Flash Fiction Contest. The very brief stories in this volume, by turns playful, provocative, poignant, fantastical, fearless, and wildly imaginative, prove just how much can be accomplished in 1000 words or fewer. As it turns out, 1000 words is plenty of room to make a scene, get people in trouble, get them out of it, or parse language one letter at a time, as Sharon Goldberg does in "Rear-End Collisions," which took second place. 1000 words is also enough room for the dead to visit the living on a subway car bound for Brooklyn, for fathers to lose the hearts of their daughters, and for the sun to threaten the future of the earth and the intricate bonds of family. Neal Allen's winning story, "The Mayan Calendar," proves that 1000 words is also enough to span the history of civilization.