CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Visit waxpoetryart.com to explore poetry
(including haiku
and spoken word),
visual art,
photography,
play,
and fiction
submission opportunities.
Experience the thrills of the Weekly Poems Contest.
--
January 15th, 2026
Flash Fiction Europe Contest #1 – First Place
by Constantinos N. Makris
Open, it says. Like the checkpoints. Open, yet deserted. Inside, sacks. I don't want to think of what's inside them. Open. The blood still drips. The hooks, bearing the slaughtered soldiers, hang abandoned. Yet we move forward, following our path indifferently. Only an occasional sigh escapes, when we gaze at the deep blue sky above the Morphou sea.
The butchery is green. Green to mark the line they drew, to cut Nicosia in half. Green, like hope in verdant lands, in homelands buried beneath heaps of vested interests. Galata overlooks the sea it can never reach. In Evrychou, ghostly soldiers patrol. They guard the gains of partition.
In the trunk, bags filled with meat. I've shopped well at Zodia. Half a lamb, half a kid. The other half across the street – mine has rotted.
About the Author
Constantinos N. Makris resides in Kouka, Limassol, Troodos Mountains District, Cyprus.
Read the writer's biography and Flash Fiction Takeover publications
on Constantinos N. Makris's Artist Page.
This short fiction is also featured in Flash Fiction Takeover Collection #1, published in the Flash Fiction Takeover Library.
Keywords: Cyprus division, memory, war, aftermath
Previously published in Flash Fiction Europe:
This is the first story published.
Flash Fiction Europe is part of Flash Fiction Takeover and waxpoetryart.com.
- Visit the Flash Fiction Takeover Submissions page to see all opportunities.
- Visit the Flash Fiction Takeover Library.
- This website and all contents ©Kirk Ramdath and specified artists.
- AI training is not permitted on this website.
(Advertisements)