(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