Tag Archives: flash fiction

Anniversaries

hotel

© Sandra Crook

Antoine stepped back outside the Hotel Charlotte. He’d hoped on this 20th anniversary, staying at the place where they’d spent their honeymoon would finally quiet the ghost.

It hadn’t. If only she would rest and let him rest.

He tossed his overnight bag into the backseat, got in and started the car.

“Can we go home now, Simone?”

“Not quite yet. Remember that charming little cafe where we had our first breakfast?”

His wife had died in a car accident on their honeymoon. He’d been driving. It had been his fault. For twenty years now she didn’t let him forget.

Written for the Friday Fictioneers Photo Writing Challenge hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. The idea is to use the photo prompt above to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

C is for Cat

c is for cat

© James Pyles

After breakfast the next morning, Daniel ran out the backdoor of his aunt’s and uncle’s farm house and into the barn. Sure enough, he found Fearful Symmetry relaxing in a patch of sunlight.

Aunt Abby said that Uncle Ethan could name their dogs if she could name the cats. Fearful Symmetry was the mama cat and head mouser in charge of the barn and surrounding area. She was named for a line in a famous poem by William Blake. Auntie had an impressive library in the basement, which is where she also kept the violin she hadn’t played for years, but Daniel wasn’t attracted to poetry, so he rarely sampled any of her tomes.

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Firewood in May

firewood

© Loretta Notto

“All the firewood she’ll need for next winter.”

Gerald had been laboring for weeks to make sure the house was ready and that she would be taken care of.

Most folks would say that having the winter firewood cut in May was a little premature, but he knew he was already out of time. The cancer in him was spreading fast and his doctor told him he wouldn’t last much longer.

She’d have to learn to live without him. After over sixty years together, that would be hard. He wasn’t an emotional man, but the thought of her having to go it alone made him tear up some.

Gerald turned to put the ax back in the shed only to discover he wasn’t holding it.

“Now where did that damn thing go?”

He looked again and he wasn’t at home anymore.

“Gerald, have you forgotten again?”

“Who are you?” This wasn’t home. In fact, Gerald wasn’t sure where he was.

“She will be fine, Gerald. I told you I’d take care of her.”

“Yes, Lord.”

Written for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long with 150 being the ideal. Mine is 175 words exactly.

To read more stories based on the photo prompt above, go to InLinkz.com.

Just Another Monday in Chicago

chicago

Michigan Avenue in Chicago

Walking down Michigan Avenue, Johnny remembered the meme, “Come to Chicago for the food, stay because you got murdered,” yet all he saw was another “hustle bustle” Monday morning in a big city.

Naturally he came prepared. This was mostly a vacation trip, but he did have one bit of business to attend to. There she was just ahead of him, about to cross the DuSable Bridge. It would be touchy in broad daylight, but with these crowds, he was confident he’d get away with it.

He slipped the small .22 out of his sleeve into his palm just as he caught up with her. He shoved the barrel into her back and fired, then kept walking. She collapsed against the bridge railing and then onto the sidewalk.

Another successful hit, this time on an NBC news exec. Now to lunch. He’d heard “The Purple Pig” had a great wine list.

Written for What Pegman Saw. The idea is to use the Google Maps photo prompt above to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is exactly 150.

To read more stories inspired by the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Every Sunday at Table 19

table 19

© Dawn M. Miller

Dave closed his soda shop on Sundays for two reasons. As a devout Christian, he believed Sunday was the Sabbath and he refused to do business on Christ’s holy day.

The second reason was more complicated. He knew they needed to have some time just the two of them. Each Saturday night, right after he closed, Dave put two empty paper cups at their favorite table, number 19. When he opened up Monday morning, the cups were disposed of in the trash, one cup containing the residue of cherry soda, and the other an orange crush.

Nine-year-old Sara and her six-year-old sister Leigh died ten years ago in a car accident just a few blocks from their Grandpa’s soda shop. Weeks later, Dave noticed his supply of cherry soda and orange crush diminishing. Paper cups went missing, and the chairs at table 19 kept moving around.

Dave asked why they weren’t in Jesus’s loving hands but Heaven didn’t answer.

Maybe they missed their Grandpa and his sodas too much to go, at least for now.

I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge-Week of April 25, 2017. The idea is to use the photo above as a prompt to write a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long with 150 being the ideal. My word count is 173.

I’ve been thinking of my Dad’s passing recently and am very happy to be back home to be with my two grandchildren. I suppose that all got woven into the fabric of this tale.

To read other stories inspired by the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

The Winner

lottery ticket

© Scientific American

“I won! I won!”

Benny knew he was embarrassing himself but he didn’t care. As he walked past the State Lottery office, he jumped up and down while raising his arms in victory, like a prize-fighter who had won a boxing match that he was expected to lose.

“I won!”

He wore an exceedingly wide smile as he walked down the street. He still couldn’t believe he now owned the biggest reward anyone could possibly receive. All of his worries were over. He’d never have to fret about his future fate again. It was all taken care of.

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The Cherry Blossoms Are Blooming

garden

© John Brand

I used to hate gardening, but that was before. Now I find it gives me a sense of peace. I remember that he liked gardening. He found it relaxing, even in the heat of the day, which used to drive me crazy.

I wear his old gardening hat. The brim shields my face and removes the glare from my eyes.

It’s springtime, the season of life. The cherry blossoms are in bloom. I have to clean them up of course, but now instead of just being work, it’s a duty and a privilege. I use his old wheelbarrow, the one that reminds me of the difference between belief and faith.

I hadn’t realized how deep his faith ran, while all I had to fall back on was belief and an intellectual’s arguments to defend it.

His death shook me in a way I hadn’t anticipated. It’s tremors disturbed my beliefs and threw me into the deep waters of faith. I drowned in that faith, and rose again like my Dad will someday in the resurrection, just like trees bloom again in the spring.

I wrote this as part of the Sunday Photo Fictioner challenge. The idea is to use the photo above as a prompt to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 183.

As some of you may know, my Dad died suddenly last Wednesday afternoon. My brother and I have been going through Dad’s things and our Dad never seemed to have thrown away anything. It’s been quite a chore.

But it has let us know our Dad in a way we never really did before. We discovered his passions, his habits, and how he saw his life. Unlike the story above, he wasn’t quite the avid gardener I’ve painted, but in viewing the green and growing things in my parent’s house, and now it’s my Mom’s house, I find hope for the future, a transition from belief to faith.

Oh, in the body of the story, I included a link to an essay I wrote based on a parable of a man who pushed a wheelbarrow across a tight rope. I think it is quite illuminating.

To read more stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Duck Blind

wagon

© 2015 Yinglan Z

Glenn and Marie were told to stay in the backyard and never to go up the rise to where the old wagon rested. Of course precocious eight-year-old twins didn’t listen, so whenever they knew Mommy would be busy cleaning or doing laundry, they went up to play in it.

It was really just a collection of wood with the metal wheels barely hanging on. To everyone else, it was an eyesore, and no one knew why it hadn’t been hauled off years ago.

To Glenn and Marie, it was a pirate’s ship, a rocket to Mars, a submarine that had just found Atlantis.

However, it wasn’t an eyesore, pirate ship, spaceship, or submarine.

Inside the blind, Amnathamarz and Fid examined their last set of mental readings.

“These humans are completely unsuited to our needs. They are completely disorganized, obsessed with technology yes, but such a jumble of images. How can we conquer their race if we can’t understand them?”

True, Fid. We’ve seen enough. Off to the next inhabited solar system.

I wrote this for FFfAW Challenge for this week. The idea is to use the photo above as a prompt to write a piece of flash fiction from 100 to 175 words, with about 150 being the ideal. My story is 171 words long.

The image inspired a number of ideas, but I settled on the “duck blind” being used by aliens to assess how to best invade our world. However, to do that, they need to understand us as a race, which was difficult if the only people who got close enough to their blind were children.

To read more stories inspired by the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Quit Putting Dragons on Clocks

dragon clock

© Jade M. Wong

Charlie Wise had been stopping by the Curiosities Shop every Thursday afternoon for the past ten years. This time he saw something different.

“Antique clock, Phineas?”

“I have a terrific new repair guy working for me.”

“Yeah, but a dragon?”

He keeps adding dragons to everything.”

“You know, I’d buy the clock if it didn’t come with a dragon.”

Phineas leaned on the counter and pushed up his bifocals. “Come around next week. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay, Phineas. Have a good day.”

“You too, Charlie.”

After closing, Phineas went into the back, took out his keys, and opened up the workshop.

He was still hard at work.

“You know, I could have sold that clock you worked on today if it didn’t have a dragon on it.”

Everything he’d worked on had a dragon on it.

The old Elf, who had been starving after becoming stranded outside of the Fantasy realm, looked up. “Sue me. I like dragons. Everything you have me work on is so…ordinary.”

Phineas slammed the door shut and locked it.

He muttered to himself, “I’d toss that pointy-earred bum out on the street again if he wasn’t so good at refurbishing antiques.”

I wrote this for Sunday Photo Fiction – April 16th 2017. The idea is to use the photo prompt above to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. Mine came in at 196 (after quite a bit of editing). I realized that the natural response to the photo would be to have the dragon come to life. I decided to try a different approach.

To read more stories written for this prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Wairua

christchurch

© Steve Withers – Google Maps

The block in downtown Christchurch was being demolished. The buildings around the public parking lot had been abandoned for a decade. Anyone who wanted, could indulge themselves with cans of spray paint. Some graffiti was elementary, other projects were expertly artistic. A shame the heavy equipment would destroy the good with the bad.

The indigenous Māori people thrived in New Zealand until the arrival of Europeans. To this day, they suffer the fate of indigenous populations all over the world.

It looked like a clown’s face, a fearsome one. Wairua or spirit was from the old Polynesian beliefs, and the art gave it a form with which to act. Wairua would turn the Māori away from Presbyterian, Mormon, and Islam faiths and back to the old ways. Wairua would teach them tapu, noa, and mana again, to preserve who they were, who they are, who they will be one day.

I wrote this in response to J. Hardy Carroll’s What Pegman Saw photo writing challenge. The idea is to use the photo above, taken from Google Maps, as a prompt to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is 150.

I’m playing fast and loose with the history of Christchurch and of the Māori people, so don’t look too closely for reality or historic accuracy.

I considered making the spirit vengeful, but as I recall, I already wrote a story about that. Instead, I decided to incite a revival among the Māori people, a return to their original spiritual beliefs, a reunification with who they were before the Europeans arrived. So many indigenous people all over the world have had their cultures, their languages, their spiritual beliefs destroyed by colonizers. I thought it was time some of them got all that back, at least in fiction.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.