Longer Stories

Don't Mind Us, by Daniel Aceituna

15/10/2021

I have always assumed I was the only person with the telepathic ability to read people’s emotions. I decided a long time ago to use this skill for good, so I became a marriage counselor.
“Do you feel safe at home, Mrs. Smith?” I mentally probed her.
She replied “sure” while avoiding eye contact by looking around my office. I sensed fear building up in her mind.
“Why do you ask if she feels safe?” Her husband said, in a raised voice.
I probed her husband and found anger mixed with some fear.
“It’s something I ask during these sessions,” I said, as I looked at her. I didn’t see signs of abuse on her face and arms. Perhaps she was hiding some bruises elsewhere on her body.
“How about you, Mr. Smith?” I said. “Do you feel safe at home?”
He looked at her.
“Be honest, I’m only trying to help.”
“Fine,” he said, “I feel safer at home than I do here.”
I sensed his anger rising along with her increasing fear. They were definitely hiding an abusive relationship.
“So why don’t you feel safe in my office?” I said.
He stood up. “Let’s go honey before I punch this peeping Tom in the nose.”
“Excuse me?” I decided to address it head-on. “Mr. Smith, if your wife feels she’s not safe, you should face up to your anger, for her sake.”
They both looked puzzled.
“What are talking about? I’ve never hit her once in my life.”
“I never said ‘hit’, but you do seem to be an angry person, and she does seem to be scared.”
“That’s because of you.” He said.
“Huh?”
“You’re not the only person who can probe minds, and we don’t like you probing ours. You’re pissing me off and scaring my wife.”
She nodded in agreement.

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Keep On Keepin' On, by Doug Bartlett

15/10/2021

12 Comments

RRRiiinnnnnngggggggg !!!!!!!!! RRRRRRiiiinnnnnnggggggggg !!!!!!! Bill groggily woke up and turned off his alarm.

“Ah,” he thought, “ Today was Friday, his favorite day of the week. The day his story which he had so intensely labored over would be posted on FFF. “

He didn’t have time to see it now as he had a doctor’s appointment. He turned on the radio as he got dressed. The newscast stated his governor was not recalled as Bill had hoped for.

“Oh well, “ He thought, “ at least I can look forward to my story coming out. “

He was given bad news at the doctor’s office.

“ Your tests came back positive and while this probably isn’t a death sentence, your life will dramatically change.”
This news knocked him down but not out.

“ At least I can look forward to my story coming out, “ he thought.

He left the doctor’s office to get in his brand new car only to discover someone had backed into it, caving in the frontend and crunching the left front fender.

Bill started to sink into a depression and then remembered his story, his precious story.

He thought, “ At least I can look forward to my story coming out. “

Also, several of his friends had gotten accustomed to seeing his stories posted on Fridays and would be anxiously waiting.

He hurried home and was so anxious to get there he almost didn’t hear the siren or see the flashing red light.

“ What’s the problem, officer? “

“ You were doing 55 mph in a 35 mph zone. “

In Bill’s mind the officer couldn’t write the ticket fast enough.

“ At least I have my story to look forward to,” he thought, “ but if one more thing happens to me I don’t know what I might do.”

He screeches into his driveway and shoves the transmission into “ park “. He quickly exits the car and makes a beeline to the front door. He puts his key in the front door lock but it doesn’t work. He tries the other keys in his pocket and gets the same result. He then notices a small note attached to the door . It was left by his wife and stated he was no longer welcomed here.

His entire life was crashing down and shattering into what felt like a million pieces. He was contemplating on how to end it all.

He then remembered his story was coming out and by now he would have several comments to the story. He loved reading the comments as much as writing the story.

He went back to his car and pulled up FFF on his phone. He searched frantically for his story and was shocked that it was nowhere in sight. It then dawned on Bill that for the very first time his story wasn’t going to be there for it had been rejected.

Don’t feel too sorry for Bill. You see, he persevered and in a few months would win the Christmas contest that FFF puts on every year.

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Suzy Q, by Angela Carlton

15/10/2021

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I used to call you Suzy Q. You with your silky brown hair and eyes to match. We were silly teens with endless energy, those colorful dreams. Man, could we dream? Barefoot at the pool or riding around with the sunroof back and the radio at full volume. We were fearless, happy, and bold, living, with our eyes open wide. No regrets.

Then I moved away. Time passed us by, didn’t it? There were some disagreements over the years quite a few tears. We grew apart. November turned into June and June turned into December. The snow fell hard, fast and everything iced over.

But Spring always comes, doesn’t it?
I’ll roll the sunroof back and switch on the radio. There are days, when “Brown Eyed Girl,” will play, and I see you. I can see you standing beneath the Georgia Moon with the cherry balm, cut-off shorts, those braids in your hair.
I smile.

For, in that moment, we are twenty again, Suzy Q.
And we are free.

5 Comments

The Presentation, by Jim Bartlett

8/10/2021

26 Comments

His presentation complete, Montee risks a look up from the lectern, letting his gaze drift to the far side of cavernous Honor’s Room. There the commissioners, a distinguished group comprised of the world’s most acclaimed scientists and political leaders, sit quietly behind a massive stone table that stretches across the rear podium. The air hangs heavy as he waits, his legs seemingly ready to give. Finally, after a moment too long, the Chair takes a deep sigh and rises.

“It would seem that the lengthy time you’ve invested in your research, intimately intermingling with these creatures, no less”—he pauses, thumbing through the archaic stack of papers and images—“has concluded with a rather extensive, and I must say, impressive report. Correct me if I am wrong, but my readings do not provide a favorable impression of this species. They are aggressive. Territorial. Destructive. Have little or no regard for their own. And, with no natural predator, their population has outgrown their food and water resources, resulting in one herd attacking another--”

“That’s to be expected, Commissioner Zye,” interrupts a panelist two seats over. “Remember, these are simple creatures with limited adaptation skills.”

Commissioner Zye nods. ”Noted. I think my fear is that their proclivity for violence will not stay self-contained. Their nature is one of using up the resources of a region, then simply moving on. This report details some of their early attempts at migration beyond their own realm, so we must weigh the possibility that one day they might stretch their hunting grounds in our direction...”

The panelist on the far right jumps up. “Unacceptable! These creatures are horrid and vile. They pose a great threat. I move to have them eradicated immediately.”

“Hear, hear,” call out a good number of the group in unison.

“But, wait...wait...” Montee raises his hand. “Did you not listen to the Sound-maker? Feel its impact? See how this changes everything?”

“Sound-maker?”

“Yes... the little box included with my report.”

“Well, no...we thought the report brought forth enough of their nature. No need to—“

“Never mind,” Montee interrupts with a huff. “Let me show you.”

Feeling the weight of the commission’s eyes upon him, he shifts a stack of his papers, revealing a small device. A set of wires dangle from it leading down to large boxes that sit to either side of him. With a smile, he swipes the device’s glass cover and the grim hall suddenly fills with magical sounds.

There’s a collective gasp and several of the commissioners spring to their feet.

“What...what is that?”

“It’s called music.”

“And these creatures make this, uh, music?”

“Yes,” he says, swiping the glass to turn it off. “As repulsive as these creatures may be, they bring hope in their art. And music. Throughout their Earth they play it in so many different forms, yet each speaks to the heart, as if it were a universal language.”

“We’d love to hear more,” says the Chair.

“Of course. Please...listen to the music.”

26 Comments

I Never Knew, by Daniel Aceituna

8/10/2021

2 Comments

“I wish to return this Mindlink unit.”
“Why? Is it defective?”
“Yes. It has destroyed my relationship with my dog.”
“How’s that?”
“Your ad said that I can become of one mind with my little Fifi, by linking our brains together. Instead, it has done the opposite.”
“Madam, be more specific.”
The woman straightened out her mink shawl. “My Fifi used to obey me and be my faithful companion because she loved me. But after using this device, she is now solely motivated by a continuous selfish desire to get treats.”
“Madam, are you sure that Fifi was not like that all along, and the Mindlink has simply revealed that to you?”
“I’ll never believe that. Can I get a refund or not?”
The customer service rep examined the Mindlink cables and probes. Part of the cable had teeth marks on it.
“When did you buy this?”
“Last year. But I didn’t open it until a week ago.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t give you a refund.”
“That’s too bad,” the woman said. “I have plenty of friends that can easily afford your products.” She then cleared her throat.
“I see,” the rep said, glancing at her large diamond ring. “Perhaps, I can offer you an exchange.”
“I said I don’t want anything to do with Fifi anymore. She’s not the same.”
“No, I meant, for something better. I’ll be right back.” The rep went into a back room and emerged a minute later. “I’ll exchange it for this human version. It was previously returned, but still works perfectly.”
“Can I use it with my husband?”
“Of course.”
“Very well, at least I know he still loves me.”

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Margot, by David Milner

8/10/2021

5 Comments

We find Margot this late September morning in the backroom of the charity shop, sifting through a pile of buttons at a large wooden table. It’s been said that were it to rain buttons, Margot would be able to pick out the right one for her needs. Margot sewed buttons like it was the Lord’s work. Oh, it was good, rocking gently back to normal business. The sun shining softly in its sky. Soon her daughter Maxine will phone. Hearing voices slightly raised in the main part of the shop, Margot pauses a moment, should it be anything worth troubling herself with.

Peter, half-dressed in boxer shorts and t-shirt, is standing at his bedroom window, his female tabby by his side on the windowsill, both transfixed, and a little terrified, by the sheer size of the Grey Heron regally perched on the garden fence.

“He named his tabby cat Tabitha.” Margot is telling her daughter.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Mum?”

“If I’m wait for Peter to ask, I’ll be ninety before we marry!”

“Does he know?”

“What do you think?” Margot laughed heartily.

Her father used to sing a song, he’d made up himself, that Margot had come into this world during a-once-in-a-lifetime tropical storm. All BS and rum-fuelled romance, what you gonna do? for a story she had believed, happily so, through many a year.

Margot hears heavy footfalls approaching and, looking up from the table, she sees the tall figure of Alison beckoning her from the doorway…

“Oh, Margot, Margot,” Alison flutters, “you must come and see this…”

The sixty something, short-haired lady at the counter is delicately tapping the screen of her phone. The previous week she had purchased a 1000-piece jigsaw of His Holiness Pope Francis. Unfortunately, several pieces were missing.

On the screen of the Nokia was a photograph of the jigsaw depicting Pope Francis in his white cassock and zucchetto. He is amongst his people; relaxed, arm raised, a lovely smile on his face, and a gaping hole of missing jigsaw pieces where his crotch should have been.

A joyous – some would say innocent – laughter filled the sun-lit charity shop.

During the summer his neighbours had fitted a pond in their garden. This explains the scary Heron on the shared fence. Peter is seated on a park bench. He watches Margot approaching.

In her shabbily chic dark velvet hat, faded denim jacket, and the purple pleated culottes tucked into her weather-beaten cowboy boots, all Margot needed was an ammunition belt and an old carbine… Arriba la Revolución!

“She’ll do” Peter mused. When he should have been thinking, “Here’s my girl.”

5 Comments

The Great Indoors, by Mandy Meikle

8/10/2021

4 Comments

Microbes are not smart. Microbes do not plot and plan, wheel and deal, they simply do what they must to survive. Through centuries of what was called 'progress', some humans did their best to control nature but they could not dominate the microbial domain. Microbes were everywhere; they were myriad. Eventually, these humans became hermetically sealed in their sterile apartments, connected to various places by vacuum tube, and eventually they forgot about death and disease. These digital humans existed logged into their world of carefully balanced work, rest and play, with drones delivering their needs and wants so long as they could pay for it. Drugs in the scrubbed air and the filtered water meant that people felt great. Monitored 24/7 but safe from nature—safe and content in the great indoors.

Life outside sounded like hell to digital humans—all that back-breaking work to provide just the basics and all that uncertainty. Digital humans had no clue where anything came from, not the food they ate, the clothes they wore nor the ideas they held as their own. Meanwhile, over the decades, life on the outside improved. Slowly. Sustainably. Free from the delusion of perpetual growth-based economics.

Although few of them realised it, the digital humans were still totally reliant on nature: the corn and bean basis of their false-food diet, the reusable bio-plastic trays of their heat-and-eat 'food', the vibrant fabrics of their clothes. An engineer might occasionally fix a self-driving tractor but he had no idea what it was doing driving up and down in the dirt, putting things into or taking things out of the ground. All production was automated now—even reproduction.

As resource limits were inevitably reached, the digital cities faltered and chaos ensued within, while to the outside world they remained what they had always been: impenetrable fortresses—monolith on the outside and monoculture within. The digital humans had to remain inside, despite services failing, because they could never go outside again. Their immune systems, along with everything else, had been provided for them.

The neo-indigenous populations—the germ-laden 'outsiders'—had not tried to dominate nature, they had worked with it. They understood the concept of 'enough', the difference between wants and needs. The hubris of civilisation had run its course. Death was just the other end of life once more. Death was not bad, it just was.

It was bound to happen one day, the only question was who would be around to see it. When the sun emitted the most massive coronal mass ejection in its history—one which would have decimated all electrical devices and destroyed the digital cities anyway—humanity carried on unchanged. If the distant lights of the cities had not gone out long ago, they would have gone out on this night. This night of the most spectacular auroras, seen from pole to equator, as a tsunami of charged particles washed over a small blue planet.

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My Attempt to Marry America, by Greg Vander-Haeghen

8/10/2021

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Living at Venice Beach and barely scraping by, all I could think about was my aging parents, their reverse mortgage, my uncertain future, and my clever scheme to marry America.
During our morning brunch, I vividly remember how Jennifer Benson, my attorney cried out, “Patriotic, yes. Broke, yes. Go ahead—give it a try!”

In the Santa Monica courthouse, she stood beside me as I asked the Court for the right to marry America, citing my unrelenting love for everything from sea to shining sea.

The Judge said, “All marriage proposals considered must include a prenup.” It took Benson and fifteen of her attorneys (working daily on contingency) six drafts and three years to complete the damn thing—the exact same number it took to get the United States Constitution right, I gather.

During the contentious six-month legal arm-wrestling match, the judge had a coronary event and died suddenly in the courtroom. His successor was ready to go on vacation and approved the prenup in less than three hours.

We wed beneath the Liberty Bell and honeymooned on one of her protectorates where she wore her red, white and blue bikini every day.

3 Comments

Driving School, by Candace Arthuria Williams

1/10/2021

16 Comments

“Gimme the keys, Dad.”

‘No, you don’t have your license yet.’

Jimmy staggered and swerved the half block to the parking lot. He unlocked the doors, then collapsed onto the faux velvet seat in the back on the driver’s side. Selena sighed and took the wheel. Nervously, she shifted from park to drive and transferred her size 5 to the accelerator.

“I think I should call Mom.”

‘No! I’ll never hear the end of it.’ At least he was still coherent.

“But I’m not that good a driver, Dad.”

‘Just take it slow and you’ll be fine.’

It was dark and scary, but there weren’t many cars on the road. The ones that were whizzed by on a frenzied mission to go nowhere sooner. Selena was a wreck. Then suddenly, a thud.

“What was that, Dad? I think I hit something.”

‘No you didn’t. It was just a road bump.’

“But Dad….”

‘I said, no you didn’t. Now hurry up and drive. It’s getting late.’

About a block from the house, he ordered his daughter to slide onto the passenger seat. Jimmy got out of the back and took the wheel. Selena cried the rest of the way.

“Dad, we need to go back and check. I know I hit something.”

‘No you didn’t! Now put your arm around my waist and don’t say anything to upset your mother. You know how she gets whenever I take you out for a drive.'

16 Comments

Don't Mind Me, by Daniel Aceituna

1/10/2021

3 Comments

As a multilingual psychic interpreter for the US government, my job is to quietly sit in on meetings involving a foreign diplomat, read his or her mind, and assess their true reactions to what is being discussed.
On a cold day in December, while attending a meeting between the US ambassador and his Russian counterpart, I noticed another person sitting in the room. Her long blond hair and green eyes combined with her stealth figure instantly caught my interest. I couldn’t help but think about having dinner with her and then some.
“Keep your dirty thoughts to yourself,” a voice in my head said in Russian.
Startled, I looked around and resumed looking at her. She was now frowning.
“Did you think that?” I thought.
She tighten her jaw and avoided eye contact.
Her reaction aroused me, so I couldn't help but think about her further.
She crossed her arms and legs and glanced in my direction. “Now you’ve gone too far. Knock it off.”
“That was you.” I thought, sitting up in my chair. “I guess we Americans are not the only ones eavesdropping on people’s thoughts.”
“Of course not, who do you think started the whole psychic abilities research? We were doing this back in the seventies when you were going in your diapers.”
“Hey, let’s not be offensive.”
“You are the one being offensive, with your dirty thoughts. What kind of a woman do you think I am?”
“I don’t know. But I can find out during dinner.”
“Ha! As if I would go to dinner with a stupid, childish, sex-crazed capitalist.”
“Admit it, you would love to get together with me.”
I could sense the anger growing in her mind.
The two diplomats stood up and shook hands.
In the debriefing room, the US ambassador asked me, “So what was his reaction to our arms proposal?”
I froze, realizing that I had missed out on most of the meeting.
“Ah,” I tried to think fast.“Actually, it was hard to assess his thoughts.”
“What do you mean?”
“His mind kept going to that woman in the room,” I said, feeling smart for coming up with that one, “I think he is sexually involved with her.”
The ambassador frowned, “Well, I’m not surprised. That’s his wife."

3 Comments

At the BMV, by Don Tassone

1/10/2021

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“Next,” said a middle-aged man sitting behind the counter at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

His voice was robotic. He didn’t look up. He was staring at a computer screen. His eyes looked dead.

I understood. The BMV was probably my least favorite place in the world. I never imagined renewing my driver’s license would be the highlight of my day.

I wondered if I could still pass the vision test. I wondered if this would be my last driver’s license.

The line inched forward. The linoleum floor was wet from people tracking in snow. As I stepped forward, I slipped and fell down hard, landing on my back. My head hit the floor, and I nearly passed out.

Those near me in line backed away. Maybe they were afraid of losing their places by helping me. Then, looking up, I saw the man who had been sitting behind the counter. He was now kneeling beside me.

“Are you okay, sir?” he said.

I moaned. I couldn’t speak.

“Someone call 911,” the man shouted.

He took off his sweater and balled it up. Then he gently lifted my head and slipped his sweater under it. It felt like a pillow.

I looked into his face. I saw concern in his eyes. It was the closest I had been to anyone, face to face, in years. I’d nearly forgotten what it was like to look into someone’s eyes.

“I’ll stay right here until help arrives,” he said, patting my shoulder.

I noticed movement. People in line were moving forward around me. As they passed, they looked down at me with curious eyes.

When the EMTs got there, they checked me out, then lifted me onto a stretcher. The man from behind the counter helped them lift me. Then he picked up his sweater, stretched it out and carefully laid it on top of the blanket over me.

“Be well, sir,” he said as they rolled me out.

On the way to the hospital, I wondered if the man had gone back to work. I wondered if his eyes had changed. I wondered if mine had changed.

13 Comments

Routine Question, by John M. Carlson

1/10/2021

2 Comments

“The easiest thing is to leave the body where the murder takes place,” Greg said. He gave Jeff a hard stare. Suddenly, he wondered how many other times they’d discussed where to leave a dead body. It was, after all, a routine question that always came up when they were writing one of their mystery novels.

“I know.” Jeff sighed. “But Greg? I’d like something more creative.”

Greg wasn’t surprised that Jeff wanted “something more creative.” They’d been friends since college. More than thirty years now. Jeff had always been imaginative. Too imaginative sometimes. Greg, on the other hand, was more practical. Their differences had made the mystery novels they wrote stronger than they’d have been otherwise. But...there was no denying that their differences often made the process of writing those novels difficult.

“We’ve come up with so many interesting places to put bodies in our books,” Jeff said. “Like the time we had them find the body sitting on the lap of an inflatable Santa Claus.”

“You know,” Greg said slowly, “I’ve always wanted to use some of the ‘classic’ spots. How about using a home library?”

“I always liked books that had the body in the library.” Jeff said. Then, he sighed. “But who the hell has a library anymore? It would be more realistic to have the body in a TV room. Or I guess they’re called home theaters now. A library isn’t practical.”

“What? You’re being practical for a change? You’ve gone out of your way to use some obscure poison in a book. Leaving me with the problem of figuring out some way of making that obscure poison seem believable!”

“Enjoy this moment!” Jeff laughed. “It may never happen again!”

Jeff’s cell phone rang. He answered, talked a minute, and then hung up. “That was our agent’s office. Our publishing contract won’t be renewed. Thanks to Eric.”

It was quiet a moment. They thought about Eric, who was an editor at their publisher. He had been the most difficult editor they’d ever dealt with.

“Well, we knew this was probably coming,” Greg said. “Short of a miracle.”

“Yes. But you hope for the miracle. Oh, well. Back to our plans. Eric thinks our books are unrealistic? Well, little does he know, but we’ve spent the afternoon planning to murder him in real life—and the murder will be just like one in a mystery novel!”

2 Comments

The Loop in the River, by Isabel Evans

1/10/2021

3 Comments

It is an unpromising suggestion; to leave the path and cross the rubbish strewn rough grass to the wreck of the old building – rusty wire fencing, old tissues, old beer cans, old bottles, old condoms.

I pick my way slowly, trailing his enthusiasm.

“Look!” he says “Look!!” and points through the wire at the ground. “Look!” His green wool hat is nearly coming off in the excitement and the bitter cold.

There on the floor he’s pointing to…

No, they’re not turds. They are owl pellets: huge, black, shiny, curvaceous, full of the tiny bones of rodents.

“The barn owls roost in here!”
And suddenly I’m angry.

We’ve seen gulls, and sparrows, of course. Swans, mallard, geese. Chaffinches, redpoll, fieldfare, redwing, oystercatchers, mergansers, golden eye. A kestrel hanging in the air, hunting. We’ve seen island snowdrops, and springing buds. Walkers.

A small paradise of rough ground, water, and the widest sky my heart can hold. A wide sky so close to the town, a precious link to the wild. And now – the evidence of barn owls.

There’s a plan to build a road, a new bridge over the river. Across all this.

Where will the barn owls roost? Where will the kestrel hunt? Where will we walk, under a huge sky?

3 Comments

Work Will Set You Free, by Sankar Chatterjee

1/10/2021

7 Comments

After earning his PhD degree in chemical sciences from Yale, American John Ford, before starting his carrier in therapeutic drug research in a prestigious pharmaceutical company, decided to make a trip through various nations in Europe. His journey brought him to Krakow, Poland. Krakow serves as the launching pad for visiting nearby Auschwitz where the remnants of notorious Nazi death camps from the Second World War exist. These camps were utilized by the Nazis to annihilate Jews, Poles, Russians, Gypsies, homosexuals, and whoever was identified as the “Enemy of the State”. One morning John took a trip to the area, bought an entrance ticket, and joined a group tour, led by a guide. The group entered into first campsite (known as Auschwitz I) through the original security iron gate bearing the iconic German sign “Arbeit Marcht Frei” (“Work Will Set You Free”, in English), a macabre deception of the site’s activity. John’s group arrived in a courtyard with rows of buildings on both sides of the road. Initially, some of the buildings were utilized as military offices and some held prisoners. Later some were converted into first generation gas chambers.

The guide led the group into one such restored gas chamber. She explained that the prisoners would be forced to stand packed, like sardines in a can, inside the closed room and the pellets of a chemical, known as Zyklon B, would be dropped through an opening in the roof, followed by its quick closure. Upon interacting with atmospheric moisture inside the chamber, the pellets would release poisonous hydrogen cyanide gas initially to incapacitate the prisoners, followed by their silent deaths, en masse. Subsequent research revealed that the death occurred in an adult (weighing approximately 68kg) within two minutes of inhaling only 70mg of hydrogen cyanide gas. The tour guide mentioned the names of the chemical companies that were involved in the production of the pellets as well as the names of some famous German scientists from that era, involved in its discovery and utility. As the group began to exit the room, John noticed a closed jar on a desktop at the corner of the room. It was full of unused pellets, discovered at the site after its liberation by the Allied Forces.

Coming outside the chamber, John sat on a roadside bench. He took out his smart phone to do some online exploration. To his surprise, he learned that the main ingredient hydrogen cyanide was carefully utilized as a pesticide in California inside his own country as far back as in 1880s. What an irony, he thought. Subsequently, German scientists found a way to utilize that knowledge to develop a pesticide, easy to handle, that on further modification gave rise to the death agent of Auschwitz.

John remained seated motionless. He began to ponder whether his own contributions to the field of chemical sciences could someday be diverted to annihilate human lives instead of saving them from diseases.

7 Comments

Cul de Sac, by Michael Roberts

24/9/2021

5 Comments

She wanted a clean break, she had told me in an email.
No histrionics, no asshole lawyers getting fat off the corpse of our marriage.
Just….done.
Her way of explaining why she waited until I went to work one morning, then buying a dozen or so storage bins and throwing 20 years worth of her personal shit into them and then the bins in her boyfriend’s car.
Scott.
He was her physiotherapist from a couple years back, when she’d blown out her knee at work.
Maybe I should have been more upset, but it was a relief, really.
She’d taken the settlement from her job; the knee had been a result of improper safety practices and they were happy to buy her off, rather than having the entire thing dragged through some court.
So, with her taking the settlement money and me keeping the house and the cottage and one of the cars, we had come out almost dead even.

So here I was.
Newly single.

Last year my mother had willed me the house I had grown up in, then revealed that she had end stage cancer.
So, now I had her house as well.
This one I was going to keep.
The one in town had been bought for about a quarter of what I could get for it now.
Same with the cottage.
If I sold them I could retire early and write, most likely in my old bedroom slash office.
I would miss the cottage though, even though it was full of ghosts of happier times; that glorious first decade of our marriage, before it descended into what it would end as.

“You want help?”
I looked up to see Megan, my old neighbour.
“Help doing?”
“Cleaning up the house?”
“My cousins beat you to it.”
I had gone through the house with post-it notes for the stuff I wanted, then let Bethany and Nico have at the rest.
“So you’re moving in?”she said.
“Yup,” I said, “You’re selling your Dad’s house?”
She nodded.
“No reason to stay. We live an hour away now,why keep this?”
“Memories?”
“A few. Not enough to keep me here.Just those about you.”
“ Forty years ago,” I reminded her.
“Well, that was a great summer…At least I liked it,” she said.
“So did I, obviously.”
“You know what we never did?”
“What?”
“Do it in my Mom’s bed.”
“No we never did.”
“You want to?”
“Megan,” I said, “ I haven’t seen you in years and suddenly you want to fuck?”
“One last time.”

It was OK, if a bit awkward.
Neither of us was fifteen anymore, but everything fit the way it used to and she even came once.

We exchanged phone numbers and even texted for a while.
Then she stopped, presumably before her husband found out.

A couple times while working in my office I’m sure I see her red minivan drive down the street, then drive on past.
Eventually I hope she stops.

5 Comments

Invasion Music, by Harman Burgess

24/9/2021

3 Comments

At 1300, Sgt. Salt reported an anomaly on his radar to his commander. An electromagnetic, spectroscopiatric wavelength was echoing through the galaxy; bouncing off moons, pirouetting with asteroids, floating across nebulas. The commander told him to keep an ‘eye’ on it and went outside for a smoke.

At 1308, when the commander returned, he found all the radiomen in the top-secret base tuned into Sgt. Salt’s frequency. ‘What’s this?’ asked the commander. Someone handed him a set of headphones. ‘Oh my God,’ he said when he heard the music.

At 1330, an Australian DJ (who was also an amateur astronomer) picked up the frequency and played the ‘space music’ to his audience. He was responsible for eighteen car crashes and three deaths when listeners became too focused on the music to drive.

At 1400, the media got a hold of it and ran stories warning people not to listen to it. Of course, everyone immediately tuned in, and the death count was unknown.

At 1428, the United Nations issued a warning, telling people absolutely not to listen to the music. Not to even think about it. Which made people want to do it even more.

At 1500, the wavelength passed by Earth and out into the rest of the galaxy.

At 1902, Sgt. Salt called his commander over to inform him several unidentified flying objects had been discovered on the edge of the Milky Way, and they were getting closer…

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The Adaptation, by Mandy Meikle

24/9/2021

4 Comments

The year is 2047. The chants and shouts from the crowd died down as the Prime Minister’s stony face appeared across the city centre on the strategically-placed Tru-Vu screens, each one gathering data on those below and beaming out party propaganda in return. Born in 2000, Prime Minister John Jeffries and his cohort had vastly different views on society than did previous generations. Gone were the days of the welfare state—John Jeffries senior had seen to that.

“People, your attention!” Silence followed the voice like a well-trained dog. “You will have witnessed the awful, unforgivable scenes taking place across this great city.” Unknown to the crowd, similar scenes had taken place across the British Federation but news reports rarely told of life in faraway places, like Sheffield or Leeds.

“It is now 15 years since The Adaptation began—these shortages and cut-backs are nothing new. We must adjust to our new normal of degrowth, a process it is futile to fight. These are frightening times, for all of us, but I can assure you that this Government is doing everything it can to keep all legals safe and provided for during these times of scarcity”, he said as a cuff-covered gold wrist strap glinted in the studio lights.

The main geophysical event leading to The Adaptation was two metres of global sea level rise in less than five years, something not even the gloomiest of models had predicted. Billions had died during years of floods, famines, disease and a new breed of hurricane—the hurricane wind scale no longer stopped at five. The response was mostly building massive sea defences with what resources were left, followed by figuring out how to grow food and deal with waste in this newly-warmed world of walled islands.

All debt had been cancelled, which was not as much fun for the indebted as you might think. Similarly, UniPay gave everyone a basic income in exchange for so many hours working for the common cause. Again, sounds good and indeed it was until the Youth First party came to power in 2032. For decades, climate change had risen and fallen in the public’s awareness, but it was always there for the children—shadowing their futures ever darker. Then, in 2018, 15-year-old Greta Thunberg caught the attention of the grown-ups and, for a while, it seemed like they might wake up, but that’s not how things go, is it?

“The violent protesters have shown that they do not care for life and harmony. We, the Youth Party, do care about life and harmony, even if the means to that end involve death and violence. I thank you for your time.” The PM finished with the Youth Party’s salute: the raised fist of solidarity held out at shoulder height. The backdrop bearing the party’s logo—an angular hourglass in a green circle—faded to black.

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Hang Ten, by Jim Bartlett

24/9/2021

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With the morning sun just beginning to show over the mountain’s ridge, its golden glimmer sparkling in the slow rolling swell, Glen paddles his board through the gentle waves until he makes his way to that sweet spot he so craves. For him it can only be found in the calm just beyond the surf’s break, as it’s the place where he can straddle the board, sit back, and take in all the ocean has to offer. It’s his before work morning ritual. His sanctuary from a world that seems to be falling apart at the seams.

Eyes closed, he breathes in the sea, lets its soft touch brush up against his soul. He’s been doing this for ten years now. No, wait. Fifteen. He sighs and shakes his head, flinging a spray of salt water off his long sun-bleached hair.

Where does the time go?

Before he can give it much thought, a splashing sound catches his ear, and he shifts on the board. A dolphin peeks up from his left side, the little guy’s (or gal’s?) face bringing him a smile that comes from his heart. But even as he marvels at his good fortune, a second, followed almost immediately by a third, surfaces, each making their comical, yet wondrous clicking, as if to wish him a good day.

He looks to the shoreline, hoping to share this magical moment, though he knows few will be on the beach at this hour. He’s quite surprised when he sees several people standing at the water’s edge, most waving their arms. He broadens his smile and waves back – they’ve obviously seen his new friends – yet this only seems to make their swinging efforts all the more frantic.

Another splash pulls his focus back, and he turns to see there are now six, maybe seven dolphins, and they’re circling his surfboard in a sort of aquatic parade. It’s then he realizes his surfer buds are gray bottlenose dolphins, rare for this area, rather than the black and white commons.

“Are you guys lost?” he calls out.

But as he does, he feels a bump from behind, and he spins around to see two of the dolphins at the rear of his board giving him a push.

“What the—“ he starts to say. However before he can finish, or even react, two more join from the side, adding their noses to the board, which is now skimming the water’s surface and heading – very quickly – toward the shore.

Rather than fight his fate, he sits back and enjoys the ride, the dolphins not letting up until his toes touch the sand below. Slipping off, he turns to say thanks, but his newfound friends have already vanished into the surf.

As he stands there smiling, though quite perplexed, a young woman comes racing up.

“Wow!” she practically screams.

“Awesome, right?”

“Awesome IS right...those dolphins just saved your life.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you see the Great White Sharks? There were two right by your board...”

14 Comments

Brass Improvement, by Daniel Aceituna

24/9/2021

3 Comments

The Joint Chiefs of Staff gathered around the soldier sitting in the chair.
Dr. Mark Reynolds, the head of the project announced, “Generals, seated before you is Captain Thomas B. White. He served two tours in Iraq. We have affectionately nicknamed him the six million dollar man.”
“Show us what he can do,” The Chairman said, motioning to the other generals to take a seat.
Reynolds faced Thomas and said, “Stand up and walk around.”
Thomas stood up and walked several yards in one direction, then turned around and walked back to the chair.
Reynolds looked at the generals, expecting a round of applause. Instead, they quietly sat there.
“No, no, have him carry something while he’s walking,” The Chairman said.
Reynolds motioned to an assistant who brought a military backpack and placed it in front of Thomas. Thomas smiled, then mounted the backpack on his back and walked the same route again.
“How many hundreds of pounds is he carrying?” the Chairman said.
Reynolds frowned. “The backpack has only about fifty pounds.”
The generals started looking at each other.
“Doctor, we want to see some superhuman act.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, we gave you millions to improve our soldiers.”
Captain White raised his hand. “And sir, my family and I want to thank you for that investment. Now I don’t have to spend the rest of my life as a quadriplegic.”

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A Turn in the Air, by Isabel Evans

24/9/2021

2 Comments

He remembers standing backstage, the stomach-churning mix of greasepaint, sweat and fear, exhilaration and expectation - his body poised, alert, ready for his cue, muscles warmed, the music swirling. He was never the lead, not a Nureyev, but still, he’d been in the big productions – a courtier, a princeling. The sticky flow of the greasepaint, the stiff velvet of the doublets. The ache of the muscles. And backstage waiting for the start, all his senses alert, him embodied in his body, at one in balance and movement, trusting every sense and every part of his body.

He leapt, caught in the air and the moment, onto to the stage, every step held in the cradle of the music and his certainty, and then – the leap off stage – the misjudgment caused by a momentary lapse… And the terrible realization as he turned and twisted in the air that he was going to land not with grace and a final few off stage steps but entangled painfully with the metal cold impaling of the side spot’s stand. The terrible crashing audible in the audience. The pain through his legs and side. The blood metallic in his mouth, the silent ministering, the show going on for everyone else…

And he picks up his supper tray, and puts it on his walker, and pushes it out from the kitchenette towards his chair. Each misplaced and ragged step still a pain to his mind as well as his body. They shoot racehorses that break their legs. Sometimes he thinks that’s kinder.

It’s morning now. The pale light caresses his face. He pulls himself up. If he cannot dance, he can still teach. He dresses, leaves. The fumes of London traffic, and the cool freshness of the Park. He makes his way to the White Lodge. Students nod and dip in bow and curtsey as he passes. The dusty thunder of the rehearsal rooms, the arpeggios of pianos leading the swirls of arms and legs trailing grace in unity. He turns to his class. One of these boys will be a Nureyev, a Nijinsky, a Baryshnikov, an Acosta…

He claps for attention, and the boys turn, alert, like the young sparrowhawks they are. He’ll teach them to fly with grace, to excel. He was never going to be a Nureyev, however much he strained his body. He is a good teacher. Maybe, just now, the best. He smiles. Life is good.

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Where Did Everybody Go? by Doug Bartlett

24/9/2021

8 Comments

John approached the pulpit to give his first sermon to his new congregation. He was young and nervous. He looked up and saw the church was packed. He thought it was because of him.

The date was September 16, 2001. You see, it wasn’t just his church that was packed. Every church in America was bulging at the seams. America had just been attacked a few days earlier.

People no longer looked at themselves as young or old, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. No, they looked at themselves as Americans. They were also looking for God and thought they could find him at church. This caused a huge problem as many Americans could not find a seat in church.

When John discovered his church wasn’t crowded because of him it did deflate his ego. But he soon realized the reason for it was much bigger and better than him.

Now, twenty years later, when John gets up to preach his sermon and looks across the sanctuary, he realizes we no longer have that problem.

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Second Response, by David Milner

24/9/2021

2 Comments

The soft wind rises

Filling the void with the sound

Of your whispered name.

He writes the haiku on post-it notes, of yellow, pink, and blue. Places them on desktops, on old, borrowed, or purloined Toshiba laptop screens, in this re-configured office space. Rosa, like assistants through time immemorial, hovers. She looks at Cassidy, scrunching his face inward, at the carpet, which Rosa had brought from a friend; an old or ex lecturer, information she kept from Cassidy. It is tinted beige. One minute he likes it, the next it’s the scrunching his face inward thing. For a moment their eyes meet. The sound of a train crossing the iron bridge rattles the re-configured office space. Noise from the city. Cassidy smiles. Perfect.

Outside of time, this is art’s perspective, its vista. What it brings to the table. Cassidy sits in a swivel chair, imagining how his sister would have looked, who she might have been talking to. He has no way of knowing. Maura was 23 years of age. Rosa’s age now. Rosa will play Maura in the reconstruction.

Rosa is not exactly happy with this idea.

“All you’ll do is sit there.” Cassidy has said.

In photos his sister looked quite stunning in a girl next door type of way. The brotherly comments backed-up with sardonic caveats. Kinda sad. Like, Cassidy never really knew her, or cared. That was then, Rosa guesses.

The soft wind rises

Filling the void with the sound

Of your whispered name.

Old water cooler covered with post-it notes. Framed photo on a desk facing east of Pope John Paul. Waxed yucca plants in lime green ceramic bowls. More post-it notes. Large, plastic round-faced clock fixed at 8:45am. In his mind an unfinished Joan Miró landscape. An office on the edge of eternity.

Maura was estranged from the family. Rebellious, older sister. Amorphous New York rumours. On the periphery of The Strokes’ circle. In pleated micro-minis, promoting their first album.

No-one could say for sure why she was in that office, on that floor, in that building, on that day, at that time.

The installation is a reclamation. A homage. A helpless response. To the impact of loss.

2 Comments

A Turn in the Air, by Isabel Evans

24/9/2021

2 Comments

A Life in Reverse, by Angela Carlton

24/9/2021

6 Comments

If only we go back to when things were simple, that beautiful time when we collided beneath the sky by the lake. My heart was fluttering and you held it. My world was shiny, blooming. It was you. You were the moon and the stars, the sunlight that danced on my skin. Those sapphire eyes spoke to me as we laughed on a tweed blanket in the grass, not a care, not one.

You pushed that ring on my finger and we fell into something magical, heavy.

Then the sky opened up, the rain came and the thunder roared. You slipped away into something, someone and I was broken, pieces of me were everywhere. It was the puzzle I couldn’t solve. The wicked dream I couldn’t come out of.

Can we go back to that place that we know? You cook me gourmet dinners and book trips to faraway places, islands surrounded by the sea. My thoughts rush like wet cement running down-down my flesh to my feet until I’m stuck and can’t move.

Mostly, I look to the sky now waiting. Sometimes the clouds will part and the light will shine right down on me, like our lake day, warming me all over again.

Yes, the Gods are winking and whispering, answers.

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Lonely Body, by Don Tassone

17/9/2021

10 Comments

“What should we do with the body?”

“Ditch it,” he said. “It’s of no use to us.”

“Easier said than done.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d have to throw it in the dumpster.”

“So?”

“Lenny, the dumpster’s right outside. People would see.”

“Wait until it gets dark then.”

“That’s no better.”

“Why?”

“There’s always a cop around.”

Lenny sighed.

“You know, Brooks, you’re my assistant. You’re supposed to do what I say.”

“Don’t I always?” said Brooks, a scrawny, mousy-looking man.

“Not right now.”

Brooks said nothing.

“I could fire you, you know,” Lenny said.

“Go ahead,” Brooks said with rare bravado.

“Maybe I will.”

Lenny was sitting at his desk, a hunched mound of flesh with thin, gray hair combed over a head the size of a soccer ball.

“You’d have a hard time finding anybody who can do eyes like me,” Brooks said.

“There are others.”

“But nobody who can do them like me. Lips too.”

“You’re kind of full of yourself today, aren’t you?”

“Just stating the facts.”

Brooks seldom stood up to Lenny, but he knew the big man needed him, so he decided to push it.

“I won’t even mention hair,” he said.

“All right!” Lenny bellowed, slapping the desktop with his meaty palms. “I’ll do it myself!”

He got up and waddled across the room, passing head after head, arranged in neat rows on narrow, wooden tables. Dozens of heads, each one anchored to a tabletop with a metal collar. Each was expressionless, staring blankly ahead. Some had hair. Others were bald. Some sported eyelashes and wore lipstick. Others were unadorned. Most were the heads of men and women. One row, though, was made up of the heads of children.

Finally, Lenny reached the body, propped up in the corner, wedged between rows of boxes stacked high against the walls. He wrapped his fleshy left arm around the naked torso and pulled it close. He grabbed hold of the head with his thick right hand and twisted it until it popped off with the sound of a bottle being uncorked.

He dropped the head on a table and drug the decapitated body toward the door of the shop, his shop, where he had worked for nearly five decades, preparing plastic and fiberglass heads for storefronts all over the world.

Why, he wondered, during all that time, had only one arrived with a body?

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Friday Flash Fiction is primarily a site for stories of 100 words or fewer, and our authors are expected to take on that challenge if they possibly can. Most stories of under 150 words can be trimmed and we do not accept submissions of 101-150 words.

However, in response to demand, the FFF team constructed this forum for significantly longer stories of 151-500 words. Please send submissions for these using the Submissions Page.

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