Filed under: All Writing Challenges | Tags: Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Madison Woods
The writing on the note was plain, a jumble of capitals and lower case. The paper was perforated, a jumble of lines and holes. The ink was smeared. And I read the words of a liar. I tried correlating them to experiences and memories without success. Staring at the truncated crossings of letters t and f, the open loops of letters g and p, I noticed the haste in the letters I, I, I, the fear I would interrupt him in the gaunt y, o, u. In my search for shreds of content, meaning disintegrated into picked bones on stone.
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Filed under: All Writing Challenges | Tags: Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Holiday Story, Madison Woods
Choose firm, earthy-colored mushrooms. Discard those with spots or slimy gills. Brown everything in sizzling butter: floured chicken, pearl onions, mushrooms, some carrots, much garlic with a pinch of thyme. Be rash, use high heat to sear these flavors. My recipe departs from the traditional one—here—when everything caramelizes, gets crusty, pour wine in the pot. Submerge everything in wine. Add more. Open another bottle. Forget chicken stock; forget hoarding mushrooms until the last fifteen minutes of cooking; forget it all while there’s time to grab another romp through the woods. Let everything simmer while you stoke appetites.
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Filed under: All Writing Challenges | Tags: Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Madison Woods
My purse is on the chair, the cat is under the bed, the dog is on the couch, the stash of money is in the pot in the cupboard above the stove, the cell phone is charged on the bedside table. Oh, what am I forgetting? Car keys—make sure they’re in the purse. Phone numbers, yes, we’ll need those in case we lose our way, addresses and the GPS. Oh, food, food, food. I’ll grab chips. Water, we have milk. In case that is not the sun: An axe, do you think we’ll need an axe? Or a gun?
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Filed under: All Writing Challenges | Tags: Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Holiday Story, Madison Woods
What’s up?
The sky. That’s a silly joke, get it?
My mom tells me I’m unique. Different than Jerry. He’s my exact twin brother. I don’t know if that’s a joke. I don’t see it. We are both left-handed. We look alike but I’ve something more—a special mole on my nostril. Mom says an angel forgot to wipe off his kiss. And then she kisses me on the same spot and tries to wipe it away.
Today I told her. This time she made me sad. I don’t want to be a dishwasher. I want to be a conductor. Like Jerry does.
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Filed under: All Writing Challenges | Tags: Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Holiday Story, Madison Woods
They became insane: Worse than any flood, they felt the anguish of an undeserved war. Worse than any fire, it never ended. Caught by hate, they nursed thoughts of revenge in paraplegic bodies.
They numbered few pleasures: When winds raged, they rent limbs. Satisfied with earthquakes and hurricanes, they blessed a fallen neighbor’s shower of bricks. The hole, another scar, left.
Without mouths, without ears or eyes, they understood our ruthless narcissism. Breathless, they fought back. In unison.
Their combat methods improved, unnoticed as a firmly pressed mouth: Soldiers in an outdated army, they dropped tiny acorns, bombs of mutation.
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Filed under: All Writing Challenges | Tags: Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Holiday Story, Madison Woods
Georgia’s favorite part about love was the freedom it gave her to be sentimental. That says it all, doesn’t it? She dredged old memories, mining them for romance. Georgia even asked a farmer to bring ugly trees to market. Every Christmas, she rushed to his stall where he twirled each pathetic specimen for her serious consideration.
So, there it stood, a fussed over weakling, the symbol of another tree found on an adventure trespassing between cow patties. Always a bald, scrawny thing, the tree never helped me recapture romance. What did an eyesore have to do with my sweet love?
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Robin Hawke 