Tag: #flashfictionforaspiringwriters

Posted in Fiction

Disappear

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He had warned him. He had told him he had a short time to get the hell out of his sight. To get away from the apartment. He watched him walk along, slouching, slowly. He felt like he was mocking him. If he didn’t disappear from view soon, he would go down there and make him disappear. He would be sure he never hurt anyone again.

That miserable man had hurt his sister. Not physically, but in a worse way. He had figured out she came from money and had conned her out of some of her inheritance before he figured out what was going on. When he confronted his sister and insisted she cut off the money and see if he still stayed with her, his romantic fervor started to die.

Finally, he found him at her apartment, trying to twist her arm for money. He sent him on his way and gave him a time limit. As he watched him, he glanced at his watch and knew his time was almost up.

*Photo Credit to Enisa

174 words

Posted in Fiction

Death in the Lab

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The entomologist found him in the park. Struggling in the gravel that surrounded a flowery border. When he bent down to look at him, he could tell that he was still alive but probably had a broken leg. He was walking home from the local university, but he always had a plastic bag and tweezers on him for specimens.. Entomologists study insects. He was teaching a class right now where they were dissecting and studying herbivorous insects.

He bagged the grasshopper and, instead of going home, he turned around and went back to his lab. He was considering trying to save this grasshopper. He had never tried to save one before. He’d always killed them in them name of research and science.

He sat the grasshopper on the table and walked out of the room to get his supplies. When he walked back in, one of his students was leaning over the grasshopper. He walked over to him. He had already dissected the grasshopper.

The entomologist felt a real sense of loss.

171 words

Photo credit any1mark66

 

Posted in Fiction

The Song of the Horns

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When they were children, they would lie on the bank of the river and watch the barges and boats as they passed by. It was a game to count them. A way to fill their lonely existence at home. They only had each other as playmates.

As teenagers, they started feeling romantic feelings for each other as they watched those boats pass by. They held hands. They chased each other along trails by the river. They pitched a tent and spent the night by the river, but in separate sleeping bags. They listened to the lonely horns of the boats sound their song.

Finally, they parted. She was older and went off to college. He missed her, but there was nothing he could do. It was many years before they saw each other again. When they did, at her mother’s funeral, the old magic was still there.

They walked back down to the river after the funeral. She didn’t know he’d thought of her every day. They clasped hands, heard the horns, and knew.

174 words

Photo Credit to Barb CT

Posted in Fiction, Flash Fiction

Carnage

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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A small crowd of protestors formed in a midwestern town in the U.S. They were taking a chance of being arrested by the roaming police of the U.S. government.

“Aaron, I’m terrified that we’re actually doing this,” Mandy said.

Aaron replied, “We have to be brave or we will never get our freedom back.”

The crowd was protesting the discontinued social programs, particularly those that provided them food and medical attention. The President had all social programs abolished in 2017. Since then, the disabled and the elderly people in their community had suffered and many had died.

Now it was 2019. There were few jobs. People tried to farm, but the change in the climate made it almost impossible. Aaron had organized this small protest.

A young girl was carrying a sign that said, “Love.”

They heard the police before they saw them marching in. They stood their ground. The police began the carnage by knocking the sign out of the young girl’s hands.

162 words

Photo credit to Elaine Farrington Johnson

Posted in Challenges, Uncategorized

Pretty Terrible

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Marianne has been in with the doctors a long time. That’s what Marianne’s husband, Joseph, was thinking as he sat in the hospital waiting room. He noticed the flowers. Pretty. He hated hospitals. He’d just focus on the flowers while he waited on Marianne.

“Excuse me. Mr. Hayworth?”

Joseph jumped. He’d nodded off, staring at those flowers.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hayworth. Your wife has a collapsed lung. We accidentally caused it to collapse at the end of the procedure. She has to stay until it resolves. She’s in Room 412.”

Joseph was still trying to wake up. He jumped up, thanked the doctor, and shook his hand. The doctor left and walked quickly down the hall.

“Now what?” Joseph thought.

He walked over to the flowers, snatched them out of the pots, and started walking quickly to Room 412 to see Marianne.

140 words

Photo Credit Shivamt25

Posted in Challenges

The Homeless Veterans

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Every morning they were there. All the jars with hot drinks in them. It was starting to get cold in the city. The season was changing from fall into winter. There was a man in an army jacket who came long before dawn and set up the jars. He took great care with them.

David was homeless and usually tried to sleep in a cubby hole he’d found in the park. Since the man had been setting up the hot drinks each morning, David sat in the shadows and watched him. David was a veteran of the Army. The Vietnam War. There was something familiar about the man.

The homeless people in the area always came with a cup right after dawn. David joined them. The coffee tasted wonderful and was hot. It warmed them, their bodies and their souls. The man kept coming with refills.

David looked up at him and their eyes met. They both started to smile. They had been in the same platoon in the war.

170 words

Posted in Challenges

Cold Blooded

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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It was Sunday night in Harlan County, Kentucky. Jeremiah and his girlfriend, Jamie, were walking to services at Holiness Church of Harlan. They’d heard something new and exciting was going to happen tonight. Both young people had gotten dissatisfied with their church recently. It was becoming increasingly conservative.

Near the middle of the service, some of the men carried in a wooden box. Jeremiah and Jamie looked at each other, neither knowing what was going on. The pastor opened the box and pulled out a large rattlesnake. Jamie grabbed Jeremiah’s hand. Their’s had never been a snake-handling church although they had heard of such churches. Supposedly, if the snakes didn’t bite the handlers, they had the appropriate amount of faith.

One of the men in the congregation went up to handle the snake. It took about 20 seconds for the timber rattlesnake to bite him on the hand. As he was screaming and the snake was put back in the box, Jamie and Jeremiah ran out of the church, knowing their religious preference had just changed.

Posted in Flash Fiction

Family

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Tonight had been high school graduation for Jacob’s class. Mom, Dad, and Sara, his sister, had been there to watch him walk across the stage. He was pretty proud of himself. It had been a struggle at times to get to this stage.

Jacob had straightened up and graduated with straight A’s. He had slipped up tonight. After graduation, he had gone out for a while with friends and had a few drinks. He was walking home.

He was only two houses away from home. A car pulled up and a guy jumped out and tried to pull him in the car. He started fighting and yelling. He was just about to lose the fight and he felt someone pulling back and he heard Dad yelling in return. Dad had heard the commotion. The car sped off and he fell to the pavement. Dad picked him up and held him. He saved him again. He’d been watching out the window for him to come home.

Posted in Challenges

Chasing the Killer

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“We have sightings of him in Red River Gorge, Captain,” Rain said. She was a patrol officer on the Lexington Police Force.

“Get a team together and get out there. Find out where in the Gorge,” the Captain responded. “You need the dogs.”

Red River Gorge is a huge wilderness area near Lexington, Kentucky. Leroy Michaels, a convicted murderer, had escaped from jail. They had reason to believe he was trying to hide by losing himself in the Gorge. His wife, who he had tried to kill, lived near by. The police had items of his clothing to give to the dogs.

The police team and the canine team all met at Slade, an entry point to the Gorge. They gave the clothing to the dogs and they got the scent. Everyone started out following the dogs who headed into one of the mosts rugged parts of the Gorge.

They heard a scream and saw a flash of orange. Leroy Michaels had fallen 60 feet from one of the many ledges in the Gorge.

 

Posted in Flash Fiction

Frosted

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Ruby didn’t understand why things kept disappearing. Her hairbrush. The book she was reading. She hadn’t found either of them. It was only she and Ralph in the house. He wouldn’t take those things. What need would Ralph, her husband have for them? He was as puzzled as she was.

Today, her Christmas cactus was missing. Ruby felt like she was losing her mind. Could it be dementia? She even looked around outdoors and there it was. Covered with frost. She snatched it up, taking it inside. She knew something was very wrong.

As she went inside, she heard Ralph on the phone and stopped when she heard the words “nursing home.” She realized he was talking to his brother about her. They were planning on putting her in a nursing home and Ralph had been setting her up.

She would show him.