Tag Archives: Flash Friday Fiction

#FlashDogs Solstice Anthologies Are Out Now – Get Your Copies Today!

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I’m so proud to be a part (a very small part) of the FlashDogs‘ latest publishing endeavor: Solstice: Light and Solstice: Dark – two volumes of stories from numerous, amazingly talented flash writers.

My short (very short) story The Butterfly appears in Solstice: Light. I’m awed to have been invited to join this oh-so-brilliant group of writers. I can’t claim to match their talents, but I’m thrilled to now number among their company.

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I hope you’ll consider picking up both volumes, not just because you’ll be treated to some of the best flash fiction around, but because all proceeds go to The Book Bus, a fantastic charity working to promote literacy around the world, one child at a time.

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Thank you to the production team behind these FlashDogs anthologies, for all the hard work you’ve done in getting these volumes together! I ordered mine first thing this morning, and can’t wait to hold both volumes in my hands. 

Flash Friday Fiction: Fire In The Belly

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train_wreck_at_montparnasse_1895
Train wreck at Montparnasse, 1895. Public domain photo.

Fire In The Belly – 208 words

It wasn’t the first time she’d survived a train wreck.

At seven, she’d watched her father drown in the bottle. At twenty-one, she’d done the same.

Clean two years later, she’d found The One. They’d set a date. July 21st. Then he’d set his sights on someone else.

He hadn’t known she was pregnant. Seven months after he’d left, their son arrived. 7:21 a.m. Stillborn.

She never told him. Never told anyone. She’d returned to the bottle, returned to the battle.

The eviction notice fell from her fingers. How had she let it happen? No job. Now no home.

She couldn’t help but feel she’d been here before. The same mistakes. The same helplessness. The same anger. She always returned here.

She studied the bottle in her hand. The invitation still tacked to her wall. The sonogram pictures stashed carefully behind it.

She smashed the bottle. Tore the invitation in half. Tears streaming down her face, she packed away the pictures. The memories. The pain.

She was tired of bringing up the rear, tired of life constantly derailing her.

She lit the suitcase on fire.

It was time for a new course.

She’d build her own tracks. She’d become her own engineer.

She walked out.

Smiling.

This week we had to combine the photo prompt with the theme of deja vu in crafting a tale of 200 (+/-10) words. What do you think of my effort? I admit, I’m not quite satisfied with it, but hey, sometimes that happens when you only have a short time to craft a story – even if the story itself is short (very short).

Hop aboard on over to Flash Friday Fiction, where you can check out the other offerings, and hopefully leave a comment or two. Or, you know, write your own story!

 

Flash Friday Fiction: And The Crowd Goes Wild

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Louis Dodier as a prisoner, 1847. Public domain daguerrotype photo by Louis Adolphe Humbert de Molard; courtesy Google Art Project.
Louis Dodier as a prisoner, 1847. Public domain daguerrotype photo by Louis Adolphe Humbert de Molard; courtesy Google Art Project.

And The Crowd Goes Wild – 208 words

I’ve chased her my whole life. I’ve played Romeo to her Juliet, the stage my sun. I’ve screamed Stella at the top of my lungs, Phantoms of desire spurring me on. I’ve Don Juaned my way through this theater, a Casanova to all, seducing my way into her heart.

Or so I thought.

I’ve cast seductive glances, sardonic stares. I’ve raised eyebrows in all the right places, let tears fall when the role demanded it, yet still she refuses me. She teases, playing hard to get, night after night, audience after audience.

I’m Marc Antony, Lancelot, Tristan, Paris. What more does she want? What more can I give? My love for her is constant, yet she taunts me, her fickleness evident in every performance, ever changing, ever elusive.

I’m Rhett, Rochester, Heathcliff, Darcy. I’m every lover that ever was and ever shall be. And yet never have I attained her.

I’m reduced to this.

A final effort, the last hurrah in my life-long quest. I have donned fifty shades of gray. I have entered this Red Room. I have manacled myself to woo her, to win her–that always-coveted, never-achieved standing ovation.

Is it enough? Will it get me that encore?

Call me Christian. Just call for me. Please.

 

After several weeks of serious FF pieces, I had to lighten it up this week, and luckily, the photo prompt and required element (theater as setting) lent themselves beautifully to this silly little tale. What do you think? Did I get you to laugh in these 208 words, or am I like this brooding fella here, begging and pleading with you for accolades you don’t wish to bestow?

Dance, stomp, glide, sulk your way on over to Flash Friday Fiction to see the other takes — maybe leave a comment or two, or heck, give it a go yourself!

Flash Friday Fiction: The Ties That Bind

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Inspection. CC2.0 photo by Brian (Ziggy) Liloia.
Inspection. CC2.0 photo by Brian (Ziggy) Liloia.

The Ties That Bind – 210 words

When grandfather was a boy, he crouched for hours in the fields, watering the rice paddies to make sure his family was fed.

When father was a young man, he crouched for hours in the grasses, shielding his siblings from the bullets whizzing by.

When I was a boy, I refused to crouch, refused to bend for the old ways.

I didn’t care about farming, didn’t care about tradition. I didn’t care about anything but myself.

My grandfather died in those rice fields, hands gnarled, knees perpetually bent.

My father died before I ever knew him, victim of a village raid that didn’t distinguish between enemy and innocent.

I wasn’t going to be them, my ancestors, faded like yesteryear’s photographs.

I wasn’t. My pride said no.

Until I looked into mother’s eyes, those weary eyes aged beyond her years.

Until I felt my sisters’ hands in mine, as they looked to me for support, for safety, for sustenance.

I crouch down today, inspecting these chicken feet, my chickens, arguing their worth to the butcher beside me. And I’ll do it again, and again, and again.

I shall pay homage to the family that came before me, their sacrifices, their struggles, their victories, their defeat.

I understand now.

I am proud.

That’s it – my offering of 200 (+/- 10) words, my short (very short) story, which had to incorporate the photo prompt and the character of a farmer. How did I do?

I hope you’ll click on over to Flash Friday Fiction to read the other stories and perhaps leave a word or two of praise for the very (very) talented writers who grace us with their own tales week after week. And, hey, why not give it a go yourself?

 

Flash Friday Fiction: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

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Construction of the Statue of Liberty’s Pedestal. CC2.0 photo by National Parks Service, Statue of Liberty ca 1875.
Construction of the Statue of Liberty’s Pedestal. CC2.0 photo by National Parks Service, Statue of Liberty ca 1875.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -205 words

Nobody notices me. Nobody marks my presence. My absence.

They never have. Never will. I like it that way, or so I tell myself.

Invisibility served me well as a child, when my older brother, Jimmy, took papa’s guff, crying out as I hid in the corner. Unscathed.

Invisibility served me well as a young man, when they needed recruits for the War. Called up every man between fourteen and eighty, they did. But not me. Nope, not Tommy Tuckerson.

I didn’t count. I never have. Never will.

Look at them, standing there, top hats on their heads, acting as if they were somebody. Building the American Dream, they say.

Been working here months, and not one of them knows my name. Not one called me down to be in the photo-graph.

I’ll show them.

A lifetime of invisibility is enough. I surrender. I give my life over in defeat. I accept my nothingness, a lack that has always been, a lack that will always be.

Will they notice, I wonder, when my body hits the ground? Will they stop their labors, their self-congratulations?

Or will my blood be one last testament to a life wasted, one quickly washed away?

This is no dream, boys.

I’m thinking next week I need to go back to humor. My last few stories have dragged me down, man. Then again, when given the theme of “defeat,” a happy tale hardly sprang to mind (which tells me I need to work harder at thinking outside of the box). Still, this is my 200 (+/-10) word effort to encapsulate the theme and the photo prompt into one cohesive, short (very short) story. What do you think?

Visit Flash Friday Fiction for other authors’ tales and much more! (The Dragon Emporium is now open; go check it out!)