Flashing
That sounds dirtier than it is. Trust me.
Dear Writer,
I’m doing a writing consultation now with a writer who wanted advice on some flash fiction they wrote for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction contest. They sent me some entries they’ve submitted from the past few years, and wanted some advice on that, as well as some other work they’ve done.
If you’re interested in hiring me for contract consultations, you can visit my Calendly page to book a time.
Reading the flash fiction was really fun, and I as I read the work I realized: I have rarely worked short. No flash fiction, very few short stories. I tend to like having the time and the space to unfurl events and characters, but something about a 250-word limit lit my creative brain up. And I saw what this writer, who is very talented, was doing in that space and I thought, That looks like fun.
So, I went to the website and found the list of assignments that people did last year, and decided I would randomize some combinations and try out a few for fun this week.
Here we go!
Sidecar
Genre: Sci-fi
Action: Looking at a blueprint
Word: Escape
Penny’s shoes hurt. They were too small, or her feet were too big. Either way, didn’t matter.
Focus. There isn’t much time to figure out your escape.
She let out a sidecar-scented sigh—that was a dumb drink—and her focus bounced from the blueprints to a flash of Victor—what was that old word for grabby men? handsy?—and then to 1940s fashion, which was lovely but the shoes hurt like fire. Why were women’s shoes so painful back then?
Because men ran everything and they had to hobble the women.
Oh. Right. Things in Penny’s time were better on that front, at least. Given enough time, people usually got better.
Except when they got worse.
If you go back, you’ll just be the reason it all happened the way it did, Beatrice had said. You can’t change history.
Pen tried to explain, but Bea didn’t understand. If you have the power to fix something and you don’t at least try, it changes who you are. Choices are more important than success, and now that Penny knew that Victor had gone rogue in time rather than space, she was choosing to at least try to bring him back.
If she could memorize these damn blueprints and find her way back to the module before she got them both killed.
“Fuck it.” Pen folded the blueprint, shoved it inside her jacket, and slid out the door, emitting a belch as she went to save the world.
It smelled of sidecar.
Mushrooms
Genre: Comedy
Action: Picking a mushroom
Word: Compare
“That’s fully stupid,” his wife had said when he told her of his plans. “Do not do that.”
They’d been married long enough to call each other stupid, but not so long that the words were said with contempt. She smiled when she said it, and there was concern for him in her eyes, probably with good reason. The mushrooms were wild and grew on the side of the road and were as big as full-sized pancakes. He couldn’t explain why he felt the need to pick one, take it home, fry it up and eat it. He just knew he wanted very badly to do this thing.
“Look at the cost per serving,” he said to her. “It’s zero cents!”
She swatted him with the kitchen towel and told him that he would have to take a cab to the hospital when he got sick, but she laughed and kissed him before he left, so he knew that she was only like 65% serious.
He could take those odds.
He carefully compared the mushrooms to his beat-up field guide and picked the best one. Beautiful. Symmetrical. Free. It fried up golden in the butter and tasted wild, like hope, and reward after risk.
He’d offered his wife a bite.
She’d refused.
Now, she sat beside him at the hospital, one hand absently resting on his as she scrolled on her phone with the other.
This is love, he thought, and retched into the bedpan.
Smoke
Genre: Ghost story
Action: Cleaning an attic
Word: Match
I hate the smell of burning sage. It smells like pot, and hippies. I mean, hippies are fine, I guess, as long as they keep their distance and stay in open air. Now that I’m in my seventies, I can say shit like that without caring if someone thinks I’m an asshole.
Honestly, being an asshole is the least of my worries at the moment.
I light a match and touch the flame to the turd of sage. It burns easy, and stinky. I wave it in the air, like the book said, and wouldn’t you know it?
That bitch shows up.
“Did you think this would get rid of me?” Helen laughs the way she always used to laugh when she was alive; with no real humor and a full tank of stupid.
I walk away, toward Mama’s old Art Deco dresser, making like I’m going to stump the turd out in the old ashtray—oh, remember when we could smoke?—and that bitch follows me, like I knew she would, right into the salt circle I poured onto the old floorboards. She gasps as I stamp out the turd.
“Shit,” she says, and disappears. I leave the turd and go carefully down the steps, where Lulu waits for me. I give her a full, sensual kiss and when we part, she grins.
“Well, hello,” she says, her expression a mixture of surprise and delight.
“Attic’s clean,” I say, and lead her outside for a breath of fresh air.
Okay, that was fun! I’m not writing on the book right now, and my other project is still in discovery, so this flash fiction is a great way to keep the wheels greased. Try it out! And if you want, share the results in the comments. I’d love to see what y’all come up with!
Everything,
L