Double-Click Flash Fic by Maya Sokolovski

Letter to Sensei
    D ear Sensei,
    When I heard you got arrested, I didn’t know how to feel. Surprised? Saddened? Vindictive? Curious? I was conflicted, and I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions, so I settled on Indifferent. It’s the same approach one takes upon reading a news story about some catastrophic event in a foreign country, some tragedy for a person or persons who will always remain perfect strangers. But you weren’t a stranger. And the memories of my time under your instruction filled my mind, if not my heart.
    There was the time I was late for class, and you made me do 40 push-ups in a row while vocally chastising me in front of my fellow judoka.
    There was the time you took us to a sprawling park for summer boot camp, and made us carry heavy logs for hours, and run barefoot through thorny weeds.
    Once, you convinced a few of us to rub ourselves down with snow and plunge into a full-square-metre hole in an ice-covered lake. But, to be fair, you jumped into the water first.
    There was the time you called me into your office and berated me for being too thin, not eating enough. Those were the days when, for the first time in my life, I began to entertain suicidal thoughts and feel the full brunt of sorrow for not being good enough in judo specifically and in life generally.
    But then there was the time you stood, smiling, in the middle of the
tatami
with a plastic bag in your hands. You told us it contained a gift for the bravest judoka in the whole school, and that we all had to guess who that person was. We all tried to guess, but no one got it right. The gift was a beautiful pink-lipped conch. And the bravest judoka … was me.
    You were arrested for uttering a threat, for being too strict and administering too much discipline … and for having enemies who wanted you locked up. This story has a happy ending. Your family posted bail, your case was thrown out of court, and your students cheered in relief. You had endured worse in the deserts of Afghanistan, back in your Spetsnaz days, I’m sure. But I did not join in the chorus. I had not made so much as a phone call. It had been years since I was a judoka myself. And the pain of my shortcomings as an athlete weighed heavily on me. But I just wanted to say,
domo,
Sensei, for making me who I am today. I survived you, and a lot more to boot.
    Sorry and
spasibo,
    Zaika

The City He Loves Me: A Millennial Romance
    N atalia was determined to die. It was only a matter of deciding on the method. That, and the thing she needed to do first was make a list of reasons. These days, her mind was a jumble and her ears rang like the bells of Notre Dame.
Something is something, it must be something
, she thought as she paced her apartment. She lit a cigarette. She took one puff. She put it out and dropped it in the kitchen sink. Finally, she sat down at her desk and began to write. It wouldn’t do to keep procrastinating like this.
    Reasons to Die Today Tomorrow
    1.    This apartment sucks.
    2.    My best friend didn’t return my call yesterday.
    3.    Anton doesn’t love me.
    4.    Vlad doesn’t love me.
    5.    Denis doesn’t love me.
    6.    None of the Russian men in all of New York City love me.
    7.    Only the city he loves me, so I must sacrifice myself to him.
    8.    There’s broken glass in my brain.
    9.    And missing blood in my veins.
    10.  Hemlock is on sale at the plant nursery.
    And it was true. All of it. Point 10 settled it. The reason was the method. She had always been a smart, studious girl. She had read all about Socrates, and how he died voluntarily, swigging a poisonous hemlock potion like a boss, back in Ancient Greece, where men were men. “I wish I had a Greek man,” she sighed. The next best thing, she knew, was to die like one.
    The plan was simple, unfolding like a ball of Chinese flowering tea plopped in hot water. She would go to the nursery and look at the spider plants, the posies, the ficus,