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.
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.
Jeffie the Parrot
Jeffie was alone at the homestead when several State Agents paid him a visit.
“Jeffie, will you tell us your secret?” asked one of the Agents.
“Giddy-up,” Jeffie replied, bobbing up and down on his perch. His eyes couldn’t focus properly, so the Agents were never quite sure who the parrot was looking at.
“Let’s be serious.”
“Jeffie gets the third degree?”
“No. Just talk.”
“Just talk?” Jeffie repeated, moving his head from side-to-side. “Jeffie can’t handle pressure.”
“Would you like a cracker?” asked an Agent, attempting to calm the bird.
“Jeffie loves crackers,” he replied, lifting one foot in the air. “Jeffie is cracker addict.” He looked at the Agents with a wild look in his eyes. Then he pranced back and forth on his perch in anticipation of a treat.
“Here you go, Jeffie,” the Agent said, handing the bird a cracker.
Jeffie grasped the cracker and gobbled it down.
“Was that good, Jeffie?”
“Meow.”
“Is that your cat imitation?”
“Woof.”
“Do you have any other imitations?”
Jeffie moved his head from side to side and looked quixotically at the Agents.
“Never mind. We’re here for information.”
“Jeffie doesn’t want baton.”
“We won’t hurt you, Jeffie.”
“Make mistake. Oops. Jeffie gets baton.”
“It’s all right, Jeffie,” the Agent whispered, leaning closer. “Tell us your secret.”
“Secret?” he repeated, bobbing up and down. “Jeffie has plastic decoder ring.”
Dean rose, rubbed his eyes, blew his nose and gazed through slitted eyelids at the slowly revolving ceiling fan in the cheap desert motel he’d stopped at when he could drive no further. He’d made it farther than he imagined after storming out of the restaurant; out of Iris’s life. He was free , although freedom hadn’t yet hit him in its joyous entirety. He still was possessed by a lingering feeling of dread such as little boys have after transgressing a family rule like not washing one’s hands before supper or failing to flush the toilet after a particularly impressive bowel movement. This feeling would fade over time. Now it formed the emotional backdrop of this first act of his new life.
He’d forgotten a toothbrush but dragged his finger over his furry teeth. The water pressure at the dilapidated hacienda was weak, like his urine stream. He stood before the toilet as before a tribunal, at attention and waiting for the verdict of his prostate. He left the seat down as an act of defiance to Iris who had never had cause to complain in that department. Hadn’t he always been conscientious about such mundane acts of marital deference? Little things mattered to Iris, He knew to fold the bath towels so as to hide the manufacturer’s label. Slight inconveniences that irked a man who by nature wouldn’t be bother by such things. Today began the unraveling of Iris’s training. He hoped he remembered who he once was.
The Lab
Earth rumbled. The capsule arose through the subterranean passage. Lexa tensed by my side, but Hexter was calm. We had seeded the geo-reactor in the inner core using an artificial neutron source. Earth’s magnetic field will regain its strength. That will help to deflect the devastating cosmic radiation.
Cilix’s team had done excellent work. They located the twin mountains, one larger than the other, created many eons back to mimic the sine wave of the portal. An excellent job they did in establishing the Lab beside the mountains. Safe passage from the peaks goes right to the core. They scrubbed the nuclear poisons off the heart.
Once the reactor comes to full power, a tremendous energy surge will ripple to the top. Hexter was monitoring the ascent. “Almar, we are at a perfect speed. Okay, let us send a final message from the Lab and get out.” I made a mental note to switch off the temporary power pack.
“Lexa, prepare for the exit.” As we rose into the sky, I watched the landscape being torn up by massive earthquakes. Soon, giant tsunamis and aftershocks will follow, and they will lose everything. But at least some will survive. With time, they will rebuild. For how long? 4000 years and we will return to fix it again.
The Lab receded. I saw her standing by the fence. Not over twelve, black hair rising, green eyes wide.
“Hank, ride around back and see what’s there.”
“Nothing, boss. No horses, no hogs, no tools. No gardens, nothing growing. Not much of a homestead.”
“Perfect for Mrs. Culman. She’ll wanta make it look like some fancy-schmancy English estate.”
“What’s that look like, Buck?”
“Danged if I know. We’re just paid to patrol. Wait, there’s somebody inside. Hold it, stranger. What’re you doing here?”
“I, sir, am the stead man, caring for the homestead, as it were.”
“Who’s this Steadman guy, Buck?”
“Dunno. Mr. Culman told me the caretaker’s name is Monroe.”
“No, no. You misunderstand. My name is indeed Monroe.”
“Oh, sure. First it’s Steadman. Now it’s Monroe. Look, Steadman, you’d better vamoose before we get rough.”
“But I….”
Buck and Hank both drew their guns and fired at the ground. Monroe/Steadman leaped in the air and began running down the road toward the town and the stagecoach which would carry him out of this wilderness. Once back in civilized society, he would post his resignation to the Culmans and wish them good luck on finding his replacement.
Harriet Abrams’ worst fears had come true. When her husband Jeremiah purchased their homestead, she begged him not to put their shop alongside their home. Now here she was, tied to a chair while little Freddie wailed in his crib.
“Can’t you shut that youngin’ up?” asked Rainy, one of three bandits.
“He’s a baby! This here’s our home! Take what you need and leave!” cried Harriet.
“Does that include you?” leered Anton, the leader.
Harriet didn’t answer. It was evening, Jeremiah was herding cattle, and the shop was closed.
“Tell us where the key is!” shouted Anton.
At that moment, their little dog, Cherub, burst in, with a bluster of barking.
“Should I shoot its head off, boss?” asked Rainy.
Harriet spoke quickly to the dog, “Git! Cherub, git!”
And Cherub was gone. Harriet hoped she would go quickly.
“The key!” shouted Anton, causing Harriet to jump.
“It’s in that red cup,” she sobbed.
Harriet was relieved when they went into the store. She knew they would take the money, and whatever merchandise they could carry. She hoped they would just go.
She was heartened by the sound of horses in the distance. Cherub had followed her command.
Harriet could hear the ruffians being apprehended. Not a shot was fired. Cherub, the furry hero, jumped into her lap. Jeremiah untied her ropes and they held each other close, cuddling little Freddie. “I’m sorry, Harriet,” whispered Jeremiah.
Glen was hot and bothered. Trying to keep up with his son and daughter-in-law and their three kids was too much. The phony desert town was cute but why traipse through an amusement park? He wanted to spend time in the one real ruin.
That adobe house, built in 1835, was too real. Nobody wanted to go in.
“I’m going in,” he said. “See how the pioneers lived.”
His son, exasperated, waved his hands in dismissal.
Glen, at 79 years old, was slowing down, his mind not as sharp as it once was. Emily’s death last year made all the difference. Their marriage wasn’t greeting card stuff. No, it was real. He missed that.
The door wouldn’t open all the way, so he entered sideways. A cool rush of air slipped by. This was more like it.
Dirt and dust and tools and food were scattered all over. He sat in the rocker in front of the fireplace, embers still smoking from breakfast.
Maybe he’d sit here for the rest of the day. If Emily were here, it would be perfect.
As the sun fell towards the horizon, he decided he’d better get back to the family. His joints ached as he stood up. On top of that, the front door was stuck like glue.
He walked through the little kitchen area and opened the door there all the way. Emily was getting the wash from the clothesline. He’d better get firewood so they could cook dinner.
Memory takes us back to the homestead where we grew up. Following my dad’s death when I was eight and my brother was six, my mother moved us to live near her parents in the very center of California. East-west, north-south, it is the center of the state. The population then was about 5,000 people if you count the small districts where the rich dairy people made a living.
Our yard in Chowchilla was the size of two city lots. My grandfather built our house in the middle of those two lots. My cousin Joe from tornado country insisted my mother needed a cellar, so he dug one under our house which she used to store trunks and items she and her mother canned.
Verlie had two pomegranate trees from which she squeezed juice from the crop of several hundred each year. Guests looked forward to her unusual serving of the red, tart juice. On the grape arbor were Concord and Thompson seedless grapes. She had one pear tree in front of the grape arbor, and behind the arbor she had apricot and peach trees. At various times she grew asparagus and other hard-to-get vegetables. By the alley in the corner near the huge mulberry tree she had an artichoke plant. To this day I buy large, hardy artichokes at the store and remember the times we dipped the leaves in hot butter with a touch of salt. I savor my memories.
Susan’s jet black hair was a rumpled mess as she awakened from a dream that had tortured her since she was four years old.
Flashes of sounds from that fateful night: Susan’s father’s voice, “We should at least try to get to the hospital, even in this terrible storm.” Then, her mother’s voice, “We don’t have enough time, it’s too late.”
***
Susan meets her younger brother Kyle for coffee, before visiting the homestead, as their deceased parents called their house built on a hundred and fifty acres.
“I can’t believe they’re gone, and now the homestead” Kyle said quietly.
“Majestic houses built in its place,” Susan said.
***
Driving up in front of the homestead, Kyle immediately remembers the fun times from his charmed childhood: cowboy parties and riding his beloved horse. He walks toward the stables.
Susan knew what she had to do; so, she sprinted from the car, walked to the back hall, knelt down and lifted five boards. She reaches into the cavity below the flooring and pulls out a small package wrapped in a blanket.
***
Kyle came back to the car and noticed the sweat on his sister’s brow,” Why are you so sweaty?”
“I went into the house ; there are too many memories…”
“Mom and Dad’s alcoholism really did a number on you… ” Kyle said and squeezed her hand.
“We’re lucky they decided to sober up. Then, you came along,” she smiled at him.
They drove away, each holding onto their own memories of the homestead.