Tag: shortfiction

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 Spoiler

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”Why do some people have to spoil everything?” I wondered out loud, as I stared through the mesh of the screen door into the jungle of the yard. I was thinking of the old man at the pier. I had thought, last year when visiting here, that he was my friend. This year, it was clear he wasn’t.

I loved to go to the pier at sunset. The Gulf was so peaceful. The sunset so beautiful. A man was there who I used to enjoy talking to. No more. Now he only wanted to argue. I didn’t know why.

Posted in Fiction

Assault

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He didn’t leave the cool confines of his apartment very often. There, he was safe. Safe from from the broiling sun of the equatorial city. Safe from the cacophony of noise that assailed his ears when he opened the door of the hotel. Safe, most of all, from the germs that he could feel penetrating his skin when he wasn’t in the filtered air in his suite. An assault on his senses.

What he was in search of today couldn’t be delivered. He smiled to himself. It could be delivered but refused to be. He walked several blocks through the city. As he walked, he became less aware of those things that assaulted his senses and more aware at the prize at the end of his journey. Ahead of his, he saw the hotel that was his destination. He stopped and gathered his composure.

He walked into the hotel bar. He saw her immediately. His daughter, waiting for him,     for the first time in twenty years.

171 words

Photo credit to dorothy

Posted in Fiction

The Bullying

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The school bus stopped with a screech in front of the fire station. The children had misbehaved almost the entire route and the monitor seemed unable to stop them. Now, something drastic was happening as the monitor was screaming for him to stop and all the children seemed to be screaming. Something about bullying. The bus driver shrugged his shoulders and came to a halt.

The little boy had been shoved around since he had boarded the school bus. He was pushed around every day. The monitor knew it, but she didn’t want to get in the middle of it because those kids would turn on her. The two bigger boys called him terrible names and said awful things to him.

Today, the unthinkable happened. The little boy reached in his backpack and pulled out a pistol. He was waving it around wildly, threatening to shoot the bigger boys who were bullying him and the other kids on the bus. The bigger boys were crying.

They were by the fire station. The driver quietly walked off the bus and got the firemen. When the little boy saw them, he sat down in the floor and started crying too.

199 words

Posted in Fiction

Amsterdam

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“Why is the stupid door pink instead of red,” Katrina mumbled to herself. She had just rented a room in the famous red light district in Amsterdam. An American girl in Amsterdam. No money, no way to get home, no job. It was just sex. She scratched a smiley face on the door and went inside.

It wasn’t bad. There were new linens. She had heard that putting a bowl of pasta puttanesca out drew in clients. A knock at the door. Her first client. He took one look at her and said, “Let me help you get home.”

99 words

Posted in Fiction

Consequences

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62B0EBD5-A0DC-4754-8F68-1FAD308E4814They docked off Grand Cayman Island. Dave and his wife were going on a day trip to the island on the little ferry. Dave had business there. Maria was looking forward to the shopping on the island. Dave knew he would be able to slip away from her for a few moments while she shopped. Dave picked up his backpack. No one would ever know about the large amount of money in it or the money laundering scheme. He had already managed to get it through customs by hiding it.Now to hook up with his contact.

Dave worked for a gangster who was a crime boss. He’d asked Dave to take some drug money to the Cayman’s and give it to his contact.

Dave sent Maria off to shop and sat down on a bench to wait, backpack by his side as instructed. A woman came along and casually picked it up. Dave was relieved.

When he got back to New York, the crime boss called him in and asked him what happened. The contact had not picked up the money. Dave tried to explain it must have been stolen. Wham! The bodyguard broke both of  his knees.

 

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 Fiction

The Ruins

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Wearing a special HazMat suit developed in early 2018, Jennifer was one of the environmental scientists who was outdoors in the Fall of 2028 taking soil and air samples. Her team was working in the Washington, DC/New York City/Boston corridor.

After a North Korean missile had struck Japan, the U.S. had bombed North Korea. They got off a missile toward South Korea. Using several nuclear-tipped ICBMs, Beijimg had fired on the east coast of the U.S. and the U.S. had destroyed the capital of China. What was left of the U.S. government had been moved to Columbus, Ohio.

Radiation poisoning spread over the eastern portion of the U.S. Many teams like Jennifer’s were deployed over the entire region. People were surviving, but few survived along the northeast corridor. They had determined that it would be years before the food would be safe to grow. Water was being purified.

Jennifer went inside the in-ground shelter to make her report. No real change from the last time. She recommended importing as much food as possible and relying on the western U.S. for the rest. She laid her head on her desk and cried.

Sunday Photo Fiction

Posted in Flash Fiction

Cheep!

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Cheep! Cheep! Jaqi’s eyes flew open. It was the smoke alarm. The battery was dying and she was trying to sleep.

Her husband had sent her to the beach days ahead of him. She couldn’t reach the smoke alarm. She laid there and tried to ignore it. Cheep!

Jaqi heard another noise. She got up and grabbed her purse. Her Smith and Wesson pistol was in it. As she stepped out on the balcony to listen, they grabbed her from behind.

When her husband arrived three days later, all he found were her old beach sneakers beside the bed.

Posted in Fiction, Flash Fiction

Working the Canyons

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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She tried to keep in the shadows of the tall buildings. The buildings made the streets like canyons. There were nooks and crannies. It was easy to hide. She slipped from building to building. Then she waited before she went to the next building. If they found her, they would take her cargo and kill her.

Svetlana was a Russian girl working for the Americans. She was a mule, but her cargo was only information. The Russians would do anything to stop her delivering it to the Americans. They weren’t far behind her, but they seemed confused concerning her whereabouts. Svetlana was good at what she did.

She could see the place where she was supposed to meet her American contact. She slipped in and out amongst the trees. Right before she walked in the door of the restaurant, she heard a gunshot. She smiled. They missed. She was here.

150 words

Photo Credit to Pamela S. Canepa