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Tag: Flash Fiction

Unsolved Mysteries

Unsolved Mysteries

Image source shared under Creative Commons 3.0

The following is part of a “shared storytelling event” over at I Saw Lightning Fall , Advents Ghosts 2023. We were tasked to write a scary story of exactly 100 words in length. This came to me after watching an episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor travelled to the edge of the Universe. I don’t think this story is actually scary though the unknown can sure be known to unsettle.

Unsolved Mysteries

What celestial phenomenon called the Magi to Bethlehem?

Let’s imagine, as the story has been told, a star. One of 4,000 visible in a clear night sky.

Posit each of those stars has nine planets, 36,000 potential Earths, all these planets forming and evolving in their own time.

Has the Christmas story happened countless times across the vast Universe?

Would Jesus have been sent to save our extra-terrestrial neighbors from their sin?

Perhaps somewhere the apple was never eaten, and our Heavenly counterparts observe our lives like reality tv.

Are we alone and special?

Is there comfort in the mystery?

Life: An Advent Ghosts 2021 Story

Life: An Advent Ghosts 2021 Story

The following is part of a “shared storytelling event” over at I Saw Lightning Fall , Advents Ghosts 2021. We were tasked to write a scary story of exactly 100 words in length. I don’t know how much this counts as a “story” but this is my attempt at an entry.

Life

Death is the enemy we battle against our entire lives, a race that won’t be won.

When we are young, Death is the unthinkable. We are unstoppable.

“Death is not for me”, we tell ourselves. “I’m special.”

We age. Death becomes the word unspoken, as if naming it will give it power. People we love start to “pass away”.

Time moves on for the fortunate. Love is experienced, love is lost. The world speeds up. We slow down.

Death becomes less an enemy and more an expected if not entirely bless-ed friend.

Solitary immortality, now that would be a curse.

Dead Trees Can Move (Flash Fiction)

Dead Trees Can Move (Flash Fiction)

Here’s some more flash fiction for you. I have to say I’m enjoying posting these and I hope you enjoy reading them. Of course, I need to create new things too.

This one was in reply to a Flash fiction contest. Entries were required to be 100 words or less and about “a first day in high school”. Anyway, here is a link to my entry titled Dead Trees Can Move.

Dead Trees Can Move

Mr. Larson had an earring and he talked kinda funny and on the first day of school he asked me what books I liked to read. I said nothing. I had nothing. Everybody laughed, but not Mr. Larson.

I worked my butt off after that to prove to him, to them, to me, I wasn’t stupid.

I wasn’t sure if he noticed, until the last day of school. There was a book on my desk. Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. “Read this”, said the note on the cover. I did.

Mr. Larson talked kinda funny, but he opened my eyes

Questions – A Flash Fiction Piece

Questions – A Flash Fiction Piece

The U.K. bookseller Waterstones a number of years ago (2008!) had a contest to design a notecard and write a story. I’m not even sure what the prize was, but I believe it was publication in a book and perhaps a little bit of money. I wound up entering the contest, and not winning. However, I am quite happy with the story I wrote and the card I designed. There are a few things I would change about the story but overall I’m still happy with it..

waterstones

Here is the text of the card, for those unable to see the image:

Questions

I often wonder if things might’ve been different had they landed somewhere else. If instead of the middle of New York City their ship crashed in some farmer’s field. Would we have been friends?

What if the first ones to greet our visitors had offered an extended hand rather than an extended gun barrel?

Would they have shared with us the wonders of the Universe? Would we have realized how small we truly are?

Would we have treated each other any better?

I cry, looking at pictures of the little green man, cold and unarmed, a victim of what we’ve become.

I guess we’ll never know.

Dreamers – Flash Fiction

Dreamers – Flash Fiction

Here’s another bit of Flash Fiction that didn’t get much play, but I think is pretty good. I have to admit I love that last line.

Dreamers

Martin Luther King, Jr. Nikola Tesla. Dr. Samuel Beckett from Quantum Leap. Dreamers who never got to see their dream fulfilled.

Me? I accomplished my dream. I drove my Dad’s 1973 Beetle from Pennsylvania to California, no heater, no air conditioning, and no functioning fuel gauge. Without breaking down once.

Well, there was that time on the bridge in Pittsburgh, and that time in the Smoky Mountains, and that time near Dollywood. Any car would’ve overheated/froze/ran out of gas in those places though.

Funny thing about dreamers. Sometimes they forget to plan how they’re going to get home.