#flashfiction

The Instigator

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I wrote “The Instigator,” today for Finish That Thought. The thought was “If only I’d gotten her ten minutes earlier,” but I changed up the pronoun. For the special challenge, I had to include a word starting with each letter of the alphabet. Here you go! Once again, I am incapable of writing a happy story.

The Instigator
@laurenegreene
478 words
If only we’d gotten there ten minutes earlier.

“Bear plus food do not mix,” my wife said, when she saw the ravaged campsite.

We’d been watching the sunrise at the top of the peak when the bear attacked. While the sun spread its glorious hues of ultra violet rays over the earth, the bear tore into the freeze-dried packs my wife, unknowingly, had left out beside our packs.

“Rats, I wonder where it came from.”

“Oh, I don’t know, let’s see, the zoo. We’re in the middle of the freaking Appalachian Mountains, Jessica.”

“Jeez, Quint, you don’t have to yell at me.”

We had decided to take this trip, a two week hike in the Appalachians, as a way to repair our marriage, but instead of the bonding experience we had been looking for, the vacation had mirrored our tumultuous relationship.

“Maybe we should call Lyle to come pick us up,” Jessica said. She had the map spread out, sitting cross-legged in the dirt in front of the tent. A torn half empty bag of freeze dried beans stood by her Merrells.

“I’d never get in the car with that guy again, xenophobe that he is.”

“Oh come on, Quint. He’s harmless. What’s our other choice?”

“We stop in the town up the road, buy more food and keep going.”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing this whole time, keeping it going, despite a clear lack of sustenance?”

I hated when Jessica got all hoity toity on me and created analogies about our relationship. It was a side effect of her psychological practice. Psychologists have their own disease: know-everything-itis. She was staring through the map instead of at it. I sat down on the dirt next to her, and offered up the comfort of my arm, but she scooted further away from me. The Great Divide. Hurt pride, but I shook it off. I’d gotten so good at doing that.

“Here, this little town. Kunkletown. Funny little name, and not too far.”

“I wonder if they have cell service there,” Jessica said, as she folded the map and stuffed it into her back pack.

“Why?” I asked, but she just shook her head.

We wordlessly took the tent down and packed our bags. Stillness rose between us, like the quiet of the sunrise, only an hour before. In that moment, hope had sprung to me like the dawn of the new day, but the bear had dashed all of that making the tension stand between us like an unwanted lover.

Kunkletown was a nice little town. I stayed there, getting myself together for two days after Jessica left with Lyle. I thought maybe I could move to this little town that housed only a church, a few houses and a general store. Then, maybe I could find the hope I had lost in one moment on the trail.

The Great Distractor

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Writing for Flash!Friday today.

1) Use “aspiration” as a theme.

2) Photo Prompt

Whetting Interrupted

Whetting Interrupted, 1894. Public Domain painting by Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior.

I usually follow the prompt, almost to a tee, but today I didn’t. I used it as a jumping off point. And as a writer/author, I’m all too well aware of distractions that can pull you away from your goals.

The Great Distractor
@laurenegreene
205 words
Sharpen the blade. Akin to sharpening the pencil, in some ways at least. When he met Adele she whetted his appetite. Instead of focusing on his writing, he spent countless hours staring into her blue-gray eyes listening to stories of her youth. He focused on unbuttoning her dresses and rolling around in bed instead of molding his characters.

He had always wanted to be a writer. And by the time he met Adele, he had achieved that goal. But she was a distraction—albeit a pleasant one. After Niels called and told him he’d missed another deadline, he decided writing wasn’t for him. Too much pressure, too much time locked up in a lonely room, away from her soft, pliable body.

She was the one who suggested they get away. Her father had a cabin in the woods. They could spend six months there, and he could focus on his writing again. Walden Pond, he thought. But when they’d arrived there’d been no electricity. He had to write everything out in long form. He had to cut up firewood just to heat the stove. He and Adele stayed under the down comforters snuggled together most days, as his dream of writing slipped further into oblivion.

A Tale of Two Elvises

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I haven’t participated in much flash fiction over the last week. Edits came back, and I’ve been forcing myself to work through them. Edits are to writing as cleaning is to my house. I just hate doing it. I know they’re a necessary evil, and they have the ability to make “The Devil Within” such a good book, it’s just, “ughh..I don’t want to do them.” I’d rather be writing.

Anyway, today I wrote for Micro Bookends. I wasn’t enthused by the prompt, and again writing a whole story in 110 words still is almost impossible for me. I can’t get the jab in, the beginning, middle, and end. I think a lot of mine fall flat, but at least they’re letting me practice my craft while I procrastinate editing.

I hope you like Elvis:

A Tale of Two Elvises
@laurenegreene
110 words

Old Father Benedict stepped into the sunshine of the day and inhaled a deep breath, before looking down. He had seen everything in his 96 years. So, he wasn’t surprised at the naked man snoozing at his feet, wearing only sunglasses. A star studded collar peeked out of the paper at his feet.

Father Shaw came up behind him.

“Another bum?”

Benedict nodded, “Heartbreak Hotel was my favorite. You think he’ll sing for us?”

“The real Elvis has left the building,” Father Shaw said.

“Huh?” Old Benedict scratched his head.

“Overdosed on drugs. I doubt the bum can croon the way Elvis did, not in this day and age.”

The Ear

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Today for Mid-Week Blue’s Buster, the song prompt was Gil Scott-Heron’s “Me And The Devil.” How appropriate, since my next book is “The Devil Within” (teasers to come shortly). This prompt took me dark, into the mind of a killer.

The Ear
@laurenegreene
549 words

Clay knew it was wrong. He had a conscience. Contrary to popular belief, most murderers did. He wasn’t an exception. When he’d gone to her house, the painted lips had disgusted him. The swirling vortex of anger slammed into him like a car slamming straight into a brick wall.

He had met her at the park, playing Frisbee. Picnic basket filled to the brim with pork rinds. When he’d seen her face, so innocent, so young, he thought he could be with her. He thought he could change. He imagined kissing her lips, so sweet and full of promise. He imagined rubbing his hands down her body, but somewhere in the back of his mind was that nagging voice of reality: she’s your next victim.

He was standing in the bus line now, and looking down at his hands—blood red in the light. Pick up your life, move everything, start again somewhere else. A rebirth. A resurrection. He was renewed after each kill. He would stand over their bodies and clean them, and in the process he became a newborn babe, a piece of clay waiting to be formed.

When he’d shown up at Georgette’s apartment, he’d expected her to be wearing the same school girl dress she’d had on in the park. But her face was made up like a clown. Red rouge smeared across her cheeks like the sign of the devil. He hadn’t let on the boiling rage he felt. He hid it deep down, as he kissed her cheeks, disgusted by the waxiness coating her lips. He unzipped her immodest dress, a slit up the side showed too much of her leg. She was not who he thought she was.

He pushed himself into her, and then the rage hit, and with one twist of the neck her head lolled to the side like a ragdoll’s. He zipped up his pants, and spit on her face as he did to all of his victims. The knife came out of his back pocket, and with a quick flick of his hand he sliced off an ear.  He went to her kitchen, glancing at pictures of her youth, all smiles next to her friends, hiding the whore she was. The devil takes on many forms.  He found a soft kitchen towel, then he raided her bathroom for soap, and he took a bucket full of water. First, he wiped the lipstick off her mouth, the red of it staining the towel like the blood on the sheet. Then he washed her whole body, careful to scrub behind the remaining ear. She looked peaceful and innocent lying there, the way she was supposed to be in the first place.

When he finished, he wiped off all the fingerprints. He put his token into a Ziploc baggy and slid it into his Jansport book bag.

At home, he removed the ear and he whispered sweet nothings into it. You are perfectly formed.  He slid it into a jar of formaldehyde, and then packed up his belongings, including the thirteen other ears he had hidden in the air duct in the wall.

A new place. A new life. Another Georgette, but maybe this one would be innocent and free from sin, and he wouldn’t have to fill another jar.