The two of us built our house from the ground up. All was new except our rattle trap of a Subaru. It was perfect for us—cheap and gas affordable.

We rode together to work in the early hours of the morning before light of day. Almost every morning, I would feel a rapid wet slap to the back of my head. Fred vowed it was not him and after months of monitoring, I knew it too.

Many odd things happened in those first two years. Fred’s shoes would be found in our front yard, placed explicitly, as if someone had stepped right out of them.

Our paychecks would be missing at times and then later we would find them in plain sight.

Christmas presents would disappear only to be found in an extra bedroom on the bed in plain sight.

When getting up in the morning, many times we would find all of our outside doors open wide.

We would be together watching television and our bathroom water would come on full force.

We would be awakened in the wee hours of the morning by our television, radio and boom-box blaring all at the same time.

When we bought our property, there were raised areas all around the property. We thought they were graves, but we never found anything.

The disturbances stopped abruptly after giving our freezer away to a friend.

Actually, I miss that freezer.

Barbara had endured abuse from her husband for 30 years. She couldn’t remember a day when he hadn’t mentally tortured her. Family and friends fussed at her continuously about staying with such a horrible man. “Why?” they asked over and over.

She wondered why herself. She didn’t know. She had never had children with the monster, thank goodness, so she could not use the excuse “it’s for the children.” She often wrestled with her own conscience about whether it was for the money or not, and would justify it by telling herself that she had earned ever dime and should not feel bad about it even if it were true.

Toward the end of his life, he loved to torment her by telling her that she would never be free of him. Every time they fought, he would say, “You will never be free of me. No matter how deep they plant me, I’m going to dig my way out of the ground and haunt you until you are dead.”

Thirty years to the day they married, the abusive husband had a massive coronary and died. Barbara played the role of grieving widow, but she made sure it was a closed-casket funeral. 

At the gravesite, as they were shoveling dirt over him, her best friend came up and put her arm around her. She knew the story of the abuse, and had heard him say he’d dig out to haunt Barbara. 

She said, “Barbara, I know you don’t really believe he can do that, but doesn’t it make you feel uneasy anyway? He was so evil—if anyone could do it, he could.”

​Barbara smiled at her friend and said, “Let the SOB dig. I had them bury him upside down.”

Ms Brilliance, a Scot, whose grandmother was an autopsy expert, did the autopsy on Einstein. Grandma too was brilliant ahead of her time. She was able to communicate using time-thought with scientists on Planet-X who were a light-year scientifically advanced over earthlings. From the scientists on Planet-X she learnt all there was to know about freeze drying, unknown on Earth at that time. With this knowledge she decided to freeze dry Einstein’s bone marrow. She kept these freeze dried samples at the British Station at the South Pole. 
Grandma’s granddaughter, Ms Brilliant was born the same day that Einstein died, namely April 18, 1955. Her brilliance recognized when she entered the medical research group at Edinburgh University. Grandma told her about her freeze dried samples of Einstein’s bone marrow. By that time earth’s knowledge of converting bone marrow to all sorts of viable cells, including those that act like sperm cells was more or less known. 
With this knowledge Ms Brilliance impregnated herself with this converted bone-marrow. Nine months later she bore twins, both brilliant. She named the daughter Candy and the son Randy. The wicked exploits of Candy have been written about by many others in the group. We now know she has joined Murderesses Anonymous. 
Randy though was just the opposite, he wanted to improve knowledge and peace world-wide. At that time they lived in the same house. Candy teased him and called him a do gooder. Randy gave Candy a smiling glance with a twinkle in his eye and said, “I’ll change you”. 
She said, “You won’t live long enough.” 
Randy knew of Candy’s murderous nature so moved away and joined CALTEC in California and worked under a pseudo name. He worked hard on studying his grandfather Einstein’s theories. He took his Grandfather’s general theory of relativity to the next level, namely to speed-thought and to speed-travel. 
As you will see in forthcoming stories in FF groups, how this knowledge kept him from the murderous in tensions of Candy; well not altogether. ​

I’m sure you have heard a mother say, after giving birth, “When he cried that was the sweetest sound I ever heard.” But I have always wondered why we think it’s wonderful that the first sound we hear out of a baby is crying.

And it was the same for Sarah. She came into the world crying just like all babies come into the world crying. But Sarah cried a lot, and her parents were worried and frustrated with her, and they always told her to stop crying.

Eventually Sarah did stop crying. In fact, she hadn’t cried for so many years she couldn’t remember the last time she cried. Now suddenly her mother was worried that Sarah didn’t cry. “She’s never satisfied,” she thought.

Sarah didn’t cry when her first boyfriend left her, and mother fretted. Sarah didn’t cry when her grandmother died, and her mother fretted. When Sarah got married and had children, she was frantic to stop the baby from crying as soon as she could after birth. When the doctor told her it was normal, she snapped at him, “There’s nothing normal about crying; it means something is wrong.” The doctor sedated her to shut her up.

​Now, it is Sarah’s time to go. Her children gather around her and tell her they love and she knew it to be true—as she had loved them. Her son ran his fingers down the side of her face and drew his hand back and looked at it in awe. His mother had come full circle, and he wiped away her tears.

Adam Kluger submitted three stories on the same day, two of which were really short stories. Even this one was really too long for our definition of "flash fiction", but the story was good enough to stretch a point. We'll try to supply links to Adam's other stories, which are due to appear in a collection shortly.

​​Sol Schmeckendorf dabbed at his work shirt with a wet napkin. The grease from the chicken and broccoli was going to leave a stain. The only solution was to ask for seltzer and even though it was his absolute favorite shirt—he just didn’t feel like it. 
 
It’s not easy to consistently find new ways to fail.
 
Sol always seemed to manage to even surprise himself. It’s not easy not to know how to do stuff that everybody else seems to know how to do- but that was Sol all over.  Schmeckendorf had been skating through life for close to five decades and he still hadn’t found a way to escape one step forward, two steps back. He was a classic underachiever who was not surprised when his fortune cookie told him the only thing to fear …is fear itself.
 
Sol was always afraid to read his fortune cookie.
 
He would call his misanthropic pal, Manfred Gogol, a frustrated cartoonist, almost daily, and they would rant at each other about life’s injustices.
 
“Dylan is still way overrated…and don’t kid yourself the Yankees are too old and don’t have enough pitching…yeah, I saw Godzilla- I snuck out of work and caught the last 45 minutes of the 3pm screening near me---booooring—liked Pacific Rim better…you bet Rory Mc’Illroy was tired of banging that cute Danish tennis girl—he has a chippie in every town…why in the world would he want to get married now…he’s young…Of course, De Blasio is looking like the worst mayor since Dinkins-- just like W was the worst president ever…saw tubby Wynonna Judd on TV this morning singing a song about soldiers in Afghanistan- just awful…”
 
The two old friends would rail at each other and laugh at the sheer madness of it all- stupid stuff to fill the space to ignore the real horrors that floated around the edges and through the arteries of everyday existence.
 
Life was not easy—it required  a skin like an alligator and teeth like a piranha—just to cut through all the BS.
 
On the bus to work that morning there was a weird schmuck ripping his newspaper into strips. Sol didn’t really know why it annoyed him so much. It just did. Lots of stuff set Schmeckendorf off daily—silly shit, like people walking by him smoking cigarettes, loud talkers, slow walkers, fools who wore brown shoes, people who popped balloons and politicians, lawyers –they really disgusted him. Sol wondered if he was alone with his litany of pet peeves. He wondered if other people knew as little about U.S. geography and algebra as he did. He wondered how it was possible he had survived for so long without the ability to fix anything or if he would ever eventually be disowned by the scores of acquaintances he had “friended” on Linked-in and Facebook.
 
Sol wondered if when he died, if his total lack of tangible contributions to society and to humankind would be forgiven or simply ignored by the few people who actually really knew him. He wondered why he did what he did for a living (telemarketing/sales) and how many people he had actually ever really helped with the various dubious business services he was selling that he never fully understood or cared to understand.
 
He was deeply ensconced within his rut of a life and dead-end career. He was burnt out and not a bad guy, really—even though his ex-wife hated him and his family thought he was a total loser. Sol had few hobbies and even fewer friends. He didn’t read much or watch the news.
 
He kept to himself and didn’t like people, really. At least, not so much, anymore.
 
He thought organized religion was a scam and he was suspicious of most successful people.
 
He appreciated that New York City was an organized place to live in and he loved how easy NYC made it for him to survive and fit in without being noticed.
 
Sol could walk the streets anonymous to millions of strangers. He could look in their eyes and study their faces. Imagine having sex with the hundreds and hundreds of beautiful women he would see.
 
He was a living ghost.
 
He bit the dead skin off his finger and continued to type on his computer.
 
Something had just passed by his cubicle.
 
Sol had never seen her on his floor before. She was petite with short brown hair and a pretty face and big blue eyes. She was in the kitchen area making coffee. Sol didn’t know why but suddenly he wanted a cup of coffee too. More than he had ever wanted anything in his life.
 
“Hello”
 
“Hi”
 
“I’m Sol, I work in sales—I’ve never seen you around here before….are you the new exterminator?”
 
The woman blushed slightly and giggled, “Yes, that’s right...I heard there were some giant cockroaches in the sales department—wearing tweed jackets—I see I’ve come to the right place.”
 
“It’s actually Burberry, but that’s not important right now, Fred…your name is probably Fred isn’t it?”
 
As her eyes widened and mouth slowly curled into the cutest smile Sol had ever seen, the cruel and meaningless world that Sol had previously known for what seemed like forever suddenly ceased to exist completely.
 
“Moira, actually.”

​The submissions also came with the artwork below, not particularly connected.

I am missing you more today than usual. I miss you every day—have for almost my whole life—but today seems worse for some reason. I’ve always kept an eye out for you, hoping that someday I’d catch a glimpse of you—but I never have.

Everybody talks about you. It seems that everyone on the earth knows you. I always tell them that if they see you to please send you to me, but so far that has not happened.

I got married—twice—did you know that? It didn’t work out either time; I just could not stop thinking of you. I have done so many things in my life; I doubt you’d believe some of it. I can’t help but wonder if you’re out there somewhere, thinking of me too.

Every time I’ve had a special occasion, I’ve always wondered what it would be like if you’d been there to share it with me. But I didn’t dwell on it, or get morbid about it. I just always had this vague wish about you and accepted that you’d never come but always wondering.

​But now, in my twilight years, it seems I think about you more than ever. Think and wonder. Wondering about all kinds of things—like, who you are! 

All my life, I’ve been waiting for something.  It never came.  Every time I’d have a change in my life, which was always changing—marriage, or birth of a child, or a new job that seemed promising—I’d think, “This is it.  This is what I’ve been waiting for.” But it never was.

I’d get into a job that would go sour, and think, “Well that wasn’t it; I accomplished nothing there” and move on to another job. The kids were it for a while, but they grew up, grew away, didn’t need me anymore and I’d think, “Well, that wasn’t it; anyone could have done that and they don’t need me” and I’d move on to something else.

Start a business, make a lot of money, then I’d feel like I’d “arrived.”  Did that.  Nope, that wasn’t it; I’m still waiting for something—I just don’t know what it is.

Start a hobby, like cake baking or ceramics.  Maybe I’ll take up drawing or painting. None of those did it.

Remarry after the death of a husband.  Nope, that wasn’t it.  I’m still waiting.

Buy a house—decorate it to suit myself and not others.  THIS is what I have waiting for! Then the project was done and I sat down and waited.  Something else is supposed to happen.  There’s a reason I’m here; I just have to wait for it.

Retire and try to enjoy not working—that’s DEFINITELY not it.

Decide, out of sheer boredom, to write some books.  I’m better at it than I thought I’d be.  This is it, I’m thinking—I’ve been waiting to write these books. Then I realized the books won’t make a difference in anyone’s life, so that can’t be it.

Start trying to sell the books, leave a little more money for the kids.  With every sale, it feels like Christmas; so thrilled someone would want to read my books! The money is not enough to make a difference, but I’d like to leave a legacy of sorts, have them proud of my writing after I’m gone and maybe make a dime for them.  Nope, that’s not it.  I’ll keep waiting—something’s bound to happen soon.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and saw this bizarre, shadowy figure standing by my bed, dressed in a long black robe and holding a scythe.  I didn’t get scared or anything; I just looked at him and said, “Well, I’ll be damned.  So you’re what I’ve been waiting for.” And he nodded yes, and with a bony finger motioned for me to come to him.  I told him I’d go tomorrow night, but not tonight, and he smiled and nodded and was gone.
​
So today, I’ve been cleaning up some stuff, completely calm, cool and collected.  I told him I’d go with him tonight, and he seems ok with that.  I don’t know what time he’ll be back for me.  I’ll just have to wait.

Mrs. Hebblethwaite told us about Hitler, but that was over; we wouldn’t have to speak German after all. She did intimate, however, that there was a good chance we’d have to switch from English to Russian. I wasn’t looking forward to it since we’d spent a great deal of time and effort learning the Roman alphabet just a few years previous. I did okay with it, but I never did learn a few of the characters—for example, I couldn’t get the hang of the cursive capital Q. I had to use the cracked-egg-with-some-yolk-dribbling-out printed version. Anyway, Mrs. Hebblethwaite told us we’d be viewing some films over the next three days. She had Edwards, the aging custodian, set up the decrepit projector in the back of the room. Edwards always showed the films we saw—he was skillful at mounting and stringing the movies so the finicky projector would show the flicks to best advantage.

On the first day, we saw an informative movie on the sun. The takeaway was that if anything major happened, say, it burned out, we’d be out of luck. That was sobering. On the second day, we took in a flick dedicated to the propositions that the polar ice cap would melt, the level of the oceans would rise, and the entire southern portion of the United States would disappear under “a warm, inland sea.” Remember, this was fifty-five years ago. Finally, on day three, we saw a film about insects—not simply about what insects are, their typical morphology, and the like, but also about their past and future. We got the impression that they’d been around a long time and that due to their adaptability, they could take measures to assure they’d outlast men and women on planet earth. I had seen some Japanese horror films about gigantic insects that were plenty scary, but I learned in school that the happy endings in those movies were unrealistic. After that three-day period, I began believing that with the sun burning out, the polar icecap melting, and the insects taking over, we hadn’t a chance. Oh, I forgot, we also had to worry about the Russians. I didn’t want to learn a new alphabet. ​