Three Micros

Micro-fiction by Mikki Aronoff

Omelets

“That’s not the way you do it,” said Samuel as he proceeded to try to demonstrate how to crack eggs without breaking the yolks. “Let’s pretend that didn’t work as well as my method,” chuckled David, picking out bits of shell from the mess Samuel made and flicking them aside. The men were happy vacationing on an island teeming with hummingbirds and frangipani blossoms, far away from the smog-choked city, away from the daily tedium of handling accounts payable (Samuel) and receivable (David). Here, thanks to attentive staff, fresh eggs arrived on their porch doorstep each morning, still warm with feathers stuck to the shell, along with plump fruit to slice or juice and a basketed clutch of guava tarts leaking brown beads of sugar like amber. But there was something about the eggs, their shells with eddies of violets and oranges and yellows, as if they were dressing for Easter or competing with the dawn. Yolks brighter than the sun—a morning prayer. “Let’s come back every year,” they said in unison, their faces blinking like fireflies as their lips smacked and nibbled fluffy omelets glowing gold in asylum’s early light.

*Originally published by New World Writing.

The Day Gramps’ Prescription Went Missing, He Started to Slip Away

On the way to the pharmacy, a cold wind came, and off doctor’s orders flew—zephyr-lifted and flipped, cloud-dampened, rain-battered, cow-chewed, mulch- and muck-made. What could we do but request another. Waiting, Gramps lost a hand, then two. Arms. A leg, then another. A lung or two. An ear, an eye. A thought, then five, then thirty-five. Soon, only the blush of his organs to tuck into bed.

That Sunday, the little girl from three farms over pushed her nose into the give of the screen on our door and opened it a crack. She wore an apron with cornflowers stitched on the bib. She called out Miss Mary? and handed me a damp scrap of paper with an “x” on it, another with an “R.” They were stuck on little pig’s snout, she said. Ma thought it might be your grandaddy’s, him being not so well and all.

Not much left of him, I said. Only the throb of his heart. I palmed the fragments she pressed into my hand and slipped a butterscotch into hers. She grinned and swung her legs back over her bicycle. All you need! she called back over her shoulder, pedaling down the dirt road, glowing gamboge, like the wings of a goldfinch.

*Originally published by The Phare.

The Prodigy Maker

The man with no eyes and ears who tunes pianos tap-tap-taps at our door at the creaky-crack of dawn and plunks his satchel of tools down next to the spinet. His bulbous nose glistens like a shimmering pond. His breath, like scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast, shimmies up our nostrils when he bends over, flapping his hands, scanning for the bench. Before he settles, his thin fingers flounce out the back of his tailcoat, faded grey and frayed from his days conducting the village orchestra. The kittens are entranced, bat at the bells he’s sewn onto the jacket’s tails to keep naughty felines out of reach as he works. Pulling a rag from his pocket like silk scarves out of a top hat, he cleans the keyboard, sticky with crumbs and jelly, some stuck from sticks and stones lodged between them. A tuning wrench dances a jig in his hands as he slides up and down the slippery polished seat on his threadbare trousers, nodding and humming and adjusting strings till Chopsticks sounds like Chopin when we bang on the keys. Mother is pleased; her twins may win a competition after all. She presses a mammoth bouquet of bishop’s lace and cornflowers, still damp from the dew, into the piano tuner’s hands along with a fat envelope, as we run out, hooting and giggling, onto the field behind the house, cartwheeling down a serpentine path recently stripped of its blossoms.     

*Originally published by New World Writing.

BIO: Mikki Aronoff lives in New Mexico, where she writes tiny stories and advocates for animals. She has stories in Best Microfiction 2024 and 2025 and Best Small Fictions 2024 and 2025. She is a co-author of the book, Neverafters. More at https://www.facebook.com/mikki.aronoff/.