Lizzie Flashes: Superlative Exercise

“The Nicest Kid in the Universe,” is a parable about Franky Gorky, the titular child, for although he is the “nicest” kid, “he wasn’t the smartest kid.” Because Gorky isn’t smart, he doesn’t realize that the moon waxes and wanes on its own; he believes that his wishes are responsible for this,  a fact which leads him to run across the street on Christmas morning as his grandmother is parking across the street, and get “rubbed out” by a drunk driver.  The story ends with the introduction of a first person narrator and a moral, as if it has been told to frighten a child into good behavior.

Lizzie Stark Flashes: Soap

Imagine a bar of soap lying by the side of your sink. It’s a flat, creamy beige block no bigger than a deck of cards, with edges that aren’t quite plumb, smoothed by hand and water. You made it from skin-scarring lye and olive oil in the pot you use to make soup, carefully weighing the ingredients on a postal scale, and whirring them together with a hand blender, watching carefully for the signs of miraculous alchemy, the puddingy texture, the marks on the surface that stay turgid for a moment before vanishing. You poured the soap into a shoebox mold, and cured it in the open air for a month, to remove its green bite.

Lizzie Stark