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.
He was eleven when he lit the fire. He didn’t know it would kill them.
Smoke Screen
Is this how far I should go? How deep into the woods can one go? Should one go? Is there an end to them, these woods?
Everything I have known has had an end. Birth ended. Childhood faded. Adolescence ran its course. All of them, these passages, these transitions, all of them ever so brief.
Gone.
And then what? The excitement of adult life? The ignition!
Yes! The spark of love?
Was it real?
Was it ever there?
The sparks, I suppose were there. For a time.
Before the doldrums. The weight of them, heavier then even the weight of you now. Not just you. What’s left of you. The shell in the sack that I carry. No, I mean that other mass. The one that crushed the spirit. The joy. That sat on my brain and squeezed the blood from my heart.
That one.
But you’ve stopped listening.
And here we are.
A small clearing.
Delightful.
You’ll enjoy the tranquility, won’t you?
I am sure they will ask: “Where could she have possibly gone? She was such a homebody.”
I will of course look as if I am giving it much thought. I can look pensive when the situation demands.
So, then I will say, “Well, she did like to take her constitutionals. The COVID, the lockdown, they trapped her.”
Someone will call it delirium. It’ll seem so obvious.
And, who knows, these woods may even ignite this summer?
One final spark of love.
Cooked beyond recognition.
The two men stood in a field near Clear Lake, Iowa, early one February morning and watched as men from volunteer fire departments of several local jurisdictions doused flames from what remained of a V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza 35. The single-engine aircraft, which seated three passengers plus a pilot, had taken off hours earlier from the municipal airport in Mason City, less than 10 miles east of Clear Lake. The flight plan filed by the pilot indicated the plane’s destination was Moorhead, Minnesota. There were no survivors.
“Does anyone have a clue what might have happened?” asked one of the men.
His companion, Dion DiMucci, shook his head. “I put that question to the firefighter who passed us a few minutes ago. He didn’t have a clue . . . muttered something about the weather possibly having played a part—something about low-cloud cover. Whatever happened, he said, the plane came down hard!”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he said from what he saw, the plane must have banked steeply into the ground and cartwheeled across the field, ejecting some of the passengers along the way.”
The men stared at what remained of the aircraft for several minutes before the first man spoke again. “Ya know, “I could’ve been on that plane. It was a stroke of luck I wasn’t.
“Whaddaya mean?” DiMucci asked.
“Well,” replied Tommy Allsup, guitarist for Buddy Holly’s Winter Dance Party, “I lost a coin toss for a seat to Ritchie Valens.”
“Another conflagration? Already?” Jack shook his head. “It barely seems like a week since the last.”
Todd slid into his no-flame suiting. It was stiff like cardboard and made it difficult to move. It was going to be hot wearing it, but the alternative was unthinkable.
“We’ve got to reinforce the message,” he said. “A paperless society means we can all relax. No rebellion, no cleansings, no burning of illegal matter.”
The call had come in an hour ago: the security forces had been given a tip-off, their agents finding a cache of writing materials. There were illicit texts, tubes of paper whitener, even bottles of ink. The homeowners said they must have been left there by the previous tenants, but the forensics proved them to be lying.
And so, the call had gone out. Quell the resistance; build a pyre; cauterize everything infected. Only people with something to hide needed to use paper now.
Jack jumped into the cab and keyed the ignition. The Churchill Crocodile was an antique and it was slow. But it was great for getting the message across – you accumulate paper and writing materials and you get a flame-throwing tank come to make a house-call. It was overly dramatic, but you could never ignore it.
Non-verbal messaging was always the most effective method of communication, especially when it was reinforced by a tank, eighty gallons of gasoline and a flame.
Paradise here one day, the next Paradise lost. Look at the aftershock of seeping white smoke; smoldering among the charred ashes, homes after homes, dreams after dreams. A town once called Paradise.
It was a hot and humid day, typical for August, and the firefighters were trying to stay cool. The air conditioner in Firehouse 50 was on the fritz and it would be another couple of hours before the repairs would be completed. They had scavenged a few fans from dark closets but how were they going to survive this 90-degree muggy day without air-conditioning? Someone suggested watching movies to keep their minds off the heat and a double feature of “ET” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was decided upon.
Just as the credits for the second movie were scrolling past, the alarm sounded. A small aircraft had been sighted crashing into a field about 10 miles from the station. As they neared the sight, they could see thick black smoke, curled around hot red-orange flames, billowing high into the air. The fuselage must have caught fire and the day was going to get even hotter.
Using two-and one-half inch hose, the firefighters applied a steady stream of water to the blaze and gained control over the flames. The smoke turned to a grayish white as the fire died out. The first firefighter approached the wreckage. He could see no sign of survivors. He looked at the debris in disbelief. It did not look anything like that from a small airplane. It looked very much like that from a UFO.
“Do you remember the night of the shooting?” the District Attorney shouted at the cowering defendant. A whisper rolled through the packed courtroom.
She gripped the arms of her chair and took a deep breath. “I’ll never forget it,” she moaned. “He finished seasoning the steaks and flipped them onto the barbecue grill. ‘Still love yours medium rare?’ he asked. I nodded, reached into my pocket and patted the gun next to the picture of him fondling her on the beach at Malibu.”
“Then what did you do?” the prosecutor asked.
She turned and smiled at the jury. “Well, I tried to imagine the expression on the chump’s face when he found I just killed his little trollop.”
A gasp swept through the spectators.
“We were lovers for many years. He didn’t know I found out about his plans to cancel my contract at the studio, replace my starring role in the picture with that little tramp, and dump me forever.” She dabbed her kerchief to the corners of her dry eyes. “So, I pulled out my gun and let him have two in the heart. He fell onto the barbecue and burst into flames. Well done,” I thought. She leaned back in relief. “I’m not sorry for what I did, just glad it’s over,” she confessed. “Do with me what you will. I deserve it. Like Doris Day sings, che sera, sera.”
“Okay. That’s a wrap,” the director barks. “Great acting, Bette. This picture will be a smash!”
God, but I hate these kinds of calls. Cather Hargreaves watched on the sidelines as the firefighters hosed down the wreckage.
How much of the emotions roiling in him were from his years in fire and rescue, and how much was quantum crosstalk from that other timeline? The one where the Apollo I astronauts didn’t get out, where the fire crew had pulled his ur-brother’s body from the charred wreckage of the spacecraft?
Small wonder his beloved Toni had read “never flew in space” in Roger Chaffee’s bio and determined this shall not stand. Applying her formidable programming skills, she’d pieced him back together as an informorph and got him his spaceflight. Her triumph had come at a terrible price: a trial before a kangaroo court, a verdict and sentence predetermined to satisfy the mobs of rioters. She’d survived only because Roger had come back to carry her across time so she could make a new life in this world.
One of the other EMT’s nudged Cather. “Don’t you hate these runs?”
“Yeah, especially since this timeline doesn’t have the processors and chipsets to run human consciousness on a machine substrate.” As soon as those words were out of his mouth, Cather thought why in hell did I say that? The very existence of the Chaffee Artilect was a secret, and Toni’s safety depended upon it staying that way.
Clem and Roscoe sat in the shade beside their ancient tanker, smoking home-rolled cigarettes, waiting.
“This scorching heat otter be good for at least one fire,” Clem reckoned.
“And one bonus,” Roscoe added.
Sweat trickled down Clem’s forehead and evaporated before it hit his naked chest. Roscoe had exchanged his yellow helmet for a straw hat. The tanker held 100 gallons of water and a pump. They were ready
Clem tossed Roscoe a pork sandwich. Roscoe stuck his pinched-out cigarette in his hatband to finish later.
“Seen any fires?” he asked.
“Not a one,” Clem replied.
“Get some vittles in you and we’ll move to the other side of the tanker.” Roscoe stretched and yawned. “Afternoon shift. Think you can handle it?”
Both laughed as they thought of what they were getting paid for essentially doing nothing.
Then Clem saw a wisp of smoke coming from Roscoe’s head. Clem hollered. Roscoe felt the heat of the flame and hollered. Both leaped to their feet. Roscoe flung his hat into the brush, where it flared up. Clem stomped on it hollering “Fire! Fire!” Roscoe ran for the hose and crashed into Clem. They leaped to their feet and got the hose working. The flames were rapidly spreading.
The hose ran full blast, a steady stream directed at sky, ground, tanker, the fire, and at each other. The fire was extinguished; Clem and Roscoe soaking wet and strangely refreshed.
“Suppose we’ll get a bonus for this?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me!”
By the time the rescue crew reaches the small plane wreckage, the flames are almost extinguished. They douse the smoldering ruins. The stench of charred flesh sickens Bret. He covers his mouth and rushes behind some boulders.
After emptying his stomach, Bret hears a faint cry from the nearby ledge. Bret follows the sound and sees a small child sitting on the ground, rubbing his eyes. Miraculously, the little boy appears to have escaped unscathed from the fiery crash.
In his gentlest voice Bret reassures the youngster. The little one sniffles, then says, “Mean Daddy. No hurt Mommy.”
“It’s OK,” Bret replies. “No more hurting now. I’ll help.”
He carries the child back toward their rescue helicopter. The toddler wraps his arms around Bret’s neck.
As Bret approaches the group, his boss barks, “Where the hell were you?”
Before Bret can respond, the child twists in his arms and glares at the supervisor. Suddenly, Bret’s boss grabs his chest and crumples to the ground. Before burying his face in Bret’s shoulder again, the boy whispers, “Mean man.”
Bret swears he can see a dark scarlet light flashing in the boy’s eyes.
While the crew loads their unconscious boss into the helicopter, Bret makes a snap decision. “This little guy seems unhurt. I’ll just carry him on down to the ambulance.”
No way is he going to put the devil child into another air transport.
Jeffrey, fifteen and righteous, pushed aside his anger at the world and his stubborn father as he stood at the crest of the hill transfixed by throbbing flames racing towards him.
“Dad,” he almost called, but stopped. His father was the one who had forced him to run away. After he had given Jeffrey the ultimatum to stop the drugging and drinking or leave, what choice did he have?
Weed and liquor had comforted Jeffrey those first nights when the invisible shuffling through the undergrowth unnerved him. Now those artificial comforts were gone and the full force of fire blasted them from his bones.
The boy had never felt anything like this fire. He was so alone he couldn’t move. “When trouble comes, do something, anything, to save your soul.” Jeffrey turned to his dad who had spoken those words so often, but there was no father, only the words.
That was enough. Jeffrey turned from the precipice and ran with urgent strides to escape the consuming inferno. Even the invisible creatures of the night joined him in this last mad dash.
Flames gained on Jeffrey despite his aching race. Ahead, though, he could see his dad at home, yellow safety vest and hard hat shining in the heat, a huge hose in hand to dampen the blazing fire.
Jeffrey ran straight for his father, arms outstretched, screaming in relief. His dad looked up and aimed the hose at the burning forest to douse the fire of his son’s anger.
As I walked past a house in the street of a small village in India,I was startled, and with extreme concerns I asked the man,
“What is all that hubbub and scream, coming from that house?”
“The Mukhiya(Village head) set his daughter-in-law on fire for dowry.!” The man said frantically without stopping.
“How can the Mukhiya do that, isn’t he supposed to extinguish such practices, rather than involving himself.” I expressed my anger.
But I knew empty rhetoric will do nothing,
I have to take action.
I went inside the house and saw the heart wrenching sight.
The newly wed bride was doused in kerosine oil, her clothes were in flames.She was screaming helplessly, flailing her arms and legs to put off the fire, while family members standing and watching.
Without wasting a second, I took my thick scarf and wrapped it around her chest.
Just then I saw a thick blanket lying on the folding cot. I ran and grabbed it without delay.
Wrapping that blanket around the burning body was hard, but I managed to do it.
Sometimes I wonder, where do we get the inner strength and presence of mind to put our anger to action.
I am glad I was able to save her life, and report the perpetrator to the cop.
Henry’s passion for Randal was an unspeakable curse that only he could bear. They had been together in the same squad since their rookie year. They shared the same bunk room and duty meals. Both were physical specimens, easily qualifying for the annual Firefighter’s Pin-Up Calendar.
Never had Henry pursued even the slightest advance or suggestion that he wanted, indeed needed, more. Randal was happily married to Jane. Henry’s first wife left him and he never looked for another. A Fireman’s marriage can be difficult and the squad understood. He never had a date for any House event; the squad understood. His was a solitary life by choice; separate but social; the squad understood. His only wish: that he could find the courage to act on the flame he held for Randal or extinguish this burning desire forever.
On a warm September morning, Randal was not in the House when the alarm came in. He had taken his wife to the clinic through the grassy hills of Rural 17. Henry’s Engine was first to arrive at the routine brush fire which had now engulfed both sides of the road. As they hosed their way along the smoke-filled roadway, Henry saw Randal’s Chevy engorged with flame. His chest near burst from his racing heart as he trained the three-inch hose on the hopeless vehicle as if all memory and desire for Randal could be so easily doused. The Chief finally had to pry him from the now-empty hose.