Swimming Lessons

“The water’s too cold! I don’t want to go in!”

The lifeguard resisted the urge to massage her temples and smiled brightly. “Just bend your knees and propel off the side pool,” she coached.

“Did you see that? There’s something in there!” The ten-year-old shrieked. “I won’t go in!”

Fed up, she nonchalantly shoved him in.

Down, down he sunk, leaving only a trail of bubbles that made their way to the surface.

He looked up when he felt a splash but, instead of finding a teenage girl, he looked into the bright blue eyeball of a giant squid.

Commentary: Soooo, this one probably needs at least another 50 words or so to actually be complete. And sometimes I cheat and write more, but today I felt like sticking to the rules. Maybe I should talk to the group and see if there's any leniency? Or maybe I should write a tighter story, hahaha. I guess what happens to the whiner will be left up to your imagination.

This short story is a part of the illustrious Flash Fiction Friday. Read the other lovely stories, spun off the prompt: "Fed up of hearing his constant whining, the training instructor walked behind him nonchalantly and shoved him in the water." at the links below!

Brianne Dosch * Kat!e Larson * Quinlyn Shaughnessy * Lady Violet

Slaughterhouse Nine

He came up to the gate, covered in blood.

“Hardy day at work, hon?” His wife kissed his lips, the only clean spot on his face, her nose only slightly wrinkled.

“The showers were out and I just couldn’t stand there any longer,” he said, dropping his head to her shoulder. She tensed for a second.

“Your supervisor called me to say you had a hard day in the blood pit.”

“It was fine, Kitty.” His eyes were hollow.

“Take off your boots and your smock,” she coached him out of his protective gear, then opened the gate for him. “We can go home.”

This short story is a part of the illustrious Flash Fiction Friday. Read the other lovely stories, spun off the prompt: "A man, covered in blood, just walked up to the gate." at the links below!

Brianne Dosch * Kat!e Larson * Quinlyn Shaughnessy * Lady Violet

Alienated

It’s said in one moment, your life can change, but in his life, it was moments upon moments that had brought him here. Alone.

Alone, with only shards of what his life had been before. Perfectly alone, with only the memories — the dreams — seen through cracked rose-colored glasses. Gone.

Gone were his marriages, his daughters, his health, his job. Now that he tried to recover the past it was too late. Left.

Left with only the caustic-tinged future. He alternated between perspectives: the glory days and the pessimistic present. Forsaken.

With too much pride to know the difference.

This short story is a part of the illustrious Flash Fiction Friday. Read the other lovely stories, spun off the prompt:  

Ah! what is not a dream by day

   To him whose eyes are cast

On things around him with a ray

   Turned back upon the past?

from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem A Dream at the links below!

Brianne Dosch * Kat!e Larson * Quinlyn Shaughnessy * Lady Violet

Pranksters

Mary and me always play this game when we get a sub. I mean, it doesn’t really hurt anyone, because subs are stupid anyway. It’s like giving a fake name at Starbucks, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Mess with people. It’s just a joke.

So, when we get this new sub in our fifth hour, we’re overjoyed. You can only keep the fake name going so long if you keep getting the same one. But a new sub, especially this young one, that’s fresh meat right there.

But before I can even open my mouth to tell her my name is Sarafina, she gives me a steely look and I swallow hard.

“Nice to meet you, Kelly,” she says, softlike, but all 36 kids in my class can hear her. “Shall we get started?”

Class goes okay, but Mary and me, we feel like failures. But, we get this bright idea and, when we turn in our worksheets on Egyptian mythology, we scribble the same answers and fill in the name slot, “You don’t even know my real name.”

We feel clever until we realize two periods later that the papers go to our real teacher. And our real teacher is Mary’s mom.

This short story is a part of the illustrious Flash Fiction Friday. Read the other lovely stories, spun off the prompt:  "You don't even know my real name." at the links below!

Brianne Dosch * Kat!e Larson * Quinlyn Shaughnessy * Lady Violet

(Belated) Flash Fiction Friday: Two for the price of one!

Sometimes I get too distracted with family and have a hard time asking someone if I can borrow their computer to type up one hundred word stories. And word count is unwieldy on a cellphone. 

Okay, enough excuses! Here are my two offerings for Flash Fiction Friday!

Playtime

It may be strange, but for years, my only friend was mute. She never spoke, never made a sound, but the look in her eyes told me exactly what was about to happen.

When we played in my bedroom, I would whisper things to her as she stared out the window, unseeing. The room held no laughter.

But, as I whispered to her, images would whir across her glass eyes fringed with dark lashes. A burning forest. A missing child. A raging storm.

I would finger her glossy curls, the silence almost overwhelming.

In ways it was a lonely childhood.

* * *

Collector

Photo credit: blog.eversnapapp.com

“I promise I didn’t sell it, I just lost it and I heard you could find it,” he said.

“I know, that’s why I find them,” the girl with the copper hair replied. “I’ll get it for you.”

It was in the blue jar, the one to the left that smelled like summer and felt like sea breeze.

She was always surprised by the disconnect between human and soul. This lovely specimen belonged to a man trying so hard to pretend like he couldn’t feel the discomfort of its absence, but his bodies unwitting cries to his soul were nearly the loudest she had heard.

“Here you go.” She brought it to him, her hands gently cupped around it. “Gingers don’t steal souls, we just collect them.”

These short stories are a part of the illustrious Flash Fiction Friday. Read the other lovely stories, spun off the prompt:  "She never spoke, never made a sound, but the look in her eyes told me exactly what was about to happen." and "It was the blue jar . . ." at the links below!

Brianne Dosch * Kat!e Larson * Quinlyn Shaughnessy * Lady Violet