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.
Dreams
When I was a child my dreams were simple like score a goal and eat my favourite desert. In escondary school, I made my dream list- first become a professional footballer, second marry Marylou, third get dream job. While on a college football scholarship my first dream was dashed through a debilitating sport injury. After graduation MaryLou married, smashing my second dream.
Now I am a global sports photographer. Always feel unfulfilled when I work at USA national football games. Busy snapping photos of the Red Sox, when I thought it was time to rewrite my dream list.
On the drive home, I re-examined my life. Photographing extreme sports involving speed, high attitudes, physical exertion, specialised equipment, lots of danger and risk only gave me a second hand rush. No longer experiencing first hand exhilaration, my life was flat, humdrum and mundane.
Photographing the solo ice climber no longer thrilled. BASE jumping from the Sapphire Tower, Istanbull had lost its charge. The thunder and velocity of waves in bodyboarding no longer elated. Extreme ironing seemed ridiculous. Freerunning involving gymnastics, tricking and breakdancing charmless. The speed in ice yachting had no stimulation.
Volcanic surfing in Cerro Negro, Nicaragua- another unelectrifying photo shoot. Back home, I bought a meal for a homeless man. In walking away, I had a spark of excitement.
The next day, I volunteered in a shelter. My excitement was rekindled in making the dreams of others come true by putting them back on their feet.
Donovan shook his head.
“I think it’s an aerial,” he said. “One of those doohickies the aliens use. I’m proofed against all their broadcasts from Alpha Centaurus” – he rapped on the helmet he was wearing – “but I’m damned if I’ll let them get away with stealing the bodies of Indianapolis’ innocents. It’s time we took a stand against those brothers from another mother-effing galaxy. We need to take action and do it right now.”
Nadine sighed. She did that a lot when Donny was about. She’d paid bail for him on more than a dozen occasions, depleting her checking account and getting little back but the surety he’d surely do it again.
“It’s a goal post,” she said. “Exactly the same as those things the Colts’ kickers aim their shots at. Over the crossbar and between the uprights is the sweetest place to find. Your uncle Benny used to do it all the time.”
“Nuh-uh. That’s not what it is. Or if it is, it’ll be both; those aliens are cunning little green-eyed mothers. Trust them to invent a sport so we’ll build their broadcasting equipment for them; we can’t afford to take our eyes from the ball at all.”
Nadine shook her head. She was mindful, where Donny wasn’t. She wished she’d listened to what her mother had said when she’d first brought him home. Her father had said nothing; he’d just offered him a beer.
“Whatever you say,” she said. “Now, can we please go home?”
Perspective
Most days, you’d find Wink Whittle out on the sports field, that one that eased naturally into the Green Holler Hills. We both grew up in Green Holler, high country with splendid summers, dark gruesome winters, and the extremes of these two seasons blessed by the gentle transition seasons of spring and autumn.
Wink and I bonded early. Back in preschool, a time of infinite sweetness, as I recall. Childhood seemed that way for me. Not necessarily for Wink, though. The Whittles lived on the outskirts of town and his daddy was a mercurial man. Some folks were actually afraid of him. Gifford Whittle was a throwback, career-wise, a horse logger who mostly worked alone in an enterprise started over one hundred years earlier by his great-granddaddy.
As Wink and I funneled our way through school, through life, we stayed close. While we shared some common interests, hiking, fishing, and the like, Wink grew into a strong young man, athletically engaged, a powerhouse wrestler and fullback, whilst I was hindered by my genetic predisposition and stayed slim, frail, some might say.
One night, we met up back of the field. He’d just had a standout season with the Green Holler Hellraisers, and the State University had offered him a full sports scholarship. “He’s opposed to it,” Wink cried. “Keeps yelling you do what I say, Wink. It’s a good livin.’ You won’t be beholden to any man, anyone, ever.”
I held Wink close, wondering where we both were bound.
Special Dreams
Some of the kids on the team had parents and grandparents who played football in college, and some even played in the pros. I don’t have any of that good fortune.
It wasn’t just the fact that they were football players, but they had a father and a mother. I must have had them, but I never knew them.
My nickname in school is ‘Foster.’ I don’t mind it, but it reminds me what I don’t have. Don’t get me wrong, I like my foster family, they’re very nice people. Harry doesn’t throw the football with me, like some of the other dads. He supports me though. When he can’t wheel his wheelchair across the field any further, I bring him as close as he would like. Seeing him, reminds me that I do have the good fortune of having my legs. He lost his in Afghanistan.
I have never heard him complain once about his loss. I learn lessons from him, and he doesn’t even have to say a word. Meg is a wonderful lady, and too good a cook. She’s always making wonderful pastries and pies. I’ve never asked them why they took a kid off the street, but I owe them so much. So, when the kids call me Foster, I also think of their sacrifice for me.
My special dream is to be the best I can be, and to make something of myself, so I can reward them for being here for me.
It was a beautiful game. One to always remember. A top-notch all-star winner of a game if I ever saw one. The absolute best.
I scored the most runs and plays and downs and outs and ups and ins than have ever been scored before in the history of our league.
Always on the move, that’s me. Running, dodging, streaking, leaping. Nothing could stop me!
What a game!
Now if I only had some teammates. And some opposing players would come in handy. At least one other team. Just one would be enough. Oh, and I almost forgot the most important part. Something I haven’t seen for a long time.
Some fans! Yelling and screaming and cheering for me!
Dreams
Drew woke up and rubbed his forehead. He had been dreaming. It was so vivid. So real.
But why had he dreamt about a football player? He had never played the game in his life. And he never watched it on TV either.
Why?
He tried to recall the details of the dream: helmet, uniform, upright goals, field… the smell of freshly cut grass.
Nothing made sense.
Then he remembered there was a number on the back of the jersey. What was it? Oh, yes, the number was 31. What did it mean?
Let’s see, 31 days has January, March, May, July, August, October, and December.
Dead end.
Then he remembered reading about Gematria: the study of letters and numbers. Using this system a number, such as 31, could represent words.
He carefully sat upright in bed and turned on his laptop. Then he inputted the number 31 into the Gematria calculator.
Let’s see: chief, slave, green… no.
Alien, silver, tiger… Alabama.
Yes, Alabama.
He remembered now. A hot summer night in Alabama. The sound of cicadas. The smell of freshly cut grass.
He was on the front porch with Kayla, his high school sweetheart. That night they talked about silly things. And they kissed. Her skin was smooth, still delicate and young…
He looked up from the computer screen and stared into the darkness. That was fifty-seven years ago.
“Kayla,” he whispered softly. “Kayla.”
When you’re a kid, you dream about the big leagues. Especially if you’ve got some talent, it’s easy to imagine making that touchdown, hitting that home run, shooting that three pointer, making that slap shot.
Then you get older, and stuff starts getting real. The coaches stop praising you for trying. Now they’re yelling at you, criticizing your every fault.
Worse, your opponents get a lot tougher. There aren’t any more easy goals. What happened to the fun?
By high school, your coach starts asking just how serious you are. Do you just want the letter on your jacket, or do you want to get on a college team?
Talent only takes you so far. Now you’re going to summer camps where you pay for the privilege of having big-name college coaches yell at you. They push you until you’re ready to drop, then do it all over again. But you keep pushing, hoping your hustle will convince them to give you a place on their team.
So you get the nod, and now you’re playing in front of thousands. But those four years go fast, and now you need to start thinking about what happens after you graduate. Do you go pro? Can you go pro?
Maybe you look into the regional leagues, the foreign leagues. How long do you try to keep that dream alive? When do you set the dream down and go on with life?
Our first football game of the year and our boys get to play a home game. The trees that surround the field are orange, yellow, red-half naked, covering the ground in a fiery carpet. Briefly I’m taken back to my childhood in my grandmother’s house, the crimson, fiery carpet soft against my arms and cheeks. All of it, magical. All of this magical.
Startled from my reverie, my wife had taken her cold, steel seat next to mine. Smiling at each other, we loved seeing our two sons play sports again after a year and half of Covid quarantine. We worried at times with the anti-social, anti-sports lives that they were whirled into. But they kept their heads above water, seeming to have weathered the crazy storm. Of course, not everyone fared so well; sadly one boy took his life. Once again, we had checked in with the boys, keeping things ebbing and flowing as smoothly as possible.
Looking out across the flat topped green field my eyes drift past the players as they warmed up. They float up to the white capped, monstrous Yeti mountain that looks over our small town. Taking in a suffocating fall breath, the tip of my nose turned cold as the sun sunk behind the conifers. We scrambled to get our coats, the sun no longer heating our backs. Settled in my seat, tears swelled as I felt a deep sense of pride seeing my healthy sons run around the field, warming my nose.
When Jason was 10, and obsessed with football he asked, “Mom can you love something too much?”
“No, unless the love you feel, is all about your wants; not thinking about the other people around you.”
***
By high school, Jason was a quarterback for his winning team, and was sure his first and only love would always be football- until he met Kate.
He loved the way her face lit up like sunshine when they talked. Everything seemed more fun. They dated all through high school.
***
Kate stopped by the empty football field, and found out Jasons’ secret.
“Wow, you can kick…” and she stopped, before saying, better than you can throw.
“Yeah,” he said glumly.
“But our kicker is struggling this year!”
” I know…”
“We could win the championship, this year, if you were the kicker.”
“Maybe…but I don’t want to give up being a quarterback.”
Kate squinted her eyes, as if trying to see him clearly. Jason felt uncomfortable.
***
The last game of the season: Jason’s team was playing their arch rival; scouts from top colleges were watching, and they were down by two points. They needed a field goal to win!
Kate looked over at Jason.
Jason saw her. Then, he got up and went over to the coach, ” Coach, I’ve got this field goal…”
The 42 yard kick was perfect!
Phenomenal, for a high school kicker, the scouts said.
Years later, everyone forgot that Jason started out as a quarterback. But, Kate, his wife didn’t.