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.
She was the elder in the family of two sisters: older, more intelligent, dominant, all-consuming in her demands for attention. She sucked the “oxygen” out of the room at every gathering, be it social or professional. No conversation was sufficiently nuanced to escaped her attention, with the result that more than one conversationalist was left “singed” from her harsh retorts. In a word, she was linguistic firestorm, moving so quickly to attack the societal landscape that, more often than not, she left those around her total devastated.
Conversely, her younger sister enjoyed spending time with a large group of friends having a diversity of interests and hobbies. Having been forced to live in the shadow of her domineering sister as she grew into adulthood, she fell back upon her innate love for the arts: literature, dance, painting; these were the things in which she engaged both alone and in the company of others. Importantly, it was during a class on English Composition at her local community college that she met the love of her life, a man who would go on to earn a Ph.D. in English Literature and teach at a Big Ten university in the Midwest. Two children followed, as did the quintessential house with the white picket fence.
All of which, taken together, snuffed out any interest in her elder sister by everyone but a very few from among their families and friends.
.
Revised version…
Smoke…and then, Mirrors
It starts small. I like it that way. A tiny spark. Like an idea. The germ of an idea. But it is a spark. It has to be. Then, another. I easily envision it. That sharp ignition. I’m miles away when it ignites. Physically, that is. It wouldn’t do to be seen nearby
But I am really there.
In the beginning, I stayed.
Close.
So close that the flames stung my skin.
It was dangerous.
I knew they’d be watching.
I learned to step back.
Stay in the shadows.
It was excruciatingly difficult.
To hold back, I mean.
To not see the glory of the heat, the fire, even the looks on their faces, the others, I mean, all the others who take pleasure in what I can create.
I do what they won’t.
Or can’t.
I was once like that.
Inhibited, they said. “He’ll grow out of it in time. “
I was a quiet little fellow.
Scared of my own shadow.
My mother said that.
Often.
But she was right.
I supposed I would have stayed that way if it hadn’t been for Haines.
We were fourteen and he snagged some cigs from his old man.
This was back in the day when you hid a lot of things.
We lit up behind the old Lowry place.
No one had lived there for years.
Haines tossed his butt away.
The old dump went up in seconds.
Haines ran.
I stayed.
Gave up smoking.
Cigarettes, anyways.
Tree Sisters
The spirit of Gaia quoted an elder prophet, old by human standards, but a mere infant when compared to her eternal presence. The embodiment of Mother Earth paraphrased the seer as she explained the wheel of life to her daughters of the forest.
“For everything, there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to harvest.”
Her vibrational energy calmed the stately old growth forest of sister trees as the roaring inferno approached. Her message said this was now that season. She gave them life, nourished them to grow tall, and breathe in the gathering gloom of carbon dioxide. They exhaled oxygen, the life force of the planet, so others might thrive in nature’s abundance. This was now the time to die, for even in their sacrifice, new life would take root.
The invasive lifeform known as humanity had a few members who still possessed redeeming qualities. Once found the world over in the indigenous races of early humans, these stewards of nature will plant and harvest after the fire. The wheel turns as life becomes death, and transitions into the afterlife and rebirth.
Their mother’s wisdom calmed the sisters. They no longer feared the fire, but recognized it as change, the only constant in the universe. The trees raised their consciousness in song, welcoming their sacrifice as the next phase of their spiritual evolution.
Sisters
Hand in hand my sister and I stepped out of the draconian atmosphere like ghost busters. We had no cool uniforms or mind blowing tools other than our sisterly cuteness. However, through the smoke, we walked confidently in our pretty flowing skirts. In our hearts we knew that sisterhood was special. Our object was to enjoy each other’s company, act silly and be our shoe size. Carpe diem!
Laughing, giggling, tittering we strolled along oblivious to housewives’ head shaking. No worries; I could give as good as any insult. Probably better as sarcasm danced through my veins.
I made silly jokes, “Knock, knock!”
“Whose there?”
“Darn, you already forgot me!”
“ Hush up!”
Suddenly the air thickened with smoke and the deafening word, “Run!”
Young and in the height of health, with strong legs and hearts we ran. Shoppers – the same who had given us reproving looks -panicked dropping their bags. Sis and I burst into action guarding them to safety away from the flames and the choking smoke.
After everyone was secure, I looked around and for the first time fear squeezed my heart. Then with sorrow I realized that my sister had actually died years ago, and I was only dreaming and hoping of what might have been.
When the girls were very young, Della’s mom charged her with caring for and protecting her little sister. So when they ended up in foster care, Della became Tammy’s guardian angel. Della fought the playground bullies when they stole Tammy’s lunch. At school, Della confessed to any trouble that Tammy had caused, and endured the punishment. As teenagers, Della screened Tammy’s boyfriends and chased away potential abusers or addicts.
Unfortunately, Della didn’t care for herself quite so well. When she married her first husband, Tammy came to live with them. Before long, Tammy was paying for rejecting his advances. She refused to tell her sister the source of the bruises on her arms and wrists. Since Della had not yet discovered her husband’s penchant for violence, Tammy moved out and left town. By the time Della was divorced she hadn’t heard from her sister for six years.
Today Della gathers her belongings to prepare for evacuation. The forest fire is creeping closer to her home. Her current husband, a kind and loving man, has already taken the children to his parents’ house. As Della loads boxes into the car, one of the wildland firefighters approaches her and says, “We’ll save your house, Sis.”
Della drops a box and stares at the smoke-blackened face. Then she throws her arms around her little sister and begins to sob. Tammy hugs her tightly. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I learned toughness from the best. And it’s my turn to protect you now.”
ELIGIBLE FOR EDITORS CHOICE ONLY
The day the fire started was the day we had our falling out. Darcy wouldn’t talk to me, would barely look at me as we left the house and headed to school. A few grunted replies and eye rolls were all I got. At lunch, she was already at our table and seemed perfectly fine to ignore me. As the bell rang to end the period, I stood up, not realizing that Tom was behind me, and I bumped into him, he caught me, and we laughed.
She stormed out of the lunchroom and pushed out the back door to the unofficial student smoking area, and I was right behind her.
“What has gotten into you?”
“Why are you following me?”
“Answer me!”
“You answer me!”
We stared at each other, waiting for the other to answer first. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her bag; when had she started smoking? She just stood there smoking.
“You know what, fine, I don’t have time for this. You want to freeze me out. That’s on you. Find your own way home, and I’m telling mom you’re smoking.”
Darcy swore she didn’t mean to flick her still lit cigarette at the grass, swore she tried to put the fire out, and called for help right away. Everyone else may have believed her, but I don’t know. I saw a different side of my sister the day she started a brush fire and burned down the school.
Chasing Chernobyl
Lev and Yuri were clad in black, with face masks and backpacks, and were trekking across a forbidden land called the Exclusion Zone.
They were the Stalkers.
They did not seek answers; they sought memories; memories of something that happened many years before in the city of Chernobyl. At that time, a nuclear power plant had malfunctioned and the resulting explosion contaminated the city with radiation. There were raging fires, the forced evacuation of people, and the eventual cleanup. No one returned to the city, and it sat empty for decades.
That is… until the Stalkers showed up. Ordinary young men looking for adventure…
They trekked through forests and fields and dismal weather until they found a city full of abandoned buildings—apartments, hospitals, schools—all silent, in a state of decay, slowly returning to the earth, ceasing to be what they were meant to be…
In one dilapidated school Yuri found notebooks… with names in them; the names of boys and girls… with a scribble children make.
One notebook in particular contained the writing of two young girls. Their last names matched. They were sisters. And they had written playful notes to each other. Whatever they were writing ended abruptly in the middle of the page. Then nothing.
Lev and Yuri wondered what happened to the two sisters; to all the children.
For their little lives had been changed. And now nothing would ever be the same.
Dangerous Work
The wildland firefighter stared into the smoke, uneasy with the thought of venturing farther. It didn’t look haunted. It was a puny forest by Brothers Grimm standards. No tall fir trees clustered so close and dense their tops shuttered out light. No cloying silence made you jump at the slightest rustling or snap of a twig. If anything, it was a bland landscape, neither pretty nor mysterious. Prairie grasses and broken-branched trees, innocuous looking hills.
He knew he should take a crew and chainsaws to hack and clear a fire break wide enough to prevent flames from jumping, but it was like the Bermuda Triangle in there. People went missing. At least half a dozen had vanished on the six-mile trek to the next town. The locals warned anyone who would listen.
“Let it burn,” they said. “To the ground.” Rumors followed each disappearance. Quicksand. A hidden mine shaft. A vortex of evil. A portal to Hell.
He felt an involuntary shiver. Get it together. Be a man. His radio squelched. He detached it from his belt. “Go for Trotter.” He listened. Relief swept across his face. He finished the transmission and called his foreman. “Wind changing here. They need us at the next rendezvous point.”
A mile away, a woman watched the man in a hard hat turn and walk away through her spotting scope. She turned to her companion.
“Too bad, sister. He would have suited our collection.”
Smoke and ash filled the air, making Jerry’s eyes water. How fast was that wildfire spreading? Reports were flowing in so fast his staff couldn’t even keep up with the plotting.
Right now he had a more immediate crisis. FBI Special Agent Horn had flown all the way from Washington DC and wanted answers. Jerry had a bad feeling that, if the answers he offered weren’t satisfactory, he was apt to be lucky to be looking for a new job.
“We’re sorting through the video data, but most of it’s from camera traps, not surveillance systems.”
The G-man’s expression remained impassive as Jerry searched. “Stop. Go back to the last one.”
As Jerry restarted the last file, his whole chest went tight. What were FBI agents doing running through a national forest?
They closed in on another group and the shooting started. Jerry wouldn’t have believed his eyes if he hadn’t possessed photographic evidence. Sure, a lot of people down in San Fran and Silly Valley went around in cosplay, but fighting–
“The Captain Harlock cosplayer. Get me a still and zoom in on his face.”
Digital video made it so much easier than the old days of chemical film. Jerry went frame by frame until Cosplay Dude looked straight at the camera.
Horn whistled. “Give me a copy and erase the originals. That’s Leonid Gruzinsky.”
The missing genomic prince, meddling in American politics. We don’t need an international incident with the Russian Empire on top of domestic unrest.
LATE ENTRY
Raahrrr… hssssss…
I loved my sister, y’know… but not always. When we were young we fought like cats and cats… all claws, no pause. I still have the scars. Long ribbony ones that turn white when I’m out in the sun too long. I have to wear a long sleeve shirts then. As we grew we slowly learned to tolerate each other. But we truly bonded when we had to join forces against a common enemy when we were sent to our crazy grandmothers house for the summer.
After we finished high school I went to college and my sister went on to start her wild life… in the process moving 12,000 miles away. After a series of boyfriends that my family objected to, she met a guy and got married. My family didn’t like him much either, but what the heck. I was with her for the ceremony. When her first child was born I was there as well. I was a pallbearer when her husband died. Sadly I was a bearer for her a few years later.
Yeah I got scars. I read them like etched memories. Oh yeah I got scars…I truly treasure them.