Tag Archives: flash fiction

April 12, 2019

Competing Vows

Competing Vows

We met at the garden gate after dark, both trembling and nervous. She was still beautiful, even swathed in the crisp, new habit.

“Hello, wife,” I said, still unused to that glorious word.

She looked troubled. “The abbess said the cardinal has annulled it.”

“We didn’t agree to that! Did you?” She shook her head. “Let’s run away. Tonight.”

“Where?”

“There hasta be somewhere your family can’t find us.” I tried to draw her outside, my body aching for her. “Do you have some time, at least?”

She resisted. “They made me take other vows here.”

“But ours came first.”

26 Comments | tags: convent, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, nun, romance, secret marriage, tryst, vows, wedding | posted in Dusk, Friday Fictioneers

April 3, 2019

The Family Legacy

By David Stewart

The Family Legacy

The basement stank of burned flesh.

“It’s a gateway to outside our world,” my dad said, pointing to the hole. “They never stop coming, but light attracts them.”

I adjusted my night vision goggles. “Can we block it up?”

“You don’t think I’ve tried?”

A stygian tendril snaked out. Dad’s machete came down, severing it cleanly. I heard a shriek.

“They do that sometimes.” He tossed the writhing limb into the incinerator.

“What if they’re intelligent, if they need help?”

“We can’t risk it,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. All blood is black in the dark.”

36 Comments | tags: dark, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, horror, invasion, monsters | posted in Dark, Friday Fictioneers

March 27, 2019

This is my 200th Friday Fictioneers story, each one exactly 100 words. I started doing these over six years ago, but I took a break for most of the last two years, which is why I’m only reaching this number now.

I decided to go through the Friday Fictioneers stories I did in the past and pick my top five stories. I came up with 22 favorites, but narrowed it down to 10. If you have been reading for a while, you might remember some of these. Here they are in chronological order:

1. The Wrong Tourist (#11) (This was the first one that used a picture I submitted)

2. Knick-Knack Paddy Whack (#40)

3. The Dog, the Clubhouse, and the Cookies (#53)

4. What Does This Button Do? (#61)

5. Jasper’s Lamp (#62)

6. Fructocidal (#63)

7. The Last Few Seconds (#64)

8. A Bad Car Dynamic (#127)

9. Desertedmoonlitclearing.com (#139)

10. Prodigal (#181)

And now, this week’s story.

Baby Balloons

Finally, the loom stopped.

“That’s the last one,” Mrs. Arane said. She sighed.

Her assistant Cyclosa pointed to the hundreds of shroud-white balloons along the walls. “You made them well.”

“What if they get hungry during the flight?” Mrs. Arane sniffed.

“They’ll be okay.”

Mrs. Arane wiped her eyes. “Some of them.”

“Children, come get your balloons!” Cyclosa called. She grabbed four balloons in four of her limbs.

The baby spiders lined up, bouncing with excitement. One by one, they took a balloon and, waving goodbye, launched themselves into the open air.

Mrs. Arane watched with tears and a smile.

Read about spider ballooning

19 Comments | tags: balloon, ballooning, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, good bye, silk, spiders, weaving | posted in Friday Fictioneers

March 14, 2019

Rebirth

By David Stewart

I tried to think of a pithier title and couldn’t come up with anything.

Rebirth

You can’t know what happens after you die. The piano feels screws loosening, feels a crowbar somewhere underneath. Wood cracks, splinters. It’ll be soon. They’ve already pried off its ivory keys. At least it doesn’t hurt.

There’s a pling sound as its strings are cut, the last music it will ever play.

Consciousness fades.

* * *

“What a unique table!”

The table feels a hand run along its glossy surface.

“It looks like it was made from a grand piano top.”

Was I ever a piano? the table wonders. It can’t remember. Unfortunately, you can’t know what happened before you were born.

26 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, music, Piano, rebirth, reincarnation | posted in Dusk, Friday Fictioneers

November 7, 2018

Carving at Hades’ Chains

By David Stewart

“It takes patience,” the lunatic had said. “A sledgehammer won’t work. Only beauty overcomes death.”

By the light of a bone-white moon, I felt my way to my mother’s grave, carrying a purloined hammer and chisel. I started carving swirls into the marble, then starbursts and graceful figures until I transformed that baleful guardian into revivifying craftsmanship. I prayed I would see her again—not some ghastly reanimation, but really her.

“There was a grave robbery,” my dad said at breakfast. “Someone destroyed a headstone. The body is missing.”

My soul leapt.

“It’s the one right next to your mother’s.”

38 Comments | tags: death, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, grave, Mother, reanimation | posted in Dark

November 1, 2018

I, Pawn

By David Stewart

Even pawns can become queen. Just keep moving forward.

I may only be a lady-in-waiting, but over the years, across the chessboard, the queen has taught me everything until I am sure I know more than that hapless prince.

So one night I take a large pillow and go to the queen’s bed.

Just get to the end.

Regicide? No, promotion.

I put on the crown and march to the hall.

“The queen is dead! Long live your new queen!”

I don’t see Sir Geoffrey until he stabs his sword into my side.

I always forget how the knights move.

24 Comments | tags: chess, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, queen, regicide | posted in Dusk, Friday Fictioneers

June 20, 2018

Anna and Me and the Sa-shee-mee

By David Stewart

Anna and Me and the Sa-shee-mee

Anna and me and 30 crates of future sa-shee-mee are stuck on I-90C, America’s only interstate canal. A kayak’s jackknifed up ahead, blocking both directions, and our fishies are stewing in the sun, slowly turning into gumbo.

“We’re on water,” Anna says. “Ya gotta think outside the boat.”

She grabs a fine-mesh net and I start dumping in the crates while she gets snorkeled up. There’s a splash and then she’s getting pulled along like a professional fish-walker.

“I couldn’t hold ‘em,” she gasps when I find her twenty miles later.

Danged if that wasn’t the fishies’ plan all along.

*sa-shee-mee

32 Comments | tags: canal, fiction, flash fiction, Friday, humor, sashimi, traffic jam | posted in Friday Fictioneers, Light

February 21, 2018

Shorn Glory

By David Stewart

Shorn Glory

She takes her first tentative steps onto the runway, foreign territory after a year’s absence.

The crowd erupts in applause at her appearance. She can read their thoughts in their expressions.

She’s beautiful again.

You can’t even tell she was sick.

At the end of the runway she pauses. Reaching up, she pulls the wig from her head, her smooth scalp reflecting the harsh scrutiny of the spotlights.

The expressions change to shock. The applause falters.

Someone is still clapping. One little girl is applauding wildly, a grin on her pale face, a bright bandanna tied around her hairless head.

14 Comments | tags: cancer, chemotherapy, fashion show, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, model | posted in Dusk

September 23, 2017

Equal Opportunity Employer

By David Stewart

Night of the Living Job Applicant, Jessica thought as the man shuffled in, clutching a scribbled resume. IT guys were scruffy, but not usually abandoned-corpse scruffy.

“Job.” The voice was like dusty silk.

Taking the crumpled resume, Jessica noticed a gap between the shirt and glove. There was no skin, just thick threads running next to white bone.

The eyes were glassy, unfocused. She got the feeling this was less a person than a machine, being controlled from the inside.

Still, they were an equal opportunity employer.

“Any experience in web design?”

The head jerked once. Up. Down. “Oh yes.”

22 Comments | tags: equal opportunity employer, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, humor, IT, job applicant, spider | posted in Friday Fictioneers, Light

September 14, 2017

Five, Maybe Six

By David Stewart

Jeremy stared at the bread, horrorstruck. It was the fifth heart.

Maybe the sixth.

Last week, he’d gone to a fortuneteller and somehow a seven-of-hearts had gotten stuck in the tarot deck. The fortuneteller gamely forged ahead, declaring he would die after seeing seven hearts.

Now he’d seen five—maybe six: that cloud had either been a heart or a camel.

Jeremy finished making his sandwich and left for work. Stepping outside, he heard a screech of metal. He looked up just as the heart from a new erotic cake bakery sign bore down.

It wasn’t a camel, he thought.