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.
Title: Jesse James’ Gold
“There’s nothing about ‘climb’ in there. I’m telling you, I’m correct. Read it for yourself.” Paul hurled the map at his friend.
“Okay, okay. Give me a minute to see what it says again.” Terry sat down, took a drink out of his canteen, and studied the map.
Several minutes later, he slowly read the map instructions out loud.
“Facing the “T” opening to the cave,
walk back to your left, keeping the T on your right,
until the T looks like a rectangle.
Look around you for a J and a backwards J scratched into the face of a boulder.”
Terry looked back at the cave opening. “Like I said, we still need another coordinate. We’ve been walking this line for hours now.”
“You’re a fool, Terry, for paying $50 for this map. They make copies of it, and sell them to the next sucker who comes in the door,” Paul exclaimed, knocking Terry off his perch, which sent the canteen flying.
Terry jumped up to retaliate, crashed into Paul, knocking him over and onto the ground. He cocked his arm to throw a punch. That’s when he spotted it.
Paul couldn’t understand why his friend had a huge smile. “So, are you going to throw that punch, or are we even?”
Terry started laughing. “Even is just the starting point. You’re not going to believe it.”
ELIGIBLE FOR EDITORS CHOICE ONLY
Climb
Definitely not my day! Accidentally, I had become separated from my party and now found myself climbing a rock face alone. Luckily I was prepared with water, a hat, sunscreen and survival gear. My squelchy stomach was thinking night would bring horrors. Scorpions, spiders, snakes and even worst spirit animals. After climbing the sepia rock surface for a few minutes, I saw under a rusty outcrop a long abandoned fort. Soon I had a fire burning and became cheered as the welcoming smell of dinner filled the building. Perhaps it was fortuitous that I became lost so found this place filled with homely comforts like a fireplace, a ledge for a bedroll, a door to keep intruders out and windows for a starry night show.
While ladling stew out, a deep masculine voice asked, “Good evening, may I join you? I’m Carmichael.”
Baffled, I set out another plate. Odd! I had barred the door and never heard footsteps approach. Where had I heard the name before? Clues? His accent was British. He was dressed like an old time explorer. From my graduate research, I chased a scrap of information around like an elusive butterfly. Colonel Carmichael had disappeared in the mid-nineteenth century on an archaeological exploration.
While I was trying to puzzle out more facts, he moved the camping light and disappeared. Looking up at the wall, I was shocked to see a giant map. Apparently, I had been bequeathed the treasure map for kindly showing the explorer hospitality.
The Ridge
I knew this day would come.
No generation escapes it.
Didn’t know it always, of course. I’m not psychic.
When you’re younger, you don’t go worrying about what you can’t do. Or when the day might come when you might not be able to do it. You just soldier on. Do what you want to, what you feel you need to.
As I aged, I began to pay more attention to what I could still do and what I couldn’t.
And I watched people, ones I knew, ones I saw on the street, out in the forest, the Digby Marchers for instance, a Hiking Group who had been together for over sixty years. A little before my time but they all trudged on with their once-a-month hike and climb.
Their numbers had lessened over time.
A simple fact of life to state; not easy to accept.
One day, I chanced to encounter them on their return down the Old Pueblo Trail. I had stopped to refuel, and they took the opportunity to catch their collective breath.
“How’s it up ahead? I asked the leader, Lucille Pettyjohn, a ferocious looking octogenarian I had encountered a few times recently and who had once been my grade school teacher. Miss Pettyjohn smiled, wheezed out, “Not as pleasant as heading down, Sonny Jim,” the appellation she had called me as a child.
I sensed a message of regret laced into her comment.
I knew I was catching up to her regret.
The Lonely Boys used the Eyrie for their trials. There was another way up, an easier way, one that used a flight of steps set into the stone. But that way was hardly a test at all. The Boys had needed something tougher, something that would make you sweat, something that would make anyone afraid.
It was Karl’s first time, and we were all watching, offering him the worst sorts of advice.
He’d be bricking it, of course. Climbing without a rope is one of the truest tests of courage.
We’d definitely let him use the steps the next time. We all used them. The wall was scary even when you were using the proper equipment.
~
He was doing well. He’d slowed, about halfway up, moving sideways to find a way past the overhang. He stopped for almost a minute, rocking back on his toes, his head raked back, looking up along the wall, searching for foot-holes, handholds, anything that might help. I’d given up about ten feet below, crying like a girl before I’d fallen and was caught.
The Test was as much a trial of trust as anything else.
A Lonely Boy should never feel alone.
~
He was almost at the top, almost within reach of the portal where the cannon poked though. We’d all stepped away, needing to see him better. We’d all gone quiet; knowing there was nothing more we could say.
Until finally, he fell – a second that’ll last for eternity.
Life in a Box
Stanley had once dreamed about climbing to the top of the world.
But instead, he chose to live in a box.
To be more precise, he lived in a Big Box. He never had to worry about life in the Big Box because he was always told what to do by the Man in the Little Box.
Stanley always did what the Man in the Little Box told him. Every day, like clock-work, the Man in the Little Box issued instructions for the day, which Stanley dutifully carried out. He did this regardless of his own personal wishes, which, by lucky coincidence, just happened to coincide with the wishes of the Man in the Little Box.
It was a beautiful symbiotic relationship.
Stanley’s Big Box also contained a number of signs labelled: GO HERE, GO THERE, DO THIS, DO THAT. However, the signs contained arrows that pointed in conflicting directions, making it difficult to make a decision. Fortunately, Stanley didn’t have to worry about this confusion because the Man in the Little Box told him to simply ignore the signs.
It was utopia.
Stanley needed the Man in the Little Box as much as the Man in the Little Box needed him. Stanley loved following orders, and the Man in the Little Box loved to issue them. To Stanley, without the Man in the Little Box, life in the Big Box would not be worth living.
It was a relationship made in heaven.
Sitting inside the cliff dwelling, I stare at the treasure trove of artifacts – a turquoise necklace, a copper bell, a colorful woven basket. This could be my most lucrative trip yet.
Still, I can hear the thugs below, their laughter echoing from the canyon walls. They will wait for me to emerge, net me, and steal my artifacts – again.
They wait for me to do the sorting. I’m one of the few with a discernment eye implant. I can see the differences between true ancient artifacts and the fakes.
As the sun sets, shadows cover the landscape. The culture thieves aim their lights toward the door of this dwelling. They don’t notice a smoke outlet in the roof.
I don my pack full of treasure. I sneak onto the roof and fire my grappler gun toward the top of the cliff. Then I scramble up the rope.
As I rush toward my time ship, they begin shouting. Suddenly I hear the whoosh of body rockets igniting.
I dash across the desert, screaming commands to my ship. Its door slides open and I scramble inside. Just as the door closes, I hear their capture net slap the ship’s hull. I escape into the future with my precious cargo.
My tribe celebrates my success. At last, I’ve rescued a small part of our people’s heritage from desecration by robber barons.
“My love, I will wait on the mountain.” I hold the tear-stained scrap of paper close to my heart and for a moment more I can ignore the ache in my stomach. My eyes stay fixed on my bare feet, and I watch them methodically sweep in and out from under the shredded rags of silk that a mere day ago had only known my father’s ball room. One step higher, one minute closer to my hearts only desire.
The earth begins to tremble, causing pebbles hop and skip under my toes and my heart to mimic the frantic beat. A hundred soldiers on horseback ride into view far below me, wielding furling flags bearing my family’s crest. A shout rings out and I fall to the ground, clasping the crumpled note in my fist, and scramble on hands and knees towards the crest of the hill. I burst onto the summit and the hollow wind sweeps past me over barren grass and off of the deadly cliff. But no loving face greets me, no warm body waits here to press me to them and stroke my dirty cheek.
My father’s soldiers crest the hill and rush towards me, to deliver me back to the warmth confines of my childhood home. But I can’t ignore the aching in my heart. The soldiers cry out and lunge to catch me, but the love they offer is empty, and only the dizzying drop below welcomes it’s arms to hold me.
This place was ancient when Zheng He commanded the voyages of the treasure ships.
Liu Shang pulled herself onto the safety of the ledge. After almost an hour of following a path of hand and footholds cut into the sheer cliffside, she needed a break.
She took a slug from her canteen and studied the adobe buildings before here. Everything here had been built with stone tools and simple woven baskets. These people had possessed no beasts of burden, no wheels, not even a simple pulley system to hoist things halfway up a mountain.
What necessities would drive a community to live where every drop of water had to be carried on the back of someone climbing the perilous way she’d just followed? Had they been forced to flee more hospitable but less defensible lands elsewhere?
So many questions, and so few answers – that was the nature of archeology when dealing with pre-literate peoples. You worked as best you could with what material culture remained, and hoped the assumptions of your own culture weren’t leading you too far astray.
How different it was from studying the first Space Age, of primitive chemical rockets by which human beings first set foot upon the Moon. Even with all the destruction in the Wars of Devolution when Earth turned its back on the stars, enough documentation had survived that one could identify most of the key sites of that era.
It was my first trip to New Mexico and my uncle promised me an easy hike as part of my vacation. Knowing his normal hikes, I was certain his definition of easy and mine were vastly different, but I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to spend time with one of my dad’s brothers. Being with them was like being with him, something I sorely missed.
I had the early morning news on in my hotel room as I packed my bag for the day. The drone of the reporter the perfect background noise as I struggled to keep my eyes open. It was early but my uncle said we had a drive before we reached the National Park. He wanted to be there for when the park opened, which meant an early morning. I tossed my National Park Stamp Book into my bag and zipped it closed.
Picking up my tablet I sat down at the little table in my room to read and drink my weak hotel room coffee. I had done my research on some of the national parks in the area and was looking forward to visiting at least one of them. My uncle wouldn’t tell me which one we were going to hike.
I was just getting into my book when my uncle texted in a vague way like my father:
Are you ready to see flora, some fauna, and learn some history?
I climbed into the car ready for whatever the day held.