Flash fiction contest results

 

Thanks to all of you who stepped in to assuage my pain at the shellacking I've taken from Steve Forti. It was medicinal flash fiction indeed!

 

Here are the entries that caught my eye.

 

Steve Forti

 

“I mean, who mixes meerkat with warthog? Ridiculous. And don’t get me started on Pac-man. ‘Cuz there’s Ms. Pac-man. Did she have just one choice in a guy? Is there like a whole race of Pac-men out there running from ghosts? And how do sheets stay on ghosts, anyway? Or pants. Is there naked ghost butt on every surface top in haunted houses? Oh, remember that ghost episode of Punky Brewster, when… hmm? Oh dear… I’m doing it again. What was the question?”

 

“Have you reached a verdict?”

 

“Oh yes. We the jury find the defendant guilty of first-degree murder.

 

Talk about not seeing where this was headed.

Very nice example of a twist.

 

 

 

Amy Johnson

 

 

“Help. I—"

Phone hangs up.

Unknown number.

Just some youth, wart.

Acme of his day: prank calls.

Button up coat.

Rush to the train.

Dad’s voice?

Call him.

“Fine, honey.”

Xerox machine.

Lost in thought.

What-ifs.

“Operator, . . . trace the call?”

“Impossible.”

Questions:

Should I have checked on the neighbors? Familiar voice? Prank?

Zigzagging thoughts.

Gasping for breath.

Numbness.

“Missed you in the meeting.”

“Everything okay?”

“Trying . . . can’t get a response. She’s catatonic. Hurry!”

“Kin? They’ll want to contact someone.”

“You’re going to be okay, ma’am.”

“Very unusual.”

 

I have a feelling once someone explains this to me, I'll understand it's brilliant (this is Amy Johnson after all) but I just don't get this one.

 

 

french sojourn

 

He paused, in suspended cartoon gravity, and reflected on the gravity of it all.

 

One of many things that escaped him, yet again, was his punk-ass fowl nemesis.

 

Had he been thwarted by the time / distance variable? No.

 

Had he re-wired the faulty recalled ACME activator button? Check.

 

He went over the formula he had used… Height over Mass times the square root of pi, should equal the foot/pounds applied to the radius of the…

 

Why was he getting that sinking feeling?

 

He heard a distinct beep-beep, as he started accelerating.

 

He pulled out his sign that read.

 

Drats!

 

 

Why was he getting that sinking feeling just cracked me up.

 

 

Kregger

 

Minnesota Fats stared down his cue. “You got spunk, kid.”

 

“Rac’ me, Rudy.”

 

The corpulent man obliged, aligning the “one” ball on the button.

 

Fats blew chalk from his felt tip. “I’ve never lost a match with money. Bet a buck?”

 

“I eat pi’ for breakfast. Make it a fin. I feel lucky.”

 

“No luck involved.” Fats watched the rack scatter, sinking the seven. “Nice shot.”

 

“Rac’ me.”

 

“Make it a C-note?”

 

“How about a stack of C-notes?”

 

“You’re on.”

 

Break. One ball left.

 

“Athwart side pocket.”

 

Fats exclaimed, “Who are you?”

 

“I’m a skinny little boy from Cleveland Ohio.”

 

I think this depends on knowing something about pool.

As a shark, my only pool knowledge involves lurking in the depths for dangling toes.

 

 

 

 

Colin Smith

 

“We want the truth. Warts and all.”

 

The Senator peered over his glasses at the punked-out figure sitting before him.

 

Menacme Spike, aka John Jones, shivered, cold perspiration beading on his lip. He pulled at his unbuttoned collar and cleared his throat.

 

“No,” his voice shook. “No, you don’t.”

 

“This is a congressional hearing,” the Senator said, glancing at his colleagues. “You must say what happened. Whatever the consequences.”

 

“Whatever?”

 

“Whatever. It’s time to come clean.”

 

“But it was murder!”

 

“I know.” The Senator smiled uncomfortably.

 

“Mum…” The word caught in Jones’s throat.

 

“Yes.”

 

“But Dad… it weren’t your fault.”

 

oh ho! Nice twist!

 

 

Madeline Mora-Summonte

 

She twists me – the top button – into place, her fingers nimble, her nails painted pink to match the diner's uniform. She smiles at the mirror. Nothing thwarts her spunkiness.

 

The stranger in the grimy Mac Meats cap orders peach pie, coffee. His greasy gaze lands on me, lingers too long. She tenses. Her heartbeat races at my back.

 

In the alley, he shoves her down, tears her clothes. The other buttons fly off.

 

I hold on. She does not.

 

When he's done, he cleans up, leaves.

 

But his fingerprint, pressed into me, stays.

 

I really love stories from an unusual perspective.

 

 

 

Michael Seese

 

 

I loved Lilith, warts and all. Spirited, spunky, with hair of enchanted gold and eyes of midnight. Alas, I could never free her from the elegiac memories’ wicked whispers. And once her inner demons began worming into me, I could no longer have her in my world. My pitiful “I'm sorry” sounded wholly insufficient, as she fought back the tears.

 

“But…”

 

“Tonight let’s just be together, and forget. Then tomorrow, you must leave.”

 

Her resignation weighed heavy on both of our souls.

 

“You'll be happy on Earth,” I offered, stanching my own sorrow. “I hear there's a lovely garden.”

 

 

oh! ohohoh!

 

 

 

 

NLiu

 

Kidnapped Bobbin Button, held in Castoff Castle,

Discovered Count Stitches had been a dreadful rascal.

He’d bred Monopis Crocicapitella, farmed an army.

Soon to be unleashed in a wool-ravaging tsunami.

But Bobbin was courageous, and also good at reading.

She sneaked notes to Polly and Esther. Together they got weaving.

The moths flew free. Chewing ensued.

But in the end their only food

was Stitches himself. He’d miscalculated,

and by his minions was masticated.

‘Cause manmade is mothproof, and linen too,

But fin-de-siècle Stitches? Thwarted moth poo.

In stitchpunk an acme soon comes unravelled.

Little Bobbin grew up – and travelled.

 

Holy smokes.

 

 

 

John Davis Frain

 

Mom hits the AC. Me? I crank the heat. Thank goodness for our dual-zone climate control sofa. We watch split-screen TV together. Horror on her half, comedy on mine.

 

She taps the volume button, but I’ve thwarted her this time. Removed the batteries from her remote.

 

A ding from the kitchen. Dinner is shrimp—sweet for Mom, sour for me.

 

“What’s dessert?” I ask.

 

“Apple pie with arsenic sauce,” Mom says. “I’ll have the pie.”

 

Always the spunky one, Mom almost Forti’d me again! I replace her remote-control batteries. She won’t hear the oven ding, and the pie will burn.

 

Ha!

 

 

 

Mallory Love

 

He’d been called everything from “punk” to “maniac mess.” The worst was “delusional.” That one came from the court-ordered therapist and caused him to be locked up in the psych ward on Christmas Eve. Made him so mad, but he had a list for people like her. Come tomorrow she would regret trying to thwart his plans.

 

He heard tapping at the window. Showtime. He buttoned his coat. Glass shattered. The alarm sounded as he took a flying leap. He waved to the stunned faces below as the sleigh rose higher.

 

He’d been called everything, but the best was “Santa.”

 

Ha!

 

 

 

 

 

Ash Complin

 

My daughter has her mom's button nose, a reminder of who I lost that day.

 

I started overeating, my bad habit.

 

She grew, became smart, like her mother.

 

She got me a wrist tattoo: a crossed-out pi, a joke to thwart my irrational dessert binging. She wanted me to live forever. She made me want to live at all.

 

She went to her first punk concert, the ACME Rockets, but never came home. Overdosed. I never knew she had a habit, too.

 

Now when I reach for a donut, I see the tattoo, and I take two.

 

I miss you, Bunny.

 

yikes!

 

 

 

This week's winner is Michael Seese.

there were several terrific entries and it was very hard to choose just one.

 

Michael, drop me a line and tell me what you're reading these days and I'll get a prize book in the mail to you.

 

Thanks to all of you who took time to write and post entries.

They were balm for my wounded pride.