Use the photograph above as the inspiration for your flash fiction story. Write whatever comes to mind (no sexual, political, or religious stories, jokes, or commentary, please) and after you PROOFREAD it, submit it as your entry in the comments section below. There will be no written prompt.
Welcome to the Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. In 250 words or less, write a story incorporating the elements in the picture at left. The 250 word limit will be strictly enforced.
Please keep language and subject matter to a PG-13 level.
Use the comment section below to submit your entry. Entries will be accepted until Tuesday at 5:00 PM Pacific Time. No political or religious entries, please. Need help getting started? Read this article on how to write flash fiction.
On Wednesday, we will open voting to the public with an online poll so they may choose the winner. Voting will be open until 5:00 PM Thursday. On Saturday morning, the winner will be recognized as we post the winning entry along with the picture as a feature.
Once a month, the admins will announce the Editors’ Choice winners. Those stories will be featured in an anthology like this one. Best of luck to you all in your writing!
Entries only in the comment section. Other comments will be deleted. See HERE for additional information and terms. Please note the rule changes for 2016.
Baker, by Day
By Annette Rey
Appearances can belie the truth. And it was so with Bentley Craig. Oh, how that appearance drew victims into a web contrived of deceit. The man paid particular attention to the choice of suit, down to the material and weave of tinted threads. A vest contrasted just a shade, nothing to shout. A white, starched shirt collar and unmarred, patent leather shoes completed the ensemble.
“Mr. Bentley Craig,” announced the bouncer at the evening’s opening.
Heads turned. Women shivered at the possibility of being approved by him.
“Mr. Craig. How nice of you to come.”
“My pleasure, Madam Portley. And just what is my pleasure?”
Walking decidedly past Madam Portley, he scanned the occupants of the room. At times, he chose a certain vulnerability, at others, brashness and defiance. His eye settled on a demure-looking newcomer. A snap of manicured fingers and she followed him from the room.
In the early morning hours, Mr. Craig wore a flour-powdered apron and was rolling out dough for his next creation for his upper class clientele. A paperboy popped his head in the door, “Early morning news, Mr. Craig. Here’s your paper. Another grisly assault on one of those sex workers. It’ll be all covered up. Already is. No names mentioned. Nature of the game, they call it. Ought to be outlawed.”
“Dear, dear. But, it is legal, you know. Costly, but legal.”
The room reminded him of his own daughter’s room, with shelf upon shelf of stuffed animals, romance magazines scattered here and there, and cosmetics strewn about the desk. It was the quintessential teenager’s safe haven. Given its appearance, it seemed as if Erin had left for school five minutes before he’d arrived. Except she hadn’t. Now, sadly, he had just told her mother she never would return.
“Why not?” Mrs. Baldwin asked, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “She was always so happy, always smiling, even on the morning she disappeared. Why wouldn’t she come home?”
She picked up a picture of her daughter taken with two other girls the previous fall at a high school football game. “That’s Erin in the middle. Isn’t she beautiful?” Erin was the tall, statuesque brunette with long brown hair worn in a ponytail. “The girl on her left is Jessica Trimble. On her right is Karen Lambert. The three of them were inseparable. If you saw one, you saw all three. They were like sisters. When Erin disappeared, Jessica and Karen quit the cheerleading team and, other than going to classes, withdrew completely from school activities.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she continued, now sobbing. “I keep thinking . . . was there something I could have done, should have done, to keep her home that morning that might have changed things? But everything seemed so normal. It’s a boy, isn’t it?!”
“No, I so sorry, Mrs. Baldwin, but Erin’s committed suicide.”
The Interview
“I always come to Galveston for Mardi Gras. I met her last night on the Strand. She was so pretty, even wearing that silly mask. She said her name was ‘Domino’ and that she could fly.”
“And…”
“Well, we got to talking..you know, ’bout things. She was an artist, exotic dancer and writer. We talked about Hemingway, Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, Emile Zola. You know, creative stuff.”
“So then?”
“We were drinking absinthe. She called them ‘green fairies’. They were mystical, changing color with wisps of magic dancing in the glasses as we mixed them. We had quite a few as I recall.”
“Then?”
“Well, she insisted she could fly.”
“Fly?”
“Yeah, you know: fly like a fairy.”
“And then?”
“Well, I decided to bring her back to my hotel room. You know…to continue talking and such.”
“What happened next?”
“We had some more of the absinthe I bought at a liquor store. We kept talking. And she kept insisting she could fly. So…I decided to help her out.”
The body was found on the cobblestone sidewalk three floors below the wrought iron terrace.
Detective Steve Strong asked the psychiatrist: “What do you think, Doc?”
“He’ll have to stay with us a while longer. He’s still delusional. Mardis Gras was six months ago.”
Once again Fat Tuesday rolled around and the masked revelers took to the streets celebrating Mardi Gras. However, instead of the usual crowd pleasing antics, Penelope and her Peacock Gang had other hijinks in mind, “Alright gang get your peacock masks on, for this year we hit the New Orleans Gold Exchange. I hear they just got in a large horde of Captain Kidd’s golden doubloons.”
Excitedly, the gang members donned their feathered disguises and infamous peacock masks. Pretending to be revelers they danced through the streets into the Gold Exchange lobby. Teasing the tellers, with their comical antics and noise makers, the gang quickly diverted their attention away from Penelope as she snuck into the Gold vault. Quickly, she filled their bags with the gold coins and was out of there in a flash. Rejoining her dancing cohorts, they all moved out into the street then made a run for it back to their hide out on Bourbon Street.
The Peacock Gang members grinned from ear to ear as Penelope distributed to each member a share of the golden treasure trove, “Now remember, my little peacocks enjoy your share wisely. I don’t want anyone getting gold fever, and fighting over who got what, like last year.”
With that said the kids dove into their shares of the golden booty, and ripped the golden wrappers off their chocolate doubloons. Penelope, grinned as every one of her gang relished their share of this year’s Mardi Gras chocolates.
On a narrow street paved with stones, in a ancient country where the air seemed thick with magic and mystery, among boisterous crowds of dark-skinned people covered in black, the woman stood out. Jack could not help noticing her. She was tall, and unlike the others her head was uncovered and she wore a silver half-mask. She moved towards Jack with enough room to pass when suddenly she was caught up in the surge of the crowd and pushed into Jack’s path. They collided. Jack fell one way; she fell the other. Jack leapt to his feet and helped her up while apologizing profusely. She brushed herself off and graciously accepted his apologies.
Then she said that she was obligated to grant him a wish since he had helped her.
He said that was not necessary, that he was very sorry, that he wished he had not bumped into her, that it was his own carelessness that had caused… But the woman in the silver mask was gone.
Jack looked around and saw her again, farther down the road, walking along as if nothing had happened, and apparently nothing had. She was unusually striking in appearance, but that was not reason enough for him to consider this incident significant. He had been searching for days, weeks, for mystery and magic with no results. He put the woman out of his thoughts. Maybe around the next corner he would find what he was looking for.
XEBRA – Queen of Denial
.
“No, it’s ‘XEBRA,’ with an “X.”
.
“Well, no matter how you spell it, it sounds like Zebra. Maybe your special outfit could have black and white stripes so you could hide amongst the tall grasses.” Debra and Marie sat on a bench in front of the corner coffee shop. Lunch break was almost over and the birthday party supplies they had just picked up for their boss’ 40th would soon festoon the conference room and be distributed to their co-workers for the awkward afternoon mandatory celebration. “God, I hope someone brings something more powerful than wine coolers,” Marie adds as she adjusts the little green antennea on her plastic headband. “Hey look, I could be ‘ANT GIRL,’ but I’d spell it with a ‘U’ because my sister just had her baby and I’m finally an aunt.”
.
Debra wasn’t listening. She was making plans. She would become the Superhero known as “XEBRA” – Protector of all slightly gullible yet still intelligent and vibrant women scorned by relatively good looking but essentially immature men. Able to spot apron strings and Daddy issues from across a crowded bar. Able to stop baubles and sweet-nothing pillow talk from distorting one’s authentic sense of self. XEBRA would be the caped crusader for hapless young gals blinded by the immobilizing gaze of a ‘say-all-the-right-things’ suitor.
.
Marie stood up. “Hey XEBRA, here’s some advice from AUNT GIRL: Don’t date your boss.”
It began just before midnight at the Halloween party last night. My Black Russian Terrier sat beside me. The big shaggy beast leaned over and nuzzled my neck. He only did that when the moon was full. I was admiring the fantastic costumes when the whispering started. Surely, it must be one of the group enjoying the party.
“At last,” I heard, “after all these years, I can leave this misfortune at midnight, tonight, and live twenty-four hours in another form.”
I figured someone was playing a joke on me, so I encouraged them, and replied, “Happy Halloween to you, too. What happens at midnight?”
“Ahhh,” he murmured. ‘Hundreds of years ago, the three village witches stirred their cauldron and put a curse on me, a poor orphaned boy. All because, when trick or treating on Halloween night, I let my dog dig up their rutabaga patch.”
I sensed I should get up and leave.
“They told me,” the voice continued, “since I liked unruly dogs so much, they would turn me into a wolf, a shaggy-haired werewolf!”
Bewildered, I started to stand.
“Not only that,” he went on,”but every one hundred years, on any full-mooned Halloween night, I would transform into a vampire for twenty-four hours and prey on trick or treaters. Times up! Happy Halloween!”
As I raced to the door, I caught a glimpse of my bewitched pet leap onto a costumed witch astride her broom, hungrily eyeing two other witches cowering in a corner.
Tribute
“What’s your story?” Adam finally mustered up the nerve to ask, mostly to ease his burning curiosity.
She turned sharply, clearly startled.
“Sorry. I’m the stationary store owner. I bought it three years ago.” He gestured in the direction of a suite of small shops across the street. “I’m only asking because I’ve seen you out here annually.” She appeared like clock-work on this date. The first year she stood near the wall gripping a bouquet, and he guessed she’d been stood up. The second year she sat for hours reading a book of poetry. This year she seemed surprised to find a parade winding slowly along Main Street, but composed herself as she graciously accepted a mask from a group of young children pulling them out of a red bucket.
The afternoon sun glinted sharply off the shiny silver mask that exposed sad hazel eyes. “I’m here to pay tribute to the man that gave up his life for mine seven years ago.” She paused to watch a pair of miniature horses being led by before continuing. “It was a robbery…at the store next to yours. I was on my knees, and there was a gun pointed at my forehead. He said there could be no witnesses. Mark could have stayed safely in the back, but he came out and rescued me. I’ll never forget the horrible sounds…all the blood. Simply, I owe that man everything. The best I can do is make sure he’s never forgotten.”
It was the same thing every night: dress up, put on our masks, go out, find a man, kill him, and eat him. It was too easy – it was getting boring.
Hannah and I had moved cities five times in hopes a change of scenery would spice things up a bit. But no, mountains or desert didn’t make a difference. Cities were still cities, and that’s where the people were, so that’s where we needed to be.
And, in each city, the men were the same: predictable, gullible, and vulnerable. Supposedly, they were the stronger of the sexes? That was laughable. They came along with us willingly at the mere offer of physical pleasure. What a bunch of dolts.
We experimented for a while – to see if men from a variety of climates tasted differently. We’d heard humans say, “You are what you eat,” so we were hoping that perhaps their diets might impact the flavor a bit. It really didn’t.
And no, we can’t cook them with different spices because once we smell their blood, we lose our human shapes and revert to our natural forms. It’s fairly difficult using a spatula and operating a Cuisinart with large claws and no opposing thumbs. Unfortunately, humans bleed a lot – especially from head wounds.
I went to interview private detective Mr Stanley at his office.
Waiting room was adjacent to his cabin. I heard muttering; scolding someone in low voice. I was sure, some culprit was there.
Within minutes the tall handsome investigator came out. Observed me top to bottom and requested to sit there five minutes more.
Just as he left, a crooked old man came out from his room. Followed him, then suddenly came back to me.
‘Madam, come, run away, this way’
‘What rubbish!’
‘Shh! Listen to me first…’
He tried best and drew me to opposite corner of the hall.
I charged disgust, ‘It’s clear that you’re a criminal mind’
He got surprised. Stared at me a few seconds, replied, ‘You’re right’
‘Come to the point, or, shall I call him?’
‘My child, I was criminal— once. But that gentleman is crime organizer!’
‘Any proof?’
‘Have this—’
Oh no! He showed photocopy of my passport and my biodata.
He continued, ‘I was summoned to kidnap you.’
I cried, ‘But I’m a journalist!’
‘Yah, he told me, you became too much inquisitive to handle’
‘You mean..?’
‘They sabotage law and order behind the facade of a…aaa…oh— jump my child, run away!’
Stanley had come back and fired at him. The old man was bleeding terribly. I didn’t waste a moment. Jumped out of the window. Driver was waiting nearby. It was fortunate escape.