Tag Archives: flash fiction

May 7, 2014

Same Difference – Friday Fictioneers

Same Difference

“The secret to the mud is the nutrients,” Grandpa said. “Nutrients!”

“Mm, Nutrasweet, got it,” Jay said, concentrating on his game.

“Pay attention!” Grandpa snapped. “Whitmore Mud Masks is yours when I die. Now, there is only one place where you can get the perfect mud. It’s in Tibet.”

After Grandpa’s funeral, Jay tried to remember what his grandfather had said. All he could remember was Fruit Ninja. He went out to the bay and dug up some mud there. Same difference.

After several complaints of green skin and weeds sprouting from people’s faces, Jay started studying maps of Tibet.

50 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, mud, quirky | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 30, 2014

Waxy Wolly – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Well, I’m back from the hospital and back into my routine. My apologies for not being able to read many stories last week, but I’ll make up for it this week, I promise. Also, although my Monday post, Drowning Day, was supposed to be humor, it was rather dark, so I’m sorry (to those who prefer my lighter stories) for another dark story today. I have a funny one coming up on Friday this week.

Also, since this is a horror story, I will dedicate it to my friend, K.Z. Morano, whose book 100 Nightmares just came out.

Waxy Wolly

Do you know Waxy Wolly, that goblin with the soft, melty face, drooping eyes flickering like malevolent candles? May he never come to your house.

Many a mother has looked into a cradle to see her baby staring up, a living effigy of that happy, laughing soul of only an hour before. And then when she washes it in hot water or puts it near the fire . . .

No one believes me. They all think I killed them. But there are no bodies to convict me. Just a waxy stain in front of the hearth, like someone spilled a large candle.

47 Comments | tags: creepy, death, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, horror, monster, wax | posted in Dark, Friday Fictioneers

April 27, 2014

How Much for the Tractor?

By David Stewart

How Much for the Tractor?

“How much for the tractor?” Robby asked.

Jed made a show of calculating. “Let’s say six grand.”

“I’ll give you four.”

“5500 then.”

“I’ll give you five grand if you also throw in your old picnic table. You don’t use it anymore anyway.”

“Fine, I’ll give you the tractor and the picnic table for five grand and your push mower.”

“What? That push mower is still pretty good. But okay . . . if I can kiss your sister—”

“What!”

“Hug! Hug your sister.”

“That’s not up to me . . .”

“Just don’t beat me up if I do.”

“Fine. But in that case . . .”

<20 minutes later>

“Okay,” Robby said. “So I get the tractor, the picnic table, a hug from your sister, three steaks cooked medium rare, a hundred shares of stock in your son’s future company, and an invitation to your Christmas party and I’ll give you five grand, the push mower, a load of gravel, a set of wind-chimes made out of coral, and you can be best man at my wedding. Sound fair?”

“Sure. Can you pay in cash?”

“I don’t have that much right now, but here’s what I can offer you . . .”

24 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, bargaining, fiction, flash fiction, funny, sale, tractor | posted in Light

April 23, 2014

The song of the old country

By David Stewart

I’m lying in a hospital bed after having had knee surgery, writing this on my phone. That’s right: nothing stops me from doing Friday Fictioneers!

The Song of the Old Country

“At first it was a scuffle, and then a big kerfuffle. How we all did grieve when we had to leave.”

Grandpa’s songs always started like that. Then he would sing about the paradise of the old country before the war.

Grandpa’s light-hearted songs could not prepare me for the reality. Even as an adult and wearing a radiation suit, my eyes filled with tears as I looked out over the blighted wasteland.

I turned to go when a flash of green caught my eye. A clump of clover had burst from the poisonous ground. Grandpa’s old country was returning.

37 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, hope, song, war | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 20, 2014

The Rage Within

By David Stewart

The Rage Within

ADX-Florence Supermax Prison, Fremont County, CNN

The guards say that no inmates ever went near Karl Zakharin’s zen garden, scratched out of a sandy corner of the exercise ground. Not unless they wanted one of their fingers to become a grisly addition, the center of a newly-pinked swirl of sand. Every day at 10:00 sharp, the crime boss would smooth out the sand and spend an hour drawing circles and whorls with a stick or arranging cigarette butts in an aesthetic fashion.

“Just letting out the rage that’s trapped inside,” he would say to anyone who asked. The guards were not so trusting and routinely dug up the sand patch, looking for contraband. They found nothing.

Three years later, the mystery was solved. A codebook, found 2000 miles away in a gang hideout, detailed the complex language through which Zakharin communicated with his vast syndicate. Authorities also found a commercially-built drone, which had flown high overheard every day, capturing the day’s messages.

Confronted by this evidence, Zakharin only smiled his customary leer of filed points. “It was therapy,” he told guards. “The rage was confined here behind these walls. I was only letting it out into the real world where it belongs.”

Zakharin is believed to have ordered the murders of 136 people while incarcerated.

19 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, CNN, code, crime, crime boss, fiction, flash fiction, murder, prison, Supermax Prison | posted in Dusk

April 16, 2014

The Birth of History – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

The Birth of History

Hector’s breath hissed through the ventilator and he surveyed the delivery room through the windows of his mask. All outside sounds were muffled, including the wail of his newborn son, lying in its mother’s arms.

“The doctor says all is well,” she said. “He can breathe normally.”

Hector nodded. “I wish I could touch him.”

“At home. The atmosphere is optimized for all three of us there.”

“Do you think he will be alright?”

His wife took his gloved hand. “He will be celebrated. The first offspring between a Terran and a Venusian is a cause for joy, not shame.”

68 Comments | tags: aliens, baby, birth, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, newborn, science fiction, Venus | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 13, 2014

What if…?

By David Stewart

What if…?

Rick Forrest was driving the Number 45 bus, empty, back toward the garage when he saw a man waiting at a lonely bus stop on the opposite side. There were no more buses that day, so he slowed and slide open his window.

“Hey buddy, no more buses today!”

The man looked up. “I’m not waiting for that bus.”

“This is the only bus route out here,” Rick said. He was about to drive away, when the man stood up and took a step into the road.

“The bus will be here any moment. Do you want to take it too? There’s room.”

You’re crazy! was on the tip of Rick’s tongue, but something in the man’s intent look made him pause. “I have to finish my route.”

“Come on, there’s room. It’s worth it.”

Rick suddenly had an insane vision of himself parking the bus by the side of the road and getting out to wait with the man. Crazy. He stepped on the gas and drove off.

A dark red bus was approaching. He watched it in the rear view mirror as it stopped and the man got on. Then the bus vanished into thin air.

Rick finished his route and went home, but every single day for the rest of his life, the same question went through his head: What if I had gotten on that bus?

6 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, bus, countryside, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction | posted in Dusk

April 9, 2014

Homecoming – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Homecoming

The whole town was there, standing in hushed anticipation for the return of Senor Najera’s son from the war.

“He was wounded,” someone whispered. “Hit by the enemy’s new weapon.”

The ship approached, the gangplank descended, and Mateo Najera appeared. The crowd gasped.

The rags of the once-proud army uniform were stretched over the misshapen, hulking figure that shambled off. One huge eye lolled at them, roaming witlessly.

Senora Najera tore from her husband’s restraint. “Stop!” he shouted. “What if he’s contagious?”

“He’s still my baby,” she said and ran to embrace him until her tears wet his festering skin.

98 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, homecoming, love, monster, Mother, mutation, Spain, war | posted in Friday Fictioneers

April 6, 2014

Snowing in Summer

By David Stewart

The Snow Tree

“Daddy, let’s go! Let’s go!”

My youngest daughter Terri was bouncing up and down with impatience. I could understand. The weather was broiling and the whole world was sunnyside up.

We walked to the cemetery slowly, keeping under the shade of the trees. Then we saw it up ahead, the snow tree, gently shedding its delicate frozen blossoms.

It seemed like half the town was there already, making snow cones and throwing snowballs that melted with a hiss as soon as they left the shade of the tree.

It was amazing how incurious our town of Gooseneck was. The tree was obviously magical, but there it was, dropping snow all year round, so what were you going to do?

Terri and I played under that tree every day that summer. But it was the last. The town ran into budget problems and sold the tree to a casino for fifty million dollars. We were sad to see it go.

Although, not as sad as we were when we realized that the tree had been planted to keep a pack of ghouls that were buried in the cemetery frozen for all eternity. They were pissed when they thawed out.

Nobody saw that one coming.

8 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, ghouls, magic, monsters, snow, tree | posted in Light

April 3, 2014

I Bought Him Shoes

By David Stewart

This is a flash fiction piece, inspired by a prompt by Eric Alagan. The point is to write a 55-word story about a hobo, but never use that word in the story. Go read his as well; it’s really excellent.

This is based on a true story, but since I only know it secondhand, it may not be entirely accurate. Perhaps the person associated with it will read this and let me know. 🙂

I bought him shoes when he passed through town. He didn’t want a home; said he already had one—with an expansive gesture. But the new Reeboks keep him warm and dry.

He sends emails sometimes, when his meandering journey passes a library.

It’s freezing out now. I trust his wits, but I still pray.