A few days ago, I posted flash fiction challenge #2 on my Facebook Author Page. Authors were encourage to create a short flash fiction story using the supplied image as a story prompt. Any genre was fair game—speculative, literary, sci-fi, noir, cozy, bleak, hopeful, weird. There were only two main rules:
- Make your piece less than 150 words.
- Give your piece a title.
Each of these stories came from the same image, but they all took different paths. That’s the part I find interesting. Same starting point. Different instincts.
As you read through them, I encourage you to follow the authors on Facebook. If a piece worked for you, chances are their other work will too.
Below is the image that kicked things off, followed by the stories. Note: I posted several variations of this image on my Deviant Art page.
Likes: 4
Words: 151 (OH NO!)
Jack said his goodbyes. His choice, not mine. Angie stared into the foggy night sky, watching as the Zeppelin made its way south. She sighed. The pain in her gut cut like a knife. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “No! I’m not going to—”
“Not going to what?”
She spun. An icy breeze flicked the coat flaps against her legs.
“Jack? But you… you left.”
His gaze followed the flying ship. “I couldn’t tell you. They’re after me. Al took my place. He’s safe—he knows how to get lost.”
“What do we do?”
“You see that barge down there? Hasn’t moved, has it?”
“I-I hadn’t noticed.”
He caught her by the waist, pulling her close. Their eyes locked; her chest heaved against his. They inched closer and kissed.
“Hold tight, sweetheart.” He pressed a button on his umbrella, and a propeller snapped open over their heads.
Likes: 3
Words: 148
Once, a spoonful of sugar could make the impossible feel kind. Now the world had grown heavy, obsessed with engines and schedules, with progress that left little room for whimsy. Her children had stopped believing. The adults had stopped pretending.
Mary Poppins felt it in the air. Magic thinning, like mist burned away by too much certainty. She had spent a lifetime arriving when she was needed and leaving before she was missed, but this time the leaving felt final. There were no songs left to teach, no unruly hearts still open to wonder.
Even the sky had learned to march in straight lines.
Mary watched the boat fade into fog and felt the quiet ache of being no longer needed, of magic gently closing its own umbrella and stepping out of the rain, not in sorrow, but in weary grace, carrying all the forgotten miracles with her.
Likes: 3
Words: 150
After the war, our world became colorless and drab. Our fog-heavy existence smothered most. Without color, meaning was suffocated. The Earth's population collapsed by half in only three years. What once was, was no more.
Then I encountered Sable, a feline. Felines were always capable of speech. They simply chose silence. Instead, they listened. Why should they speak? We took care of them. They had no worries.
The first word Sable uttered to me was "Nanobots." Her pronunciation was elongated, but precise. I retrieved my dignity from the floor. "Did you say, nanobots?"
"It's really quite simple. Release my formula into the atmosphere, and color will return." Sable stretched and purred.
The project dragged on for eleven months. Today we launched. The Zeppelins roared as they scattered the bots.
The sky dripped with color. Hope. I felt odd. "Sable? Sable! What have you meow? Where m'ow the mrrbots? Mreh?"
by John Cox
Likes: 2
Words: 148
If he knew why did he leave?
She knew she was being silly. Just a silly girl she thought to herself as she pressed the back of her hands against her cheeks to wipe away the shameful evidence.
It only took him two weeks to find her husband's killer and surely that's not enough time to fall in love. Especially so soon after losing her Chester. Such a sweet man he was...
Why then was she so obsessed with this dark, mysterious, aloof stranger? Oh my, she thought the way he looks right through you! No, it's wrong isn't it!? It must be wrong, but she feels like he took something of her with him when he left.
She feels so confused now. As she looks away into the night, the distant darkness beckons her from every crevice. She doesn't know how to feel. But he... He knows.
by Don Lee
Likes: 2
Words: 146
“He is on that ship,” she said.
“How can you be sure?” The cat beside her asked. “Your spies were wrong before.”
Queen Opelix of the Thousand Moons shook her head. “He’s been gone so long I’d expect him to look different. Or maybe it’s me.”
The cat’s tail twitched. “Your optimism is adorable.”
Opelix leaned down to soothe her pet. “You know I love you, too.”
The cat arched its back and purred. “Then forget that lunkhead.”
They both knew she could not. The wedding had been magnificent, citizens of 217 planets celebrating her union with Prince Tandor of Perelandra.
“Then he disappeared into the stars on your wedding night, and you became half the queen you were,” the cat said softly.
She watched the airship descend. “Tonight, I become whole again.”
But when the airship docked, the man who descended wasn't Tandor at all.
When Colton Travers was just four months old, a runaway horse on Bent Oak Road cause a car wreck that left his mother dead. His father survived, then vanished. Raised on family stories and faded photographs, he never questioned the past . . . until a worn shoe box of old clippings surfaced with hints of a darker truth. Now, drawn into a fifty-year-old unsolved case, Colton must chase a trail gone cold, where memory holds the clues, time keeps the truth, and justice demands satisfaction.
Stargazing at the June Bug Ranch
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