Tag Archives: Flash Friday Fiction

Flash Friday Fiction: A Natural Disaster

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Victoria Falls. CC2.0 photo by Tee La Rosa.
Victoria Falls. CC2.0 photo by Tee La Rosa.

A Natural Disaster – 208 words

Oops.

I was aiming for a Moses-parting-the-Red-Sea kind of thing. Instead, I cracked open the earth. Again.

I’m such a clumsy idiot.

Mama says I just don’t know my own strength. Well, that’s what happens when you’ve got a god for a father.

Of course Zeus claims it’s my temper and mischievousness that get me into so much trouble. He insists heritage has nothing to do with it.

My cousins laugh at that. The world is rife with examples of apples not falling far from the tree. So are the heavens.

There’ll be hell to pay for this.

Hades will be pissed, of course – he doesn’t take kindly to people flooding his underworld.

Poseidon will come after me with that pointy trident. Territorial, that one. No one else gets to play with water? Whatever.

Athena will roll her eyes, like she always does. She thinks she’s so wise, just because she knows how to get inside daddy’s head.

Maybe I can blame this on Pandora. She makes a convenient scapegoat these days, I admit.

Or maybe I can convince daddy I did it on purpose. An homage to him, this “smoke that thunders.”

Oh well. The damage is done.

Now all I can do is admire it.

And there you have it – my homage to Greece packaged into 200 (+/-) words, incorporating the photo prompt and the idea of man vs. nature. What do you think?

The gods demand you visit the shrine that is Flash Friday Fiction, to honor those writers who’ve given their stories as oracles of amazingness to the world.

 

Flash Friday Fiction: Ignorance Is Bliss

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Navajo man representing the Yebichai god Zahabolzi/Zahadolzha. 1904 PD photo by Edward S. Curtis; image retrieved from Wellcome Images.
Navajo man representing the Yebichai god Zahabolzi/Zahadolzha. 1904 PD photo by Edward S. Curtis; image retrieved from Wellcome Images.

Ignorance Is Bliss
Margaret Locke (margaretlocke.com or @Margaret_Locke)
206 words

My dad and I, we loved going downtown.

Sometimes we’d stop in the five-and-dime and buy a tomahawk or a big hat with feathers, and pretend we were Indians, hunting the White Man and chasing buffalo.

We didn’t worry about being politically correct. That didn’t exist then.

Sometimes we’d eat lunch at the local diner, chowing down on hamburgers and malted milkshakes to our heart’s content.

Nobody cared about cholesterol or calories or fat content or sodium levels.

Occasionally he’d take me to the hardware store, and we’d buy nails and lumber remnants. We were gonna make a treehouse better than anything Swiss Family Robinson ever had, until lightning split the backyard oak in half.

We climbed the gnarled trunk anyway, never thinking twice about broken bones or insurance issues.

The last time we went downtown was after dad lost his job. We stopped at the bank, where he showed the teller my pea shooter. She was so impressed, she gave him wads of cash.

I didn’t understand he’d committed armed robbery. I just knew he was my dad, and I loved him.

Life was much simpler then, before I learned about jails and the justice system and poverty and crime.

I don’t go downtown anymore.

This week we had to construct a story around this photo prompt and a downtown setting, all in 200 (+/-10) words. How did I do?

I hope you’ll hop on over to Flash Friday Fiction and check out the other terrific (and tiny) tales waiting for you!

 

Flash Friday Fiction: A Wolf in Plane Sight

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1943 crash landing on the USS Enterprise. PD photo by the US Department of Defense
1943 crash landing on the USS Enterprise. PD photo by the US Department of Defense.

A Wolf in Plane Sight
Margaret Locke (margaretlocke.com or @Margaret_Locke)
210 words

“Somebody’s gonna need a good lawyer,” you say. “Hell of a lawsuit.”

I glance at the picture. “What kind of idiot climbs on to a burning airplane?”

“A hero,” you say. “For king and country.”

“We don’t have kings.”

You snort. “You know what I mean.”

I do.

What would it be like, to want to save people so badly you give your own life?

I can’t imagine. The only people I save are the ones who don’t deserve it.

“Innocent until proven guilty,” you always say.

But I can see it in their eyes, the ones who are lying. They all lie.

I see it in mine. I lie, too. For a living.

“His family deserves compensation,” you insist.

As if money can replace a life. I know. I tried.

I bought you everything, spending funds siphoned from the rich protecting their own. We throw the poor to the sharks. I threw your mother to the fishes.

I look again at the image. “The photographer must have died, too.”

You shrug. It makes no difference to you, that extra death.

It made all the difference for me.

“They need a good lawyer,” you repeat, eyeing me.

I shrug, my mouth twisting in a bitter grin. “Better not hire me.”

 

I missed a week, but I’m back with this bite-sized story that needed to incorporate the photo prompt along with “lawyer” as some sort of main character in 200 (+/-) words or fewer. What do you think?

Fly on over to Flash Friday Fiction to check out the other entries. No parachute needed!

Flash Friday Fiction: It’s Not Easy Being One of the Beautiful People

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Scene from the Hungarian film “Márciusi mese,” released in 1934. Public domain image.
Scene from the Hungarian film “Márciusi mese,” released in 1934. Public domain image.

It’s Not Easy Being One of the Beautiful People – 210 words

He acts like I do it on purpose.

It’s not my fault the ladies find me irresistible. With hair this fabulous and eyebrows that strike sardonic poses at the flick of a muscle, the miracle is I’ve only got one broad attached to me at the moment.

Can’t he see? I’m not even embracing her. Not really. She’s clinging to me, but I’ve got my hands elsewhere, to prove to him my loyalty. My fidelity.

The flowers he gave me are right there in the vase next to her, proudly displayed. I’m wearing the tie he gave me for our six month anniversary. I’ve even used that special aftershave that he’s so fond of.

Yet I see the suspicion in his eyes.

I get it. I’m a handsome man.

He always wonders why I’m attracted to him. “I’m fat,” he says, more often than not. “I’m balding. I have a face only a mother could love.”

Little does he know how those things appeal to me. No one chases him. No one treats him as a slab of meat for consumption, all eyes and hands and suggestive smirks and ass pats when they think no one’s looking.

He’s who I’d rather be. No artifice. No secrets.

Just himself. Honest.

Free.

Well, there you have it: my response to the photo prompt and the instructions to include some sort of “man on man” struggle in a story of 250 (+/-10) words. What do you think?

Want to see what the other awesome Flash Fic writers came up with for this week’s challenge? Head on over to Flash Friday Fiction.

 

Flash Friday Fiction: Home Fires

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Prison Guard, 1910. Public domain photo.
Prison Guard, 1910. Public domain photo.

Home Fires – 207 words

He looked forward to coming home to that kitchen every night and tossing his cap on the table before plopping down to dig in to whatever she placed before him.

Meatloaf. Pork chops. Chicken. He didn’t care what it was; only that it was hot, ready, and waiting for him.

His wife would smile and nod as he told about his day, the uprising in the south cells, the inmate who’d committed suicide, the guard who tormented prisoners with lit cigarette butts.

She’d pass the potatoes. Offer rolls.

Occasionally she’d make an apple pie, or, when he was really lucky, a peach cobbler, the cinnamon infusing the whole room, instant aromatic relief from the stress of pretending the suffering didn’t bother him, that he was cold and hard, like those he guarded. Like those he served with.

He wasn’t. He was the bread she made – crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, always there, always dependable.

Like this kitchen, which he loved coming home to every night.

Until one night there was no dinner.

He found her slumped over on that kitchen floor, those loving eyes closed forever. And it was then he finally knew.

It wasn’t the kitchen he’d looked forward to after all.

And there it is, my short (short!) story of 200 (+/-10) words, combining something from the photo prompt with the setting of a kitchen. What do you think? Want to read other stories or write your own? March on over to Flash Friday Fiction!