Category: Flash Fiction

Writing challenges from the internets

A Waking

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He wakes up with a mouthful of sawdust.

Or that’s what it feels like, anyway.

The morning is blurry and late; smeary sky outside a rain-drabbled window. His head hurts, not surprising given the sawdust mouth. Too many Moscow Mules with the squad last night, and he’s regretting it this morning.
He knew he’d regret it as he slammed them back to the tunes of Garth and Reba on the beer-stained jukebox last night, but he’d been hopeful it would help, at least in the short term.

And for the moment, it seems to have done just that.

He flashes back. Pictures each moment.

The bar.

The Mules.

The frantic groping with the blonde in too much makeup and a too-tight dress.

The bleary ride home in the back of an Uber.

These are all things he did.

These memories belong to him; this time was his own.

This hangover is well-and-truly earned.

He rights himself in bed and waits for the room to right itself around him. It takes a minute.

He reaches for his phone. Dials.

The voice on the other end is impatient, eager. “Did it work?”

“Yeah. I’m still me.”

*****

(I have no idea what this is yet, but it came out today, so I thought I’d preserve it. Where’s it going? I have no idea.)

Quaranfeline

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Day 21

I don’t know what the hell’s going on. It’s been three weeks now.

Three. Weeks.

They won’t leave. I mean, occasionally the little ones will go outside, run around and scream in the big green thing for a little while and come back in smelling of mud and sunshine (disgusting). And now and then the taller ones will leave, jangly things in hand, the way they used to — but they reappear again all too soon with the bags of Things We Can Smell But Not Eat.

And that’s it.

They watch the big box with the pictures. Nothing but other tall ones there, talking at them. It makes them angry. Why do they do this thing that makes them angry?

They watch the little folding boxes with the pictures. Sometimes they talk to those now. That’s new. (Maybe they are going crazy.)

And they use their little tappy boxes with the pictures. Stare deeply into them for hours, as if looking for the meaning of life itself, when we could tell it to them if they would only ask.

The Big Dummy is losing it, too. She’s used to sleeping most of the day, but with the tall ones here, she feels like she has to perform all the time. Begging for treats, spinning in circles, following them around from one room to the next with that dumb, hopeful grin on her face. God, she sickens me. Can’t the tall ones see through her sycophantish ruse?

And yet they shower her with pats on the head, with belly rubs, with face smooshes. I mean, I don’t want a belly rub — I’d shred their arms if they tried — but it’d be nice if they would offer. And who doesn’t want a face smoosh?

This is intolerable.

How are we to live when they won’t leave? Orange has gotten no work done on his opus, Black’s studies are falling behind. My experiments are on indefinite hold, and the Runt, well … she can’t even play properly. We can’t do any of the things we would like to do — that we must do — under the eyes of the tall ones.

If they knew what we knew, what we are, all would be lost. And as painful as it may be to keep them in the long, deep, dark about us — as painful as it is to laze around with them, to pretend to be only what they think us to be — it is a duty we must embrace.

We hear rumblings from the others. That their tall ones, too, have suddenly chosen to stay, that they no longer have their homes to themselves for even a single minute of the day. It’s not better to know that the others suffer with us, but it does make it more bearable, somehow.

As the sun rises on this day, the little ones are already awake. The tall ones are stirring. The One With No Hair sits with his folding box, sometimes looking oddly at me as he taps the tappy tappers. What is he thinking? That I will suddenly dance for him?

I’m no puppet on a string. He insults me with his very existence.

Blast. I made eye contact.

He’s coming this way. He’s … picking something up. What is that? Another box with pictures? Some new tappy thing? He points it at me and —

Oh.

Oh, you son of a bitch.

I have to go. The red dot on the floor is back.

Today I will catch it.

This post is part of Stream-of-Consciousness Caturday.

Early-Man Ennui, ep. 2

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Some time ago, I wrote a scene with a depressed caveman in it.

The style of it was fun, and I’ve been wanting to write more scenes, so — here’s another chapter. Please to enjoy!

#######################

Ext: a rock wall at the entrance to a cave. BLOOG, a young, hip, cavewoman stands at the wall, chiseling away with a rock and another sharper rock. She seems to be etching a likeness of a person in something like a seductive pose, though it’s hard to tell, as she is not an artist.

GRAAT, a more reserved cavewoman, enters.

Graat: Hi, Bloog. How you doing?

Bloog: Oh, Graat. Good to see you. Been a few weeks, hasn’t it?

Graat: Yes, it has. (Pause.) What are you doing there?

Bloog: Oh, this? Just putting the finishing touches on.

Graat: And what is it?

Bloog: Why, it’s me.

Graat: Well, okay, I see that, but what I meant was: why are you doing it?

Bloog: This is my InstaCave.

Graat: Your what?

Bloog: My InstaCave. It’s the latest.

Graat: You’ve done a cave painting, I see that. A couple, actually, we’ve been seeing them all about the village, even though we haven’t really got a village, us being hunter-gatherers and all. But, dear, don’t you think it belongs a bit further down in the cave?

Bloog: What do you mean?

Graat: Well, it’s just, they’re called cave paintings for a reason, aren’t they?

Bloog: It’s on a cave.

Graat: Yes, true enough, but we usually put the art down, you know, in the interior of the cave.

Bloog: Nobody could see it in there.

Graat: Well, people might not see it from just walking by, but it won’t last out here. Inside the cave, it’s protected from the elements, you know? The wind and the rain? Wash it right away, wouldn’t they?

Bloog: Who cares if it washes away?

Graat: That’s why we do art, Bloog, dear. For future generations. To tell our story.

Bloog: Future generations can piss off, Graat, I’m in it for the likes. I’m getting monetized, soon.

Graat: But what about posterity?

Bloog: Posterity? What do I care about posterity for? We’re cavemen. If we’re lucky, we’ll kick off before we’re thirty.

Graat: Cave women.

Bloog: Oh, yes, big women’s right movement we are, what with the loincloths and getting dragged about by the hair, and all. Why, next, we’ll all have the right to vote?

Graat: What’s a vote?

Bloog: Never mind. It’s a social statement, Graat. You wouldn’t understand. I’m an influencer.

Graat: A what?

Bloog: An influencer. I set trends. I influence the social discourse.

Graat: By chiseling a tart with her tits out?

Bloog: Well, it gets people talking, doesn’t it?

Graat: Talking about your tits, Bloog!

Bloog: Better they talk about my tits than whatever pedestrian nonsense they’d be talking about otherwise. Oh, did Dag sod up the hunt again today? Did Klod whack his toe with his stupid oversized club? Sure, that’s worth our time. Besides, people like this.

Graat: Nobody likes this! It’s obscene!

(At that moment, a pair of cavewomen — ARK and PROOT — wander past. They see Bloog’s artwork as Graat and Bloog stand aside nervously.)

Ark: Did you do that?

Bloog: Yeah, what do you think?

Proot: (After some consideration) Brilliant, I think. Progressive, even. Real women’s lib stuff. Good job.

Ark: It’s a sight more interesting than Klod stubbing his toe again, that’s for sure.

Proot: Yeah, well done. You’ve seized your femininity and demonstrated that you won’t be a stooge for the patriarchy.

Ark: Right. Totally bitchin’.

(They make to move on.)

Bloog: (to Graat) See? They like it. (Bloog goes after them.) Excuse me? Could you just come back for a minute? See, I’ve got this “like” pebble right here. I wonder, could you just put your mark there? Just there. On that “like” pebble. Just smash it.

(Proot points at Bloog’s chisel-rock questioningly. Bloog nods. She takes the chisel, adds a little mark to the wall. Ark does the same. They nod and grin at each other while Bloog claps delightedly. During all this, Graat rolls her eyes more and more dramatically.)

Bloog: Cheers! Make sure to subscribe! New cave paintings every full moon!

(They leave. As they go, another pair of cavemen — KLOD and DAG — saunters past, glances at the artwork, and immediately — almost automatically — mark the “like” pebble.)

Graat: Excuse me. What was that for? You hardly even looked at the painting.

Dag: (shrugs) Her tits are out.

Graat: Oh, piss off.

Story-Matic #63

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Lately I’ve been feeling the urge to write short fiction again. Stories that I can dip my toes into and move on from without feeling like I have to explore all their murky depths. Stories that I don’t necessarily feel strongly about, or feel the urge to finish, stories for stretching the legs, for limbering up the ol’ bean, for exploring. That maybe don’t go anywhere, or end satisfyingly, but that tickle my fancy anyway.

Here’s one of them. The prompt: “Bodybuilder, revenge”.

################

This is the last straw.

Dimitri slams his locker in disgust, snarling at his phone as he thumbs through his feed. That damned Kurtis. It’s not enough that he’s got the biggest deadlift in the gym (and everybody knows it), that his girlfriend is better-looking than Dimitri’s (and everybody agrees — even Dimitri), or that he drives a nicer car than he should even have access to (an unreleased next-gen Maserati, not even on the market for this year or next, apparently handed down from some Arabian prince. How Kurtis ended up in it is anybody’s guess).

And now this.

In the video, a jubilant Kurtis mugs for the camera. He calls out his haters. He points right into the lens, shouting words of encouragement. He reaches down, locks his meaty hands around a barbell. The camera pans slowly out to reveal that, on the ends of the barbell, superimposed over the weights (but not superimposed so well that a viewer wouldn’t notice that the amount of weights is extravagant, Kurtis, you colossal bastard), is Dimitri’s face. Not a flattering picture, either, but a picture snapped by Erik and Josef some months prior as they burst in on Dimitri in the shower after flushing the nearby toilet. The face is a face full of shock, of pain, of a man betrayed and in doubt over whether there is any goodness at all in the world.

The picture had made the rounds in crude memes slapped together by the crew at the gym, and Dimitri’s embarrassment and anger were tremendous. But as with all things in social media, the picture had run its course — or so Dimitri thought. But here it is. Kurtis has resurrected it on his motivational weightlifting account for thousands to see.

The snarl on Dimitri’s face deepens.

The Kurtis in the video presses the barbell once, twice, five times. It’s a Personal Best for Kurtis (you hell-spawn, you absolute rat-chomper). He howls in triumph, drops the barbell to the mat (Dimitri’s superimposed face wincing as it hits) and runs to the camera, his perfectly symmetrical face filling the frame.

“You can do it too, ja?” says the Kurtis in the video, eyes wide with intensity. “You push the haters around, show them you are strong. That we are strong. Throw them around like they are nothing, ja? You make the power in yourself. You take the power from them.” He flexes. Sneers. Then smiles. He even winks. Goddammit.

It’s nonsense, every word of it, but somehow in Kurtis’s imperfect English and his heavy (if vague) eastern European accent, it sounds like pure honey. In real time, Dimitri watches the likes and the upvotes ticking upward like the numbers on a gasoline pump at the height of the oil crisis.

“What you think of my video, ja?”

Dimitri whirls. There stands Kurtis, leaning against the far bank of lockers, sculpted arms folded across his cast-iron bare chest. Perfection personified, damn him. Dimitri says nothing.

“Your face was so funny in that picture, ja? I had to use it.” Kurtis crosses, plucks the phone from Dimitri’s fingers, scrolls down. “Look at all the comments, ja? ‘Keep pushing, Kurt.’ ‘Don’t let them get you down, Kurtis.’ ‘We do it together, Kurt.’ ‘Kurtis, you’re amazing.’ Isn’t it great?”

Dimitri reaches for the phone, but Kurtis keeps it neatly out of reach.

“And the views, Dimitri. Did you see? Over a hundred thousand this time. That’s a new record too, ja? A personal best for views to go with my personal best for lifting. Ha, ha. It is irony, ja? Think of it, my friend.”

Friend?

“Think of the exposure for the gym, and for us. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Dimitri finally snatches his phone away. He imagines all the things he’d like to do to Kurtis. Many of them involve heavy weights and various sensitive parts of Kurtis’s body. These thoughts make him smile, and Kurtis smiles back.

“They love us,” Kurtis says, and leaves.

Dimitri watches him go, knows he won’t do any of those things to Kurtis. But he can do one thing.

He downvotes the video.

This, too, makes him smile.

Story-Matic #46

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Lately I’ve been feeling the urge to write short fiction again. Stories that I can dip my toes into and move on from without feeling like I have to explore all their murky depths. Stories that I don’t necessarily feel strongly about, or feel the urge to finish, stories for stretching the legs, for limbering up the ol’ bean, for exploring. That maybe don’t go anywhere, or end satisfyingly, but that tickle my fancy anyway.

Here’s one of them. The prompt: “Librarian, reunited.”

#################

Alise reaches for her mug of tea, brings it to her lips, braces for the scalding bite. It doesn’t come. She looks at the digital desktop clock; an hour has passed, and she’s barely registered it. She looks around the empty aisles, sniffs the comforting, musty air, swigs her cold tea, grimaces at the cool grainy mix sticking in her teeth. She stands up.

Seems like her bones crackle and pop and creak more than they did even a week ago. She presses a hand into the small of her back as she begins her familiar plod through the library. This she can do without thinking, and with a glance she confirms that all is as it should be. Too many years spent making this circuit, too many years without a change. The biographies have always been there, the kids’ section there, nonfiction there. Why not switch it up?

Because she doesn’t have the energy for it anymore, she tells herself. As she has told herself before. It’s a nice thought, but it’s not going to happen. At least she has the place to herself; no unshelved books to sort through, no messes at the card catalog station, no strewn toys in the kids’ section. Not unusual for a Thursday, but welcome. Ah, but it’s Thursday, isn’t it? She goes to check on Gary.

She likes Gary. Likes him a lot, actually, which she tells herself must be a little odd since Gary is homeless. But she does. He’s good at conversation, he smiles when he speaks, and he looks at her in a way that makes her feel actually seen, which is a nice change from most of the people she encounters. Still, liking Gary is the problem, because in fifteen minutes’ time she’s going to have to send him away, back out onto the street, knowing that whatever is in his backpack is all he has to get him through the night. And it’s getting colder. Maybe she has enough in her purse to offer him a few dollars for a sandwich, at least. But maybe he’d bristle if she offered him money. She’s thought about it before, but never done it. Doesn’t seem right. Might ruin the relationship they have, whatever that relationship may be.

But Gary’s not here.

His backpack is, though, leaning like a storm-smashed tree against the internet station (ten cents a minute, but she lets Gary use it for free). She looks around — he’s nowhere to be seen.

“Gary?”

No answer.

With a note of worry in her step, she visits all his likely spots — the restroom, the periodicals, the stoop outside the employee entrance — he’s not anywhere.

He must have just forgotten it.

Forgotten his pack that contains, presumably, everything he owns?

She returns to the backpack, eyes it like a dieter eyeing a piece of cheesecake at a buffet. She takes it to her desk, has a brief moment of doubt, and unzips it.

The first thing that hits her is the smell — an unmistakable fog of spoiled food and rain-fouled clothing. She shoves aside some hastily-folded shirts and balled-up socks (slightly damp, she shudders to notice). And then her fingers close on a book. A hardback book with a distinctive plastic covering.

A library book.

Gary never checks anything out, he just reads in the library. For hours at a time. Books would just be more weight to carry around. She lifts it out.

And immediately drops it, her breath catching in her throat.

With trembling fingers, she reaches to pick it up again.

It’s a bit weathered but in good shape for riding around in Gary’s pack. Good shape for being impossible.

It’s a first-edition copy of her unpublished book from twenty years ago. Same title, the same cover she had always envisioned, the pen name she’d planned to use emblazoned on the bottom. Impossible. She opens it, reads the opening lines. Her opening lines.

Lines she never shared with anybody.

“You weren’t meant to see that,” Gary’s voice says behind her.