Category Archives: Friday Fictioneers

May 20, 2015

Ad-diction – Friday Fictioneers

A couple things before the story:

First of all, I’ve just launched a t-shirt line called Fiction T’s, which have some of the Green-Walled Tower’s best flash fiction on the back. There are a few Friday Fictioneers stories among them as well. Check out the store here, or click on this link to see the post about them. Reblog or share that post before next Wednesday and I will enter you to win one of the shirts.

Second, last weekend I took a trip down to Kansas City and met with Rochelle Wisoff-Fields and Marie Gail Stratford. It was a great chance to chat about writing and other random things. Hopefully I can get the chance to meet other Fictioneers down the road sometime.

Now, on with the story. I waffled a lot on this picture before settling on this story. Click the links if you don’t get the references.

Ad-dicted

“I did the Dew.” His hands trembled. “Nike made me. ‘Just do it,’ they kept whispering.

“Volkswagen told me to Think Small, so I sold my house and lived in a cardboard box. IMAX told me to Think Big, so now I live in a refrigerator box. I only eat McDonald’s hamburgers.”

“Because you’re loving it?”

He nodded. “I ate 82 yesterday.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Impossible is nothing.” He shuddered. “I need help.”

“I might not be the best one for that,” I said, producing a brochure. “But if you get a car again, remember: you’re in good hands with Allstate.”

42 Comments | tags: Adidas, advertising, Allstate, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, IMAX, McDonald's, Nike, slogans, Volkswagen | posted in Friday Fictioneers

May 13, 2015

A Bad Car Dynamic – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

“You’re awful,” I said to my wife in the passenger seat.

“You’re boring,” she shot back.

“Cretin,” I said.

Ten minutes later we were both in tears.

“You,” I shouted, “are an awful, bitchy, crass, dead-eyed, elephant-eared, flappy-lipped, gout-ridden, horse-faced, idiotic, jackass of a keg-guzzling, low-browed, monkey-brained, ninny-hammered, oafish, pachydermal, quarter-ton, rank-odored, skanky, troll-footed, uncultured, vacuous, wasp-hearted, xenophobic, yellow-bellied zombie!”

My wife was pounding the dashboard. “Stop!” she cried. “I can’t breathe.” She wiped her eyes, still laughing. “How much farther?”

“Still 315 miles to Dodge City.”

“Another game?”

The Kansas miles rolled slowly by, each exactly like the previous.

71 Comments | tags: car game, car trip, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, insults, Kansas, marriage, quirky | posted in Friday Fictioneers

May 6, 2015

Good Times at the Water Cooler – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Our company was crashing hard when the head of my department rage-quit, switching our water cooler with a beer keg before he left.

HR found out . . . and started stopping by for a 10am pick-me-up. The company grapevines lit up and soon we were like the popular frat house of the company. I started answering morning emails to the hammering thud of techno music blaring over the cubicles. On Friday I had to step over the passed out CFO on the way to the bathroom.

Productivity plummeted.

That quarter, our profits skyrocketed. Turns out, productivity had been our problem all along.

56 Comments | tags: beer, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, office, water cooler | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 29, 2015

Anchorite – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Anchorite

I climbed that pillar

to meet God, hungering

and thirsting after

righteousness until

nothing but

ragged flesh covered

my naked soul.

“What a self-righteous prig. Holier than thou? Holier than Moses, that one. He finally got fed up with us sinners and climbed up to get away. We’d yell, ‘Met God yet?’”

I met God and

He betrayed me.

I wanted to

stay but He

wouldn’t let me.

“Go back,” He said.

“I was there when he climbed down. I was going to jeer but then I saw the tears. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. I didn’t know what to say.”

40 Comments | tags: anchorite, conversion, fiction, flash fiction, forgiveness, Friday Fictioneers, God, pillar | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 24, 2015

Snow Angels in Hawaii – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

My apologies to everyone who has been wondering where I have disappeared to. I’m around but I have been quite busy and fairly exhausted. You know I’m behind on things when I post a Friday Fictioneers story on Friday. 🙂

Snow Angels in Hawaii

Keck had just found proof of life. I had, really. Soon I would be famous.

I lay in the snow outside, gazing up at the universe.

I don’t have a tie.

I sweat too much.

Talk shows. Ugh.

I looked up into Everything and almost cried. This wasn’t our universe anymore. We were younger brother now to a superior race. The vast parsecs where I had roamed for my career weren’t the frontier; they were someone else’s backyard.

I moved my arms back and forth, melancholy in my triumph, feeling as out of place as a snow angel in Hawaii.

*Keck Observatory is on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

24 Comments | tags: aliens, astronomy, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Hawaii, Keck Observatory, mountains, snow, snow angels | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 15, 2015

Free to Park, Free to Die – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Free to Park, Free to Die

“No parking? What does that even mean? It’s space, your Honor. Space. You can’t own or regulate that. You can’t own anything. Matter was free out in outer space for billions of years and suddenly we put a fence around it? Mine! Don’t touch! Bullshit.

“Of course I entered the yard. I took the vegetables—I made the fire. I’m free, you know. That’s my right. I’m sorry it spread but they didn’t own that house. It’s part of the universe.

“I’m sorry they died. Really. I’m not a monster. But they were free too. They were free to die.”

50 Comments | tags: anarchist, creepy, death, fiction, fire, flash fiction, freedom, Friday Fictioneers, house, trial | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 8, 2015

Big Dumb Snakes – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Big Dumb Snakes

Thirty years ago we released the trains—flipped the switch (God speed!) and forgot about them. They trundled mutely across the country, delivering freight with perfect timing. Cheap too—computers don’t want to get rich.

Then the mistakes started. The book Tammy ordered arrives—along with chemo meds she desperately needs but can’t afford. The company shrugs: “Shipping error; we can’t take them back.”

An engine comes in the mail, unordered. A week later Andrew’s dies. It would’ve cost his monthly salary.

“To err is human but to really screw up . . .” people say, laughing. “Big dumb snakes.”

46 Comments | tags: artificial intelligence, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, science-fiction, trains | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 1, 2015

High Street Lows – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Thank you all for your great comments on my story and picture last week. As you might know, I was out of town at an English teaching convention from Wednesday to Sunday (learning about IEP organizational culture and L2 writing assessment techniques, etc.) so I didn’t get a chance to read many stories. However, I still intend to.

As for this picture, my first instinct was to write an April Fool’s story (either one based on a joke or an actual joke on you) and my second was that this looked like a mouthless face with the right eye winking. I resisted both of these for something much sillier.

High Street Lows

I stepped outside, fell five feet, and sprained my ankle.

I checked the road report.

“High Street is feeling very low today. It’s tired of getting stepped on, like people feel it’s beneath them. Please compliment the road when you get the chance.”

I limped to work, muttering “Good road” through clenched teeth. A storm drain gave off a little sigh of contented steam.

The next day I opened the door to solid earth.

Road report: “High Street is quite high today. Please refrain from complimenting it until further notice. Also, please do not discard drug paraphernalia on the road.”

57 Comments | tags: April Fool's Day, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, quirky, road | posted in Friday Fictioneers

March 25, 2015

Sword Music – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

First of all, I was very happy to see my picture appear here. I’m curious to see what others make of it. Secondly, I won’t be able to do that much this week, since I’m out of town on a business trip until Sunday. I’ll have Internet and will try to find time to read some.

Sword Music

The first note hovered in the air like an orb-weaver hanging from the horn of the moon.

More instruments joined, the energy rising like a waking predator. It ascended, a frenetic dervish, around the musicians, touching the forest of upraised swords. The edges kindled, maddened to fury by the throbbing cacophony of raw power.

The music ceased, except the first lingering, arachnid note. The hungry light of a thousand blades was quenched in their sheaths.

“We desire peace,” the king said, “but you see our weapons. Go tell your people.”

The ambassador wiped his brow. “There will be peace,” he said.