HERE’S WHERE WE GET OFF: Charles Rammelkamp reviews a collection of microfictions by Guy Biederman
Here’s Where We Get Off
Guy Biederman
Blue Light Press, 2026
$18.00, 92 pages
ISBN: 978-1421835990
From “Here’s Where We Get Off” to “Waiting for Results” Guy Biederman keeps us in enchanted suspense over the course of the sixty-seven microfictions in his delightfully humorous and linguistically dexterous new collection. ‘“If I can’t smoke in heaven, I’m not going,” says Sally,’is the declaration with which Biederman begins the story, “Like a Cigarette Should,” the title echoing that old Winston cigarette slogan. Immediately we’re intrigued by the implications. Who decides who gets into heaven, after all? Who has the choice to comply with the verdict or not?
So many of the little stories in Here’s Where We Get Off conclude with these cliffhangerish endings, shrouded in an aura of infinite possibility. In “Turn on the A/C” a kid gets left behind at a Stuckey’s somewhere in Alabama when the family of eight travels east from California. By the time they realize he’s missing and understand that they have to go back for him, the kid may have plans of his own. In “Bathrobe, Biscotti & Bike,” a man in his pajamas is chasing after a bus on his bicycle when the tale ends. Does he ever catch up to it, to give his wife the treat he’d got for her lunch, that she’d inadvertently left behind when she packed her briefcase before going to work? The world will not end if he does or doesn’t, but still…. In “Junkyard Dad” we’re left to ponder what eventually happens between Little Marv and Big Marv. Does it end in humiliation? Punishment? Or one big father-and-son nothing?
As with so much truly masterful flash fiction, Guy Biederman often either starts or ends his pieces with a sentence that grabs the reader and won’t let go. ‘This is the way we hang on, she says, letting go of her kite,’ is how Biederman begins “Rainbow Tail,” and soon the kite is ‘just a dot now moving fast. Or is it a bird?’ And this is when he hits us with the insight:
….Does the appetite to acquire, to win, or at least come in second, runner-up,
….long-listed, to be named a laureate or top 10, or something, ever finally
..stop?
The story, “A Butter Life” begins: ‘I asked the Universe to make me a Better Man,’ and already we suspect something’s up. ‘Actually, it was f*#king AutoCorrect’s fault. Somehow E became U.’ On the other hand, the narrator speculates, there are worse fates – ‘melting over popcorn at the movies wouldn’t be so bad. Or, sitting in a pretty dish next to the fancy salt & pepper shakers.’
This is not unlike the cosmic confusion that occurs in “G” when, as the story begins, ‘You found the letter G in your shirt pocket. 12 point. Times New Roman,’ and all hell breaks loose. ‘Ima_ine havin_ a name that even you can’t say. Talk about feelin_ invisible.’ The narrator’s wife, whose name likewise begins with G, has the same existential crisis. ‘_ina, not a church _oer, murmured. “lory be to _od.”’ Which is when the narrator, “_uy”, has his epiphany: ‘Odd? It hit you. You weren’t the only one with name issues.’ Not by a long shot!
And don’t get Guy Biederman started on Q! Indeed, the story, “Quite” begins ‘Quincy and Queenie were in a quandary about Quinella.’ They were in a queue for quesadillas down by the quay….
Biederman’s imagination takes us to a pair of discarded, defective lawn chairs conversing about their future in “Lawn Chair Dialogues.” ‘Who wants an Adirondack that you can’t sit in?’ the narrator laments, but ‘Rhonda, my recliner friend who’d been stuck in horizontal since last spring’ reassures him, and they sit side by side in the yard ‘watching spring turn into summer and remembering the days when people sat in us and shared a drink.’
And there are the unlikely companions in “The Coffee & The Cup” conversing as somebody sips away at their morning Joe. As they talk, Coffee loses more and more of its “being.” When Cup mentions the perils of being a vulnerable porcelain cup and compliments Coffee – ‘“…a blend like you is good to the last drop,”’ the story comes to an end with Coffee’s question: ‘“What’s a dro… p ?”’
The title of the story “Feats of Small Importance” gives an insight into Guy Biederman’s imagination. His stories usually involve small incidents whose consequences are never too serious, but they must be told all the same; or, as the narrator of the story says, trying to pinpoint the attraction between him and a woman named Fiona, ‘the urge to name it overriding the good sense silence brings to the table.’ But why bother? hardly characterizes the gems that these stories are. Take the story “Mistaken.” It’s only two sentences long, and the drama is one that will fade before evening, and yet it captures a fleeting but all-too-recognizable experience:
….Chet misreads Diane’s mood ring, sees pulsing purple instead of flashing
….red, draws in too close. She ducks incoming lips as he backpedals in
….apology with haste, the difference between the pulse of a mood and the
….flash of a past being vast, more temperature than color, more plastic than
….gold.
The stories in Here’s Where We Get Off are clever and entertaining. As in the story “The Eighth Dwarf,” ‘you let go a delighted chuckle of gratitude for the lessons this happy dwarf has taught you by not teaching you anything.’ Which is to say, Here’s Where We Get Off is a delight to read and to savor.
Apr 30 2026
HERE’S WHERE WE GET OFF – short-short stories by Guy Biederman
HERE’S WHERE WE GET OFF: Charles Rammelkamp reviews a collection of microfictions by Guy Biederman
Here’s Where We Get Off
Guy Biederman
Blue Light Press, 2026
$18.00, 92 pages
ISBN: 978-1421835990
From “Here’s Where We Get Off” to “Waiting for Results” Guy Biederman keeps us in enchanted suspense over the course of the sixty-seven microfictions in his delightfully humorous and linguistically dexterous new collection. ‘“If I can’t smoke in heaven, I’m not going,” says Sally,’is the declaration with which Biederman begins the story, “Like a Cigarette Should,” the title echoing that old Winston cigarette slogan. Immediately we’re intrigued by the implications. Who decides who gets into heaven, after all? Who has the choice to comply with the verdict or not?
So many of the little stories in Here’s Where We Get Off conclude with these cliffhangerish endings, shrouded in an aura of infinite possibility. In “Turn on the A/C” a kid gets left behind at a Stuckey’s somewhere in Alabama when the family of eight travels east from California. By the time they realize he’s missing and understand that they have to go back for him, the kid may have plans of his own. In “Bathrobe, Biscotti & Bike,” a man in his pajamas is chasing after a bus on his bicycle when the tale ends. Does he ever catch up to it, to give his wife the treat he’d got for her lunch, that she’d inadvertently left behind when she packed her briefcase before going to work? The world will not end if he does or doesn’t, but still…. In “Junkyard Dad” we’re left to ponder what eventually happens between Little Marv and Big Marv. Does it end in humiliation? Punishment? Or one big father-and-son nothing?
As with so much truly masterful flash fiction, Guy Biederman often either starts or ends his pieces with a sentence that grabs the reader and won’t let go. ‘This is the way we hang on, she says, letting go of her kite,’ is how Biederman begins “Rainbow Tail,” and soon the kite is ‘just a dot now moving fast. Or is it a bird?’ And this is when he hits us with the insight:
….Does the appetite to acquire, to win, or at least come in second, runner-up,
….long-listed, to be named a laureate or top 10, or something, ever finally
..stop?
The story, “A Butter Life” begins: ‘I asked the Universe to make me a Better Man,’ and already we suspect something’s up. ‘Actually, it was f*#king AutoCorrect’s fault. Somehow E became U.’ On the other hand, the narrator speculates, there are worse fates – ‘melting over popcorn at the movies wouldn’t be so bad. Or, sitting in a pretty dish next to the fancy salt & pepper shakers.’
This is not unlike the cosmic confusion that occurs in “G” when, as the story begins, ‘You found the letter G in your shirt pocket. 12 point. Times New Roman,’ and all hell breaks loose. ‘Ima_ine havin_ a name that even you can’t say. Talk about feelin_ invisible.’ The narrator’s wife, whose name likewise begins with G, has the same existential crisis. ‘_ina, not a church _oer, murmured. “lory be to _od.”’ Which is when the narrator, “_uy”, has his epiphany: ‘Odd? It hit you. You weren’t the only one with name issues.’ Not by a long shot!
And don’t get Guy Biederman started on Q! Indeed, the story, “Quite” begins ‘Quincy and Queenie were in a quandary about Quinella.’ They were in a queue for quesadillas down by the quay….
Biederman’s imagination takes us to a pair of discarded, defective lawn chairs conversing about their future in “Lawn Chair Dialogues.” ‘Who wants an Adirondack that you can’t sit in?’ the narrator laments, but ‘Rhonda, my recliner friend who’d been stuck in horizontal since last spring’ reassures him, and they sit side by side in the yard ‘watching spring turn into summer and remembering the days when people sat in us and shared a drink.’
And there are the unlikely companions in “The Coffee & The Cup” conversing as somebody sips away at their morning Joe. As they talk, Coffee loses more and more of its “being.” When Cup mentions the perils of being a vulnerable porcelain cup and compliments Coffee – ‘“…a blend like you is good to the last drop,”’ the story comes to an end with Coffee’s question: ‘“What’s a dro… p ?”’
The title of the story “Feats of Small Importance” gives an insight into Guy Biederman’s imagination. His stories usually involve small incidents whose consequences are never too serious, but they must be told all the same; or, as the narrator of the story says, trying to pinpoint the attraction between him and a woman named Fiona, ‘the urge to name it overriding the good sense silence brings to the table.’ But why bother? hardly characterizes the gems that these stories are. Take the story “Mistaken.” It’s only two sentences long, and the drama is one that will fade before evening, and yet it captures a fleeting but all-too-recognizable experience:
….Chet misreads Diane’s mood ring, sees pulsing purple instead of flashing
….red, draws in too close. She ducks incoming lips as he backpedals in
….apology with haste, the difference between the pulse of a mood and the
….flash of a past being vast, more temperature than color, more plastic than
….gold.
The stories in Here’s Where We Get Off are clever and entertaining. As in the story “The Eighth Dwarf,” ‘you let go a delighted chuckle of gratitude for the lessons this happy dwarf has taught you by not teaching you anything.’ Which is to say, Here’s Where We Get Off is a delight to read and to savor.