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The Eccentric, by Mark Tulin

30/4/2018

 
Often we are too quick to label a person. For example, there was a peculiar man in the diner who kept staring at me. He seemed like an eccentric middle-aged man with tons of money. But I wasn’t quite sure.

At first, I interpreted his stare as being judgemental. Perhaps he didn’t like bald men or the way I wore my glasses off my nose. I immediately became disturbed by his rudeness, and I eyeballed him back.

My anger melted quickly when his stare changed into a smile. It felt good but strange.

I’d say the man was in his mid-fifties. His salt and pepper hair was longish and parted on the side. He wore a light blue preppy shirt and brown khaki pants that he could have bought at Brooks Brothers.

After several minutes of giving each other smiles, he walked over to my table.

“I thought I recognized you,” he said. “Are you playing tonight?”

“Playing?” I asked.

“Yes, you’re Milli Vanilli, aren’t you?” he said with a sly grin revealing a slight overbite.

“Oh, sure. My brother is in the hotel room getting ready,” I responded, playing along with his gag.

He picked up an unused paper napkin from my table and scribbled a cryptic note—You are as graceful as Dr. J and as clumsy as the Incredible Hulk.

“I hope you like it,” he said with a wink. And then he went to his seat and began to stare at other people who walked into the diner. Everyone else avoided eye contact.

I wrote this incident off to just a guy who was a lonely eccentric. He probably lived in a big expensive house on the hill with a swimming pool and a brand new Rolls Royce parked in the driveway. He most likely came downtown to have fun with us less-privileged folk.

Later that day when I was driving my car along State Steet, I spotted the man again. I had to do a double take to make sure it was him. I was shocked. He was pushing an oversized shopping cart with what seemed like all of his worldly possessions. He kept talking to himself and periodically stopped to ask people for money. I pulled over and reached into my pocket for a couple of dollars.
​

Heart Beat, by Marjan Sierhuis

27/4/2018

 
His heart pounds in his chest, and it feels tight while he tries to catch his breath. His wife tries not to appear concerned as she watches him across the breakfast table. But she soon frowns, gets up and touches his arm.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” she says and takes out her cell phone. He assures her the pain is due to indigestion, and it is nothing new.

“It will eventually go away like it always does,” he says and tries to smile.

But she doesn’t believe him, and she makes the call. An ambulance equipped with a stretcher, oxygen and intravenous equipment immediately arrives and takes him to the emergency department of a local hospital.

“Mr. Smith,” a voice shouts as he lays on a stretcher. “Can you hear me?” But the voice fades away as everything goes dark, and he takes his final breath. He begins to float…higher and higher.

Looking down at what appears to be his body, he sees that his gown has been removed and his chest exposed.
“Stop,” “Has no one heard of the word privacy?” he shouts. There is no response. Staff are too busy pumping his chest.

Minutes pass and then hours before he finally wakes up. His wife is by his side. Again, he can feel his heart beat.
​

Homecoming, by Marek Prityi

23/4/2018

 
He could see his breath when he was looking at the houses on the other side of the frozen lake. Disappearing in regular instances, the little clouds coming from his mouth assured him he was still alive.

The winter scenery painted a picture of a perfect standstill and the houses with their roofs covered with snow could easily serve as a metaphor for harmony.

Nothing could contrast more with his memories of this place. Gill Scott Heron's line “Home is Where the Hatred Is” played in his head.

Watching his breath disappear, he made a hesitant step on the treacherous ice.

An Epiphany, by Marjan Sierhuis

20/4/2018

 
It was a Friday, and I remember the day well. I was on display for whomever visited the telephone shop that day and the proud recipient of the latest in cutting edge technology. I was one handsome looking phone if I should say so myself. But there was a slight problem, no one seemed to be interested.

“You’re refurbished,” said an android on the same display shelf when I complained to him. He was a know it all who thought he had all the answers, and the customers always seemed to gravitate towards him first.

Oh my goodness, and then I saw Andrea. I was mesmerized by her amazing fingers. They showed great manual dexterity and finesse as they touched the liquid crystal display of my competition. I tried not to swoon at the sight.

Although, I might have been a little jealous. But I would be patient and wait my turn. Perhaps she would soon stop by.

Suddenly, there she was. I wondered if she would show some interest. After all I was a refurbished. She tilted her head from side to side and carefully lifted me off the shelf. She held my curved and slim body in the palm of her hand, and she turned me on with a special touch of her finger.

Her expression was beautiful as my screen immediately lit up and came to life. “How wonderful,” she whispered.

I couldn’t agree more. I felt safe and secure as we left the shop. And I had an epiphany: it was meant to be.

Implosion Within, by Sankar Chatterjee

20/4/2018

 
Prof. Ben Smith, a renowned evolutionary biologist at Stanford spent most of his research career to understand the origin, maintenance, and still in progress of human life form on earth. His scientific achievements took him around the globe to present his continuously developing theory on the subject. Early in his career, he was attending a conference in Cancun, Mexico. One day he took a break, traveled to near-by Tulum and climbed 91 steps to the top platform of the famous pyramid of Chechen Itza. From there, in a panoramic view, he spotted several ruins of past Mayan civilization. That’s when a long-lived curiosity got planted within him: “Why and how did an advanced civilization come to oblivion on earth?”

In later years, he would visit the university in Lima, Peru to deliver a lecture. His spirit of adventure led him to hike on the ancient Inca Trail, starting from nearby Cusco, the ancient capital of Inca civilization. After a few days of hiking and camping in the wild, he would arrive at the Sun Gate on a mountaintop to get a first glance of the ruins of Machu Picchu, an abandoned city of Inca civilization. As he would come down on the remainder of the trail to explore the ruins in details, the old thought “Why and how did an advanced civilization come to oblivion on earth?” resurfaced.

Recently, on a sabbatical leave, Prof. Smith was spending a semester in the university in Tel Aviv, Israel. One weekend, he would cross the country’s border to enter into neighboring country Jordan. He wanted to visit the pink city of Petra, once inhabited by the advanced Nabetean civilization, abandoned, and re-discovered in modern times. As he was exploring the remnants of their artful architectures and advanced irrigation system scattered throughout the lost city, his latent thought of the disappearance of an advanced society re-emerged. Over the years, Prof. Smith dug into history literature to get a sense of the factors that led to the demise of various advanced civilizations. Most of the time, the natural causes like droughts, floods, and earthquakes were blamed. In some cases, the effect of long-running wars with a neighboring society was also put forward.

Now sitting in a café, just outside the ruins of Petra, he would reconnect with the rest of the world via his smart-phone. Two headlines stood out. A data-analysis company, secretly profiling millions of members of a social network site, was able to manipulate the outcome of the past national election in favor of a nationalistic leader, bent on building walls around its border to keep away citizens from a neighboring country. The same company had also been implicated in manipulating public opinion of a country on the other side of the Atlantic to detach herself from a long-lasting union of several other countries in the region.

Prof. Smith began wondering “Did those ancient civilizations self-destruct, while attempting to safeguard their superiority?”

Why Do Bats Hang Upside Down? by Emmaline Young

17/4/2018

 
Long ago, bats used to stand upright, whether asleep or not, just like birds. That was so until one day when it changed forever.

The bats were unaware of the weasels’ sneaky approaching. When they finally noticed their presence, it’s too late for them to escape! All tried desperately to take off from the ground, but few actually succeeded. Most of the bats were bitten near the ground before they could fly high enough to flee.

The few survivors gathered again after this great loss. They could not suffer to lose any more of their kind. A solution was needed to avoid future tragedy. But coming up with one wasn't easy, and not one suggested any that was reasonable. Finally, the smallest bat stood up. The others laughed at the idea that he might know what to do, but he spoke loud and bold.

“It’s too dangerous for us to stand close to the ground!” he shouted. “We must stay in trees and hang upside down there for earlier detection of predators and faster takeoff.”

At first, all bats laughed at his suggestion. “Surely we would fall this way even without any attack!” But the clever bat held very firm to his idea and decided to prove that it would work.

So he did it! This determined and brave little bat stood on a branch first, making sure he held onto it tightly. Then, he flipped upside down hanging over there successfully! At last, he released his grip, dropped away, righted himself, and flew away from the tree, all in the blink of an eye. The other bats were astonished at this sight!

“Incredible!” they all exclaimed. “We got to try it, too!”

One by one, all the bats successfully adapted the clever new strategy. They were never again caught off guard. Newborn pups would hang this way, cradled by their their mothers, till they were big enough to hang from the branches themselves. And you can still see them doing it today.

The Mallards, by Mark Tulin

16/4/2018

 
My son and I often took walks along the scenic woods of the Pennypack Trail.

Andy liked to watch the mallards with the green and brown heads float down the stream with their babies. He loved to go to the edge of the stream and talk to them. “Quack, quack,” he’d say, imitating their vocalizations. Sometimes they would answer back. Other times, he’d get no response because they were too busy trying to navigate downstream.

Often people fed the mallards stale bread. They thought that they were doing an excellent service for the birds, when in fact they were making the mallards more aggressive and dependent on humans.

I watched my son go the stream’s edge again. He picked up a piece of bread.

“Be careful, Andy. Don’t get too close to the birds.”

My son rarely listened to me. My in-laws thought he needed to see a psychologist, but he does well in school, and the teachers haven’t complained yet.

About ten birds, both adults, and babies came out of the water and slowly surrounded my son.

“Be careful, Andy, don’t get too close. They bite.”

Of course, he didn’t listen. It made me think of the time he tried to ride a big goose in South Carolina. The goose got angry, naturally, and started to chase him. He cried in the backseat of the car all the way back to Philadelphia.

“Remember the goose, “ I reminded him

Pretty soon the hungry mallards were out of control, pecking at each other, and fighting over the dried pieces of bread. One jumped up and nipped Andy on the finger. He didn’t even flinch and ignored the fact that he was bleeding. He kept laughing as the mallards jumped and swirled around him like he was at Play Land hopping in the ball pit with his friends.

I shouted and clapped my hands to scatter the birds. I wrapped up Andy's finger with a hanky and told him that we had to go to the hospital for a tetanus shot.

“A needle?” he asked.

I shook my head to indicate that’s what it was.

He started to cry.
​

A Flutter of Hope, by Ayesha Stone

15/4/2018

 
The Caterpillar eased her neck towards the sun, soaking up the rays of glorious sunshine. But it was no use. Her mind was plagued in an ocean of worries. She wasn’t beautiful like the swan or as wise as the owl, nor was she as quick as the otter. She was dull like a cold day, slow like the dead of night and prickly like thorns.

Believing that she would never be good enough for this world, she decided to hide for eternity in a cocoon.

Weeks passed by and the seasons turned. Hooves of new-born life danced. Birds serenaded for each rising sun. The patter of rain soothed her weeping, as the world continued without her.
During her departure, she reflected. Darkness surrounded her, and she wished to see the daylight again, if only for a minute. But her mind drifted back to the thoughts and she wriggled in pain. Her foot slipped through the bottom of the blanket and ripped as a burst of light flooded. The sensations around her amplified as she reached through the opening and stepped into reality once more.

At first, she was uncertain. But as her eyes adjusted she sensed the world differently. The hues of flowers were more vibrant than ever and the aroma in the air teased her receptors. The other insects welcomed her back and expressed how much they missed her gentle nature.

It was then she caught her reflection in the morning dew and smiled. Her heart fluttered at the shimmering painted silk. She had flourished into a graceful butterfly.

She had missed everything, and now she knew she had every right to enjoy the world; life was too short. The wind gently blew her off the branch. Instead of fear, she embraced the fall. She had finally fought her battle.

She unfurled her wings and flew.
​

Caught in the Net, by Lucy Lloyd

13/4/2018

 
Mark tightened the netting, then rubbed his arm across his face. He didn't notice the seas spray any more, but the rain was so intense it was dripping over his eyes, making it difficult to see.

'All set?!' Shouted Gary the skipper.

Mark gave a thumbs up. They set the hoist and the trawler started coiling the nets with a low rumble. The white horses crashed into the wake creating a grey soup that swirled as the boat rocked. Mark thought of home and dry clothes.

'Stop!' He shouted, leaning over. He'd caught a flash of something. The hoisting paused, silver slithering and flapping, but there was something else. A long tail uncoiled itself, longer than a cod, longer than a tuna.

His mouth dropped open in wonder as the torso shifted, then the arms lifted itself carefully over the suffocating fish.

'What is it?' Gary shouted.
​
Mark couldn't speak for wonder. The mermaid's dark eyes stared back.

Detox, by Mark Tulin

9/4/2018

 
“Dad, you have to do something. You can’t go on like this.”

I caught him in a particularly down day. He was feeling sorry for himself. His spirit was broken. He lost his biggest account with a supermarket.

“Just come in and we could help you, dad. All you have to do is show up.”

“But what about my business? Who will run the store?”

“Dad, you know that Uncle Milt will be more than willing to watch the store while you’re away for a few weeks.”

There was silence. My dad felt lower than any point in his life, even worse than the day my mother walked out on him. His shiny bald head reflected the harsh ceiling light; his blue eyes sparkled with tears. He knew that the bottle was destroying him from the inside out. He also knew that I was giving him an opportunity to get sober.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“I looked in my schedule book. How about Monday afternoon at four. I’ll call the Good Samaritan Hospital and set up a bed for you. I have all the insurance information I need.”

My dad hugged me. I was rescuing my old man from a life of eternal hell. As he clung to me, I could feel his tears dampen my shoulder.

It was half-past four on Monday. I called my father on the phone, but there was no answer. The nurse soon called from detox. “Where is he?” she asked impatiently.

“I don’t know,” I said like a scared little boy.

“Well, he better get here soon. We can’t hold the bed much longer.”

I knew alcoholics, worked with them for the past several years. They were unpredictable. They make commitments that they never keep. It seemed that I had been fooled. I had hoped that what my dad promised me was true and that he would show up at the hospital and get himself clean.

The phone rang. Expecting that it was him, I quickly answered. No, it was only the mechanic at the dealership saying that my car was repaired and ready to be picked up. A feeling of deja vu came over me as I kept looking out the window for my dad’s silver Ford Bronco to pull into the parking lot.

The Comfort Between Us, by Thom Gabrukiewicz

6/4/2018

 
“Quit poking at it.”

Sarah has her grandfather’s carpenter’s rule out, an old yardstick-looking thing with the brass hinges and wooden rulers all attached, like an accordian.

She has it extended four rulers. Thirty-three inches total.

The object of her exploration with the rule is a smush on the wall above the fireplace. Something organic. There’s definitely a tail protruding from a blob, which has a greenish-blue sheen - almost like if you superimposed algae onto an oil slick and swirled it. We have no idea how it got there, or how it came to be squished.

“Just stop.”

Sarah retreats to the couch and sits crossed-legged in a defiant pout. She’s waving the carpenter’s rule in a circle like a wand. I carefully slide my head into her lap, throw my legs over the couch arm and disarm her from the rule. I am quiet and careful to fold it back together, and wipe the poke-end in the cuff of my Levis. I slide the rule under the couch for a later retrieval and relocation to the toolbox.

“What do you think it is - was?”

“I dunno. Bug of some kind.”

We retreat into silence. A space we’ve come to occupy with relative frequency.

She puts her palms on my temples, then rakes the hair from my eyes with her fingers. With an index finger, she traces the bridge of my nose, my cheekbones, my lips. She smiles as she does this; I reach out, put my hands on her ribcage and give a gentle squeeze. She sighs.

She’s leans in for a kiss when we hear something. Wet, like a sploosh combined with a plop. Our thing has detached itself and now rests on the stone fireplace mantel.

“I’ll get some paper towels.”

“Leave it.”

She gently pulls my head back into her lap and continues to trace her finger across my features. I close my eyes.

“When I said we never talk anymore, I didn’t mean it to come out as an accusation or anything.”

“I know.”

“We used to talk about everything - I mean, I know it was new and we were getting to know each-other, but I miss you. I miss just hearing what you have to say. That’s why I ask so many questions. That’s why I ask you every morning about what I’m wearing, it’s not that I’m confused or anything. I want your opinion.”

I open my eyes. I look into hers. And I smile. She fills the dimple in my cheek with her finger.

There’s a comfort between us. Whether that comes with age or proximity, I couldn’t say. I know she doesn’t enjoy it. I can’t say I enjoy it either.

It just is.

A Blue Baby Hat, by Marjan Sierhuis

4/4/2018

 
Outside the window, clouds drift aimlessly across the night sky and they offer white dreams to those who sleep. Although they seem to have forgotten all about James. The father of a newborn remains awake, and sits quietly by his wife’s bedside. But he is oblivious of the cacophony of sounds that creep stealthily through the cracks in the door and intrude upon his privacy within.

His weary eyes are filled with unshed tears as he stretches his arm across white hospital sheets. His sense of desperation is palpable as he tenderly covers his wife’s cold hand with his and prays for a sign. But he is not greedy. Perhaps a fluttering motion from long eyelashes that brush her pale cheeks, a sudden movement from her fingertips or a tongue that unmercifully teases her dry lips.

James tries not to focus on a mechanical ventilator that now sits idle in a corner of the room. But he’s cognizant of a nasal cannula that drapes over and behind his wife’s delicate ears, and the movement of her chest as it rises and falls with every breath.

Carefully he pulls a blue baby hat out of one of his trouser pockets. He lays the brand new knit by the corner of his wife’s pillow. Leaning over he gently rests his unshaven face against her soft skin. But soon after he feels a tear roll down her cheek and caress the side of his face. He takes a deep breath, savors the moment, and knows that everything will be alright.

On Fire, by Mark Tulin

2/4/2018

 
Granny could barely walk. She balanced on her knotty-pine cane as she entered the casino with all the bright lights, the rings, and pings of the slot machines.

She took a deep breath into her weak lungs as if she were inhaling the aura of good luck and fortune. She moved as slow as her hundred-year-old body would allow. She crouched like a tiger honing in on its prey. She sniffed and picked up the scent of a slot machine with no name. “That’s the one,” she whispered. She had never been wrong before.

I planted a soft pillow under Granny’s butt before she sat down.
She got comfortable real fast.

She removed the casino card from the chain around her neck. Surprisingly, she played the maximum on the whole board. She said that the slot machine was loose and ready to go. “Light my fire, amigo!” she cried. “Set the night on fire!”

Her eyes rolled around in her head and changed colors from brown to blue, to green.

“It's alive!” she shouted.

With her thin, bony fingers she gently touched the face of the machine and began speaking in tongues, revealing a more mysterious layer to her personality. She hopped off her seat like she were a teenager again and began to dance to an esoteric Jim Morrison tune that was playing in her head.

“It’s the mojo,” she said. “I’ve got the damn mojo back. Wow, wee!”

When she sat back down, she made sure no one was looking and had a serious conversation with the one-armed bandit. The slot machine seemed to be talking back to her, but no one knew for sure. Whatever she said, it had a dramatic effect on the slot machine. It rattled, shook, and blinked its light bulbs in approval.

"Light my fire, baby. Set the night on fire!”

She began to win, and win big. Four-hundred-dollar vouchers popped out of the machine like it was a broken toaster. She stuffed voucher after voucher into her handbag until there was no more room.

The slot machine rocked so hard that it broke off from the floor hinges. Smoke poured out of its top. It began to spin wildly. Rows of strawberries displayed on the screen. The machine caught fire, and all you could hear were the cries of the casino employees and the sound of fire engines making its way into the casino trying to douse the flames.

I turned to look for Granny. She had already cashed in her vouchers and was ready to go.

“I’m tired,” she said. “Let’s go home and take a nap.”

Cleaning the Museum, by Mark Joseph Kevlock

2/4/2018

 
I spend my days cleaning the museum. It isn't anyone's fault that I ended up like this. As I clean I often tour the wonders of the past. At the entrance I have statues of my parents, as high as four-story buildings. They stand even taller than that in my memory.

Beyond the statues of my parents sits a gallery of newspaper clippings, detailing my heroic exploits. The gallery utilizes first-person interactive technology to transport the observer into the black-and-white world, photographed beneath each headline. Reliving my glory days in such fashion greatly eases the burden of transition, inherent in my forced retirement.

Next on the tour is my trophy room. Contained within its walls are no less than twelve devices which, if properly utilized, might end all life throughout the galaxy. I keep a trusty lock upon each of those particular trophy cases. Although I do wish, sometimes, that someone would break in... just to say hello.

I have crystals there that change your mind. I have water that explodes. And hair that you can plant, to grow carpeting on the ceiling. Most of the trophies aren't from Earth.

I also devoted a room to friendship, and one to love. I keep self-portraits there, each demonstrating the different aspects of my personality that I manifest in the presence of each individual who so changed my life.

They don't remember me anymore. Not a one. They've forgotten I ever existed.

I used to house pets in the sentient zoo, but I set them free. Rather than quell my loneliness, they exacerbated it. Most of them could beat me at chess.

I also constructed a prison, of sorts, at the dark end of the museum. Floating spheres keep thoughts themselves prisoner. At one point, in my youth, I held quite a passion for capturing evil intentions, then bottling them up in a maze of self-repetition, forcing the thought to keep having itself, until it lost all meaning, and thus its power to harm others.

I also have a chair, to sit in, that accepts donations from its occupants. They sit in a white room, painting the walls with imagination, that is then collected and distributed to those in need.

I never sit in the chair myself. I fear I've lost all ability to dream.

I dust the chair anyway, just in case.

I didn't lose my powers in combat, like you might think.

I lost them because the world doesn't believe in me anymore.

Perhaps you might say that I'm too unbelievable, like a perfection set free, loosed upon societies preoccupied with their limitations, grown afraid of wonder.

I am a wonder man.

At least I was, when I could do it all.
​

Cleaning the museum keeps me busy. I hardly have time to entertain self-pity. I tend to my past with the utmost care.

    Longer
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    Longer Friday Flash Fiction Stories

    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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    ​Please note that we tend to post longer flash fiction exactly as we find it – wrong spacing, everything.

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