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.
A Certain Time
As a child, Walter sought out fresh cement. It was something about the smell. Images of fresh fruit, maybe?
“He’s such a strange little boy,” he overheard his Nana say.
“It’s just a phase,” Mother, his Mom had told her. “Dr. Spock says parents should trust their instincts.”
“Well, Effie, my instincts tell me that eating cement is not healthy. I’m pretty convinced of that.”
“Fiddle faddle, Mother. Walter’s not eating cement. Maybe licking his fingers. He’s a smart little boy. He won’t eat gunk.”
“All children eat gunk. You ate mud once. I had to smack your fingers to get you to stop. It was spare the mud and spoil the…”
“Spare the rod, Mother…not…”
“Mud! Rod! You’re spoiling him. He’ll turn into a rotten banana if…”
“MOTHER! Pshaw!”
Walter didn’t hear the rest. Outside was calling.
There was a building boom in his neighbourhood. The war had ended. Soldiers were returning. Some with their English war brides. Love was blooming everywhere. Babies were bursting forth.
Homes were needed.
Every block had at least one or two new houses being built on what had once been larger properties.
Hammers, saws, cement trucks, hundreds of men sawing, hammering, laughing, yelling, swearing pouring new sidewalks.
It was exhilarating.
It was a safe world then.
Walter roamed the streets and back alleys, leaving his handprints, his footprints in freshly poured concrete.
He even dunked his face into one patch of newly poured cement.
“I’ll be here forever,” he thought.
Slight edit…sorry
A Certain Time
As a child, Walter sought out fresh cement. It was something about the smell. Images of fresh fruit, maybe?
“He’s such a strange little boy,” he overheard his Nana say.
“It’s just a phase, Mother,” his Mom had told her. “Dr. Spock says parents should trust their instincts.”
“Well, Effie, my instincts tell me that eating cement is not healthy. I’m pretty convinced of that.”
“Fiddle faddle, Mother. Walter’s not eating cement. Maybe licking his fingers. He’s a smart little boy. He won’t eat gunk.”
“All children eat gunk. You ate mud once. I had to smack your fingers to get you to stop. It was spare the mud and spoil the…”
“Spare the rod, Mother…not…”
“Mud! Rod! You’re spoiling him. He’ll turn into a rotten banana if…”
“MOTHER! Pshaw!”
Walter didn’t hear the rest.
Outside was calling.
There was a building boom in his neighbourhood. The war had ended. Soldiers were returning. Some with their English war brides. Love was blooming everywhere. Babies were bursting forth.
Homes were needed.
Every block had at least one or two new houses being built on what had once been larger properties.
Hammers, saws, cement trucks, hundreds of men sawing, hammering, laughing, yelling, swearing pouring new sidewalks.
It was exhilarating.
It was a safe world then.
Walter roamed the streets and back alleys, leaving his handprints, his footprints in freshly poured concrete.
He even dunked his face into one patch of newly poured cement.
“I’ll be here forever,” he thought.
Drum pushed his head out into the street. He turned through a full turn and then popped back inside. The wall resealed itself, recovering from his intrusion, the masonry unmarked. If you’d looked away, you would have missed it.
Nothing to see here. Nothing happening.
And certainly not any demonic activity.
Another head appeared, this one smaller. This one was wearing eyeliner. An earring. A stud in its nose.
“You’re right,” it said, wrinkling its nose. “It smells like dirt out here. Nature. Why do we have to leave?”
The first demon reappeared, yawning. “We’re done here. Nothing more to do. We’ve corrupted the incorruptible. Perverted the chaste. We’d only be spinning our wheels. We need new challenges; we’ve quotas to meet.” He wrestled free from the wall, falling to the ground like a leaf. “Besides, the food here’s obnoxious. Nothing above ten thousand on the Scoville scale.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Some of us love salad.” The second demon rolled her eyes, petrifying a pigeon that dropped into a puddle, never to move again. She stuck her tongue out and grimaced, winking at a small boy that had been watching them.
He immediately burst into flames, removing the only witness.
“We need to venture further afield,” Drum continued. “Try new things. Hot dogs. Tacos. Italian pizzas. How do you feel about America? Do you think we can do good business there?”
The second demon shrugged. “I dunno. Wouldn’t that be like selling ice to Eskimos?”
“Hurry, Sir Winston,” whispered Alan “Brookie” Brooke, Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee, as he half-dragged the prime minister out the doors of the House of Parliament under the stone-faced gaze of the grotesque above them. Furtive glances skyward lend credence to their concerns regarding what the air raid sirens were announcing: yet another of what now were daily raids by the Luftwaffe and the blitz on London by the Third Reich.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” huffed Churchill, poking along with one hand on his Malacca walking cane while using the other to hold his cigar, one of ten he would smoke that day.
Behind them, Louis “Dickie” Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations, scurried along carrying two briefcases and a tube containing maps of Germany.
Once the trio was ensconced in the car, it sped north on Parliament Street, careened left onto King Charles Street, and screeched to a halt at the entrance to the War Rooms. No one spoke en route. But Churchill could not help notice Brooke was sweating profusely. His shirt collar was soaked, and the man had a look of utter fear in his eyes unlike anything Churchill ever had seen.
“I say, Old Boy, are you all right?” asked Churchill of Brook. “This raid seems to have unnerved you beyond anything I’ve seen.”
“It’s not the raid, Sir Winston,” responded Brook. “I’m concerned if anything happens to you, Baroness Spencer-Churchill will have me drawn and quartered before sunrise tomorrow!”
He’s a good man, that’s why he was saved.
His name is Winston Platt, a man of the people who never forgot his place. A hardworking honest man who had the time to get married, raise a family, and even now at the age of sixty-seven still has time for his grandchildren. All these reasons and more are why it watches over Winston, because even a stone gargoyle knows how rare a man he is.
It observes those who pass beneath its gaze as they enter and exit the old building every day; and it judges them all. Loyalty and the ability to do their job in service of the people is the standard. Most are unworthy. Most it held in contempt. But not Winston.
One night on his way home walking the quiet streets Winston came upon two men. Men fed up and angry with life, fed up with people who’s job it is to represent the people but instead choose to betray them.
They knew nothing about Winston except for his profession, and to them that made him scum. Shouting their frustrations they began shoving him. His attempts to calm the situation only angered them more. Finally one of them hit Winston upside the head, knocking him out.
A short time later Winston awoke to find himself being placed into an ambulance. Apparently someone heard screams and called the police. When they arrived they found Winston lying on the ground unconscious . . . next to two dismembered bodies.
It was party time at the castle. The moat, filled to the brim. The drawbridge, lowered in invitation. Our costumed group of ghosts and goblins entered The Great Hall and danced and pranced wall-to-wall. We nibbled on the scrumptious goodies and goblets of champagne bedecking the dining table. Just an hour to go until the clock bongs twelve. It was going to be an unforgettable All Hallows’ Eve.
The Jester called out, “Let’s conjure up some spooks to liven things up a bit.”
“How about Anne Boleyn and King Henry,” the armored knight bellowed..
“Good golly, such folly,” Marie Antoinette giggled. “I’d like to see Lot and his wife.” She patted her pompadour. “Can we?”
Woosh! Woosh!! Wooooossshhhh!!! And, they appeared.
No one noticed the sinister knave cowering behind Marie’s tunic. His piercing eyes swept the merrymakers. At the first stroke of twelve, he smirked, I’ll begin eliminating these wanton revelers.
A penetrating screech, from Hecate, flooded the room. Her sixth sense tingled. “Look! He’s come to destroy us.” We watched him melt into the castle’s wall. “We must defend ourselves! Let’s all hide somewhere and put a curse on him.”
While plotting our revenge, we turned to see if he followed. No one there.
On the ticking clock’s first stroke of twelve, the wall starts to glow. His head begins to emerge through the wall. A bewildering command forces him to look back at Lot’s wife.
His solidified head now permanently adorns the castle wall.
King Richard coughed into the sooted air as he inspected the exterior of the castle and parliament buildings. He was a large man, sadly gone to fat, but he continued to wear his armor, though the plates were small and not of much use anymore. His aide, Captain Addlehead, explained the improvements in security he had instituted while the king was out of the country fighting the various enemies made over the years.
Richard stopped and pointed to the two gargoyles on the wall. “And those are?” he asked.
Addlehead paused, a smile creeping across his face. “The lower one was the lone hold-out when, after your instructions, I swept out the legislators and replaced them with a parliament of owls. The young man wouldn’t leave. I certainly couldn’t allow him to stay so I dispatched him. Now he’s preserved as a warning to others.”
“I see,” said the king. “Taxidermy?”
“No, Sire.” said Addlehead. “Plaster of Paris.”
“Not good, Captain,” said Richard, blinking. “The French, you know. Our enemy. We can’t have plaster of Paris.”
“How about we just call it plaster,” said Addlehead.
“Good thinking,” said the king. “That other thing on the wall?”
“I believe it’s a penguin or lantern plant,” said Addlehead. “Never seen one before, but it kept turning on when the light grew dim. Not appropriate, that turning on. Mounted it.”
“Well done,” said the king, satisfied. “Next is the crows.”
“The crows?” asked Addlehead.
“Murder them,” said the king.
Title: A Wonderful Time of Love
On the date of his birth, she would have her driver take her to the entrance of the Parliament building. There she would sit for hours in her wheel chair, admiring the ornate carving of her son, and remembering a wonderful time of love.
They were lovers. He was a well-established and a recognized member of the House of Lords and she, a commoner – the daughter of a London baker. Regardless of their status, they met, they spent secret time together, and unexpectedly, fell in love.
With love came intimacy, and the resulting product was a boy. She was not married and with the counsel of her parents, decided to give up their son to adoption. Her lover followed their son’s progress and would relate details to her.
During a remodel of the building and general reconstruction, many artifacts were replaced. One of them was the carving at this entrance. There were many different opinions about the origin of the replacement, but she knew the truth.
Although she never learned his adopted name, she knew he was now one of the members of the House of Commons. Maybe, today as she sat, he would pass and she would once again be close to him.
Regardless, she would not have changed a thing about the past. Currently, they have a different kind of relationship; he still visits privately with her and provides for her wellbeing.
The carved stone marks a wonderful time of love.
Wisdom
The Face will speak to you if you stand in front of it and stare at it long enough.
I know. I did.
And the words that came from the finely chiseled mouth –just below the exquisitely sculpted nose–were clear and concise. Words that saved me.
Not since I had fallen under the spell of the lovely Diana at the Huntress Fountain in Hyde Park did I find myself in such a state of rapture with a sculpture.
I was freshly off an extraordinarily pesky time trying to clear what I feared might be terminal writer’s block. So I decided to spend three days and nights in The Hairy Horse pub, eating pub food and, of course, consuming libations at a nominal rate in order to clear my mind.
But I swear to you on my old aunt’s whiskers, that was not the reason I heard The Face speak to me.
How I finally arrived at The Face after my sojourn in The Hairy Horse is still a matter of conjecture but I’m relatively certain I was not magically transported. As my vision cleared and I was once again viewing objects singularly instead of as two, I distinctly heard a voice coming from The Face.
“Write what should not be forgotten. Write what disturbs you. Write what you fear.”
Just yesterday I was at home. And then Prince Yevgeny Yakovlevich asked me to come here.
Anastasia Burinsky looked up at the neo-Gothic walls of the Houses of Parliament, so different from the Soviet brutalist architecture of Novocherkassk. Maybe the old pre-Revolutionary city would’ve had ornaments like the wrought-iron lamp or the bas-relief face to the side of it. But fighting between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht during the Great Patriotic War had leveled the old city, and the central planning commissions put functionality before form in rebuilding a nation laid to waste.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, there had been some efforts to rebuild some of the lost architectural treasures of the old city. More than a little had been sponsored by the new Russian Imperial Family which had come into being after the Miracle of the Lightning Bolt. But nothing could completely undo the damage of war and Communist policy, and the rows of Khrushchev crackerboxes remained the majority of construction in the city the Don Cossacks called their capital. Like as not, it would remain so for decades to come.
However, she had no time to spend admiring the architecture. Her patron had sent her to London for some research that required a low profile to accomplish. She must not disappoint him, especially when she also hoped to use her time in the UK to find some answers to the questions surrounding her mother and the circumstances of her own birth.