Tag Archives: Flash Fiction

Prosery: A Prickling Sensation

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William Bruce Ellis Ranken (1881-1941), Woman on a Balcony

A Prickling Sensation

She emptied the glass, then poured herself another. While she sat on the tiny Paris balcony, something worked in her brain like a burglar picking a lock, waiting for the pins in the tumbler to fall into place. Click—the lock opened—someone had been in her hotel room. Not the maid, she was in earlier today. No, this happened more recently, after she left to buy the wine.

She was Night Hawk fierce, but she was also like a migratory bird. Something told the wild geese it was time to fly. Some clue that humans did not sense or see—more that the slanted light, the dropping leaves. She sensed something, too. And it was time for her to go. Now.

I have no companions on this flight. My only V will be one for victory. I’m getting closer, she thought.

A continuation of my Prosery spy series for dVerse. The line we are to use :

“Something told the wild geese
It was time to fly.”
–Rachel Lyman Field, “Something told the Wild Geese”

If you want to read it, the previous episode is here.

Prosery: Do you hear me?

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Do you hear me?

It’s the anniversary of Tanya’s death. I didn’t see her die, but I heard about it. I’m on the tiny balcony of my Paris hotel room with a bottle of wine. I’ve recently seen Casablanca, and I think of Rick saying to Ilsa, “it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Tanya would have agreed. But will it change anything? We’re specks, blips in time. What does it matter? That the stars we see are already dead is still amazing though, isn’t it? That light travels like troubadours, bringing us sparkle from unknown places? Perhaps they’re love ballads, or messages sent to from absent friends. I raise my glass. “Here’s looking at you, Kid,” I say, as I look up into the night sky and empty the glass.

A short piece of fiction for dVerse, where we are to use the line:

“What does it matter
That the stars we see are already dead”
From “Laura Palmer Graduates” by Amy Woolard

in a prose piece of no more than 144 words. This might be a continuation of my spy story.

Rowing: Prosery

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J.M.W. Turner, Ft. Vimieux

Rowing

I want to remember the names. All of the names swallowed up by the cold, by disease, torture, the shattering impact of bombs, and the inferno ovens. But there are too many. Death smiles his unlipped smile at me from shadowed corners; he visits me in dreams. Sometimes I reach for him, like a lover.

One day, I will rest in his arms. But not yet. There’s still work to be done. I’m in an ocean of grief, but I will float atop it on a barge of reckoning. Oars ready, I will row. Revenge, retribution will not return the dead, but perhaps justice will keep it from happening again.

Or not. Perhaps, I need it only for my own peace of mind. I need to discover who betrayed me.

A continuation of my spy series for dVerse Prosery. The given line is “all of the names swallowed up by the cold” from Tomas Tranströme’s “After Someone’s Death.”

Deserted: Flash Fiction in The Ekphrastic Review

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My story “Deserted” was published in The Ekphrastic Review. It’s under Kerfe Roig’s wonderful poem with the same title. To read all the published responses and to see the art that inspired it, “The Sahara,” by Gustave Guillaumet (France) 1867, click here.

I’ve also posted a screen shot of my story below.

Prosery: There are no birds

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Marc Chagall, “Death”

There are no birds

How do I describe it? It was not like anything. It simply was.

The dragon of war has belched fire everywhere. I tread carefully over rubble and pieces of unknown things–fetid things I cannot name, do not want to recognize. Figures slither and lurk in the shadows. I step away. I think all the beauty is gone from the city. Lilacs release their sweet, wild perfume then bow down. Heavy with rain that is now falling in fat drops, I bow, too, as though to the god of the inevitable. I hear the whispers of ghosts all around me, but it is the living I fear.

I live in a nightmare. “To sleep perchance to dream,” the tragic prince said. But I think there’s little difference now. All the birds have flown away. I wonder if I imagined the lilacs.

Written for dVerse Prosery. This might be part of my series, but I hope it can stand alone. It could be almost any time or place in history. The prompt line to be incorporated within the text is:

“…city lilacs
release their sweet, wild perfume
then bow down, heavy with rain.”
From Helen Dumore’s, “City Lilacs”

Prosery: Wolf Moon

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Content Warning

Wolf Moon

The Wolf Moon calls my demons. Makes me think about things I’d rather forget.

I couldn’t save her, Esther. She seldom talked, as if her pale, too-thin body couldn’t expend the energy, but she held my hand when I visited. Now she’s still attached to me in dreams, haunting me. I dream of the time I found and gave her a tiny square of chocolate. Her face lit up, but that smile was the last smile to come upon her face, ever. The next day they discovered where she and her family were hiding. Dragged them into the snow and left their bodies for the wolves. It looked like her mother tried to protect her. I hope so. I hope she felt that last bit of love.

She’s not a martyr. There is no future, better place. Shame on us. She was a child.

For dVerse Prosery, the line is: “But that smile was the last smile to come upon her face.” It’s from “Ballad of Birmingham,” by Dudley Randall. This is, I hope, both part of my spy series and a stand-alone story. Sorry, it’s so grim, but it didn’t seem right to do otherwise, given that the poem is about the bombing of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, in which four girls were killed and one wounded. “The blood of our little children is on your hands,” Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in a telegram to Alabama’s segregationist governor, George Wallace.

Prosery: Buried Secrets in the Snow

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Gustav Corbet, Winter in the Jura

Buried Secrets in the Snow

Snow again. I’ve come full circle–I was where I am. When the snow began, so did our story. Or should I go back even further? Our first meeting. I had the papers hidden in my basket under the misshapen turnips and potatoes and what passed for bread. I was told there would be someone in the apartment. You appeared nondescript, as we all had to be—average height, brown hair, drab clothing–but somehow you took up all the oxygen in the room.

Was I smitten then? I don’t think so. Intrigued perhaps. But as we worked together over weeks, our movements synchronized, there was no need to talk. And when we whispered under flimsy blankets, finding a way to keep warm—it was the talk of lovers. We murmured what if and maybe someday. Escaping. I didn’t even know your real name.

This 144-word flash fiction piece is for my Prosery prompt for dVerse where I am tending the virtual bar at the Poet’s Pub. All are welcome! I didn’t remember that I had left off with snow in my previous Prosery episode when I chose the prompt lines for today:

“I was where I am
When the snow began”
–From “The Dead of Winter” by Samuel Menashe

Prosery: An Anodyne in Snow

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Claude Monet, Snow at Argenteuil

An Anodyne in Snow

The haunting is constant. Lines of ghosts march through my dreams and meander just out of sight when I’m awake. Do you remember that last winter we spent together? It seemed the war had been going on forever, and every day seemed bleaker. You said, “Perhaps snow would be the easy way out,” and I thought, “yes.” I imagined walking into the snow, letting it cover me, till I slept and froze. It sounded peaceful, and I longed for peace.

But then we found that cache of food and supplies–and suddenly there was hope like a trace of spring in the air. We built a snowman, while I remembered flowers and sunshine, and I was warmed by our love.

Until you vanished like that snowman, and I was ambushed–leaving me to wonder who you really were.

For dVerse prosery, part of my ongoing series. The prompt line was
“Snow would be the easy way out” from “November for Beginners” by Rita Dove.

Prosery: What do you see in my eyes?

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Edvard Munch, Girl at the Beach

What do you see in my eyes?

I walk by the Thames in the early morning light, wondering if the haunting ever stops. I sense ghosts beside me everywhere I go. History’s ghosts, and some you created. All those killed in war; phantoms in the rubble like crumbled sentries. Even my younger self. I remember now how I wanted to be pretty for you. . .

“I have dropped two seeds of turnsole in the dark of both eyes.” Remember, how I told you that? So that I would find the sun, find the light always.

But the seeds were washed away in the river of tears that fell from my eyes. I like to think they were washed to a luminous shore where they turn to the sun each day.

Now my eyes are dry and filled with spider webs. They reflect only ghosts. And the world is grey.

For Prosery, Sanaa has chosen the line:
“To be pretty for you I have dropped two seeds of turnsole in the dark of both eyes.”
–Isabel Duarte-Gray, “Garden”

I have worked it in as best I can, as I continue my spy series. Here’s the link for the July episode. I didn’t do one in August.

“To be a Flower”: Story up on Visual Verse

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I didn’t think my flash fiction piece, “To Be a Flower” would be published in this month’s Visual Verse. It’s a feel-good magical realism sort of piece. I really did have a grandmother named Rose who died (not murdered) when I was a toddler, and I had lots of relatives named Miriam. As soon as I saw the picture, I thought this woman was named Hyacinth. 🙂 Like all submissions to VV, this is an ekphrastic response written in under an hour.

You can see the image and read my story here: https://visualverse.org/submissions/to-be-a-flower/