Posts tagged flash fiction

love bomb – 53/1000

My home reeks of flowers, and not in a good way.

There are just too many. Bouquet after bouquet that arrived like clockwork at ten every morning with a new way to say “I love you.”

I do love flowers, and I love the diamonds he gives me; I love the trips we take on his private jet to glittering cities like Paris and Tokyo.

But the flowers, they’re suffocating me.

It’s too much.

It’s too much to feel like you’re the center of someone’s world, too much to feel like someone’s happiness depends on you.

I don’t want this.… Read the rest

what a world – 52/1000


I wasn’t made for this. For these bars of hours that lock me in from one end of the day to the other.

I was made for ink and pages and thousands of quiet hours alone indoors with no one and nothing to bother me.

The world does this to us.

It puts us in cages that we’re not fit for, it locks up everything we have to give.

Nowadays my greatest dream isn’t publishing, it’s disappearing.

It’s buying land and building houses with friends so we can leave the world behind.

I won’t miss it, not even a bit.… Read the rest

battle’s end – 51/1000

It felt like my guts had been turned into churning lava, and I could feel things I knew I wasn’t supposed to be able to feel.

So this is what it feels like when the breeze hits your organs.

So this is what it feels like when you’re dying.

The loud clashes, clangs, shouts, and screams were my world in the darkness, because I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

I couldn’t keep watching my soldiers fall.

Then someone knelt beside me.

Lieutenant Robinson.

“Is it bad?” he asked.

“This will be the end of me.”

“But you fought so well.”… Read the rest

the puppeteer – 50/1000

Who do you think you are?

I get asked that question all the time, by me, by the other, little me that lives inside my head.

She’s the one who’s in control, even though you can’t see her.

She’s pulling the strings, and I’m just along for the ride.

I wish someday I’ll be able to take myself back, and be myself again, but for now, I’ll let her rule my roost. I’ll let her take the wheel.

The truth is, I have never made good choices for myself.

I’m always thinking life’s not fair, and I’m always hurting myself.… Read the rest

goodbye / hello – 49/1000


Goodbye to all the people who said I couldn’t do it.

Peace out to those who never believed in me, and fuck off to those who have hoped I’d fail.

I am up at five o’clock every morning to put words on a page because this is my story and I want to write it and write for a living like I used to.

So be wary, writers, of putting all your eggs in one basket, because if the basket drops, you do, too.

Get up early. Get your butt in the chair.

Wake up your imagination and say hello.… Read the rest

Shakespeare’s Worries – 48/1000

“Write an English sonnet centered on the theme of the supernatural.”

Yeah, okay, I thought as I closed my laptop. No schoolwork for me today.

Instead I’m going to go out and enjoy the fresh air under a blue sky full of clouds and dance in the grass until I have to collapse there, lest I die.

I will lay and feel the breeze and smell the flowers around me, and hear the children laughing and the birds singing.

I can’t help but think it wasn’t writing to themes Shakespeare was worried about, it was missing perfect days like these.… Read the rest

just a dog – 47/1000

“Go get it Shirley, go get it!”

“Why did you name a dog Shirley? It doesn’t sound like a good name for a dog.”

“That was her name when I got her, when she retired from being the city’s top K-9 officer.”

“You mean dog.”

“No, I mean officer. They were treated like part of the police force, same as the humans.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re just dogs.”

“This dog just saved the lives of children who were drowning, you know. And children who were lost in fiery buildings. And children who liked to argue with their mothers.”

“Okay.”… Read the rest

lost and gone – 46/1000


She couldn’t get out of bed anymore, except to use the bathroom, and that’s only because she was forced and shamed into it.

She would have just laid there and died, it’s what she wanted.

Living alone was never something she was cut out for, and she didn’t want to do it.

She’d spend the rest of her breaths wrapped in black silk waiting for her turn to go.

It didn’t matter that she had a child who needed her, friends and family who loved her, or work that fulfilled her – nothing mattered but what was lost and gone … Read the rest

speed demon – 45/1000


They got him a new car every time he crashed his old one.

The kid was a speed demon, but they loved him no matter how reckless he was, no matter how casual he was with taking other people’s lives in his careless hands.

Trying to stop him was useless. He would have left home, he would have disappeared on them.

They would try to reason with him, they would tell him he might ruin his future (but not that he might die) and his only answer was:

“Speed never killed anyone. It’s becoming suddenly stationary, that’s what gets you.”… Read the rest