Blog Posts - Friday Flash Fiction

A Missed Opportunity, by Marjan Sierhuis

8/2/2019

Wearing a pantsuit with black ankle boots, she exits her apartment and takes the southbound subway line.

Clutching a summons in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, Violet tries to ignore the butterflies in her stomach as she enters the courthouse.

As directed by information, she walks along the halls to her assigned courtroom. She waits outside until instructed to enter.
.
By early afternoon, the jury selection process is finished and so is Violet.

She has learned that a surname with letters late in the alphabet has its disadvantages.

Perhaps there will be a next time.

Another Go At Living In Peace, by Rathin Bhattacharjee

8/2/2019

I stare down at their faces. They've become inseparable. When that was my dream, they didn't.

So much has changed since the funeral.

“The hag will ruin our lives, poking her dirty nose in others’ affairs,” Mili, my wife, fired out venom.

“The bitch, always misleading Anu, against you!” fumed my sister.

I stood transfixed like in a tug of war.

The end of the terminal disease ended the years of rivalry, miseries.

The pangs, regrets of the loss on their faces, tell a sad tale. So palpable is the desire for another go at life, living companionably in peace.

The Box, by Marjan Sierhuis

8/2/2019

Several months after her death, Edward visited her side of the closet. There it was. The cardboard box sat on the top shelf just as his wife promised.

He mourned her loss as he recalled her final words. “Look inside, after I die.”

His arthritic limbs protested as he climbed the two-step ladder, grabbed the box and balanced it between his arms. After he descended, he placed it on a bedside table, lifted the lid and reached inside.

His eyes stung with unshed tears as he opened the envelope and read the words. “My dearest, I shall miss you.”

Dewdrop On A Rose, by Archana Nagarajan

8/2/2019

Summoning courage to express his love, Mist descended upon the garden mere moments before daybreak. There she was, Rose, in her quiet corner, a flower among flowers. Stealing up on her, Mist gave her a quick kiss. Rose blushed red. Then she kissed him back warmly. Mist sighed and condensed, content to be, forever, a dewdrop upon her satin folds. But dawn broke and the morning sun rose hotly over the mountains. Mist evaporated. Rose cried herself red. Silly girl, she didn’t know that Mist wasn’t gone. He had simply changed form. To return another night.

Disaster Shield, by F. DeStefano

8/2/2019

Lacerated spindles of combined words converge to breathe ocean. Buried in earthquakes, a facetious seizure of sound makes a sonic boom beneath the waves to prompt the marker-man to hail Samuel Clemens. If all crashes mean disaster perhaps the stillness in calm waters fashions utopia. Sirens call from the sea.

Tied to post the captain orders all other men to plug their ears. A warm climate yields winter tidings. Vast expanse, the chance, to sea; the candle held by Her stature to welcome the poor and prideful, hopeful and cunning, dreamers and deviants. Friends and enemies to speak as one.

The Unlucky Winners, by Nicky Johnson

8/2/2019

Each morning, Jim walked to the corner mart for a coffee and lottery ticket. He always passed Pete and gave the same reply to the jangling of coins, “Half when I win.” Pete invariably responded with a tip of his soiled, red hat.

When it actually happened, Jim searched everywhere for Pete. After months, his wife finally convinced him to spend the other half, and home renovations began.
The following spring, working in the garden, Jim unearthed a familiar red. While lost in astonishment and horror, the faint smell of her perfume permeated among the roses before...darkness.

No Data, by Bruce Levine

8/2/2019

It made no sense. He looked over every page, but it made no sense. He was trying to figure out some semblance of a rationale, but there didn’t seem to be one. One day then three days then two months then five hours – no sense. No data that could be turned into a trend – it seemed hopeless and useless. Maybe it’s best to simply ignore and go about his life. Sure, he thought, but easy if one doesn’t have a need to know. That’s another of his problems – he always had to “know”. Oh, well – time to read a book.

The Altercation, by Fliss Zakaszewska

8/2/2019

Admittedly, the beep-beep from her game was irritating, but she was a sweet little thing, otherwise keeping to herself on the commuter train. At Billericay the hordes departed but a big, burley fellow got on and sat opposite. He kept glaring at her, to no avail. “Ha-ha. Did you get that for Christmas?”

She looked up and smiled. “No.” Head went back down.

“You stuck-up bitch.” He started to stand, fists up.

We didn’t see it coming. BANG.

He crumpled like a rag-doll. Crunching her knuckles, she smiled sweetly. “You only had to ask politely. Now you’ve got a nose-bleed.”

Do Not Touch a Dragon's Treasure, by Benjamin Springer

8/2/2019

A tear falls as the child tells his principal about his abusive parents. The next parent-teacher meeting is interrupted by a fire; tragically, the parents don't make it out. "Shame," the principal sighs as he wipes the soot off his nose.

You Need to..., by Pamela Kennedy

8/2/2019

He was disappointed by the restaurant chosen as well as his lunch. Vegetarian?!

At 350 pounds, Morris needed to lose weight. Ralph, his lanky
friend, was on a mission to support that cause.

"Why did you pick that restaurant? I wanted a steak with potatoes and gravy. A spinach salad isn't satisfying."

Ralph curtly responded, "You need to lose weight."

"Why did you park the car so far away?"

"You need to walk. You need to lose weight," Ralph quipped.

"Why are you being mean to me?"

Ralph quietly replied, "Because I am your friend."

Stubborn to the Last, by Gordon Lawrie

8/2/2019

I tried to tell him, move with the times or they'll leave you behind.

But he paid no attention. Instead he insisted on sticking to his old stone age ways, writing down his manuscripts using fountain pen and paper. I swear I saw a couple of quills on his desk one time.

And so, when agents and publishers were demanding double-spaced typewritten manuscripts, his handwritten masterpieces ended up in the 'Rejected' tray. When everyone started use word processors and email, he set his face against them, too. No website either.

Eventually he resisted the flu vaccination and that was that.

A Glimpse of How Life Could Be, by Henry Bladon

8/2/2019

There's a man on the bus who looks like me: same hair, same height, same awkward smile.

I consider giving him my address. If I did that, he could go to my house and meet my wife and eat my tea.

I would get a night off.

He could watch TV and drink from my coffee mug. Then he could stretch and yawn when she said: 'it's time for bed'.

Who knows? Perhaps he would even manage to get a word in edgeways before going to sleep.

Too late. He just got off the bus.

Bollywood Tweeting, by Sankar Chatterjee

7/2/2019

James, an American IT-engineer had a productive brainstorming-session with Manish and Anita, fellow Indian counterparts in Bangalore. Later, James embarked on a city-tour, chauffeured by millennial Bikash. Soon, the car hit a massive traffic-jam.

James: What’s going on?
Bikash: A huge prayer.
James: Which God?
Bikash: Vikram, Bollywood’s current super-hero. He tweeted to millions to pray for his latest one, releasing tonight.

Unconvinced, James came out, walked forward, and noticed two huge yellow construction-cranes in front of a billboard adorned with Vikram’s face. Dangling, a gentleman was pouring milk, while a lady praying with an oil-lamp.

They’re Manish and Anita.

Nothing Lost, by Kim Hare

7/2/2019

You drive home in shock, thinking never again. Yet what had you imagined? That you’d meet up, raise a glass to each other, that Maddy would be different, changed? Yes. You had hoped to find something you’d had years ago, during your teens and early twenties, a connection, a bond forged by shared moments, laughs, struggles. Now you see it was never true. You realize that then, as now, what Maddy wants is an audience or a counsellor, a driver, even a cook or a cleaner, but not a friend. Maddy never has and never will require a friend.

On Reflection, by Andrew C. Kidd

7/2/2019

One drip becomes two, a small stream then a pool. Standing over the water Fredrick sees himself twice: first, a wrinkled face looking down at the second, smiling, if not a little distorted by the movement of ripples.

Using both hands he splashes the water, erasing the visage. When the basin recollects he throws in pebbles. Larger stones and rocks follow until the void is dry and filled.

As time passes thin rivulets of water trickle along wet walls to form a new pool. Fredrick looks down again and sees the rippling face, now baring a malevolent grin, and teeth.

The Ghost and the Horseman, by F. DeStefano

6/2/2019

A ghost on a heather glade amid bosky bastions echoed in the silence like reflective words and whispers behind the guise of the universe reverberated with sound. She searched for her husband, in his time among the living a horseman dead from buckshot in defense against invaders from beyond the border; credited with fourteen lives and fourteen generations saved within a total of ten families, he died at the front lines within the crescendo of the last battle which quelled the invasion. Despite success, his body lay beneath the battlefield. She awaited the day his spirit forgave her marital indiscretions.

Blood Moon, by Archana Nagarajan

6/2/2019

United by the moon, he a stargazer, she a student of astrophysics, they fell in love peering through a telescope in a dimmed observatory, with him remarking how the cold red orb looked like clotted blood, her explaining how the sun’s rays reached around the earth to give the moon its color. Five years later, he watched her leave aboard a space shuttle, the first Indian woman to fly to the moon. Debris from the explosion arced across the sky like fireworks. He looked up and screamed. Why??? What the moon had given, it had taken back in cold blood.

A Rare Thing, by John Cooper

5/2/2019

The way they had put it together.

With those exotic carvings, the deep and shallow swirls and curls and the friezes on the side. It was truly fantastic.

It was also his prized possession and as such he had had it placed by the entrance so visitors would all but fall over it as they arrived. Always caused comment and he loved that – he loved that people noticed…

But today, four days after, they had come to take it away.
His wife, unsure what to do, had decided to donate it to the local museum.

“Let them have the monstrosity.”

Dawn Patrol, by Kim Favors

5/2/2019

Joan awakens to a headache. Wine, lumpy couch, cold from the opened window?

And no keys on the coffee table.

“Damn you, Tracy.”

Also missing is Joan’s big pickup.

Fenders bruised, engine smoking, it’s parked at a rural intersection nearby.

Climbing out is driver Tracy, at 9 years old a too young expert on life.

She finally has her trophies: Highway signs that once demanded ONE WAY and YIELD lay toppled, battered. Silenced.

The sun is rising, the pickup idling, and Tracy has only minutes.

With fist skyward she proclaims:

“I’m your commander now, Joan, and these crossroads are mine.“

Don't Be Silly, by Archana Nagarajan

4/2/2019

“I need this clock,” said Anna clinging to an ornate cuckoo clock.

“Don’t be silly,” said Ben, taking it from her hands and placing it in a box marked Sell. “We need every cent from the yard sale.”

“I need this house,” said Anna hating that they were selling their seaside home for a cramped flat in the middle of the city.

“Don’t be silly. We need to be near the hospital,” said Ben.

“I need these breasts,” sobbed Anna, dreading her upcoming surgery. Ben gave her a tight hug.

“Don’t be silly. You’ll still be my Anna without them.”

Sliding Down a Slippery Pole, by Mark Tulin

4/2/2019

Saturday night, Roy was in a grungy strip club in Jersey. It was the same joint that his father took him to as a boy. He remembered how uncomfortable he felt watching naked women slide down a pole, and seeing his dad’s creepy grin as he slipped a five-dollar bill down a dancer’s g-string

It took Roy a while to realize why he was sitting in a place that smelled like cheap perfume and Joe Cocker singing "You Can Leave Your Hat On." He realized that he was there on the day that his father died.

England-ki-Ranee, by Sankar Chatterjee

4/2/2019

The BBC-reporter on TV announced: “The Queen to be evacuated if Brexit turns ugly.”

From her second-floor veranda Ms. Brown looked at the Ganges River, while drowning in memories. Sixty years ago in Oxford, she fell in love with a brilliant Indian scientist, married him, and moved into holy city of Varanasi. To locals, she became “England-ki-Ranee” (British-Queen). Gaining freedom from colonialism, India just began rebuilding. She joined and remained in the effort till to date.

Since then, Varanasi witnessed all kinds of strife: religious, political, and caste-based. But she never felt any danger to leave, still remaining local’s “England-ki-Ranee”

Goodnight Computer, by Bruce Levine

4/2/2019

He struggled to navigate through the website. He’d struggled to find the website in the first place – so many links to follow from such a simple search. And now that he’d gotten there he wasn’t sure what to do next. Books were so much easier – he knew how to research in a book and going to the library seemed, to him, like he needed a degree in computer science. What happened to the card catalogue? That nice thing with all the drawers and little index cards. Too much work. Better to go to bed and try again tomorrow. Goodnight computer.

Meant No Harm, by Jeffrey Paolano

3/2/2019

“I never meant no harm.”
“Yeh, I know.”
“I wouldn’t intentionally do nobody harm, lest they done something to me first.”
“Yeh, I know.”
“What’d they take it that away for? No way, I meant that.”
“Yeh, I know.”
“No reason to do nobody ill, I got what I need, nobody owes me.”
“Yeh, I know.”
“Where’d they git the idea I was after them? Why I was just saying my piece, not trying to bruise they’s feelings.”
“Yeh, I know.”
“Hells bells they’s just touchy.”
“Yeh I know.”
“Jeez, I’m truly that sorry I hurt their feelings.”
“Isat so?”

Brittany, by Marjan Sierhuis

2/2/2019

Brittany sat in the darkened interior of her black utility vehicle. Low-lying clouds offered a blanket of darkness and tinted windows provided privacy.

The engine of Brittany’s vehicle’s was off, so there was no heat. In desperation, she buried herself deeper into her spring jacket. She licked her dry lips but refused to look at her thermos of coffee. She needed to stay alert and focused.

Several hours later her subject’s car remained parked in the driveway, and Brittany still had to go to the washroom.

It was also the last time she agreed to work surveillance on Valentine’s Day.

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