Best of Friday Flash - Volume One
Edited by Jon M. Strother
Published by Jon M. Strother at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Jon M. Strother, et al.
All stories contained in this work are copyright 2009/2010 by their respective authors. This anthology, as a compiled collection of independent stories by members of the Friday Flash community, is copyright 2010 by Jon M. Strother.
The stories herein are works of fiction. All events and characters portrayed in this book are fictitious creations of the authors' imaginations. Any resemblance to real people or events are coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, in whole or in part, in any form or format.
Cover design by Jenna Luckenbach.
Interior design and compilation by Jon M. Strother
Edited by Jon M. Strother, with the assistance of Associate Editors Cathy Russell, Dan Powell, Donald Conrad, Elizabeth Ditty, Jodi Cleghorn, Karen Schindler, Lauren Cude, Lily Mulholland, Linda Simoni-Wastila, Mark Kerstetter, Olivia Tejeda, Rachel Blackbirdsong, and Tony Noland, without whose assistance this anthology would not have been possible.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.
“Welcome to Friday Flash” © 2010 by Jon . Strother| “Introduction” © 2010 by Tia L. Brink | “Her Migration” © 2009 by Shannon Esposito | “In Memory Alone” © 2009 by Al Bruno III | “A Hell of a Place” © 2009 by Donald Conrad | “Snatches of Life in Colour” © 2009 by Clive Martyn | “Loopy” © 2009 by Anton Gully | “Tidal” © 2009 by Carrie Clevenger | “Running with Scissors” © 2009 by Karen Schindler| “Night Feeds” © 2009 by Amy J. Taylor | “Waiting by the Window” © 2009 by Laurita Miller | “The Seagull Poet of Butter Bay” © 2009 by Alex Carrick | “Loss Aversion” © 2009 by Lindsay Oberst | “Echolalia” © 2009 by Christian Bell | “Hello Jones” © 2009 by Christopher Chartrand | “Good Friday” © 2009 by Amanda Scotney | “A Hell of a Job” © 2009 by Catherine Russell | “Tommy and the Train” © 2009 by Deborah Szajngarten | “Uncle’s Ukulele” © 2009 by E. D. Johnson | “An Unsent Letter From A Tommy” © 2009 by Robert St-John Smith| “Decennial General Meeting” © 2009 by Alan Baxter | “Twist in the Tale” © 2009 by Sam Adamson | “Bottom of the 9th”© 2010 by Olivia Tejeda | “Venus Rising” © 2009 by Simon Kartar | “Humbug” © 2009 by Angie Capozello | “Dental Check” © 2009 by Lily Mulholland | “Rescue Dog” © 2009 by Cliff Stornel | “Mother Dove” © 2009 by David G Shrock | “The Collector” © 2009 by Trevor Mcpherson | “Let Go” © 2009 by Marisa Birns | “Halloween Guests” © 2009 by P.J. Kaiser | “Bumbling” © 2009 by Rachel Blackbirdsong | “Dangling About” © 2009 by Michael J. Solender | “Different Perceptions” © 2009 by Eric J. Krause | “Carving Terrific Jack-O’-Lanterns” © 2009 by Estrella Azul | “In the Sinister Lair of Dr. Heisenburg” © 2009 by Dana Larose | “Deamons” © 2009 by Sarah Snell-Pym | “Urban Renewal” © 2009 by Marc Nash | “The Perfect Escape” © 2009 by Emma Newman | “The Family Stew” © 2009 by Ryan Harron | “Exile” © 2009 by Kim Batchelor | “Stairway to Heaven” © 2009 by Louise Dragon | “The Devil's Game” © 2009 by Laura Eno | “River Storm” © 2009 by Michelle Dennis Evans | “4:45” © 2009 by Tony Noland | “Exile of Innocence” © 2009 by Tomara Armstrong | “Breaktime” © 2009 by Linda Simoni-Wastila | “Love at First Sight” © 2009 by Clive Martyn | “Whistle Stop” © 2009 by J. M. Strother | “5 Minutes” © 2009 by Mark Kerstetter | “Balatrophobia” © 2009 by Gary Harmon | “Deep Dreams” © 2009 by Deirdre M. Murphy | “The Tree” © 2009 by Gloria Oliver | “The Witchery of Flutes” © 2009 by Jeff Posey | “When the Ghosts Come Calling” © 2009 by Jim Bronyaur | “Brotherly Love” © 2009 Deanna Schrayer | “Breaking Day” © 2009 by Kevin J Mackey | “Very Good Telly” © 2009 by David Masters | “Giving Thanks” © 2009 by Tim VanSant | “A Head to Get Ahead” © 2009 by Peggy McFarland | “Dreamers” © 2009 by Maria Protopapadaki-Smith | “A Normal Life” © 2009 by Lauren Cude | “Taking A Stand” © 2009 by Leigh Barlow | “In the Deep” © 2009 by Lesley Wood | “Puma and Jaguar Save the Planet” © 2009 by Maria Protopapadaki-Smith | “Half-Mown Lawn” © 2009 by Dan Powell | “Taping Lydia” © 2009 by Jodi Cleghorn | “No Militaries in the Gay” © 2009 by John Wiswell | “The Painting” © 2009 by Melissa D. Johnston. Beyond use in this collection all rights are reserved to the original authors.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Tia L. Brink
Welcome to FridayFlash
Preface
J. M. Strother
Her Migration
Shannon Esposito
In Memory Alone
Al Bruno III
A Hell of a Place
Donald Conrad
Snatches of Life in Colour
Editor's Choice Award
Clive Martyn
Loopy
Anton Gully
Tidal
Carrie Clevenger
Running with Scissors
Karen Schindler
Night Feeds
Amy J. Taylor
Waiting by the Window
Laurita Miller
The Seagull Poet of Butter Bay
Alex Carrick
Loss Aversion
Lindsay Oberst
Echolalia
Christian Bell
A Hell of a Job
Catherine Russell
Hello Jones
Christopher Chartrand
Good Friday
Amanda Scotney
Tommy and the Train
Deborah Szajngarten
Uncle’s Ukulele
E. D. Johnson
An Unsent Letter From a Tommy
Robert St.-John Smith
Decennial General Meeting
Alan Baxter
Twist in the Tale
Sam Adamson
Bottom of the Ninth
Olivia Tejeda
Venus Rising
Simon Kartar
Humbug
Angie Capozello
Dental Check
Lily Mulholland
Rescue Dog
Cliff Stornel
Mother Dove
David G. Shrock
The Collector
Trevor Mcpherson
Let Go
Marisa Birns
Halloween Guests
P.J. Kaiser
Bumbling
Rachel Blackbirdsong
Dangling About
Michael J. Solender
Different Perceptions
Eric J. Krause
Carving Terrific Jack-O’-Lanterns
Estrella Azul
In the Sinister Lair of Dr. Heisenburg
Dana Larose
Deamons
Sarah Snell-Pym
Urban Renewal
Marc Nash
The Perfect Escape
Emma Newman
The Family Stew
Ryan Harron
Exile
Kim Batchelor
Stairway to Heaven
Louise Dragon
The Devil's Game
Laura Eno
River Storm
Michelle Dennis Evans
4:45
Tony Noland
Exile of Innocence
Tomara Armstrong
Breaktime
Linda Simoni-Wastila
Love at First Sight
Clive Martyn
Whistle Stop
J. M. Strother
5 Minutes
Mark Kerstetter
Balatrophobia
Gary Harmon
Deep Dreams
Deirdre M. Murphy
The Tree
Gloria Oliver
The Witchery of Flutes
Jeff Posey
When the Ghosts Come Calling
Jim Bronyaur
Brotherly Love
Deanna Schrayer
Breaking Day
Kevin J. Mackey
Very Good Telly
David Masters
Giving Thanks
Tim VanSant
A Head to Get Ahead
Peggy McFarland
Dreamers
Maria Protopapadaki-Smith
A Normal Life
Lauren Cude
Taking a Stand
Leigh Barlow
In the Deep
Lesley Wood
Puma and Jaguar Save the Planet
Reader's Choice Award
Maria Protopapadaki-Smith
Half-Mown Lawn
Dan Powell
Taping Lydia
Jodi Cleghorn
No Militaries in the Gay
John Wiswell
The Painting
Melissa D. Johnston
Acknowledgments
To my wife, Cyndi, who has seen this through to the end.
Introduction
Tia L. Brink
Often in our ever-increasingly busy lives we have to pick and choose which forms of entertainment or relaxation we can take time to enjoy. For avid readers with stacks of books and novels in growing piles wistfully labeled ‘to be read’, any free reading time is a fiercely guarded luxury. Perhaps this has contributed to the surge in popularity of flash fiction.
Complete, fully formed stories; challenging to create, painstakingly whittled down to only the most necessary few words, they allow us to take a break from the daily routine and escape for a few precious moments into worlds and circumstances familiar yet surprising.
Easily accessible, all the more powerful for their brevity and so varied in genre and style, they give us an engaging, satisfying read that can find a place in even the most demanding schedule.
Elegant little sparks of inspiration from gifted writers around the world, flash is serious writing that’s fun to read.
Online, one can stroll from blog to blog, sampling the wares of ingenious writers you may not have heard of yet, fall in like with a genre or style you hadn't had much appetite for before, or visit long-time favorites for their latest creative gift.
The Friday flash community is a diverse group of authors and readers encouraging each other and showing mutual respect and support by their appreciative comments, gentle criticisms and willingness to promote the community as a whole.
This collection contains some of the best offerings from the Friday flash authors. Here you will find lessons in hope, laugh with the insane, discover a different kind of hell and consider the improbable. The stories run the gamut of emotions, which we can all relate to on some level, and range from sweet and pleasantly mysterious to dark and chillingly true to life, with surprises around every corner.
Indulge yourself one piece at a time, or settle in for a unique literary variety show that will leave you eager to visit the authors again.
Welcome to the Best of Friday Flash.
Tia Brink is an independent editor as well as Co-Editor for The ShadowCast Audio Anthology (http://shadowcastaudio.com) visit her at http://tialbrink.com/ or find her on Twitter as @TiaLBrink
Welcome to Friday Flash
Preface
J. M. Strother
There is a growing community of writers on the Internet sailing under the flag of Friday Flash. Every Friday one can find hundreds of tweets and retweets on Twitter using the #fridayflash hashtag. This all started as an experiment in crowdsourcing, using social media (specifically, Twitter) to promote short fiction being produced on blogs worldwide. Damned if it didn't work.
Now scores of writers post under the #fridayflash hashtag, both on Twitter and Facebook. Many participants post a piece of flash fiction every week. Over time these writers have grown to know and support each other, grow in their craft, place stories for publication, and become true friends. It has often been said that writing is a lonely endeavor. Like so many truisms, this too has been shattered. Writing, and reading, have become social affairs.
The Friday Flash community has, in essence, become an online writer's retreat. Participating authors bounce ideas off of each other, offer critique, and constantly encourage one another to strive to write their very best.
Last year over two hundred writers participated in Friday Flash. This collection brings you some of the very best of those offerings – sixty-seven in all. There is no theme to this collection, other than that the stories were posted as #fridayflash. It is not genre specific; all genres are fair game in Friday Flash. Nor is the anthology homogenized into US or UK English. Friday Flash is truly a global event. Thus the stories contained herein are edited to the author's local English standards, be it American, British, Australian, or Canadian. This was done consciously, to preserve the international flavor of the community at large.
Welcome to #fridayflash.
Her Migration
Shannon Esposito
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“It’s a ripped wing.”
“No, not with the damn butterfly, Gracie. You. What’s wrong with you.”
A faint rustle in the shoe box captures Gracie’s attention. She peers in. One burnt orange wing beats the box frantically.
“No, no, pretty girl. Shhhh,” she whispers into the box. “You’ve startled her. She needs a calm environment.” She hums soothingly until its fragile wings settle down into a slow, rhythmic pulse. She watches as it crawls onto the mushy pear she’s given it to eat. Gracie nods, satisfied.
Hal throws up his hands and leaves her.
Dusk arrives behind the closed bedroom blinds. Gracie has amassed the needed supplies and begins the operation. Leaving the lights dim and Clair de Lune playing in the background, she pinches the wings together, lifts the creature from the box and pins her down with loops of wire around her head, thorax and abdomen.
“Comfy dear?” She carefully fans out the ripped forewing. “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit. It’s scary, though. I know. You don’t know what’s happening, what I’m doing to your body. Sometimes I wonder if that’s better…ignorance.” Clipping a tiny rectangle from card stock, she measures it against the tear, trims it a bit smaller. With a toothpick, she carefully spreads adhesive onto the makeshift bandage. While she waits for it to dry, she watches the tiny legs twitch, the antennae swim in the air.
“Fascinating creature, you are. Filled with poison and yet fragile, fragile as the ones who come to eat you and die.” Gracie squeezes her eyes closed; unwilling to flood her patient. “Okay,” she wipes at her cheeks and straightens her back. “Ready for phase two.”
Making sure the black veins line up, she pinches the tiny rectangle with tweezers and positions it over the tear. This takes a few attempts and she has to hold her breath to keep her hand from shaking. “There, that should do it. I believe you will survive.” Her attention wanders to her own hand; skin as thin as the butterfly’s wing, puffy blue veins like ropes running its length. It seemed liked such a short journey. She takes in a breath. “Yes! That’s it. You must finish your journey! No reason for you to sit around this house. Oh, but it’s probably too cold for you now.” She removes the wire restraints and encourages the monarch to turn over. “Well, go on. They should work now.” The wings shutter. Once. Then twice. Then full blown flight. “Yes!” Gracie claps, gray eyes glistening. She watches the creature flutter around the room for a few minutes, finally landing on her pink rose bedspread.
“Haldon!”
Hal rushes into the room, one hand on his chest, wide eyes darting about.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? What do you mean what’s wrong? You’re the one who cried out.”
“Oh,” She ignores his tone. Behind the anger, she knows, is fear. She also knows it is better that he doesn’t know exactly what he has to fear. Like the butterfly. Ignorance was a gift.
“Will you drive me to that truck stop on Central Avenue?”
“Plaza 23?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
His shoulders slump. He looks for a moment like he wants to ask her a question, but then just shakes his head. “Yes, Grace. If it will make you happy, I’ll drive you to the truck stop.”
#
Three days later, the call came
“Hi, is this Miss Grace Adams?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, this is Mac Barnes…the truck driver?” He couldn’t see the hope welling up in Gracie’s swollen eyes, the Kleenex clutched to her mouth. “I just called to give you the good news.”
Gracie exhaled. Her lungs ached like she’d been holding her breath for three days. “She made it to Florida?”
“Yep. Dropped her off in a place with lots of wild flowers near Ocala. I watched her fly off. She’s good. Should be able to migrate with the rest of ‘em. That’s something, huh?”
“Oh, thank you, Mac. Thank you for giving her a ride.”
“No problem. You take care now.”
Gracie hangs up and looks over at her husband of thirty years. It’s time. She can face it now. Now that she remembers how to hope for the impossible.
“Hal…,” she slips her hand into his and braces herself for the flood of his grief. “Dr. Brennan has given me three months. It’s cancer.”
Shannon Esposito lives and writes in Venice, Florida. Her obsession with serial killers and weird science worries her husband, so she channels it into her speculative fiction and mysteries. Some of her writing has been published by nice folks like The Spillway Review, Crimson Highway, Flashquake and Flash Me Magazine. Read more from Shannon on her blog, Murder In Paradise (http://murderinparadise.com/)
In Memory Alone
Al Bruno III
“Are you just going to sulk or do you want to dance?” She stood before him, a seventeen year old vision with her hand outstretched and no pity in her eyes.
No one else at the homecoming dance even noticed them as they made their way out onto the floor, half giggling half blushing.
Not that anyone would have cared anyway...
#
It was a modest sized ballroom in a medium sized hotel. Middle aged people dressed in crisp clothes wandered through the tables, all hugs, smiles and handshakes. The open bar was seeing a lot of action, the buffet not so much. It was their 25th high school reunion and everyone was giggling over how much everyone had changed; who got fat, who got thin, who got rich and who got weird. Randy Carter stood near the back of the room, watching it all, hoping someone would notice him but unable to make the first move.
It was just like old times.
#
When the dance was over Randy told her he didn’t know what to say, she just kissed him on the cheek and told him to stay out of trouble.
#
Randy knew he was a fool to think that she would even be here, but he had to take the chance, he wanted to see her again so badly. He scanned the room, watching David Reed strutting around with his hair plugs and trophy bride and over there was Terri Smith in a dress that was three inches too short and two sizes too small. Vice Principal Martinoli was in attendance; almost 80 years old but still recognizable. Randy was sure for a moment that the old man had noticed him but then realized that his glance had seemed to land on him merely because he was lingering near the rest rooms.
#
Everyone in school said that she was a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, that she was headed for a bad end but ever since homecoming night Randy had been in love with Joyce Maynard.
She never wore makeup and she never wore dresses, even at the homecoming dance she had been wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Sure, all the other boys appreciated the sight of her curves but none of them dared go near- she was a junior but she dated college guys. All the other girls said so.
#
All these faces, some familiar, some rendered unrecognizable by years or botox—Randy felt nothing at the sight of them. He just stood and watched his former classmates as they were overwhelmed with nostalgia or longing. Did any of them even remember him? Was he even a subject of conversation?
#
Joyce didn't forget him after that night, when she passed him in the hall she wasn't afraid to make eye contact and flash him a little smile. On those days Randy was walking on air for the rest of the day.
As the seasons rolled on Joyce would disappear for weeks at a time, once or twice for suspensions and then there was the week she was hospitalized. What was she hospitalized for? Depending on which rumor you believed it was either a drug overdose or an abortion, but the last time Randy saw her he learned the real story.
#
When the buffet closed they began to play all the songs from the old days. People filtered out onto the dance floor; old flames sharing slow dances while their spouses waited on the sidelines. It wasn't even midnight yet but many of the Alumni were drunk and maudlin; rehashing the same old stories again and again. Randy wanted to join in with them, but even if they noticed him what kind of stories would he have to share? He had spent so much of his time with his nose pressed in a book in anticipation of college, then in college in anticipation of his career. He made partner at his law firm when he was in his twenties, he was divorced by the time he was thirty-five and then along came a heart attack at forty one, in truth he had expected that as well, but not quite so soon.
And through it all he held on to those memories of Joyce, the only thing in his life that had ever been unexpected.
#
At seventeen Randy still had a paper route; he was always industrious like that, always saving his money for law school in case his plans for a scholarship fell through. This had been his route for years but he never knew Joyce lived on it, not until that frosty March morning. She was just coming home when she noticed him riding past on his bike, she called him over and they talked for a while about this last semester of high school. Joyce would be 18 this summer and she told him she couldn't wait to move on, she wasn't even going to bother with graduation ceremonies. She told him once she took her last exam she wouldn't be caught dead in that damn school ever again.
It got colder and she invited him in for a breakfast of soda and pop tarts– there was no sign of her parents; how could he refuse?
Conversation went round and round until he mentioned her most recent absence from school, he knew the rumors, but he was curious to know the truth. So she told him- it had been an appendectomy, then laughingly she had stood up to show him her scar. She dared him touch it, and he did. Then in a moment of madness he kissed her. And she kissed him back.
Before he knew it they were in her bed pulling at each others’ clothes. He was so excited and terrified, he even told her he didn’t know what to do so she showed him, guided him. They moved slowly; cherishing every moment.
They both knew in their heart of hearts this would never happen again.
#
By 2am the party had broken up and from the way some of his former classmates were acting Randy wouldn't be surprised if a few marriages hadn’t broken up as well. Randy stood there disappointed and bitter, feeling like he'd wasted his time and effort to be here.
And it hadn't been easy to get away, it had been more than a struggle to arrange but he had been determined to be here, just in case. Just in case there was the slightest chance.
He paused at the bulletin board that held pictures of all the people who couldn’t be there, or didn’t care to be. Beside that were the pictures of the faces that could never be there.
Randy’s eye lingered on a melancholy tribute to Joyce Maynard; mentioning how she had died young but not that she had died of a drug overdose weeks after graduation.
And just beside Joyce was a photo of Randy Carter dead of a heart attack at 41. He wondered to himself where they got the picture of him and how death could be so lonely, how it seemed like he had even gone unnoticed by eternity itself.
Suddenly there was a voice behind him, “Are you just going to sulk or do you want to dance?”
#
She stood before him a seventeen year old vision with her hand outstretched and no pity in her eyes.
Randy didn’t even care that there was no one there to notice them as they made their way out onto the floor, half giggling half blushing.
Not that anyone would have seen anything anyway.
Al Bruno III is a writer of irregular talent whose work is irregularly read. He writes comedy and horror but is sometimes unsure of the difference. Al regularly posts on his blog, The Wit and Weirdness of Al Bruno III (http://albruno3.blogspot.com/).
A Hell of a Place
Donald Conrad
An idle mind is the Devil’s playground, and the Devil’s name is Alzheimer.
~ The Corpus Callosum Treatise ~
The only thing keeping Alice from walking into the room is a narrow white mesh barrier attached to the doorframe with Velcro. She hangs a hand on it as though she is a visiting neighbor ready for some gossip at a common white picket fence. With her shock of curly grey hair and big round manic eyes she could pass as Harpo Marx’s twin sister. She says nothing.
Your mother rests quietly, eyes closed and mouth open. She has a blanket over her. She still has her sneakers on so if she does try to get up on her own later, her otherwise socked feet will not slip on the tiled floor.
Far down the hall an alarm buzz goes off sounding like a larger version of the one found in the game Operation. A computerized male voice announces, “Door alert—please respond. Door alert—please respond.” The announcement is made again and your mind allows it to fade to unintelligible white noise; one of the patients wearing a proximity bracelet has wandered too far.
Brought to audible prominence is the light howl of wind which sounds eerily like pigeons cooing; followed by the clatter of dried leaves.
Your attention is drawn down the hall by the woman whose face was fashioned of piss and vinegar. She yells angrily to the staff at the nurses’ station, “I want my husband. Where is my husband? I want my husband, you fucks.”
You mother’s face doesn’t even flinch. There was a time she would have gone into a tirade over the use of that word. Now, though, she appears peaceful.
She looks...laid out in presentation.
Alice is still at the doorway. A gremlin climbs her like a capuchin monkey. It is gray, hairless and sexless with a grin full of needle teeth. Sitting on Alice’s shoulder, it reaches in with its small little hand and scoops out some of Alice’s memories. It eats quietly. Alice nods at you with her big eyes and silly grin. The gremlin climbs back down, looks about, then saunters away.
Mom never used to take afternoon naps. She was always too busy tidying up. Only a few years ago she could be found in her own kitchen, putting jelly in the cupboard with the coffee mugs and clean plates from the dishwasher into the refrigerator. But that was just ma being ma. Now you have to ask on visits, “Ma, do you know who I am?” Otherwise she just thinks you’re one of the nice ones on the staff. Eye contact is imperative, or she’ll think you’re another of those imaginary voices.
Helena walks past the doorway, arms motionless at her sides. Barely bulbous sacks hang from her chest, unrestrained under her pull-over like ballast for a hot-air balloon. She stops at the doorway across the hall and peers into that room. She leans in, bending stiffly at the waist. She nods. She could be nodding at someone or something only she sees or at her own internal babble. Helena doesn’t speak; she only nods affirmatively.
Mom does that. Ask her anything and she’ll mostly agree. It’s her last act of defiance; a feeble attempt to cover up what she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know a lot these days. But she has the Lord on her side. She’s filled her life with catch-phrases like; for heaven’s sake, good Lord, and Jesus is wonderful. She has always exuded goodness in her own la-la way, so it came as a bit of shock to hear her use the word ‘shit’ in a sentence recently.
The gremlins eat the goodness first. It only makes sense that the goodness should be the most appealing. In a lunch-box full of angel food cakes and, say, liver, the cake would go first. The rest would only go as a way to subsist.
Heading toward the door with the keypad—456 pound; a code the patients could never figure out—you pass the nurses’ station. Patients congregate like zombies waiting for the next thing—eat, sleep, shit, or pills. You wonder what it is about them all that they carry the chains they’ve forged in life so soon. That might not be it at all. But if it is, then Jacob Marley has nothing on these people.
Gremlins crawl all over the patients in the day room. The television is on but a lot of the old timers are staring above it. Four gremlins are arms-over-shoulders doing the can-can in tempo with the Ed Sullivan recording someone has set up—a VHS tape.
You watch as one of the gremlins scoop out some memories from one and deposit them in another; share and share alike.
One of the patients is walking with difficulty because a gremlin has its arms wrapped above the knee and its legs wrapped below the knee.
A nurse has a small paper cup with pills which she has a woman swallow with water from another cup. You’re at the proper angle to see the gremlin hiding so that when she throws the pills back, he gets them. He chews three times before being nearly drown with the water.
Thank God mom doesn’t spend much time in the day room. She prefers to walk her wheelchair around humming songs she doesn’t know the words to any longer. She seems happy enough. That’s important.
In the parking lot you fob your car door lock. Before you get in you shoo away one of the gremlins, pointing back to the facility. He walks back, head down and arms dangling.
You drive off and wonder how long they’ll obey.
Donald Conrad’s short fiction can be found in Big Pulp Magazine, Ruthless Peoples Magazine, On the Premises, Flash Fiction 40, and on his blog, FlashTold (http://flashtold.wordpress.com/).
Snatches of Life in Colour
Editor's Choice Award
Clive Martyn
Violet
The streaks in your hair, the day we met in college. The curtains you chose for our first flat. The dog collar you bought for that lost puppy. The socks of the bank manager who simply would not see reason. The sky just before dusk the last day of our honeymoon.
Indigo
The seat covers in the bus, where we first kissed. The family car we bought when we first learnt you were pregnant. The ribbon around the flowers I brought you in hospital after we lost Abbie. The expensive eyeshadow I told you not to buy.
Blue
The menu in that little restaurant, where we went for our first date. Abbie's lips. The bathroom tiles at work, where I first snorted coke. The logo of my company before it was taken over and the tie of the man from HR who said I was no longer needed. The bruises on your body.
Green
The door to your flat where we spent our first night together. The shirt of the man at the Welfare office. The cheque your mother sent to pay the missed mortgage payment. The plate you threw at me. Your eyes. The lid to the needle, when I started injecting. The 'auction' sign outside our old home.
Yellow
The bridesmaid’s dresses at our wedding. Your hair in the summer. The picture frame in the marriage counsellor's office. The taxi you screamed at me to get into. The letterhead of the debt collection agency. The baby clothes we eventually threw out. The short dress I loved you to wear.
Orange
The bedspread in the motel where I live. The dawn, the day after you slammed the door in my face. My dealer's girlfriend's hair. The flowers you planted around Abbie's grave. Your favourite bead necklace. broken on the floor.
Red
The final bills still unpaid. The flowers in the judge's chambers. The tablets on the counter, prescribed by my doctor. Your favourite lipstick. His sports car parked outside your new place. The pram his parents bought you.
Clive Martyn is an author of dark fiction and poetry in particular fantasy, sci-fi and horror. His short stories and flash fiction have been published in various magazines although he is still waiting for his novels to be freed from the slush pile. More from Clive can be found at A Writer's Story (http://biddingforbusiness.blogspot.com/).
Loopy
Anton Gully
I was in the park buying an ice cream when he approached me.
He was in his seventies, at least, a little stick of a man dressed in an over-sized World War II RAF uniform, leather skullcap, goggles hitched up to his forehead and a monocle screwed into his right eye. A white silk scarf, wrapped around his neck, completed the ensemble.
"Excuse me, my good man, might I interest you in an aerobatic display?" he asked.
I didn't say anything, craning to look behind him, but he could sense what was troubling me.
"They won't let me have a plane anymore." He sighed. "Not since the incident with the Germans."
"Oh, were you in the war?" I asked.
"No... what do you say? A ten minute aerobatic display for just five pounds!"
I looked through the change I'd received after buying my ice cream. "I'll give you a quid."
"I used to get a thousand pounds a performance you know," he said.
"You used to have a plane," I retorted.
"Very well," he said in a dejected tone," but you get five minutes and no loop the loop."
"Agreed!"
He began by running back and forth in front of me, humming engine noises, his hands on an imaginary joystick, the left occasionally working an invisible throttle. Then he was twisting off to the right in a lazy turn that gradually became a graceful figure eight. He burst out of it at top speed banking sharply, first to the left, then to the right.
And so it went on, with him at one point rolling on his side along the ground, before leaping back to his feet, looking very spry for a man of his age. He ran fifty yards directly away from me, turned and ran back at me as fast as he could manage. Before he crashed into me he stopped, hunkered down, then wrapped his arms around his legs and threw himself backwards, ankles over head. Once again he leaped to his feet, and casually sauntered back over to me.
He pulled his monocle out, winked at me, then replaced it. "I threw in that last loop for free."
I fished the one pound coin out of my pocket and placed it onto his outstretched palm. He wrapped his fingers about it, placed his fist to his forehead in a salute, then stashed the coin in his puffy trousers.
"Well, young man, what did you think?"
I really wasn't sure what I thought, but what I said was, "I've never seen anything like it. Can I offer a suggestion?"
"Of course you can, young sir. I value customer feedback."
"When you're running around like that you should stick your arms out, like they were wings."
"Wings?" he exclaimed, his monocle popping out. "My dear boy, I wouldn't wish to appear foolish."
Anton Gully has a wife and two children. He'll release them just as soon as the ransom is paid. He can be found on Twitter as @pablogully. His blog is The Black Dogs Of Despair Reading Room (http://dogsdespair.blogspot.com/).
Tidal
Carrie Clevenger
The war is over, yet there's an explosion in my head. It’s a deep resonance among the chop-chop-chop of helicopter blades, and shouts of the profane and the dead. I move a muscle—I’m toast. I must stay alive. I will lie here forever if that is what it takes to survive.
Low bended grasses and broken reeds anticipate the crash and clamor of the next land mine. I crawl on a belly full of MRE and rough-roasted coffee, M16A2 my shield and savior. The war is through, and I want to sound-off the cadence of a lonely soldier, but my mouth has lost all flavor.
I stare through the patterned walls to the Other Side, where gruesome guard dogs snap frothing jaws and wag ragged tails. A place where sinking ships form a trail of strewn carcasses, like crustacean skeletons at low tide. There’s a rule to not skip, just patter over the xylophone bones as fast as I can before the bottom falls through and the pit gapes wide.
There’s a slow beeping in my ear, and somewhere next to my arm, a cool wire constantly feeding me the ocean.
I stand blanched on the severed shore and shake my head in slow motion at a memory. A spark of reasoning, wedged somewhere between my first kiss in the park and the last cigarette before my flight.
I let go my tidal breath and manage a weak smile as the wave inside washes darker than night.
Inspired by Chevelle's song, "Bend the Bracket."
Carrie Clevenger worships Maynard and dreams of cephalopods on trains among other oddities in Austin, Texas. The hub of her evil network can be found at MindSpeak (http://www.carrieclevenger.com) or on Twitter as @CarrieClevenger.
Running with Scissors
Karen Schindler
"Doorbell."
"I know honey, I heard it too. It's probably our pizza. Will you be alright for a minute if I go see who it is?"
"Sure, Lizbeth and I are going to do our nails and then we're going to color."
So far Randy didn't get what all the hoopla had been about Sara needing constant supervision. He'd been here two pleasant hours and was thinking about making this a regular baby sitting gig. Shaking his head at overprotective parents, he left the study door ajar and went to see who was at the front door.
When he came back fifteen minutes later he was horrified at the carnage that met his eyes.
Elizabeth lay gutted and unanimated, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.
Sara sat nearby assembling a stack of hacked out organs into some sort of grisly jigsaw puzzle.
Randy gripped the doorframe to keep from sliding to the floor. This was his fault. How could he have left her alone?
He'd been warned. They told him that she needed constant supervision. She just looked so angelic; he would have never imagined that she could be capable of …
"My god Sara, what have you done?"
She looked up at him with innocent blue eyes "It's ok Randy; I'm going to be a doctor like Daddy. I want to make a collage."
Randy tried to calculate what the time spent at the front door flirting with the cheerleaders selling chocolate had cost him
When he had come in tonight Dr. Stevens had proudly shown him his first edition copy of Gray's Anatomy.
Sara taking the batteries out of her doll and putting them into power shears and cutting the book up into pretty fodder for an art project had never occurred to him.
Sighing, he sat on the floor with Sara and handed her a glue stick and an aortic heart valve.
The least he could do was help her finish what she'd started.
After all, Randy calculated that he would be babysitting Sara and cutting the Doctor's lawn for at least the next ten years to pay for the book.
So they might as well make something pretty.
Karen Schindler writes even when she's not writing. A passionate lover of life; she lives with gleeful abandon & pulls others into her wake. Karen has been or is about to be published in Eclectic Flash, Voxpoetica, WeirdYear and both online and in the print anthology of the 52 Stitches 2010 line up. You can see more of her work at Miscellaneous Yammering (http://miscellaneousyammering.blogspot.com/).
Night Feeds
Amy J. Taylor
The shrill sound pierced the night air, dragging him, reluctantly, from the kind of thick, black sleep, one could only enjoy after working a double shift. Aidan lingered a moment in twilight, before layered veils of unconsciousness fell away and he awoke to find his wife’s arm still draped limply across his chest. Sarah’s breath was deep and even beside him, her body heavy and still, and he wondered, as she slept peacefully on, if perhaps he had dreamed the noise. When seconds passed without the high-pitched assault further taxing his tired brain, he willingly accepted this analysis.
Turning his head, Aidan breathed Sarah’s warm scent deep into his lungs, and was immediately soothed by it, welcoming the return of rest. His eyes closed contentedly…and bounced open again when the pitiful howls recommenced…this time, persisting. He sighed, the most animated and exasperated sigh he could muster, but despite her close proximity to him, Sarah didn’t flinch. It was no use…she hadn’t heard it. The baby was crying, and once again, she had slept right through it.
He rolled from under Sarah’s arm and the blanket of quiet and warmth offered by their bed, trying hard not to be angry. It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked about the baby before she arrived…well, mostly Sarah had talked about the baby. It had been Sarah who really wanted one, but still, they had agreed beforehand that all responsibilities would be shared. They had tried to be sensible about it; planned the baby’s arrival, timed it, been sure they were both ready. But now that Bella was here, there was no getting away from it, Sarah just wasn’t pulling her weight. Apparently, Aidan’s wife wasn’t nearly as maternal as she’d thought!
He scowled resentfully as the tiled kitchen floor chilled his bare feet, but the sound of helpless, hungry cries emanating from the smallest bedroom forced him to the fridge to retrieve the milk. He was cold, he realised. He’d been reluctant to leave the warmth of his bed. Perhaps the baby was cold too? On his way to the bedroom, he took a warm blanket from the shelf above the hot water tank in the airing cupboard.
Bella’s big green eyes met his as he pushed open the bedroom door, her howls immediately ceasing at the sight of him, and the sight of her melting his heart.
“Were you lonely?” he whispered, bending over and reaching to stroke the baby’s head as she trilled and cooed contentedly in her bed. “Were you cold?” Putting his fingers to the baby’s neck, just under her chin, he tested her temperature. She felt warm, but another blanket couldn’t hurt. Reaching into her bed, he retrieved the ticking clock Bella liked to sleep with and made sure it was still wrapped and padded, before tucking the extra blanket up around her shoulders. Finally, he poured a little milk into the bowl beside her bed.
Bella stretched her neck out from under her new, warm blanket and lapped at the creamy liquid. Aidan smiled ruefully and massaged the tiny kitten with the flat of his thumb, just behind her left ear.
“There’s no way Sarah and I are ever having kids,” he told her, as Bella pushed her soft head against his hand. “If you’re anything to judge by, I’d be on permanent night-feeding duty!”
Amy Taylor is a life-long poet and recent flash fiction writer. Born in 1984, in Leeds, UK, she is a medieval historian and promoter of heritage, culture and education by trade. You can find Amy blogging at Ad Astra - To the Stars (http://adastra-poetry.blogspot.com/).
Waiting by the Window
Laurita Miller
I know what they say about my house. I can tell by the quickened pace and the faces that look up at the darkened windows. The house was beautiful once, full of life and laughter. The years have been unkind to us both. Rooms once full of friends are now empty. For years I wandered through them, remembering dinner parties and romantic evenings by the fire. Now I spend my days in the upstairs room, looking out upon the world. I light the lamp and sit at the window on cold October evenings. Evenings like this one. Especially this one.
The boys show up every year on the evening before Halloween, just at dusk. They are brothers, of that I am sure. They emerge from the trees across the road with shuffling feet and eyes wide with mischief, and fear. A haunted house is such temptation. The older boy prods the younger, tries to goad him into approaching the house first. The small one takes a few brave steps toward the road, stops, runs back. There is a scuffle and then they go together. It’s always the same.
I’ve watched them every year. I watched last year when they made it all the way to the steps of the house, and the year before when they made it only to the gate. I was watching that first year when they stopped halfway across the road. I was watching when the truck came around the turn much too fast to stop.
I light my lamp, pull back the curtains and wait. They will appear again. This year I hope they make it to the front door. I will go downstairs for the first time in so very long and I will welcome them inside.
It’s so lonely here. This house is too large for only one ghost.
Laurita Miller is stranded on a rocky island in the North Atlantic. She enjoys writing and walking through revolving doors. Laurita blogs at Brain Droppings (http://ringkeeper.blogspot.com/).
The Seagull Poet of Butter Bay
Alex Carrick
In a vision, he’d once seen another seagull in a top hat dancing at the Trocadero. It was the most elegant thing ever. The imagery entranced him and gave him means to express his own special voice. There was no doubt. He was a poet at heart.
That’s what his girlfriend, Sandy Barr, told him. Never mind, he knew the truth anyway. He functioned with his head in the clouds. There was something about it that felt so right. He knew it was his true calling.
He was a vagabond, a troubadour, a traveling jester, riding the winds and sometimes performing for his meals. But he had higher aspirations. He wanted to put his experiences in words. His world was something that needed and cried out for sharing.
He’d breathed in autumn’s tangy smell from wood-burning stoves, felt the sharpness in the air as winter’s cold grip crept in. He’d seen the brightness bloom as spring’s healing bonnet led to summer’s torpor and absorbed the splintery hues of water in all its seasons.
He knew writing poetry was no path to riches. Few seagulls achieved much worldly success –Johnathan Livingston was a rare exception. For a while Johnnie L. enjoyed the high life, living off royalties. But then he squandered his fortune and, by the end he lived like everyone else—on scraps.
Still, he was bothered by some misconceptions about his brethren. Humans said bad things about seagulls—they were scavengers, a liquorice-hearted lie. Humans thought themselves so smart, but what did they know? Did they think all the swooping and swirling in air was for fun? No, it was sky-writing in 3-D.
The aerial scripture was satisfying in its own way, but now he wanted to find a larger audience. How to reach out to people? Damnable kids with their opposable thumbs, text messaging each other willy-nilly. It was like trying to decipher the Da Vinci code, figuring out what they were saying. Give him old-fashioned language, something he could get his beak around.
In his crepuscular world there was little encouragement for artistic expression. Cawing crows and their cousin ravens were vicious critics. What gave them the right? The last time any of them had squawked something interesting was “Nevermore” at Edgar Allan Poe’s garden party.
If he was going to take writing seriously, maybe he should start composing movie reviews. That’s where some of the best phrases and thematic stitchings were to be found. He knew the subject matter. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t circled around and dropped in on enough drive-in theatres in his day.
There were words that he had always wanted to use. He knew from experience that the beading and sparkling sea could be variously vermilion, cerulean and umbrous. The amniotic air was often languorous or limpid. His middle name was loquacious.
Ah poetry, the muted music of the soul—unless one went on a speaking tour. What wouldn’t he give to project his words before a receptive audience in a plummy English actor’s voice?
But all these plans and speculations were tiring him out. He’d just stand one-legged on this rock for a while and let the day’s last embrace slip away. In the twilight, he’d go for a final swim.
If the setting sun angled just right, he’d ride along on a seeming sea of butter. A few popcorn clouds would float above, ready for dipping. He’d wait for the first stars to sprinkle down from heaven’s salt shaker, before heading inland to some farmer’s field.
Wheat-quilted dreams would then bring new imaginings. It was a mighty fine life.
Alex Carrick is a long-time economist who writes short funny stories on the side. Alex is married with three children and resides in Toronto. You can read more from Alex at Alex Carrick’s Blog (http://www.alexcarrick.com/).
Loss Aversion
Lindsay Oberst
Some kind of exercise, any kind of exercise. Yes, that would be nice: To wake in the morning a lotus flower blooming, not a cloud with some damp darkness sewn into its underbelly. When we talk it’s all fussy and flimsy.
How’s the weather?
Why didn’t the kitty come today?
The on-top/on-bottom togetherness is slippery. In daytime moments of pure happiness when hedonism sets the stage for our bright connection, everything is an unproductive day with lavish food, sparked giggles, and organic dry red wine. My mind wanders. Becomes muddled like the mint in a well-made mojito (the one we had on that day we spent all day drinking was not fresh, as I recall).
Lately, I stare at the computer for hours, waiting for answers as rain. In the mornings, the sky is a modern apple pale. The lady out front is yanking her weeds. Inside under the flutter of sage green sheets, I whisper:
If we were porn stars, we could do this all day. If...
You shut out my words as you pull your head toward mine – a child creating a fort, a pretty lens that could lie, a curator of faces capable of distracting a warrior from the fray.
Lindsay Oberst is a writer, designer, dreamer and creative explorer. She believes in optimism, positive psychology and mystical things. See more of her writing soon at http://wordzeal.com.
Echolalia
Christian Bell
“What did you dream about?”
“What did you dream about? A mathematician pondering the Devil’s staircase...”
[Here there is shuffling in seats, the flatulent sounds of limbs sliding in leather chairs. Voyeuristic eyes would see a therapist and patient. Shelves of books, mild soft lighting, an antique feel to the raw umber floor coverings infused with Aztec designs.]
“The Devil’s staircase?”
“The Devil’s staircase? A mathematical function that is continuous but not absolutely continuous. It’s also called the Cantor function. If you looked at a graph you’d understand. It looks like a staircase hence—“
[Zooming in on the patient, the casual observer might think, here’s someone who has mathematical aptitude, who would spend his livelihood working numbers at a university. Short-sleeve pale blue shirt with thin graph lines, black-rimmed glasses too large for his face. The therapist would fit into a college psychology department—straight black hair with streaks of white, gray blazer and slacks and white blouse. No glasses (but contacts). Wrinkles of age at the corners of her eyes, lips.]
“All right I get it. Now, the dream…”
“All right I get it. Now, the dream… does my condition bother you? You appear somewhat flustered. Those lines on your face. The redness that’s showing on your cheeks. Your eyes are what could be described as, beady. Pinpoint stars from another galaxy—those suns so far away that can’t be dark suns any longer, they’re just like a light bulb shining through the gossamer curtains of someone’s living room window, the—“
[The therapist has been diagnosed correctly here as slightly flustered—a condition she takes great pains to avoid. It’s the headache pounding since daybreak. It’s the cancelled appointments, the bounced checks. In her mind the word “flagellation” keeps playing over and over. She doesn’t know why. Her mind keeps playing it, dissecting the word into the sound “fladge” and the double l’s after.]
“Please, it’s the explanation, really, that’s the problem here. It’s the dream I want to hear about. As your therapist, I’m fully aware of your condition. Your echolalia, as it’s been diagnosed, branded, stamped on your forehead, penciled onto your passport, all that good stuff.”
[Her hand over his mouth, she muffles the echolalist’s repeating of these words, not allowing this tic to be expressed in decipherable language, so it comes out of his mouth, into her hand, garbled, suppressed, a vomit of nonsense sound. The therapist is somewhat taken aback at herself, as she doesn’t usually make contact with her patients unless it’s a bland handshake. The patient is undeterred, still talking as if the hand weren’t there.]
“Now on to the dream. I promise not to stop you.”
“Now on to the dream. I promise not to stop you. Oh, yes, right. A mathematician pondering the Devil’s staircase. Who is then dreaming about another mathematician, a woman, who is in a city-sized grocery store perusing cheeses and popcorn and a produce section that’s like an art gallery. So she’s loading up her cart, gouda on top of manchego on top of Orville Redenbacher on top of watermelon-sized papaya, and it’s a dream so things just appear and disappear and she looks at her list and it’s a Cesàro summation.”
[The therapist puts a hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes like a visor, lets out a sigh. Fighting the urge to ask the question. The patient is silent, waiting on her, as he can see that she is fighting her verbal cue. Fladge, uh, lay, shun. Double l, not single l. She swallows, removes her hand, turns her mouth into a smile.]
“Please continue.”
“Please continue. You’re probably wondering about a Cesàro summation.”
[She nods, shrugs her shoulders.]
“It’s a way in math to assign a sum to an infinite series. If you have paper, I can illustrate for you.”
[Fladge, uh, lay—]
“That won’t be necessary.”
“That won’t be necessary. So she has this list that has this mathematical expression and the next thing you know she’s dreaming about a game show. She’s a contestant and the host is wearing a thrift shop sport coat and motor oil hair and the questions involve the Devil’s staircase and she’s flummoxed, she doesn’t know the answer and feels bad because here she is, a mathematician, and she doesn’t know this standard if advanced mathematical idea and there’s money to be won and a trip to Iceland and people are watching. That’s the end of the dream. It’s recurring, like three or four times a week.”
[That ends the session. When the echolalist visits, the therapist is more likely to listen than to give advice or diagnosis, so that she’s not subject to having it regurgitated to her. Often, she’ll type it on her computer, read it aloud twice, print and mail it to his home.]
“Let’s meet next in three weeks. Remember to check on your medication.”
“Let’s meet next in three weeks. Remember to check on your medication.”
[Driving home, her mind drifts. Flagellation. Fladge. Uh. Double l. She should call her husband, say, I’m on my way, in case she suddenly isn’t, ask about dinner, connect to a known mind, her husband’s sensible flat-line thoughts. The radio station goes from classical to a test of the Emergency Broadcasting System. The droning signal stops. She expects that monotone male voice to come on, as it always has, but there’s a pause, filled with blank seconds, the dread that there has been an actual emergency. She fills it not with nuclear fire or the skies splitting open but rather the Devil’s staircase, Cesàro summation, fladge-uh-lay-double l. The voice speaks. This has been a test… She exhales.]