bird Chapbooks at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 by Joe Bauman

Cover art by Kimberly Applegate

Fiction Editor: Evan Kingston

Discover other titles published by Red Bird Chapbooks at Smashwords.com

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Table of Contents

Looking Glass

Brick, Sweat

Opening Up

The Beanstalk

Sand Script

Thimbles

Broth

Galahad

Loss of Breath

Stench

The Bread Box

Sally the Immortal

Porcelain

Ivory Children

About the Author

About the Artist

Acknowledgements

Looking Glass

Elvi and Andrus refuse to hang mirrors in their house. They’ve heard the stories, they watch the news. It’s been all over the place, word of mirrors exploding, glass cutting into the eyes of those staring at them, leaving behind a dusty, cobwebbed void for the blind to grope at. No one can explain it, why all those reflective surfaces keep shattering when people look at them. But Elvi and Andrus don’t like taking chances, so when they buy their house they make a pact, and before they close on the contract they demand all of the mirrors be removed.

The house is quiet, large. The bathrooms feel soft and warm, and though they can no longer watch as they pinch at their body fat and tsk themselves when they get out of the shower and sling soft cotton towels around their hips, they don’t worry about opening up those holes to that tired, forgotten world. They don’t have to worry about being like the woman interviewed on the news the other day, the one wearing a huge gauzy patch over her right eye who talked about seeing into her own attic from her first floor bathroom,