Flash Fiction DUE 12-5-12 @8:15 a.m.
Kevin Daiss
amartinez
Zombie March
Amber Riley’s husband had promised that he would come home to her no matter what, so after they reported him dead she began to keep the shotgun next to the front door. The day he returned, ambling, shambling, reeking of decay, the dog barked once in warning and went to hide under the back porch. Amber dried her hands on a dish towel and went to look at her husband through the screen.
“Amber,” he said. (Not “brains.”)
She ran a finger down the barrel of the shotgun, propped beside her. “Thank you for coming.”
“I promised.” He smiled under the bullet hole they’d put through his forehead. Dried blood flaked off of his eyelid when he blinked. “You know I’ve never played you false.”
“I’m not coming with you,” she told him. “Death has done us part. You keep on walking out of here.”
He moaned. “Some hero’s welcome.” But he must have remembered her too well to test her resolve. He shuffled himself around and went on his way.
The next day there was another fellow on her front walk, swaying side-to-side. “I’m lost,” he said. (Not “brains.”)
“Where are you trying to get to?” She held the gun across her front, in plain view.
The dead man groaned and lifted his shoulders. “I had a girl. She said she loved me.”
“Well, she’s not here. And if you want my opinion, I don’t imagine she wants you like this.” When he only lifted his shoulders again, she said, “You move along now. Rot elsewhere.” Muttering to himself, he went.
The next day there were two, and she spoke before they could. “It seems my man’s started something of a mass migration.”
“You’ll forgive my friend,” said one of them. “The language centers in his brain got blown clear away.”
His compatriot, whose head accommodated a sizable crater, leaned stiffly over to try to pet the dog — who growled, flattened his ears, and ran to hide under the back porch.
“What do you want, then?”
“Money,” he said. “Fulfillment. Immortality. Love.”
“We don’t have any of those things at this house anymore,” she told him. “My husband headed north, I believe. You’re free to follow him.”
On the following morning, she went and sat on her front lawn with her shotgun across her lap. The dog lay beside her, and they watched the ranks of the dead go past.
A young woman dragging a mutilated right leg dropped a pamphlet on the grass. It said, “CONGRESS OR BUST” in large, awkwardly-done letters.
“My,” said Amber Riley. “I didn’t know you folks were so organized.”
Behind the young woman, someone laughed. “They’re calling you the Cause of the March,” the young dead woman said.
“That’s touching. But I didn’t make him stubborn.”
“I just thought you should know.”
When the delegation came, back south against the tide, the dog picked up his head and looked away without comment, as if refusing to be drawn. Two of the dead walked right up onto the front step, one of them carrying a small box wrapped in a tattered, blackened flag.
“Mrs. Riley,” he said. “We’d like to come in.”
“No,” she said. “Thanks all the same, I can hear you from here.” She stood back far enough so she could swing the shotgun up to shoot if she had to.
The zombie coughed politely. “Your husband self-immolated on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They’re calling it cremation, but you should know that it was protest.” He put the flag-wrapped box down on her welcome mat, and straightened with difficulty. “I’ll leave that there for you.”
When they staggered away, she put the shotgun to her shoulder. “He started a whole damn movement, huh?”
They stopped, turned, took the sight of her weapon without emotion. “When he stood up, somebody else realized he could. And somebody else, and somebody else.”
“He gave you hope?”
The second zombie, who had not spoken, laughed harshly.
The first said, “We thought we were finished, and right or wrong no one could ask more of us. But we saw that the world went on, without judgment or rest. He took our hope away.”
She stood a long time after they had gone, looking at the evening down the long cool barrel.
bseckinger
Definition of Flash Fiction
There are many definitions for flash fiction, depending on the editor, writer, or critic. First, flash fiction is identified by different names. Other popular names for this type of storytelling are “postcard fiction, “short-short fiction, sudden fiction”, micro-fiction. Secondly, in terms of word count, flash fiction is a complete story, written in 1,000 words or less. It all depends on the submission requirements for the web-based publication or print-based publication. Thirdly, a flash fiction story includes all the elements of a short story or novel–such as an inciting incident, protagonist/central character, plot/plot structure, (conflict, climax/turning point, and resolution), supporting characters, setting, Point of View, theme, style, and tone. Finally, the story is very short, and can be read in less than 10 minutes. http://davehood59.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/writing-flash-fiction-2/
Mid-Autumn Moon
The lake was alive with lights — the lanterns on the boats, golden and round, like hundreds of miniature suns, and the moon, so heavy on the horizon that it was difficult to believe that it would be able to climb any higher in the sky. The foxes smiled debonairly as they steered the boats. They knew well how to mimic the behavior of aristocratic young men, though they couldn’t entirely refrain from an occasional impatient yip, while their doll companions tried to wear the same demure expressions they had so often seen on their mistresses’ faces.Read more: HTML
bstokes
Flash Fiction: Seal-Skin (300 Words)
Summary: Flash fiction using the words: net, glass, and claw. “I was young when the fisherman caught me in his net. “I struggled as I was first drawn out of the water, crying out for my sisters. I could see uncertainty in his dark eyes, and thinking to take advantage of his bestartlement, I shrugged off my seal-skin and clawed my hands, trying frighten him into dropping me. “Sudden understanding dawned in his gaze, and he worked harder to drag me aboard his vessel. “Soon, I flailed and flapped uselessly on the rough boards of the boat. He crouched and reached out to me. When I hissed at him, he grinned. “’You are a selkie, are you not?’ “I understood Man-speech well enough to speak it. “’Yoooouu! Let gooo!’ My voice squeaked out in womanly register. “He shook his head and laughed. ‘I think not, beautiful one. You will make me a fine wife,’ he said. And with that, he pulled out a knife. Thinking he meant to kill me after all, I cowered and scrambled back against the hull. “But instead, he cut the net … and grabbed my forgotten seal-skin. “By the time I realized his intention, my precious skin lay shredded on the floor of the boat. Weak with grieving, I let him tie my hands and settle me in the boat. Then he took the shreds of my seal-skin and tossed them over the side… .“ “That’s a silly story, Gramma!” Joseph laughs, puts down his glass of milk, and runs off to rejoin his friends outside. He’s a fine, strong boy of nine, and clearly growing too old for such stories as I have to tell. Even the true ones. So I put his glass and plate in the sink … and I wiggle my fingers under the tap, waiting for my husband to come home. |
dmagwood
A Fratricide
The evidence shows that this is how the murder was committed:
Schmar, the murderer, took up his post about nine o’clock one night in clear moonlight by the corner where Wese, his victim, had to turn from the street where his office was into the street he lived in.
The night air was shivering cold. Yet Schmar was wearing only a thin blue suit; the jacket was unbuttoned, too. He felt no cold; besides, he was moving about all the time. His weapon, half a bayonet and half a kitchen knife, he kept firmly in his grasp, quite naked. He looked at the knife against the light of the moon; the blade glittered; not enough for Schmar; he struck it against the bricks of the pavement till the sparks flew; regretted that, perhaps; and to repair the damage drew it like a violin bow across his boot sole while be bent forward standing on one leg and listened both to the whetting of the knife on his boot and for any sound out of the fateful side street.
Why did Pallas, the private citizen who was watching it all from his window near by in the second story, permit it to happen? Unriddle the mysteries of human nature! With his collar turned up, his dressing gown girt round his portly body, he stood looking down, shaking his head.
And five houses further along, on the opposite side of the street, Mrs. Wese, with a fox-fur coat over her nightgown, peered out to look for her husband who was lingering unusually late tonight.
At last there rings out the sound of the doorbell before Wese’s office, too loud for a doorbell, right over the town and up to heaven, and Wese, the industrious nightworker, issues from the building, still invisible in this street, only heralded by the sound of the bell; at once the pavement registers his quiet footsteps.
Pallas bends far forward; he dares not miss anything. Mrs. Wese, reassured by the bell, shuts her window with a clatter. But Schmar kneels down; since he has no other parts of his body bare, he presses only his face and his hands against the pavement; where everything else is freezing, Schmar is glowing hot.
At the very corner dividing the two streets Wese pauses, only his walking stick comes round into the other street to support him. A sudden whim. The night sky has invited him, with its dark blue and its gold. Unknowing he gazes up at it, unknowing he lifts his hat and strokes his hair; nothing up there draws together in a pattern to interpret the immediate future for him; everything stays in its senseless, inscrutable place. In itself it is a highly reasonable action that Wese should walk on, but he walks on to Schmar’s knife.
“Wese!” shrieks Schmar, standing on tiptoe, his arm outstretched, the knife sharply lowered, “Wese! You will never see Julia again!” And right into the throat and left into the throat and a third time deep into the belly stabs Schmar’s knife. Water rats, slit open, give out such a sound as comes from Wese.
“Done,” says Schmar and pitches the knife, now superfluous blood-stained ballast, against the nearest house front. “The bliss of murder! The relief, the soaring ecstasy from the shedding of another’s blood! Wese, old nightbird, friend, alehouse crony, you are oozing away into the dark earth below the street. Why aren’t you simply a bladder of blood so that I could stamp on you and make you vanish into nothingness? Not all we want comes true, not all the dreams that blossomed have borne fruit, your solid remains lie here, already indifferent to every kick. What’s the good of the dumb question you are asking?”
Pallas, choking on the poison in his body, stands at the double-leafed door of his house as it flies open. “Schmar! Schmar! I saw it all, I missed nothing.” Pallas and Schmar scrutinize each other. The result of the scrutiny satisfies Pallas, Schmar comes to no conclusion.
Mrs. Wese, with a crowd of people on either side, comes rushing up, her face grown quite old with the shock. Her fur coat swings open, she collapses on top of Wese, the nightgowned body belongs to Wese, the fur coat spreading over the couple like the smooth turf of a grave belongs to the crowd.
Schmar, fighting down with difficulty the last of his nausea, pressing his mouth against the shoulder of the policeman who, stepping lightly, leads him away.
dsharpe
The evidence shows that this is how the murder was committed:
Schmar, the murderer, took up his post about nine o’clock one night in clear moonlight by the corner where Wese, his victim, had to turn from the street where his office was into the street he lived in.
The night air was shivering cold. Yet Schmar was wearing only a thin blue suit; the jacket was unbuttoned, too. He felt no cold; besides, he was moving about all the time. His weapon, half a bayonet and half a kitchen knife, he kept firmly in his grasp, quite naked. He looked at the knife against the light of the moon; the blade glittered; not enough for Schmar; he struck it against the bricks of the pavement till the sparks flew; regretted that, perhaps; and to repair the damage drew it like a violin bow across his boot sole while be bent forward standing on one leg and listened both to the whetting of the knife on his boot and for any sound out of the fateful side street.
Why did Pallas, the private citizen who was watching it all from his window near by in the second story, permit it to happen? Unriddle the mysteries of human nature! With his collar turned up, his dressing gown girt round his portly body, he stood looking down, shaking his head.
And five houses further along, on the opposite side of the street, Mrs. Wese, with a fox-fur coat over her nightgown, peered out to look for her husband who was lingering unusually late tonight.
At last there rings out the sound of the doorbell before Wese’s office, too loud for a doorbell, right over the town and up to heaven, and Wese, the industrious nightworker, issues from the building, still invisible in this street, only heralded by the sound of the bell; at once the pavement registers his quiet footsteps.
Pallas bends far forward; he dares not miss anything. Mrs. Wese, reassured by the bell, shuts her window with a clatter. But Schmar kneels down; since he has no other parts of his body bare, he presses only his face and his hands against the pavement; where everything else is freezing, Schmar is glowing hot.
At the very corner dividing the two streets Wese pauses, only his walking stick comes round into the other street to support him. A sudden whim. The night sky has invited him, with its dark blue and its gold. Unknowing he gazes up at it, unknowing he lifts his hat and strokes his hair; nothing up there draws together in a pattern to interpret the immediate future for him; everything stays in its senseless, inscrutable place. In itself it is a highly reasonable action that Wese should walk on, but he walks on to Schmar’s knife.
“Wese!” shrieks Schmar, standing on tiptoe, his arm outstretched, the knife sharply lowered, “Wese! You will never see Julia again!” And right into the throat and left into the throat and a third time deep into the belly stabs Schmar’s knife. Water rats, slit open, give out such a sound as comes from Wese.
“Done,” says Schmar and pitches the knife, now superfluous blood-stained ballast, against the nearest house front. “The bliss of murder! The relief, the soaring ecstasy from the shedding of another’s blood! Wese, old nightbird, friend, alehouse crony, you are oozing away into the dark earth below the street. Why aren’t you simply a bladder of blood so that I could stamp on you and make you vanish into nothingness? Not all we want comes true, not all the dreams that blossomed have borne fruit, your solid remains lie here, already indifferent to every kick. What’s the good of the dumb question you are asking?”
Pallas, choking on the poison in his body, stands at the double-leafed door of his house as it flies open. “Schmar! Schmar! I saw it all, I missed nothing.” Pallas and Schmar scrutinize each other. The result of the scrutiny satisfies Pallas, Schmar comes to no conclusion.
Mrs. Wese, with a crowd of people on either side, comes rushing up, her face grown quite old with the shock. Her fur coat swings open, she collapses on top of Wese, the nightgowned body belongs to Wese, the fur coat spreading over the couple like the smooth turf of a grave belongs to the crowd.
Schmar, fighting down with difficulty the last of his nausea, pressing his mouth against the shoulder of the policeman who, stepping lightly, leads him away.
awardlaw
in one thousand or fewer words.
Mid-Autumn Moon
How strange to find themselves on boats, the dolls thought. How strange to be separated from their devoted owners. One of them had been sleeping beneath a flowered coverlet when a fox leapt through the window and tore her from her protesting owner’s arms. Another had been lying in a lacy crib before astonishingly finding herself in a fox’s mouth. It was all quite shocking, though the dolls weren’t terribly upset. What young lady doesn’t want to be abducted by a gay troubadour? The thought of their forsaken little girls was sad, but nonetheless the dolls couldn’t help smiling furtively into their fans.The lake was alive with lights — the lanterns on the boats, golden and round, like hundreds of miniature suns, and the moon, so heavy on the horizon that it was difficult to believe that it would be able to climb any higher in the sky. The foxes smiled debonairly as they steered the boats. They knew well how to mimic the behavior of aristocratic young men, though they couldn’t entirely refrain from an occasional impatient yip, while their doll companions tried to wear the same demure expressions they had so often seen on their mistresses’ faces.
The Isle of Delights was in sight now, a black line in the glittering water. The foxes could barely contain their excitement, and the dolls tittered nervously. But wait, what was that along the shoreline? It almost looked as if there were broken dolls, thousands of them... One or two of the dolls screamed, but the foxes hastened to explain. You young ladies aren’t accustomed to being out on the water, always all kinds of strange debris, you’re seeing twigs and branches from the wind storm last week. The dolls tittered again, embarrassed by their ignorance, and the gallant foxes helped them ashore.
How glorious the night! It was the festival of the Mid-Autumn Moon, and the music of human celebrations drifted across the water, but even the humans weren’t enjoying a repast as splendid as the one prepared by the foxes. Embroidered quilts were spread out on grass dotted with chrysanthemums sagely nodding their yellow heads. The dolls seated themselves and modestly pulled their silk dresses around their ankles. What would the foxes do next? Tiny doll hearts fluttered like hummingbirds.
The foxes, with a flourish, spread a bolt of golden silk over the embroidered quilts. The picnic hampers were unpacked, and what wonders they contained. Melons and mooncakes. Tiny jade cups, exactly suited for a doll’s delicate hands, and wine as sweet as dew. Platters laden with red salted goose slices and pickled crabs. The dolls, accustomed to nothing more sumptuous than imaginary tea parties, were quite dazzled to be eating such splendid food, and perhaps they drank more wine than it was entirely wise for a doll to drink. The foxes watched them carefully, whiskers twitching. Every fox knows that the secret of immortality lies in devouring a doll’s heart essence, but opinions differ as to exactly what a doll’s heart essence might be. The foxes had concluded on this particular Mid-Autumn Moon that perhaps a doll’s heart essence was produced by feeding dolls pearls. After all, they had previously experimented with feeding dolls gold and feeding them orchids. Therefore, the platter they presented next was heaped with carp stuffed with nightingale wings and decorated with pearls arranged to represent a phoenix. The dolls exclaimed and applauded and daintily ate the carp, and the nightingale wings, and the pearls, every last one.
It was time. The foxes draped their front legs around the dolls’ shoulders. “Look at the silver toad in the moon,” they said. “Look at the Weaving Maid Star. At the Cowherd.” The dolls lifted their little heads to look at the night sky and the foxes, with great delicacy, tore out their throats. Had they succeeded this time? The foxes looked at each other, hoping to see some indications of immortality, though they were no more certain what immortality looked like than they were certain what a doll’s heart essence might be. But surely there should be some new luminosity in the air, an unaccustomed sparkle? They tore the dolls apart, searching desperately. They didn’t want to admit it, even to themselves, but this was ending like every other Mid-Autumn Moon night. Finally they climbed back in their boats and set off for shore, their lanterns long since doused. Even the human revels had ended, and the night was black and silent, the moon hiding behind a bank of thick cloud. A cold drizzle made the foxes shiver, and when they reached land they ran to their dens and curled up to shut out the freezing night, their tails over their eyes.
Winter arrived, and soon the Isle of Delights was muffled under heavy snow. The only movement was from the coiled dead leaves that still stubbornly rattled amid black branches. The dolls thought longingly of home and the little girls who had loved them, though they knew all that was past and gone. Their silk dresses, red as blood, blue as spring, lay in frozen heaps under the bare trees. By the time the snow melted the dresses were the same color as the surrounding mud. With the arrival of spring a creeping fungus turned the dolls’ bright brown eyes to dull green. Arms and legs split open under the blazing summer sun.
But now it’s once again glorious autumn. The night air is full of the sound of drums. The foxes are in their fairy boats, red coats gleaming in the light of lanterns. They reach the Isle of Delights, and their passengers cry out in fear when they see dolls dismembered and scattered about, but they are easily reassured. Soon a joyous party is underway. And why not celebrate? Perhaps this is the moon that will confer immortality. Perhaps this moon will bring each tender longing heart true love. Perhaps this is the Mid-Autumn Moon we have all been waiting for.
On Monday, December 3, 2012 12:39:16 PM UTC-8, Kevin Daiss wrote:
zduke
A DULL MARRIAGE IGNITES
"Who are you?"
"The other woman; I'm surprised you don't already know." A wide-mouthed smile; thorns stuck into her flesh.
She glared at the woman: Dark, sinewy arms, serpentine legs, sepia eyes, tall cheekbones, a mouth engulfed by lips. Delicious. Rotten.
"Get the hell away from me, from us, bitch!" Her words flared through the room.
"Too late." Her husband walked in, stood behind her, and wrapped his arms around her waist. He never did that.
"What?" Tears.
"You were so sexy last night, so beautiful. What got into you?"
She blinked. Her eyes dissolved in the mirror.
tkilgore
The term flash fiction is thought to have originated in an anthology of that title, published in 2002. The editors' definition: "a story to fit across two pages of a typical literary magazine - about 750 words".There is still no universally accepted definition or set word count but flash fiction stories are generally between 50 and 1000(ish) words long, containing a plot and at least one character.http://www.mookychick.co.uk/how-to/art-creative-writing-ideas/flash-fiction.
They looked past each other's shoulders. A candle flickered; steam rose from half-eaten dinners.
She clenched her eyes. "Why are you so dispassionate? Why can't you kiss me like these other men in here kiss?"
He stared into space. The waitress appeared. "More wine?"
The waitress poured, then leaned over and kissed the man flush on the lips. She turned and walked away.
He looked across the table, smiled, and leaned forward, his lips puckered. Her face froze. "Oh no you don't, you wretched man!"
On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:39:16 PM UTC-5, Kevin Daiss wrote:
emaier
It was quite unnerving to see such a large vehicle noiselessly gliding down our busy high street past all the brightly lit shops and shoppers who were out buying their gifts and presents for Christmas.
Obviously, I realised that it must be one of the new breed of cars that are powered by electricity in town but use a conventional petrol driven engine for longer distances, but I still couldn't help but stand and follow the progress of this strange new car as it built up speed down the road.
Puzzlingly, nobody seemed to be paying it much attention but, inveterate reporter of life in all its strange forms as I am, the seeds of a small article on green fuel was already germinating in my writer's mind.
So I stopped to make a note in my ideas for articles notebook that I always carry in my pocket everywhere I go.
It occurred to me that such a green powered car would be an ideal present for my wife although, of course, not one that an impecunious author like me could ever afford.
I was just turning away to continue my search for my wife's Christmas present when the car reached the end of the street ... increased its speed ... and took off.
As I stood transfixed like a dummy watching this four door saloon disappearing into the clouds, I could just see the driver looking back with red cheeks and smiling eyes and hear him laughing.
"Ho, Ho, Ho ... Merry Christmas and Goodwill to All Men!"
The End
Bye for now
Rob
On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:39:16 PM UTC-5, Kevin Daiss wrote:
mpaletta
Jennifer Linnaea
Sea Ink
When Althea opened the sorcerer’s book, a pressed leaf like a tiny green star fell out into her lap. Inside the book, words hand-written in long, loopy scrawl undulated like waves, the ink blue as the deep sea where Althea had seen a boy thrown overboard in sacrifice to the Little God of the finned fishes, when she had sailed to come live in the tutors’ academy. He had been two months younger than she.
She turned the page. In the same blue ink, a sketch of that boy, his wide, frightened eyes and his right hand clutching a blanket of felt that his mother had given him.
So he would not be cold while he Slept.
He had been her friend. She had asked him about the mountains where he grew up, and he had told her stories of white dogs and blue-furred elephants and tea so hot and sweet it unfroze your stiff fingers no matter how long you had been out. Standing on the deck with the priests, everyone staring at the spot in the sea where no sign of a boy remained, she had wished to the Little God of friendship that she could have a cup of tea to pour into the blue depths to warm him, and one had appeared like a sudden storm in her hands, in a cup of pale china as thin as a curving edge of shell.
Later, missing him, she had begun to pray that he would be alive again, and sitting once more in a coil of line on the bright, wide deck, with the wind making haystacks of his hair; but the tutors stopped her, saying if she did that then the ship would surely be sunk, and the finned fishes feast on everyone aboard.
The sorcerer’s book lay heavy in her hands. Carefully, gingerly, she picked up the little leaf to put it back where she had found it. But as careful as she was, one of the delicate tips broke off anyway.
Althea lived in the City of Wind-Angels. A hundred thousand glass bells hung from the eaves of the Palace. She saw these on the page, inked in silver, only instead of the angels being invisible, there they were. They looked like long, sinuous snakes, or like birds with Little God faces, or like shrieking women, their eyes all bulging out in some emotion that Althea couldn’t recognize. Beneath the picture of the wind-angels, tiny rows of letters descended like rain, but they were in some foreign alphabet, and she could not read them.
Soon she learned a trick. Whatever she almost-but-not-quite thought about, the sorcerer’s book found it in ink and brought it to her. The shallow bowl of copper that the academy beggar-man held out to her as she followed the back of her tutor through the bright-shining streets of the City of Wind-Angels; an acorn so glossy her face reflected in it; the tree struck by lightning that stood at the top of the hill where her parents had died.
Althea heard a voice call her name. It took her a few moments to realize it was not calling her from inside the book. It was her tutor’s voice, from the direction of the kitchen, calling, “Dinner, Althea! Dinner!”
She tried to pick up the broken corner of the leaf, but it only broke in two again, and then to dust, so she swept it off the table into her palm and sprinkled it, salt-like, onto the pages.
Then she took a last, long look at the drawing of her friend from the ship, the sacrifice boy. She tried to picture him drinking tea underwater, but how could he drink tea if the Little God of the finned fishes had devoured him? How could he wrap his blanket around his shoulders? The thought worried her, made her draw up her lip for her teeth to chew.
She did not understand, so she asked the book to show her.
When it was done Althea closed the book with only a slight tremor of her hands. She set it very carefully on the table, so the tutors would know she was a good, responsible girl.
Then she prayed very hard to the Little God of all places like her tutor had taught her, and held out her palms like she was scooping up sea water, and the room shimmered all around and the salt air came and whipped her hair into strands, and there was no longer any voice calling her to dinner, only the sound of the sea like giant breaths. And she stood on the rocks looking into the dark water for a long, long time, thinking about death, and what it did to you.
Then she prayed to the Little God of the finned fishes to forgive her for what she was about to do.
The boy from the mountains fell on his face on a barnacle-covered rock, and Althea had to scramble down to the water’s edge to save him from the next incoming wave. She took his head in her hands and she looked into his frightened eyes. She could see that he remembered everything.
Then the finned fishes came. As they flopped up onto the sea-stained rocks they grew legs, and they were great and many and terrible. Althea made a sign like holding her hands over a warm fire. She had not tasted the sweet tea she had poured into the sea, but she imagined that she tasted it, and how warm she would feel, and this time as she prayed she grasped the boy’s elbow in her hand like she was leading him off the gang-plank herself.
It would take a long time for the finned fishes to reach the mountain. If they cared that much about one sacrificed boy. If they wanted him that much. If they had memories that long.
On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:39:16 PM UTC-5, Kevin Daiss wrote:
blang
Mid-Autumn Moon
The lake was alive with lights — the lanterns on the boats, golden and round, like hundreds of miniature suns, and the moon, so heavy on the horizon that it was difficult to believe that it would be able to climb any higher in the sky. The foxes smiled debonairly as they steered the boats. They knew well how to mimic the behavior of aristocratic young men, though they couldn’t entirely refrain from an occasional impatient yip, while their doll companions tried to wear the same demure expressions they had so often seen on their mistresses’ faces.
How strange to find themselves on boats, the dolls thought. How strange to be separated from their devoted owners. One of them had been sleeping beneath a flowered coverlet when a fox leapt through the window and tore her from her protesting owner’s arms. Another had been lying in a lacy crib before astonishingly finding herself in a fox’s mouth. It was all quite shocking, though the dolls weren’t terribly upset. What young lady doesn’t want to be abducted by a gay troubadour? The thought of their forsaken little girls was sad, but nonetheless the dolls couldn’t help smiling furtively into their fans.
The Isle of Delights was in sight now, a black line in the glittering water. The foxes could barely contain their excitement, and the dolls tittered nervously. But wait, what was that along the shoreline? It almost looked as if there were broken dolls, thousands of them... One or two of the dolls screamed, but the foxes hastened to explain. You young ladies aren’t accustomed to being out on the water, always all kinds of strange debris, you’re seeing twigs and branches from the wind storm last week. The dolls tittered again, embarrassed by their ignorance, and the gallant foxes helped them ashore.
How glorious the night! It was the festival of the Mid-Autumn Moon, and the music of human celebrations drifted across the water, but even the humans weren’t enjoying a repast as splendid as the one prepared by the foxes. Embroidered quilts were spread out on grass dotted with chrysanthemums sagely nodding their yellow heads. The dolls seated themselves and modestly pulled their silk dresses around their ankles. What would the foxes do next? Tiny doll hearts fluttered like hummingbirds.
The foxes, with a flourish, spread a bolt of golden silk over the embroidered quilts. The picnic hampers were unpacked, and what wonders they contained. Melons and mooncakes. Tiny jade cups, exactly suited for a doll’s delicate hands, and wine as sweet as dew. Platters laden with red salted goose slices and pickled crabs. The dolls, accustomed to nothing more sumptuous than imaginary tea parties, were quite dazzled to be eating such splendid food, and perhaps they drank more wine than it was entirely wise for a doll to drink. The foxes watched them carefully, whiskers twitching. Every fox knows that the secret of immortality lies in devouring a doll’s heart essence, but opinions differ as to exactly what a doll’s heart essence might be. The foxes had concluded on this particular Mid-Autumn Moon that perhaps a doll’s heart essence was produced by feeding dolls pearls. After all, they had previously experimented with feeding dolls gold and feeding them orchids. Therefore, the platter they presented next was heaped with carp stuffed with nightingale wings and decorated with pearls arranged to represent a phoenix. The dolls exclaimed and applauded and daintily ate the carp, and the nightingale wings, and the pearls, every last one.
It was time. The foxes draped their front legs around the dolls’ shoulders. “Look at the silver toad in the moon,” they said. “Look at the Weaving Maid Star. At the Cowherd.” The dolls lifted their little heads to look at the night sky and the foxes, with great delicacy, tore out their throats. Had they succeeded this time? The foxes looked at each other, hoping to see some indications of immortality, though they were no more certain what immortality looked like than they were certain what a doll’s heart essence might be. But surely there should be some new luminosity in the air, an unaccustomed sparkle? They tore the dolls apart, searching desperately. They didn’t want to admit it, even to themselves, but this was ending like every other Mid-Autumn Moon night. Finally they climbed back in their boats and set off for shore, their lanterns long since doused. Even the human revels had ended, and the night was black and silent, the moon hiding behind a bank of thick cloud. A cold drizzle made the foxes shiver, and when they reached land they ran to their dens and curled up to shut out the freezing night, their tails over their eyes.
Winter arrived, and soon the Isle of Delights was muffled under heavy snow. The only movement was from the coiled dead leaves that still stubbornly rattled amid black branches. The dolls thought longingly of home and the little girls who had loved them, though they knew all that was past and gone. Their silk dresses, red as blood, blue as spring, lay in frozen heaps under the bare trees. By the time the snow melted the dresses were the same color as the surrounding mud. With the arrival of spring a creeping fungus turned the dolls’ bright brown eyes to dull green. Arms and legs split open under the blazing summer sun.
But now it’s once again glorious autumn. The night air is full of the sound of drums. The foxes are in their fairy boats, red coats gleaming in the light of lanterns. They reach the Isle of Delights, and their passengers cry out in fear when they see dolls dismembered and scattered about, but they are easily reassured. Soon a joyous party is underway. And why not celebrate? Perhaps this is the moon that will confer immortality. Perhaps this moon will bring each tender longing heart true love. Perhaps this is the Mid-Autumn Moon we have all been waiting for. http://www.flashfictiononline.com/f20121002-mid-autumn-moon-lani-carroll.html
areid
Flash Fiction- fiction that is extremely brief, typically only a few hundred words or fewer in its entirety. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/flash%2Bfiction
Magic Touch
From my hotel room window, I could see an oversized billboard with his face on it: Jason, the Great Magician.I absent-mindedly turned the pages of the phone book and came across a city map. Sipping my iced latté, I ran my fingers along the streets from the hotel to the opera hall. Not more than a half-hour walk, I thought.I glanced at the clock. The show starts in one hour; plenty of time! I gulped the last three sips of my latté and hopped in the shower. Soon after, I was on my way to the show, carrying a fancy black handbag and a genuine smile.
The billboard looked even more impressive from outside. The Great Jason's eyes seemed to be glancing through me. I shivered and walked faster. I felt like a child about to open her birthday presents.
The hall was dark when I came in; the show was about to begin. I made my way backstage just as the great magician was putting on his top hat.
"Daddy, I'm so glad to see you," I said in a half-whisper. "I'm in town for the writer's workshop, but I just couldn't miss your show." I gave him a quick hug and went back into the seating area, leaving him with a startled smile. I settled down in the darkness, and the curtains opened.
Magically, that show remains the Great Jason's best performance to this day
grogers
He smashed the Stratocaster on the wooden floor of the stage, the sound of the breaking chords echoing around the empty auditorium, circling once, twice, thrice before it penetrated the darkness inside his soul lighting it up like the Fourth-of-July fireworks. He raised his head to the heavens above and screamed, his vocal chords standing out green and blue, almost but not quite blending in with his blue-brown skin. The peacock feather he wore around his neck a reminder of all he had loved and lost swayed, tickling him, gently reminding him that he still belonged to this world. But she did not. She was gone, and there was nothing that would bring her back. But Mishaal was not one who would take no for an answer. Not now, not ever. He cringed as the word forever ricocheted around the corners of his mind before settling in a hard lump behind his eyes. He blinked as the tears gathered at the corner of his eyes, feeling the lump grow like a meteor from outer space, looming in size, larger, darker, till it encompassed his heart. Shaking his head—his waist-length-dirty-brown hair shivering as if it were a lion’s mane—he angrily shook it back from his face and lifting the broken one-piece maple neck of the electric guitar he stretched his left arm back till the wood almost touched the curve of his back, and putting the weight of his six-feet-two-inch lean body behind it he flung it with all his might into the empty audience ranks. Not caring where it landed he sank to his knees the tears now running down his cheeks unchecked and touched his forehead to the sawdust ridden floor. “Hey! Watch where you throw your broken pieces okay?” The indignant female voice had him jerking to his feet in a reflex action. The unexpectedness of being caught in an intensely private moment of grief made him forget his misery for just a moment as he peered through the darkness of the spotlight which shone in his eyes. Squinting he held the palm of his hand over his eyes shielding them from the overhead glare, trying to make out who was out there. The figure walked towards him, stepping out of the darkness slowly, giving his eyes ample time to travel up from her converse clad feet, over the long bronzed legs clad in blue jeans-shorts, up over the tantalizing peek of her midriff then the simple black T-shirt which formed a V shaped chain around her neck which held up a strong square jaw framing a delicate nose and almond shaped brown eyes which currently threw sparks of anger at him. She held the broken neck of the Stratocaster in her right arm. His left arm automatically rose again, this time to catch the piece of wood which she had angrily flung back at him. “You are not the only one on this planet you know?” She continued her tirade as if not having noticed what she had interrupted. “I believe you” he replied softly “I know I am not alone now.”
On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:39:16 PM UTC-5, Kevin Daiss wrote:
jchilders
ataylor
“Here, help me with this one!”
“Dad, they’re all empty. Just stop!”
The old man looks with empty eyes and says, “I’m not going to give up, you hear me? So, just grab your end!”
Terrance looks to his father, Ernie Raglan, with resignation and reaches for the rusted barrel’s lid. The steel groans in protest and exhales the red dust of oxidized metal from the rim. The barrel is empty, again, but Ernie is not deterred.
Scrambling for another barrel, he has a maniacal look of determination and blind faith that Terrance has seen before. Ernie will not give up. Nor will he let Terrance; that was not the Raglan way.
Taking a look over his shoulder, Terry sees the sun setting on a sea of opened, empty containers. There must be thousands they have already unfastened. How long have we been here?
Groan as another cask’s cover springs loose.
“Ah hah, I told you!” Ernie screams with joy.
Terrance looks over the lip of the drum into the chasm-deep abyss of the drum and, for a fleeting moment, he sees it too. He is five years old — with twig-thin arms and legs, wearing a helmet so big that he looks like a dandelion — and is wobbly and unsure, but he is doing it! Terrance has finally ridden his bike without the trainers. He remembers the ecstasy in that crack of time and turns to see the pride in Ernie’s face, as he relives this long passed moment, illuminating him from within like an underwater fire. He hasn’t seen the old man like this in so long. Then again, the old man hasn’t found anything in a barrel in a long time either.
Before the smile has a chance to dissipate, that moment it is gone. That frozen piece of time melts and drains through a rusted hole at the bottom corner of the barrel until this drum, like all the countless others, is empty. Terry is beginning to understand what his father must be enduring — searching day and night for a glimmer of his memory, only to have the moment diffuse into nothing right in front of his face. Terrance imagines that trying to catch fireflies with a net made of chicken wire would be less frustrating, less hopeless, than the endless searching.
“Over here, Son, this one! Your mother can’t be far. She’s here somewhere, I can feel it!” he says, moving to the next container, then turns with a stern look. “I have to find her, Son, I have to, and I need your help…”
“Of course, Dad, I’m here, let’s find Mom,” he says with a tear in his eye. “I love you, Dad”.
“I love you, too, Son, and I am so proud of you! You have grown up so much… I can’t believe you’re already riding a bike!” he says.
Ernie doesn’t look disheartened or deterred in the least when the next barrel screams open to proclaim a bone dry and hollow rusted space. He turns to Terrance and repeats, “I’m so proud of you, Son. My Big Guy!” Then, after a confused and confusing pause, “Your mother is in one of these barrels, Son, you have to help me; will you help me, Son?”
Again Terry affirms his father and smiles through the tears. “Of course I will, Pop,” he says out loud, but only to himself, because Ernie is on to the next barrel, already calling again for help.
“She’s in one of these, Son. I can feel it!”
The field, the sunset, the barrels, his father… they become fuzzy all at once and he realizes he is waking up from a dream. His father and the rest of the scene is melted, oozes, and trickles away just as his father’s memories had. His grasp on this alternate reality fades in an instant and his eyelids crack open to harsh bleaching light from the florescent tubes buried in the translucent ceiling tiles.
The door rattles in its jamb, closed too hard by a withered and tired old woman. Terrance wipes the sleep from his eyes to reveal his mother holding some of that God-awful coffee they serve in the hospital cafeteria.
“Thanks for watching your father, Dear, I just needed to stretch my legs. Did he come around at all, Honey?”
“No, Mom, he’s not moved since I got here… just keeps staring out the window. I talked to him for a little while; I guess I just dozed off.”
“Well, Honey, you’ve been here for a spell, so why don’t you go on home to Cindy and the kids? I will call you if his condition changes. Alzheimer’s is a strange thing. Most days he just sits here like this, staring into nothing, or asking the nurses if they have seen the keys to his Studebaker; that was the car he drove when we met. I miss that car. And then some days he will snap out of it like he was stuck with a safety pin, come over and give me a kiss and tell me he ‘found a barrel’ or something. Sometimes, I wonder if he is still in there at all.”
Stunned but unwilling to show it, Terrance smiles at his mother’s tired eyes and tells her, “He’s in there, Mom… He is. I really must be tired, because he did say something. He told me he was proud of me, and he wants me to tell you he loves you.”
His mother’s smile dominates her face and the tired eyes seem to gain new light with this comment. Terrance squeezes her frail hand gently, and then looks towards Ernie, unsure how he was able to share a moment of reality in his father’s delusions, but sure that it was as concrete for both men as it had seemed in his dream.
“I’ll be back tomorrow, Mom. I love you.”
bdavis
a complete story in 1000 or less words/ a unique type of short story that has been "whittled" down its essence while still having a plot, narrative, characters, conflict and resolution/ other terms used: microfiction, short short story, sudden fiction, prosetry, and postcard fiction
Resurrection
The charity shop was at the butt-end of a high street in the small south-eastern seaside town which had been her home and mine for the last few years; a town over-run by charity shops and this one stood in a particularly run-down part. I wished I hadn’t spotted Patricia there.
Larger than life in all her finery, a woman of epic proportions; dressed in skirt, blouse and hat – as though she was going out to lunch with the girls, as she often did. The girls – a euphemistic term for the elderly ladies she classed as friends, all now bitching about Patricia in her absence this particular lunchtime. She would have been ashamed to be spotted in such a “low-tone” shop, even quietly browsing, let alone boldly unprotected in the reflective glare of the shiny shop windowpanes.
She normally was seen in more upmarket shops – John Lewis, Fenwicks being her normal stamping grounds. Grounds where she stamped her formidable character on intimidated shop assistants who would run around at her whim before she left without making a purchase, superior and supercilious, pleased with her ability to engender fear and inferiority in all who served her.
Her pleated designer label skirt reached below her knees, the mustard paisley wool-blend resting on her rigid thighs, the taut waistband gripping her rotund and unusually firm belly. The blouse was mis-matched to her skirt as it was striped, vivid green and purple with a large drooping pussy cat bow at her throat.
Patricia was no pussy cat, but a dominating, petulant ogress who had made my life, and many others, hell. She had a ridiculously small fudge-coloured netted hat, worn to a long-ago wedding I still remembered, perched at a strange angle on her bald head. Her once lustrous white-grey hair now long gone; hair which she’d worn piled on her head like a cottage loaf, believing it made her look “as royal as Princess Anne”.
I was transfixed by the impassive plastic expression on her face, seemingly unfazed by her impoverished surroundings, nose held high above the doubtlessly smelly donations.
It was so unlike her to be seen in such a malfunctioning outfit, she who had always been proud of her excellent style and colour-matching skills, having always been in possession of an elevated opinion of her own tasteful appearance.
How had Patricia allowed herself out in public in such a discordant fashion disaster? Even the shiny red leather handbag perched in the crook of her elbow stood out alone, a bold beacon of incongruity against the swirly mustard skirt. Her high heeled navy blue court shoes didn’t match the bag, didn’t match anything; I was sure she’d never been out before minus a matching bag and shoes. The two could never be separated, like unfortunate Siamese twins, but now they had been.
It turned my world turtle to see her standing there as I passed by, leaving me heavy breathing, spine shivery, watery-eyed and clammy-handed, arrested by this vision; one of a complete resurrection, a renaissance. She’d been coaxed back to unnatural life by the charity shop assistants after I’d deposited the eleven black plastic bags of clothes, the contents of her wardrobe and life – my dead mother-in-law now re-born as a display model.
I thought all her belongings would be sold quickly to another sour, large, grumpy lady who’d hit hard charity shop inducing times but happened upon Patricia’s wardrobe as a happy, possibly fitting coincidence, or all would be ignominiously sold on as rags - finitely, never to be seen again. The shoes, bags and hats rainbow I’d given away, literally at the drop of a hat, left me at once relieved to be free from her clutter and her pressing presence.
A lump rose rapidly in my throat as I saw her standing there, an unbefitting picture of the carefully styled woman she’d once been, a comical caricature of Patricia and her essence reproduced as a one woman jumble sale. I’d given her away at about a charitable fiver an item and here was my come-uppance, the ghostly muddled apparition forever to be singed into my memory.
I’d left her at the hands of colour-blind lesser mortals, keepers who were to be her sartorial undoing in death, and my pricking conscience in life.
On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:39:16 PM UTC-5, Kevin Daiss wrote:
kduong
The Mirror With Six Faces
Ruben felt different the moment he awoke, but wasn’t sure until he looked in the mirror. There was the confirmation. The eyes looking back weren’t his, yet he recognized them as he would his own. They belonged to the entity.
He was only twelve or thirteen the first time it crawled into his skin, but he hadn’t been afraid, and when he/she/it had gone again, he felt hollow, like an empty house, his own lonely voice echoing off his bare inner walls. But it had always come back to him, and this morning he was full again.
“Hello,” he said, but the entity didn’t answer. It never did.
Showering still felt strange, but the entity looked away to protect his modesty, waiting until he was dressed to be fully present again. Putting on clothes was different too, his fingers thicker, clumsier than when he was alone, as if the skins of his hands were another’s gloves.
Not wanting to speak to anyone in this awkward state of possession, Ruben tried to sneak out the front door, but callused fingers wrenched his ear and spun him around.
His mother’s dark eyes bored into his, and for a moment he felt like a teenager again, caught trying to escape. For one rueful instant, he realized how little had changed since then.
“So,” she said, “It’s you.”
“Of course it’s me,” said Ruben. “Who else?”
Her lips twisted, and she tugged him into the kitchen like a disobedient dog. “You must eat, Rubencito.”
He considered protesting, but whenever his mother folded her imposing arms like a general on the field of battle, it was useless.
Ruben slumped into the chair and sipped his coffee. It tasted different than it had the day before, but then things always tasted different with the entity inside, as if he were using a borrowed tongue, and he wondered if the entity had a tongue of its own somewhere.
It arrived while he slept, always slipping inside like a whisper, never waking him, so he had no idea what it looked like. He liked to imagine it as a floating ball of light, though it might’ve resembled a giant rabbit or an earwig, or nothing at all. Perhaps it came from a place without features; a world where everything was invisible, and all that distinguished one thing from another was presence. That was a strange thought, and Ruben seldom had those. Had he or the entity been thinking then?
It was just another puzzle among many. The biggest still remained. That is, of all the seven billion people crowding the planet, why had the entity chosen him? Ruben was painfully ordinary in almost every way. He never missed a day of work at his boring IT job at a Century City law firm, still lived with his mother, was twenty pounds overweight (give or take), drove a fifteen year old car, and if he got a spare moment to think about it, he was probably depressed. But what could he do, tell a shrink that an alien entity was occupying him like a timeshare, and that he was perfectly fine with the arrangement? They’d lock him away for life.
“Stop playing with your food.”
Ruben wasn’t aware of it, but he’d been splattering droplets of hot sauce onto yellow swirls of egg yolk over a horizontal smear of avocado. The image reminded him of when he used to lie on the grass and stare up at the stars. It was a work of art, and he was no artist.
“I can’t be late today,” he said, pushing his plate away. “We’re training the lawyers on a new system.”
He rose, and the Entity brushed against his gray matter — a tickle to get his attention — and a daydream dropped into his mind. It was the thought of warm sand pressing up through his toes and the salt smell of crisp ocean air. It wanted to know what it was to be awake, to live as a human being, to write poetry and sing at the top of his lungs in front of strangers. It wanted to quit his job, to run away and drive across the country looking at everything there was to see. And today it wanted to go to the beach.
Ruben bent and stared at his distorted reflection in the metallic toaster. A poet once said, a man is a mirror with six faces, and through him God looks out in all six directions at once. He didn’t know if it was God, a ghost, or some alien explorer, but whatever was inside him, it picked a poor host.
Fat chance, he told it. There would be no beach today.
“You should listen to it,” said his mother with a scolding tone. “It knows what’s good for you.”
“What?” She couldn’t have known.
“Those eyes might fool other people,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “but they do not fool me, Mijo.”
“How long have you known?”
“You were such a sad boy after your papa died.” She made the sign of the cross. “All summer you stayed in your room, and I thought the boy I loved was gone. I prayed every day for your return, and then one morning, they were different?”
“What was different?”
“Your eyes. They were smiling.”
“Do you know what it is?” he asked, clutching her wrist. “Do you know what’s inside me?”
She laughed. “Of course, Rubencito. Don’t you recognize it?” She placed her hand over his and grinned. “That’s your soul.”
On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:39:16 PM UTC-5, Kevin Daiss wrote:
amayes
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_definition_of_Flash_fiction
There she is. That’s four times now.
She first came at noon on Monday. Soldiers scrambled for cover. The old woman stood naked, gazing vacantly into the Green Zone. Western soldiers shouted in Arabic -
“Put your hands in the air and drop to your knees.”
I had watched as the woman remained silent, unmoving, unnerving, in the dusty Baghdad sunlight. Then the Muezzin called midday Adhan, interrupting the standoff.
“Allahu Akbar” he sang.
Brothers emerged from buildings in response to the call for prayer. Ignoring their disturbed sister they shuffled away from the scene. The soldiers stayed still, eyes fixed on their strange visitor. Wearing only the suit God gave her she could hardly hide anything on her person. They must follow procedure. Then a group of women arrived.
“Mufeeda … Mufeeda,” they cried.
Mufeeda’s relatives apologised to the soldiers, explaining her mental illness and her wanderings from the institution that cares for her. They slipped a Burqa over her and led her away.
She returned on Tuesday at the same time. Naked Mufeeda stood peering past the guardhouse into the depths of the military complex. The soldiers took cover and waited while someone made a phone call. Relatives arrived looking embarrassed. The soldiers wandered over and pleasantries were exchanged. Mufeeda was clothed and led away.
On Wednesday they were expecting her. Two soldiers came out, covered her with a blanket and guided her gently to the guardhouse to wait for collection.
Today, as the sun reaches its zenith, she is back. The soldiers greet her with their blanket, though their patience is waning. Something really must be done about this.
Suddenly Mufeeda collapses. She falls heavily onto her face. Soldiers rush to her. One speaks hurriedly into his radio. An ambulance emerges from within the Green Zone. Mufeeda is stretchered into the back, the vehicle performs a quick u-turn, and returns to the heart of the NATO labrynth.
“Allahu Akbar …”
I take my iphone and smile. Our psychologists are brilliant. Four consecutive days they had said. No more, no less. Visiting time was my idea. The distraction is not without irony. Our scientists’ electronic body implants are sheer genius, and our cosmetic surgeons deserve much credit.
After the two minutes advised by our logistics expert, I tap the numbers and listen. I hear the answer outside and my heart swells.Mufeeda has made her little brother proud.
End
rellenwood
A Fratricide
The evidence shows that this is how the murder was committed:
melton
A flash fiction story is basically just a very short short-story. Depending on the writer, these stories range anywhere from 200 to 2000 words. http://www.wisconsinacademy.org/magazine/flash-fiction-101
The Purple Balloon
Prompt: Write a story that includes a duck, a telephone pole, and a map.
"Get well soon!" Martha said, handing Jason a purple
balloon.
She was his third visitor. That's because she was the teacher's daughter, and
her mother made her. The other two, John and Eric, weren't really his friends,
although they often ganged up with him against other kids to get their lunch
money.
Jason knew he wouldn't have long to live. He could feel it, deep inside. Seeing
his grandmother crying after talking with the doctor confirmed it. His time had
come. He didn't tell his visitors, though. They would either pity him, or be
happy to get rid of him.
Once Martha left, he ripped a page off his notebook and wrote:
"Dear God, I know I messed up and nobody likes me. Please give me a second
chance. I can show you what a good friend I can be."
He drew a map showing the way from the church to the hospital, walked shakily
to the window, and let the balloon fly away, carrying his message towards God.
The balloon was heading straight to a telephone pole, but a gentle breeze blew
it away just in time. It crossed path with a duck family and disappeared out of
view.
The next day, a girl he had never met before came to visit him. "I find
balloon," she said. "You are lonely?"
He just nodded, too startled to talk.
"I lonely too. My family come from Afghanistan and I no speak English
good." She smiled. "I bring gift to you." She handed him a box
of chocolates. "I pray for friend, and God give me friend."
Normally, he would have made fun of her broken English and her long, brown
robe, but he knew better. He smiled and offered her the first chocolate.
On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:39:16 PM UTC-5, Kevin Daiss wrote:
cburnsed
Sisterly Love by Vic Errington
(Published by Weaponizer)
cdraucker
Oxford University Press
Sisterly Love by Vic Errington
(Published by Weaponizer)
There she is. That’s four times now.
She first came at noon on Monday. Soldiers scrambled for cover. The old woman stood naked, gazing vacantly into the Green Zone. Western soldiers shouted in Arabic -
“Put your hands in the air and drop to your knees.”
I had watched as the woman remained silent, unmoving, unnerving, in the dusty Baghdad sunlight. Then the Muezzin called midday Adhan, interrupting the standoff.
“Allahu Akbar” he sang.
Brothers emerged from buildings in response to the call for prayer. Ignoring their disturbed sister they shuffled away from the scene. The soldiers stayed still, eyes fixed on their strange visitor. Wearing only the suit God gave her she could hardly hide anything on her person. They must follow procedure. Then a group of women arrived.
“Mufeeda … Mufeeda,” they cried.
Mufeeda’s relatives apologised to the soldiers, explaining her mental illness and her wanderings from the institution that cares for her. They slipped a Burqa over her and led her away.
She returned on Tuesday at the same time. Naked Mufeeda stood peering past the guardhouse into the depths of the military complex. The soldiers took cover and waited while someone made a phone call. Relatives arrived looking embarrassed. The soldiers wandered over and pleasantries were exchanged. Mufeeda was clothed and led away.
On Wednesday they were expecting her. Two soldiers came out, covered her with a blanket and guided her gently to the guardhouse to wait for collection.
Today, as the sun reaches its zenith, she is back. The soldiers greet her with their blanket, though their patience is waning. Something really must be done about this.
Suddenly Mufeeda collapses. She falls heavily onto her face. Soldiers rush to her. One speaks hurriedly into his radio. An ambulance emerges from within the Green Zone. Mufeeda is stretchered into the back, the vehicle performs a quick u-turn, and returns to the heart of the NATO labrynth.
“Allahu Akbar …”
I take my iphone and smile. Our psychologists are brilliant. Four consecutive days they had said. No more, no less. Visiting time was my idea. The distraction is not without irony. Our scientists’ electronic body implants are sheer genius, and our cosmetic surgeons deserve much credit.
After the two minutes advised by our logistics expert, I tap the numbers and listen. I hear the answer outside and my heart swells.Mufeeda has made her little brother proud.
End
On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:39:16 PM UTC-5, Kevin Daiss wrote:
phealy
When the car parked next to me drew away without a sound, I was startled and did a double take which was noticed by its driver who gave me a broad smile suggesting he was proud of his silently moving motor vehicle and pleased it had drawn attention.
It was quite unnerving to see such a large vehicle noiselessly gliding down our busy high street past all the brightly lit shops and shoppers who were out buying their gifts and presents for Christmas.
Obviously, I realised that it must be one of the new breed of cars that are powered by electricity in town but use a conventional petrol driven engine for longer distances, but I still couldn't help but stand and follow the progress of this strange new car as it built up speed down the road.
Puzzlingly, nobody seemed to be paying it much attention but, inveterate reporter of life in all its strange forms as I am, the seeds of a small article on green fuel was already germinating in my writer's mind.
So I stopped to make a note in my ideas for articles notebook that I always carry in my pocket everywhere I go.
It occurred to me that such a green powered car would be an ideal present for my wife although, of course, not one that an impecunious author like me could ever afford.
I was just turning away to continue my search for my wife's Christmas present when the car reached the end of the street ... increased its speed ... and took off.
As I stood transfixed like a dummy watching this four door saloon disappearing into the clouds, I could just see the driver looking back with red cheeks and smiling eyes and hear him laughing.
"Ho, Ho, Ho ... Merry Christmas and Goodwill to All Men!"
The End
Bye for now
Rob
On Monday, December 3, 2012 3:39:16 PM UTC-5, Kevin Daiss wrote:
anease
Flash Fiction is a very short fiction that oversimplifies things but still tells a complete story. It still has a beginning, middle, and end but is wrttin in a very short and concise way. It doesn't go into detail on any one subject of idea. (Answers.com)Example:
hmcmahon
She first came at noon on Monday. Soldiers scrambled for cover. The old woman stood naked, gazing vacantly into the Green Zone. Western soldiers shouted in Arabic -
“Put your hands in the air and drop to your knees.”
I had watched as the woman remained silent, unmoving, unnerving, in the dusty Baghdad sunlight. Then the Muezzin called midday Adhan, interrupting the standoff.
“Allahu Akbar” he sang.
Brothers emerged from buildings in response to the call for prayer. Ignoring their disturbed sister they shuffled away from the scene. The soldiers stayed still, eyes fixed on their strange visitor. Wearing only the suit God gave her she could hardly hide anything on her person. They must follow procedure. Then a group of women arrived.
“Mufeeda … Mufeeda,” they cried.
Mufeeda’s relatives apologised to the soldiers, explaining her mental illness and her wanderings from the institution that cares for her. They slipped a Burqa over her and led her away.
She returned on Tuesday at the same time. Naked Mufeeda stood peering past the guardhouse into the depths of the military complex. The soldiers took cover and waited while someone made a phone call. Relatives arrived looking embarrassed. The soldiers wandered over and pleasantries were exchanged. Mufeeda was clothed and led away.
On Wednesday they were expecting her. Two soldiers came out, covered her with a blanket and guided her gently to the guardhouse to wait for collection.
Today, as the sun reaches its zenith, she is back. The soldiers greet her with their blanket, though their patience is waning. Something really must be done about this.
Suddenly Mufeeda collapses. She falls heavily onto her face. Soldiers rush to her. One speaks hurriedly into his radio. An ambulance emerges from within the Green Zone. Mufeeda is stretchered into the back, the vehicle performs a quick u-turn, and returns to the heart of the NATO labrynth.
“Allahu Akbar …”
I take my iphone and smile. Our psychologists are brilliant. Four consecutive days they had said. No more, no less. Visiting time was my idea. The distraction is not without irony. Our scientists’ electronic body implants are sheer genius, and our cosmetic surgeons deserve much credit.
After the two minutes advised by our logistics expert, I tap the numbers and listen. I hear the answer outside and my heart swells.Mufeeda has made her little brother proud.
ashattuck
Ah, The Beach!
She looked back at the big, red and white umbrella and waved at her mother who was getting a much needed suntan. Her mother just smiled and waved with two fingers, holding a peach in one hand and a bottle of ice cold lemonade in the other.
Just then, a big wave came and swept Marilou's feet, making her fall into the water. She tried to scream, but swallowed a gulp of salty water instead. For a moment, she didn't know which way was up, and which was down. She swept with her hand and touched something with a tiny claw in the sand. She screamed bubbles and tried hard to swim.
The wave receded, dumping the startled girl upon the soft, wet beach. Marilou coughed and rubbed her eyes, struggling to get back up. She could feel grains of sand in her blue swimsuit.
She looked back towards her mother, who was now standing up with a worried frown partly covered by sunglasses.
Marilou ran back to the big umbrella, tiptoeing through the hot sand. She smelled of salt and seaweeds. She took her mother's big, warm hand with her cold, wet one.
"Come play with me in the waves, Mommy! This is the bestest vacation ever!"
sdavis
The Baseball Glove
They rolled in at one thirty-five in the morning and headed straight for the beer in the back. I checked the clock. My shift at the Quick-N-Go was ending at three A.M. But when cutoff time for selling booze is two o’clock, a little attention to detail is needed. I stashed the sports page and watched the three gang-bangers linger in the back.
I gritted my teeth as they approached the register; three Latinos, late teens, early twenties, shaved heads, tattoos, clean white T-shirts and baggy pants. Full of gangster machismo they approached the counter, loudly, and set down forty-ounce bottles of malt liquor. They’d already begun horsing around, loudly and profanely.
“No, puto. I paid last time, eh?”
“Don’t be like that, dog. You sound like my heina.”
“Shut up, fool. I’ll kick your beep.”
Let me guess, I thought. They’re not going to have ID, or enough money, or they’re going to try and intimidate me into giving them something free.
They were still jawing at each other. “Just hurry up, fool. This gentleman doesn’t got all day.” The gentleman was me, and it wasn’t said in a respectful way.
They bunched in at the counter. On the left a short, bull-like boy with a ring in his eyebrows was smiling menacingly at me. On the right, a medium sized kid, very skinny. He was watching the street, keeping his face away from me. The local area code was tattooed in large numerals on the back of his head.
In the middle, I assumed, was the leader. He hadn’t joined in the general smack-talking, and the other two left him alone. He was the tallest of the three. His face looked like a storm was brewing. “What’s up, Ricky?”
My name tag said Rick. Here we go, I thought. “Not much. Can I see your ID?”
He handed me his license. “You don’t remember me, Ricky?”
My scalp prickled. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. My mind raced to recall any incidents I may have had with his kind in the past. I looked at the ID, the photo, probably taken a few years ago. When I looked up at him he smiled. It was like the sun coming out.
I looked at him closer. “Jorge?”
His smile grew. “You remember, Ricky? You gave me my first baseball glove.”
I looked for a moment at his face. He had a nasty scar in his right eyebrow and a gold ring through the other. His nose had been spread across his face and he had three teardrops tattooed under his left eye. His right forearm bore a memorandum for somebody, and the back of his hand had the three dots that meant my crazy life. But in his eyes I could now see the pudgy ten year old that a dishwasher had brought to the company picnic for a restaurant I used to work at.
He had been a delightful kid who preferred to be around the adults. He was on the opposing team during the softball game and didn’t have a glove. Each time my team came up to bat I tossed him my glove as he ran to the outfield, and vice versa. When the picnic had broken up he tried to return the glove to me but I’d told him to keep it.
“Jorge!” I exclaimed and stuck out my hand. He put out his fist, so I bumped it with mine. “How are you?”
He put his hands in his pockets and looked down. “Oh, you know, Ricky, same stuff, different day.”
“So where are you working?”
“I can’t work right now. I have a trial coming up and all.”
I raised my eyebrows “For...?”
He made a clicking sound of disgust with his tongue. “You know that shooting in Oakdale a couple years ago?”
I slowly nodded.
“They’re trying to say it was me, but that’s bull...crap, I was at home — it was some other fools but I’m the only one they can go after, ’cause — ”
The one who had been looking out the window interrupted. “George, we gotta bounce, eh?”
“All right, hey, I gotta go, Ricky.” We bumped fists again. “If you don’t see me again it’s because I’ll be in...” he smiled, “you know.” When they were at the door he paused. “I’ve never forgotten you for giving me that glove, Ricky.” Then the night seemed to suck them outside into the darkness where they belonged.
In a daze I absently began wiping the counter while I recalled the boy at the picnic. I said a prayer for him; he was beyond baseball gloves, now.
cpetrea
He really did look like a tourist, with a camera around his neck and a bottle of sunscreen sticking out of his tote bag.
The portly man was sitting on the terrace, sipping lemonade and pretending to look at a glossy cruise brochure. His sunglasses masked his eyes, but somehow I knew he wasn't looking at the brochure. I knew, because he hadn't turned a page for the last ten minutes.
As I brought him his clam chowder, he coughed up a "Thank you" and looked at me briefly. I tried not to stare, but I couldn't help noticing the tiny scar across his left eyebrow.
I walked back inside with my empty tray, shaking my head. He did look familiar, but I couldn't quite place him.
Then it hit me. The car accident. The mysterious stranger who helped me out of my smashed car, just in time before it exploded. I rushed back to his table. He was gone. I moved his saucer and found his tip, along with a card:
"I am deeply indebted to you. The night of your car accident, I was on my way to rob a jewelry store. Saving your life brought things back in perspective. I now live an honest life, thanks to you. God bless you! Mr. D."
I shivered. The night of my car accident, I was heading for an interview in a shady dance club. Seeing human kindness through his heroic gesture turned my life around and brought faith back into my life.
I unfolded the tip he left. Among the singles was a grand with a pen mark underlining "In God We Trust." I said a silent prayer for him and got back to work, smiling.
(287 words)
gkreivyte
Amber Riley’s husband had promised that he would come home to her no matter what, so after they reported him dead she began to keep the shotgun next to the front door. The day he returned, ambling, shambling, reeking of decay, the dog barked once in warning and went to hide under the back porch. Amber dried her hands on a dish towel and went to look at her husband through the screen.
“Amber,” he said. (Not “brains.”)
She ran a finger down the barrel of the shotgun, propped beside her. “Thank you for coming.”
“I promised.” He smiled under the bullet hole they’d put through his forehead. Dried blood flaked off of his eyelid when he blinked. “You know I’ve never played you false.”
“I’m not coming with you,” she told him. “Death has done us part. You keep on walking out of here.”
He moaned. “Some hero’s welcome.” But he must have remembered her too well to test her resolve. He shuffled himself around and went on his way.
The next day there was another fellow on her front walk, swaying side-to-side. “I’m lost,” he said. (Not “brains.”)
“Where are you trying to get to?” She held the gun across her front, in plain view.
The dead man groaned and lifted his shoulders. “I had a girl. She said she loved me.”
“Well, she’s not here. And if you want my opinion, I don’t imagine she wants you like this.” When he only lifted his shoulders again, she said, “You move along now. Rot elsewhere.” Muttering to himself, he went.
The next day there were two, and she spoke before they could. “It seems my man’s started something of a mass migration.”
“You’ll forgive my friend,” said one of them. “The language centers in his brain got blown clear away.”
His compatriot, whose head accommodated a sizable crater, leaned stiffly over to try to pet the dog — who growled, flattened his ears, and ran to hide under the back porch.
“What do you want, then?”
“Money,” he said. “Fulfillment. Immortality. Love.”
“We don’t have any of those things at this house anymore,” she told him. “My husband headed north, I believe. You’re free to follow him.”
On the following morning, she went and sat on her front lawn with her shotgun across her lap. The dog lay beside her, and they watched the ranks of the dead go past.
A young woman dragging a mutilated right leg dropped a pamphlet on the grass. It said, “CONGRESS OR BUST” in large, awkwardly-done letters.
“My,” said Amber Riley. “I didn’t know you folks were so organized.”
Behind the young woman, someone laughed. “They’re calling you the Cause of the March,” the young dead woman said.
“That’s touching. But I didn’t make him stubborn.”
“I just thought you should know.”
When the delegation came, back south against the tide, the dog picked up his head and looked away without comment, as if refusing to be drawn. Two of the dead walked right up onto the front step, one of them carrying a small box wrapped in a tattered, blackened flag.
“Mrs. Riley,” he said. “We’d like to come in.”
“No,” she said. “Thanks all the same, I can hear you from here.” She stood back far enough so she could swing the shotgun up to shoot if she had to.
The zombie coughed politely. “Your husband self-immolated on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They’re calling it cremation, but you should know that it was protest.” He put the flag-wrapped box down on her welcome mat, and straightened with difficulty. “I’ll leave that there for you.”
When they staggered away, she put the shotgun to her shoulder. “He started a whole damn movement, huh?”
They stopped, turned, took the sight of her weapon without emotion. “When he stood up, somebody else realized he could. And somebody else, and somebody else.”
“He gave you hope?”
The second zombie, who had not spoken, laughed harshly.
The first said, “We thought we were finished, and right or wrong no one could ask more of us. But we saw that the world went on, without judgment or rest. He took our hope away.”
She stood a long time after they had gone, looking at the evening down the long cool barrel.
mstrickland
She closed her eyes and looked inside. That aperture, a mystic gateway, was still open, so she peered through at the brightly lit green grassy hillside, which she was perched atop. She blinked, but none of this went away. It was clear as day, verdant as springtime.
She waited for someone — some helper to guide her in, but nobody appeared. There was simply that question in her heart that continuously asked, “Are you willing to give up the world and all that is therein, for this?”
That question, whenever she brought it to consciousness, shocked her into fear mode. “My people will miss me if I go away,” she protested. “I know this must be co-dependent, but I can’t help but worry about them.”
“Then you are not ready to cross my threshold,” the voice said. “Go away.”
jmock
Sisterly Love by Vic Errington
(Published by Weaponizer)
There she is. That’s four times now.
She first came at noon on Monday. Soldiers scrambled for cover. The old woman stood naked, gazing vacantly into the Green Zone. Western soldiers shouted in Arabic -
“Put your hands in the air and drop to your knees.”
I had watched as the woman remained silent, unmoving, unnerving, in the dusty Baghdad sunlight. Then the Muezzin called midday Adhan, interrupting the standoff.
“Allahu Akbar” he sang.
Brothers emerged from buildings in response to the call for prayer. Ignoring their disturbed sister they shuffled away from the scene. The soldiers stayed still, eyes fixed on their strange visitor. Wearing only the suit God gave her she could hardly hide anything on her person. They must follow procedure. Then a group of women arrived.
“Mufeeda … Mufeeda,” they cried.
Mufeeda’s relatives apologised to the soldiers, explaining her mental illness and her wanderings from the institution that cares for her. They slipped a Burqa over her and led her away.
She returned on Tuesday at the same time. Naked Mufeeda stood peering past the guardhouse into the depths of the military complex. The soldiers took cover and waited while someone made a phone call. Relatives arrived looking embarrassed. The soldiers wandered over and pleasantries were exchanged. Mufeeda was clothed and led away.
On Wednesday they were expecting her. Two soldiers came out, covered her with a blanket and guided her gently to the guardhouse to wait for collection.
Today, as the sun reaches its zenith, she is back. The soldiers greet her with their blanket, though their patience is waning. Something really must be done about this.
Suddenly Mufeeda collapses. She falls heavily onto her face. Soldiers rush to her. One speaks hurriedly into his radio. An ambulance emerges from within the Green Zone. Mufeeda is stretchered into the back, the vehicle performs a quick u-turn, and returns to the heart of the NATO labrynth.
“Allahu Akbar …”
I take my iphone and smile. Our psychologists are brilliant. Four consecutive days they had said. No more, no less. Visiting time was my idea. The distraction is not without irony. Our scientists’ electronic body implants are sheer genius, and our cosmetic surgeons deserve much credit.
After the two minutes advised by our logistics expert, I tap the numbers and listen. I hear the answer outside and my heart swells.Mufeeda has made her little brother proud.
End
mtarsitano
flashfiction.com
What Momma Draws on Windows
by Tawnysha Greene
She draws a map of the world, points to the king of the north, the east, fighting the lion, says this is happening now, in the news. She sketches the seven churches, the lamb that speaks like a dragon, the woman clothed with sun.
Before bed, we pray with Momma, so that if the rapture comes, we’ll be saved, She says, God only takes the children who are blameless, pure. The rest burn in a lake of fire, and when we dream, the lake’s water is black.
One night, Grandma comes over and after dinner, Momma gets the Bibles and I let Grandma borrow mine, show her the highlighted verses, the pictures of dragons I’ve drawn in the margins like the ones Momma makes on the sliding glass door.
Grandma doesn’t listen to Momma, plays games with us when she isn’t looking, sits at attention when Momma turns around. It makes us laugh and Momma gets mad, takes our Bibles, sends us to bed.
Momma and Grandma talk late and we don’t say the sinner’s prayer before bed, don’t ask for God to make us clean. By morning, Grandma’s gone and Momma’s still asleep and we play in our room until mid-day.
We go to Momma’s room to wake her up, but we can’t find her. Her clothes are in her bed under the blankets, laid out like she was sleeping, her watch on her pillow. We pull the covers off and find her socks at the bottom of the bed, underwear inside pajamas.
We run outside to find out who is gone, who else left behind, and we find Momma outside the door. She had been watching us through the windows. She is wearing her own clothes. Her Bible is in her hand. The Rapture never came.
Every night after that, we are serious during Momma’s Bible studies, sit away from Grandma and in the mornings, we get out of bed, sneak down the hall to see if Momma’s still there.
She is and we open the sliding glass door, watch the sun rise over the trees. We pray to God, kneeling in the cold, look to heaven for the people Momma draws on the windows, for the angels, the woman of the sun, twelve stars around her head, the moon at her feet.
ewoodward
According to flashfictionforums.com, there is no universally accepted word count for a flash fiction story. In average, however, flash fiction is defined as a concise prose expressing a narrative in under 2,000 words while also fitting the description of fiction.
Fliers
by Duncan ShieldsDecember 5th, 2012
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
My mount is about an acre across from wingtip to wingtip.
I’m sitting between her eyes, up near the front. I have a windshield set up, sheltering my sleeping quarters, replicator, garden, fridge, toilet bag and pilot’s chair.
She’s the colour of sand stretching away on either side of me, the same colour as the sky.
This is an ocean planet. There are beings that spend their entire lives in the oceans and there are beings that spend their entire lives in the air.
I am riding the latter.
She coasts for weeks at a time around the air currents, eating the occasional minnowbird or troutflyer that crosses her path.
When she needs to really feed, she’ll angle down into a steep dive to the ocean surface. We’re so high up that it takes her half an hour to get down there. Her mouth opens wide enough to eat a small town on old Earth as she rips apart the waves on impact and dives deep to feed on anything moving.
I’m not there for this part of her life. I’d die in the chemical waters.
The beings that we ride need to sleep and mate before they feed.
I’m looking through the windshield and sitting in my chair. I can see on the overlay that a linkup is happening six miles from here.
She angles west through soft summer winds and clouds. She’s heading to that pack.
These beings meet up and extend small talons from the tips of their enormous wings. The interlock these talons and form giant islands in the skies. Fifty or sixty of them at a time.
She’ll hang onto her mates and close her eyes. During this time, mating fluids will pass between the couplings. It’s a giant orgy, to be precise, albeit one with no motion and almost entirely done while sleeping.
During this time, we riders have the chance to stand and stretch our legs. We walk across the wingspans to each other’s cockpits to chat and share stories. For some of us, it’s a chance to reunite with old lovers, catch up with stories.
We’ll set up camps on the strongest flyers and have small parties.
There are six hundred thousand of us riders. We’re linked by the windshields when we’re apart but it’s these gatherings that really define our lives.
One can never tell what people will be at a gathering, dictated as they are by the winds our flyers glide on. We count ourselves lucky if there are old friends.
One by one, the gliders will disengage and dive low to the ocean to feed. They’ll return when full, impatient to get back to flying the skies.
We get a signal when our mount’s biogram tells us that it’s time to disengage. We return to our mounts and strap in. Our mounts unhook their mating talons and we angle away, ready for another solitary chapter of gliding in the endless sky above the endless ocean.
This meetup is the first one I’ve been to in over a month and a half. My mount must be starving. From the pings I’ve receiving on my windshield, Jenna and Steve will be there. Sarah, too. She’s recent. I haven’t seen Jared in six meetups now and that makes me sad. I hope he’s there.
I can see it in the distance now, a horizon-smudge flatland in the sky where I’ll get to say hello to old friends and maybe meet some new ones.
alambeth
500 Lashes
"I am, as you've already guessed, sir, a little devil."
"What do you mean 'a little devil'. I thought there was only one Devil?"
"No sir, there are lots of little devils as well as the Grand Master Devil. We little devils are the many minions that go about doing the job, and, if I might say so sir, doing a fine job in difficult circumstances."
"And what is your job?"
"According to my order, sir, I have to give you 500 lashes!"
"500 lashes?"
"Yes, 500 lashes with this nice leather whip. "
The little devil quickly locked the door, pocketed the key, and then sprang around the room vigorously swishing his tail and the whip backwards and forwards by way of demonstration.
"You can't do that," said the Chief Officer, shrinking back into his soft leather chair. "I'm the Chief Officer of this Bank. People don't just walk into my office on the thirteenth floor and say they are here to give me five hundred lashes of a whip. I expect to receive some respect."
"Don't worry, guv, you probably won't survive to feel all the five hundred. You'll probably die before we're half through. The human body can't take that sort of pain you know. That's why we do it slowly, otherwise it's over too quick."
"Over too quick? What are you? A sadist."
"No, sir, I'm just a little devil doing his job. According to my orders, sir, it's you who are the sadist - and your Bank. Your business lends poor people money to buy homes at inflated prices, puts up the interest rates after a couple of years and then repossesses them. The poor people lose everything and you make huge profits. Now, I have to get on. I hope you're not going to delay me. I have many more orders to fulfil tonight.
"Look, I'm sure it's all a mistake. If it's money that you want, I can pay you."
"Ah, now this order wasn't a money purchase, sir. The order was raised by our Crimes Against Decency division as a result of being contacted by hundreds of your customers. We call it the CADs division. You've got to admit that's pretty appropriate. After all, you raise hopes of owning a happy home and then dash them, which is all a bit caddish, don't you agree."
"But, I've only been doing normal Bank business. There's nothing illegal about that."
"According to the Laws of Decency, there's a lot wrong with that, sir. People have a right to make a home and bring up their families. The way you work, you end up with all the profits and they end up with no home. What could be worse than that?"
"Look, I demand an appeal. It's the Government that raises interest rates not the Bank. Surely an appeal is my right."
"Yes siree, that is your right, but it will mess up my whole evening. We don't have time these days for niceties you know. Death is too busy. Hell's torture chambers are too full. That's why we have introduced Hell on Earth, sir, because there's just not enough space to do the job down below any more."
The little devil drew back his shoulders and strutted about the Chief Officer's office proudly, swishing his tail and the whip.
"Bringing Hell to people on Earth is a new innovative policy. Are you sure you want to appeal. And, if you say there are people in the Government who need a few lashes too, that will mean more work and we are already overloaded."
"I don't care about your workload. Yes, I want to appeal."
"OK, step this way," said the little devil, sighing and wrinkling his face in resignation. He pulled up a chair to the window and slipped the catch.
"You don't want me to climb on that chair and step out of that window?"
"It's the only way to get an appeal sir. Trust me. Step out of this window and you will immediately arrive in the Appeals Office. They'll deal with your appeal according to the proper rules and regulations while I hang around here wasting my time. If your appeal is successful, and so many are these days with all the Human Rights Legislation, you could be off free to your private club this evening, with a quick visit to your mistress on the way, as is your habit. Later you could be back in your large home happily tucked up in your comfortable bed with your trophy wife and all this will be a distant memory."
The little devil smacked his whip on the Chief Officer's desk with a loud crack."
"Or you can stop creating unnecessary delay, strip off and take the lashes. That would be preferable from my point of view, sir, because I have a lot of people to visit this evening."
CRACK. The little devil brought the whip down on the table again.
"Hurry up and decide, I haven't got all night."
The Chief Officer winced at the sound of the whip on the desk, imagining the pain if the lash had fallen on his skin.
"Alright," said the Chief Officer, petulantly. "I'm going. You'll be sorry when they find out what a mistake you've made. I'll make sure you pay for it and pay dearly."
The Chief Officer climbed on the chair and stepped through the window. As his feet found only insubstantial air and not the firm floor of the Appeals Department, he knew he'd made a mistake."
"You've tricked meeeee," he yelled, flapping his arms, trying to hit out at the little devil, as he plummeted towards the deserted car park thirteen floors below.
The little devil, grinned maliciously, as he floated just out of range of the wildly thrashing Chief Officer.
"Divine justice, as you might say, sir, isn't it. You've spent all your life tricking people and this is how you will die. From our point of view, it's so much quicker and more efficient than beating you to death. Also, it doesn't get in the papers."
When the Chief Officer hit the ground, he was still cursing the borrowers who had sent him to the devil.
The End
Thank-you for reading this humorous short story about whips, whipping, banks and the credit crunch. I hope you enjoyed it.
Of course, far from being funny, the credit crunch is a very serious matter and a cause of much pain for many poor people. Frankly, I don't know how bankers sleep at night who have enticed borrowers with cheap loans the bankers know will subsequently become too expensive to pay.
Hopefully, too, the few countries in the world that still use whipping and flogging as part of their legal system will soon understand the barbaric nature of these acts and quickly amend their ways.
mwatford
A style of writing that includes a story that has less then 300 words, for short ones and less then 1000 for longer ones. Also it is a complete story. http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/improve-my-writing/flash-fiction-faqs
“Patrick McMahon died two months ago, defending his country,” Father Cunningham intones. Most of us in the church look over at Patrick, where he sways in the first pew, to see if he reacts. He doesn’t.
Patrick has not spoken a word since the two army nurses led him, with a tight grip on each bicep, through our front door and into our living room. “Oh, honey, welcome home,” my mother exclaimed. She didn’t touch him. The nurses let go and Patrick tottered on the dingy carpet. They explained that he’d only been dead a short while, so his brain damage wasn’t as bad as most. They told us he couldn’t eat more than a handful of living people’s food each day, and they gave us a drum of blue pellets that he should eat instead. They told us to bathe him and walk him. And then they left. Mom fled to the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said then. His skin had a gray sheen. I touched him. He was cold. “It’s me. Your little bro.”
His eyes flickered. His hand twitched. The skin under his nails was dark purple, almost dead black. “Uh,” he grunted.
Now Father Cunningham frowns at Patrick. “My friends, we all here loved Patrick. Let us remember him alive and vibrant. Let us celebrate his life.”
We tried to celebrate. We had a party. People brought casseroles. Patrick stood, swaying, and looked no one in the eye. Mom forced a smile through the whole thing but when Patrick had his piece of cake he couldn’t chew with his mouth closed and gooey bits of frosting mushed off his purple tongue and fell out over his gray lips. It made Mom flee again to the kitchen to weep. I took a party napkin and wiped his cold face. He didn’t even blink.
“God asks us to bear our burden,” Cunningham continues, “and to take comfort in knowing that He awaits us after death. We must not forget this.”
Father Cunningham argued against signing the forms. My mother had been against it too, I think. But after Patrick got his orders, she sat with him at the kitchen table and read the paperwork from the thick folders. Then she handed Patrick a pen to sign the in-case-of-death authorizations: the green sheet for a plastic heart transplant, and the blue for the purple serum that would replace his coagulated dead blood. She understood that, before he went to war, Patrick needed to believe that if he were killed, it wouldn’t be permanent.
Father Cunningham smiles sadly at my mother. “What can we say of this son of ours?”
That he had not been a good son. That he had failed at school, never excelled at sports, disobeyed all the best advice, gotten at least one girl pregnant who later had an abortion, and joined the army not for college money but because violent computer games infested him with a desire to become a sniper. Yet my mother had been so proud to see him in uniform, burstingly erect. He seemed another man. Transformed with purpose — even if a purpose not his own.
The Priest nods, and answers his own question. “We can say he was one of us. A child of God. Today we remember him, but let us also remember Christ’s sacrifice for us so that we may have a true eternal life.”
I think the smell finally pushed my mother beyond endurance. When the dank hint of putrefaction overwhelmed the kitchen and then our bedrooms, she called Father Cunningham and told him he was right: this abomination was not Patrick. This Patrick sat on the couch all day, motionless but for, perhaps once an hour, slowly lifting a blue pellet to his mouth from the bowl mom had set on the table. His eyes were turning black. Only the changing of a TV station could make him blink.
“Amen,” Father Cunningham finishes. Music starts. I lead Patrick to the hearse.
At the graveyard, we set the empty coffin in the mud beside the pit and lift the lid. Rain spots the white silk interior. My brother doesn’t even grunt. We wait a moment, unsure who should try to lead him. But then, unbidden, Patrick shuffles through mire to the coffin and climbs inside.
His eyes stare wide at the padded cover as it drops over him. Then we slide the coffin onto the bed of straps. The winch lowers him into the muddy hole.
I vow that if he hits the door once, if he just taps on it, I’ll leap into the grave and bust him out. Though he could lift the lid himself, if he wanted. But the coffin is silent and still.
The water makes the dirt heavy. It falls into the grave as if thrown. There is no sound but the rain on umbrellas, and the chunk of the shovels, and my mother grieving her son’s final end.
When we get home I pour the last of his blue pellets into the trash out behind the garage. Then I lay on my bed and wait for the neighbors to arrive with a second batch of casseroles.
Patrick won’t last long. A week, maybe. His purple heart, pushing each day more sluggishly at his congealing blood, starved of oxygen and the warmth of living cells, will eventually stop. That is some comfort to Mom. To know that all the pains and the mess of this uncertain end will be forgotten, and what will remain is what a passerby might take from a veteran’s grave stone: here lies a hero.
History will set everything aright, with a story of how many good men fought evil and then died. The kind of story that could only be told after the dead were bound under the heavy Earth that keeps them silent and unseen.