From Tim Lowe:
"I spent part of my day locating old FF entries in my mountain of unorganized Google docs.
"Miss those -- they really sharpened the brain, became a great outlet, a wonderful diversion. The last one (as yet still in Preliminary results stage, unless I missed it) was a much-needed distraction from the skull-splitting boredom of a Covid isolation last January.
"No, I don't have a point. Yes, I just booked a one-way trip to you-know-where."
Indeed we do know where.
Let's give Tim something good to read while he's squashed in
the middle seat between not one but TWO howling infants, and the seat in front
of him is occupied by someone intent on reclining 90 degrees, and the snack tray involves kale chips.
The usual rules apply:
1. Write a story using 100 words or fewer.
2. Use these words in the story:
fork
knife
spoon
dish
place
If you are Steve Forti, or want to be, you must include this extra prompt word: bye bye.
3. You must use the whole word, but that whole word can be part of a larger word. The letters for the prompt must appear in consecutive order. They cannot be backwards.
4. Post the entry in the comment column of THIS blog post.
5. One entry per person. If you need a mulligan (a do-over) erase your entry and post again. It helps to work out your entry first, then post.
6. International entries are allowed, but prizes may vary for international addresses.
7. Titles count as part of the word count (you don't need a title.)
8. Under no circumstances should you tweet anything about your particular entry to me. Example: "Hope you like my entry about Felix Buttonweezer!" This is grounds for disqualification.
9. There are no circumstances in which it is ok to ask for feedback from ME on your contest entry. NONE.
10. It's ok to tweet about the contest generally.
Example: "I just entered the flash fiction contest on Janet's blog and I didn't even get a lousy t-shirt"
11. Please do not post anything but contest entries. (For example: "I love Felix Buttonweezer's entry!"). Save that for the contest results post.
12. You agree that your contest entry can remain posted on the blog for the life of the blog. In other words, you can't ask me to delete the entry and any comments about the entry at a later date.
13. The stories must be self-contained. That is: do not include links or footnotes to explain any part of the story. Those extras will not be considered part of the story.
Contest opens: 10am Saturday 10/21/23
Contest closes: 10am Sunday 10/22/23
If you're wondering how what time it is in NYC right now, here's the clock .
Since I go to MoMA on Sunday morning, the contest may look open, but comments posted AFTER the time deadline will be deleted.
If you'd like to see the entries that have won previous contests, there's an .xls spread sheet here http://www.colindsmith.com/TreasureChest/
(Thanks to Colin Smith for organizing and maintaining this!)
Questions? Tweet to me @Janet_Reid. I'm also at BlueSky now: @janetreid.bsky.social
Ready? SET?
Not yet!
ENTER!
Nope, too late.
Contest closed.
24 comments:
“Did you pack all of my underwear?” asked Tim. “You know how kale affects me.”
“Yes, I packed it all,” she said. “What’s the name of that place again?”
“Carkoon.”
“Cartoon?”
“CarKOON,” said Tim. “I didn’t see my fork in my duffle bag.”
“It’s in there.”
“Did you pack my knife?”
“Of course I did!”
“You packed all of my utensils?”
“YES! THEY’RE ALL IN THERE!”
“Then where ARE they?”
“I don’t know. Hey, maybe the dish ran away with the spoon! Bye bye, Steve,” she said, as she pushed Tim out the door.
“Steve? Who the hell is Steve?”
The detective parted the crowd, a hot knife through butter. “Prognosis?”
“Deader than a doornail. Stick a fork in him.”
“Method?”
“Strangulation. Gagged him with a spoon.”
“Revenge?”
“A dish served cold. Right place, wrong time.”
The detective leaned in. Sniffed. “Are you drunk, detective?”
Her partner blanched, pale as a ghost.
“Better not be. You can kiss that badge goodbye.”
By expressing herself in this manner, the detective cemented her reputation as a rule-follower.
Her partner frowned. “Who’d’ve thought? Murder at a cliché convention.”
The detective pocketed a piece of cutlery. It was always the one you least suspected.
"Didja hear? The dish ran away with the spoon," the bartender said.
"Muffet's a floozy," said Mother Goose.
"Not our place to say," said Mother Hubbard.
"Old King Cole was an idiot " said Tommy Tucker. "She just wanted his money."
"He was smart enough not to give it to her," said the bartender.
"Knife to his heart," said Hubbard. "He needs a good woman."
"Like you?" Goose asked.
"Man's at a fork in the road," said the bartender. "He's looking."
Mother Hubbard grabbed her purse. "I think I'll offer condolences. "
"Not if I get there first," Mother Goose said.
We were somewhere around Carkoon on the edge of the reef when the kale began to take hold. A week of fast food had me clogged, and I needed roughage. The fiber ‘round here was asbestos (oof) or kale.
I debated for a while.
Now this poo needed daylight. I sliced through the Carkoon Unwelcome Center like a dull knife and crashed into the bathroom stall. Needing leverage, I grabbed my hightop laces for support and bared down.
Once it all went bye bye, I reached for the paper and stopped cold. I shuddered.
Carkoon uses the three sea shells.
From the orange bracket fungus, she squeezed only a spoonful of rare raindrop dew. Savored it.
Grabbing the fork from her headbasket, she carefully dislodged the fungus from the dying tree. Only one cocktail ingredient left.
During her healing, Lomak Nifeda had spiraled ever-closer to its blue-burning Sundi. She’d sped up her repairing of the ship. She could now launch with this fungus plus a liquid of a specific chemical composition.
Headbasket in place, she strode center-ward in the dried-out, decaying woods. There a shrunken lake held a few live pufferfish. Just enough toxic fluid—she hoped—to leave.
“Fork she’s a dish!”
“Hush. This ain’t the place.”
“Nah, I’m avving er naah.”
“Put your knife away for someun sees ya.”
“But I wan er naah!”
“Less go up ere.”
“How can I help you gentlemen?”
“We wans number 49.”
“It’s a bit extra that one.”
“Noh a problem.”
“If you’ll take a seat, we’ll be right with you.”
“Do we spoon?”
“That won’t be necessary. Just wait a few minutes. Bye Bye.”
“Nice legs.”
“Noh my taste. But tweech is own.”
“Ah, ere she comes.”
“Gentul cuts naah. Yer noh un animul.”
“Ell yeah. Bes steak in Croydon.”
“Did you do it?”
“No.”
“Gosh dang it, woman! Just admit it! Your family already testified against you!” The investigator slammed his fist down.
The woman smiled complacently.
“I don’t appreciate your dishonesty,” she said coolly.
“My dishonesty?!” the investigator sputtered.
“Yes.”
“The knife was found in your purse!”
The woman shrugged. “It was a butter knife. Might as well have been a fork or a spoon.”
The investigator clenched his fists. “All right fine, just get outta here.”
The woman left.
The investigator reclined in his chair, and spoke into a walkie-talkie.
“Suspect 12 cleared. Bring in Suspect 13.”
There was always a spoon set with the silverware. Even if the dish was cold shoulder, there was a spoon. Too late did I see it as one of her demons, the kind a traumatic childhood left behind.
Good times soared, bad times dove into blackness, thick enough to cut with a knife and fork. Talk of counseling was free fall.
I awoke one day to a note on her pillow. I called the cops immediately.
Her body was in her car on the side of a road someplace, now a spoon set at dinner is my demon.
He staggered to the door of his doublewide.
The tilted satellite dish placed on the roof taunted him, even Sancho would have grinned.
“Christ, it’s three in the morning,” he could hear Dulcinea singing, all the worse for the glasses of wine she’d already had. He walked in. She glared at him and nodded slowly.
He cleared the table, plates, spoons and forks into the sink, and sat down.
She had never managed to remove that maternal knife from her heart.
“Why did you leave me?”
“Freudian slip?”
“What’s that… Donny?”
“When you say one thing… but mean your mother.”
Lizzie studies the empty dish then looks around. She doesn't know this place.
At the stove, an old man hums, spoons scrambled eggs into a bowl. She doesn't know this man.
Lizzie flings her fork at him. She tries to run, but she's wearing slippers, a robe.
He says he's her husband, Paul. Married many years. He points to her diamond, holds her gnarled hands. Says sometimes Lizzie forgets things.
He serves her eggs, butters her toast.
She doesn't remember. But she forgets.
Or so he says.
He turns away. Lizzie slips the knife into her pocket.
Just in case.
I settled into my plane seat. “First-class, very roomy.”
Tim Lowe dished past me to his place in steerage.
I opened the rolled silverware.
I polished the spoon and gazed within.
Distorted, red glowing eyes glared back.
I glanced up the aisle. A shark entered the cockpit.
I seized the fork for defense. Three tines curled forward, shooting me the bird.
The butter knife morphed into a Katana and attempted “Butterfly Steals the Dawn” to
decapitate my seatmate.
“Ouch!” Colin covered the scratch on his neck. “Settle down, mate, Carkoon’s a long trip.”
“Ergot, I’m already there.”
I entered the station and asked for the Sargeant on duty. I was told to stay in place while he finished up. He finally appeared with a plate of fruit in his hand. We discussed the break-in that had recently occurred and what immediate actions he intended to take. Apparently, distracted by his plan, his spoon flipped a grape up in the air that he tried to spear with his knife. He nailed it with his fork. Feeling reassured, I said, "Bye bye."
Seven plates. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...
Seven forks.
Seven spoons for dessert.
Six steak knives and a butter knife for the kid.
Dishes for the Caesar salad. Dad's favourite!
Bringing out the food now: ham, scalloped potatoes - cheesy, just the way Dad likes them - creamed corn, peas...
The turnips. Where are the turnips? Dad will freak if there aren't...
Oh.
oh
Burning eyes, removing the place setting at the head of the blurry table, avoiding the looks of the others as they take their seats.
No turnips tonight.
Sandwiched between a sticky-fingered four-year-old and wailing toddler, Tim clenched his teeth. In the seats in front of him, a newly-wed couple were spooning and murmuring sweet nothings. Who would choose Carkoon for a honeymoon? He hoped they were vegans!
The flight attendants brought lunch trays.
A steak so tender you could cut it with a plastic knife would be welcome. Even a fast-food burger. Anything but a green smoothie that look like pond scum and a dish of deep-fried kale. And they weren’t even near the place yet!
Under his breath, Tim muttered what sounded like fork.
When their memoir placed at the top of the NYT Best Seller’s list, I almost puked. I’d been in bed for a month with double pneumonia--a consequence of blowing down houses for a living--and too weak to lift a spoon. Now I was nursing an undeserved reputation and a budding ulcer.
Those fork-tongued porkers didn’t care who they knifed--they were squealing all the way to the bank. Yet, I’m the bad guy.
One day, it’ll be my turn to dish. I’ve already written the first line: There were three apples, one for each pig.
“You have to come, see for yourself,” my sister said. “The dementia’s getting worse.”
Dad carefully places dishes out for tomorrow: bowl, spoon, cereal. Plate, fork, knife, for the frozen meal he’ll insist on for dinner.
“G’night, Timmy,” on his way to bed. It’s barely seven.
Timmy. My twin who died when we were ten. “Sleep well, Dad.”
I grab the milk carton next to the bowl, return it to the fridge.
He needs the visuals: Rolls of tp piled on the bathroom counter. Mismatched clothes laid out. Old photos of Mom.
And I wonder… will I, too?
At the library researching my high school history project, I check a newspaper from 2005, year my oldest sister was born.
Grainy surveillance photo shows a knife-wielding guy leaving the scene. Covering his eyes is a tattered ballcap that hangs in our basement. Scar where Dad’s beard is now.
I find Dad home watching TV. Spoon-feed him details from my research. “Does Mom know?”
It’s only a second but his eyes flash recognition. “Fork it over,” he orders.
I pass the photo, replace it with another copy. Then I brandish my list of demands. “For starters, let’s double my allowance.”
The alley stank the way only dumpsters baking in hot sunlight can. I held my nose and tossed sacks of garbage. “Bye bye.”
I turned to head back inside the kitchen but froze when a knife dug its point into my throat.
“Gimme money,” a guy growled.
He’d picked the wrong guy. “What money? I’m just the dish pig, putting out the trash. No money here.”
I emptied my apron pocket to prove it; nothing but a bent spoon. Stainless steel, not silver.
My assailant snorted and exited the alleyway in a hurry.
I slammed the kitchen door. “Forking moron.”
She wrote it for kids, she said. Not hoopla.
Cerebral?? HA! You clearly haven’t read it.
Is she a Jedi? She laughed again. No, nor wand-waver nor spoon-bender. She’s written a book. Words, sentences. Soooo scary.
“In the fight of life, each word’s a knife”? Yeah, she’s heard that Big Brother garbage. GAR. BAGE. Words are power, not weapons. Why’d you—
Riiiight. Tomorrow’s sentencing. Heh. Sentence-ing.
(It’s a little funny.)
No, she won’t apologize.
Nope. No regrets.
Yes, she recognizes you.
She sees your torches, your guns.
Go ahead, friends.
She’ll never call the children back out of the sky.
Fork, knife, spoon – you can’t hold them so I do it for you, the dish up close to your mouth to spare your clothes.
I hate this place. Five days in a row, you screaming when they stick the needles in. Nurse smiling and calling you brave, patting your stick thin legs.
You’re not brave, you’re petrified and not even five years old.
You were born in this hospital. I don’t want you to die here.
I can’t do this. It can’t be our bye bye.
Bye bye fork. Bye bye knife. Her foods requiring only a spoon and a dish in this place. Twice a day the slat slid open to deliver something soft and digestible. That left fifteen hours, forty-seven minutes to consider that hard and repugnant act that put her in the Land of Banned Silverware.
Rum raisin memories, spooned straight from the container. All her heartbreaks. I was there for her.
Then she traded my steadfastness for kisses. From him.
She even got me to help her with every course for their special dinner – roux for the soup, risotto, caramel sauce – then left me with the dirty dishes while he proposed.
Replaced!
I’m not the reflective type, but . . . Did she love me, or just use me?
A con! Vexing woman!
A special place forever in her memory? No! A Goodwill box with a knife in my back.
Without her, what am I?
“Pasta again?” he said.
“Yep,” I replied as I placed the dish of microwaved spaghetti bolognaise on the table before him and handed him a spoon and a fork.
“What, you can’t get a little creative now and then?”
“Oh, have something very special for dessert,” I replied.
I watched him slurp up that spaghetti like a pig at a trough. When he was done, he didn’t thank me for the meal, just belched and said, “So, what’s for dessert?”
I walked toward him with my largest kitchen knife and said, “This!”
Marty was my everything: the cream to my coffee, jelly to my donut, big spoon to my little. Until he left me for Betty. Her threat level was more butterknife than razor-blade. I never saw it coming.
I saw them everywhere. The grocery store. The post office. Even church. When those dishonest yahoos walked in without pitchforks raining down, I questioned my faith a bit. But it wasn’t my place to judge. I left that up to Betty’s husband, who had been overseas. Rumor was he was a great shot, and the headlines the day after he arrived confirmed it.
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