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 2018.
“I have him. My sturdy arrow will stop him. Do not fear, my faithful troop.”
“Where? What? I can’t see. My eyes are focused straight ahead. What’s going on?”
“If you miss with that arrow, I’ll smack him in the face with a hamburger, Yogi Bear will never fail.”
“I Have. An. Ice-cream. Cone. Also a Ham-burger. I will. Smack. The Cul-prit. In His Ant-er-ior Regions. Should He Dare. To come Closer.”
A brand new 1954 Dodge pulls over. A man and a little girl step out.
“Curses! Mine arrow seems to be adhered to the bow.”
“I can’t turn my head! My eyes are stuck in place!”
“This hamburger is too good for them. I’ll eat it myself. That’ll show them.’’
“My instructions. Prohibit me. Doing harm. To humans. I am helpless.”
The little girl studies the archer, the piggy bank, Yogi Bear, and the robot. “What do you suppose they would say if they could talk, Daddy?” she asks.
“Probably ‘Come on inside for a delicious burger and a cone’. What do you think?”
“I think I would like a cone,” said the little girl. She patted the piggy bank on the leg and she and her father went inside for their treats.
“Aaagghhh!” said the piggy bank. “Something touched my leg. Is it still there? Is it crawling up my leg?”
Was this the vacation from hell? Miriam, her hair wilted from heat, closed her eyes against the blistering sun and covered her ears to block out the incessant hip hop on the radio, the two squabbling kids in the back, and her husband’s non-stop criticism of modern life.
Because the air conditioner was broken, the car windows were open as they sped across the Nevada desert on this ill-planned late-summer vacation. The weather didn’t care as the temperature was blowing past 100 degrees.
Todd, her software engineer husband, ranted on about the artificiality of today’s culture, how food was over-processed and tasteless, movies were commercial schlock, and novels were written for third graders.
The gas gauge showed less than a quarter tank of gas, so Todd turned off the freeway and headed for the Texaco station. The kids, 10-year-old Brianna and 7-year-old Sam, yelled louder over whose turn it was to use the video game player.
As they left the exit, a phalanx of giant kiddie cartoon figures faced them. Yogi Bear, Robin Hood, Scooby Doo, a dumb pink pig, and an odd-looking robot beckoned them to stop at the nearby fast food joint.
The kids fell silent as they pointed at the dopey characters. Todd shut up. Miriam turned off the radio. The desert breeze lightened. Without pause, Todd turned into the parking lot. The family piled into the air-conditioned restaurant and sat quietly munching cheeseburgers and fries, drinking milk shakes and pop, cultural criticism be damned.
“That is an idea that I am sure will work, but I am afraid to risk the rest of the capital that we had saved up to invest in our business, Millie.”
“Your Idea to save our business is ridiculous, Harold. It will never work.”
“Oh, come on. Millie. It is an investment that we must make. We cannot go on like we are, or we will go under. We can’t afford the mortgage on the sales we now have.”
“No! Do not do it, Harold.”
Six weeks later there they were, four of the most ridiculous looking giant inflated figures sitting in front of Harold and Millie’s financially distressed gas station and souvenir shop business.
“This will show that Millie. I hope that she is not too mad when she returns from her weeklong out-of-state visit to see her parents.”
When she returned to Harold’s relief and surprise, she just smiled and never said a word about it.
Twenty-five years later, Fran, the youngest of Millie and Harold four children said to Millie, “I am glad that you and Dad could send all four of us away to college, Mom.”
“I am glad that I got your dad to invest those ridiculous figures. They attracted so many that our business thrived as I always knew it would.”
“Dad said that you told him not to do it.”
“That gave him the gumption to do it, Fran. I knew that it would.”
For Editor’s Choice Award only
“Wow, those monsoon winds yesterday were something else,” remarked the giant Yogi Bear statue, now restored to his proper position and still holding a hamburger high in his right hand. “They turned me 90-degrees counter-clockwise before finally dying down.”
“Same here,” responded a tall robot holding a hamburger in his left hand. “And, for the first time, I got a good look at the two slackers to your left. I’m sure you saw them, too.”
“Boy howdy, there was no missing that pair,” agreed Yogi: Pink Pig and the Woodsman.”
“Haha . . . the Odd Couple,” sneered the robot.
“I heard that,” said the Woodsman, drawing a bead on the silver SUV speeding toward him on the main drag in Hatch, New Mexico.”
“Well, it’s true,” responded Yogi. We’re upholding our part of the bargain. Literally! In exchange for advertising our owner’s hamburger joint, we get a fresh coat of paint each spring. You and the pig contribute nothing to the effort!”
“I don’t know what you’re smoking,” said the Woodsman, his eyes unblinking as he held an arrow firmly between his three fingers, “but I sure wish you’d share it with us.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” snapped the robot.
“Well,” said the Woodsman, “the winds yesterday turned me completely around, and the only establishment I saw behind us is a Texaco gas station. So, it’s anyone’s guess whose hamburgers you’re touting!”
They missed them by only minutes. Children on a trip were climbing all over the giant figurines with their truck-stop food and greasy little hands, dropping French fries, spilling milk shakes and discarding burger wrappers. The teachers and a few parents finally got them back into the bus.
The big round pig was very well greased up! Robin Hood steadfastly aimed his arrow into the distance. Yogi Bear offered a fake hamburger skyward, while Tin Man held an ice cream cone and another burger aloft.
An out-of-control animal rescue vehicle careened around the truck stop, tumbling over and narrowly missing the giant figurines. Inside, two pet rescue workers sustained minor injuries and were trapped, while some cages popped open, releasing half a dozen excited dogs.
While the workers called for help, the pooches helped themselves. They attacked the figurines with gusto, slurping up the spilled shakes, gobbling the scraps and licking grease off the fantastic four.
When their treats were depleted, the excited dogs began barking at Yogi Bear and the Tin Man, because they were holding what appeared to be more food, but out of reach. A frustrated Boxer growled at Yogi.
A motherless pup took refuge under the pig, while a Pointer mix spied a bird by Robin Hood and went into full Pointer mode.
When the rescue trucks arrived, they approached very slowly. As a loose Dalmatian circled the rig, the captain cried, “Hero! We’ve been searching all over for you!”
Giants… yes.
All down Route 66, Giants stood astride the Golden Land.
Main Street to Main Street, Mystical Mother Road joined every American between Lake Michigan and Santa Monica Pier.
Car people? Everyone was car people then…
Invoking “Route 66” meant “roadie.” Way Out West. Sometimes Back East. You know, man. DNC in Chicago, crash the Party.
Epic life-changing journey…
At Barstow, swing north for Frisco. Before Barstow, you left 66 to see Hoover Dam and Vegas. Crossing into NorCal, lost in Humboldt County.
Young soldiers, three wars, packed into “cattle cars,” rails paralleling Route 66. Japanese-Americans rode the same cars, for reasons just as depressing.
Tiny towns with nothing, suddenly world famous. Shared memory among millions.
Truth or Consequences. Gallup. Holbrook, Winslow, Flagstaff, Arizona. Don’t forget Fredonia.
Learned To Drive on Route 66. Recall these very statues…
Not all of these. Not even this place. (Hatch County, New Mexico.) Jarring this teenage boy alert. Upcoming turn. Weirdly lit in desert darkness, huge neon at a nearby hotel.
Some of us old soldiers? Still here.
I remember.
Many have fallen. The mission continues. Across these harsh deserts, beckoning titans still overwatch that long, long journey into the sunset.
While my mother, Verlie, worked at the Rosanoffs Sanatorium and at the Sawtelle Veterans Hospital that she began writing to Orville Rodman who lived in the same community of Santa Rosa, California, as Verlie’s oldest brother, Erskin and his wife, Ruby. Orville was attracted to a picture Verlie had sent to Ruby and Erskin, and they had it placed on a table in their living room. Perhaps they intentionally were matchmaking. I never thought to ask them when they were alive.
Orville, a widower 11 years her senior, sent Verlie many letters and some of his poetry. He taught at the church of Christ school in Santa Rosa. Many missionaries around the world came from the teachers at that school. The school is still there. It will one day become one of my destinations while traveling.
Before long Orville wrote to Verlie asking her to go to the Philippines as his wife, for he planned to go there as a missionary. To my knowledge they did not meet face to face until they met in Canton, China, for their wedding ceremony. They both stepped out on faith to create a family. They have become spiritual giants in our family tree.
I had four younger brothers, and each one was naughtier than the next; until the summer in the ‘Land of the Giants’, our father’s hometown. I was almost thirteen;so… at our grandparents, I stayed in my room with a black and white TV. The boys never wanted to do anything except watch TV. One day, when we came home nothing electrical work. My grandfather said there was a problem with the electrical pole. I was suspicious…
Every day after that, my grandfather would read fairy tales, and turn them into scary lessons; about the consequences of bad behavior.
After a week or two, the boys started to become more cooperative when grandfather suggested fun activities.
Then, he said they were ready to …face their destiny; if they did not conform to society.
I was really worried.
When I frowned, and looked so worried grandfather said, ” Don’t worry, it involves hamburgers, french fries, and milkshakes.”
Later, when we drove up to the fast food place with the giant- 20 foot -robot; giant Yogi Bear; giant pig; giant Robin Hood; I knew this was going to be very amusing.
***
After that summer, the boys’ behavior improved dramatically. A science fiction TV show that started that fall entitled, Land of the Giants, may have also helped. But we gave grandfather all the credit for teaching my brother’s that there is always something bigger than you out there!