Sunday Crossword: These Three-Sided Polygons Trap Lovers (9 Letters)
by Lavanya Vasudevan
La, sirs, do you grin at my tales, do you think that I con, that I lie? Then let me tell you of this tangle, sir. Time must untie it, not I.
My beau, my swain, my love last night, he’s grinning in high cotton. He brings me to this crumbling inn, and right away I smell something rotten. “’Tis the last day of the last reign of the Tsar El Gin,” he says, “though his court is the largest in the land.” I nod and tap my nose; it’s a game we’ve played before. But this time, he’s having too much fun, and I wink and nod because I understand. The serving wench, she lingers at our table and wipes it with a tinsel rag. Her ears glint with stolen gold, a sterling ring I ken that I once had. I sit and smile and stand and sit, and now my anger’s lit. So, I pour him a drink, all neat and nice, and another, and another, and in a trice, he’s snoring and reeking of gin, staler than yesterday’s rice. Now, I say again: I’m no liar, gents, I ain’t like those cheating rats. They steal my ring, he two-times me, I strangle him, and that’s that.
Darling Tsar, pour me another, will ya? My heart’s broke, and it’s a real sting.
About the Author
Lavanya Vasudevan was born in a large city in South India that has since renamed itself. She is a recovering software engineer who lives near Seattle, Washington and reviews children’s books for Kirkus. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Jellyfish Review, Lost Balloon, Pidgeonholes, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @vanyala.
After cutting her teeth on 
Jonathan Saint is a New Zealander living in Dublin since 2000. He left work in 2016 to write fiction for adults and children and wishes he’d done that a long time ago. He was shortlisted for the Writing Magazine inaugural Picture Book Prize in 2017 and won the Christmas Flash at the Staccato Literary Salon in 2018. 
Below, our eleventh Award Judge 
Ad Hoc Fiction, the small independent press that publishes our Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthologies recently published Diane’s Simmons debut full collection of flash fiction Finding A Way. Diane tells Jude how the book came into being and the pictures on this post and in the gallery below are from her recent packed book launch with family and friends at St James Wine Vaults in Bath on February 9th. The collection is available in print to buy in several different currencies from the 
We are thrilled that micro fictions by five authors who won prizes, or were listed in our Bath Flash Fiction Awards 2018 and one winner from Ad Hoc Fiction were selected by guest editor, Dan Chaon from lists drawn up by series editors Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke for their new anthology series Best Microfiction.
The gallery room at 
In the first half of the evening, ten writers, pictured in a group here, and who you can see individually in the gallery below, read their micros from Flash Fiction Festival Two, beginning with well-known flash writer, poet and Reader at Bath Spa University,