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.
Belted
“Piece A Cake sonny. NO, I ain’t gonna give ya any tips on how ya do it. Ya’ll learn how jus lik the rest of us. Once ya get poked by a horn, ya learn ta ajust how ya do it.”
Billy Bob heard what the old cowhand had to say. He listened, but most of his attention was on how cracked his face was, which was more weathered than his vest. His Stetson looked like it had been trampled on many times in the past.
The job he applied for and got, didn’t sound as threatening as what Porky had just told him. Porky hinted he got the nickname after being gored by more than one bull. The ad said all he had to do for fifty dollars an hour was to put belts around cow heads.
The reality was he would have to put belts around ‘bull’ heads, which after listening to Porky, was not the safest job in the world. Porky also mentioned that the best way to do it was NOT to let the bull know what you were trying to do. He also told him that trying to blindfold any bull would certainly involve an emergency room visit, if not a hospital stay.
*.*.*
The next day Porky took off his hat, brushed off his chaps. “I can’t beliv ya got all these guys belted. How did ya do it?”
“It’s my secret. The best way to a bull’s head might surprise even you!”
Press the Red Button
“Press the red button.”
Those were the first words he heard when he awoke. He found himself secured to a chair in a dark, empty room. In front of him was a large red button.
“Press the red button,” the voice repeated softly.
“Why?” he asked, bewildered, and strained against his restraints.
“Because it is what you must do.”
“Why?” he asked again.
“Questions…” There was a momentary silence. Then it whispered, “We are the Unseen. The power behind the power. And you… you, and others like you, are the agents of our will. We placed you in charge of the people—the cattle—to act on our behalf. Have you forgotten this?”
He hesitated. “N-no…”
“Very well, then. You know what you must do.”
“I-I can’t… not this…”
“Are you having pangs of doubt? Of conscience? Of… ingratitude?”
“Why me?”
“Why not you? You have received many favours. Now it is time to repay our… generosity.”
He nodded and bowed his head. He didn’t really care what he had to do. He just didn’t want to get caught. So he closed his eyes and pressed the red button.
In a flash… memories and years melded into one.
Then he opened his eyes and looked into the spinning miasma and saw a vision of something new: a new future… a different future… a future that was part of a great reset…
A reset that would usher in a strange new world…
Waiting For…God Knows What
Winkler Waterman was a worrier. As a child, he watched his father and mother secretly dig out their basement and install what amounted to a bomb shelter. It was a hard job and put a strain on the marriage.
Initially, he heard his mother query his pop. “ Frank, do you think this is really necessary? The Cold War is over. “
It was indeed the late sixties and nuclear holocausts had been put on the backburner of possible calamities. Except in the mind of Frank Waterman.
And perhaps a certain segment in the CIA.
“Sweetie,” Frank had attempted to assuage Winkler’s mother, “ Think of it as a retirement plan. It’s a good thing to have. No one wants the world to blow up. We all want to be like everyone else. Go to work, go to school, go shopping, be part of the herd, moving in sync…not standing out… but we don’t want to end up like sausages. Stuffed in our skin, buried in the earth.”
Marcia Waterman loved her husband. He had been a good provider. He didn’t beat her though he did spank Winkler from time to time.
She had relented. If Frank wanted a bomb shelter, then that is what they would build.
It took six months.
And never had to be used.
Until the day Wink Waterman locked himself in.
A spur-of-the-moment curiosity.
Summer, 1996.
He yelled for hours.
No one heard.
Or looked.
Until 2022.
Much too late, then.
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“Not sure how many more of these cattle drives I have left in me, Nevada,” the grizzled old cowboy murmured as he licked the edge of the cigarette paper in his right hand and deftly rolled himself a cigarette.
The cowboy next to him, one boot resting on the lower rung of a cattle chute in front of him, nodded but said nothing.
They had reached the end of the Chisholm Trail—Abilene, Kansas—a long way from where they had begun their latest drive some three months earlier, they and eight other cowboys under a seasoned trail boss, a cook, and a horse wrangler, all expected to drive 2,500 cattle from San Antonio, Texas, up through Oklahoma Indian Territory, to Kansas. The cost? Seventy-five cents a head, including tolls to local Indian tribes, much cheaper than the cost to ship Texas Longhorns by rail.
But the key here was to keep the cattle well fed and full of water, making them unlikely to stampede. Still, river crossing, thunder storms, and yes, stampedes, took their toll.
Now, the two men stood silently beside the loading chute as the steers stood waiting for the railroad cars that would transport them to the Union Stock Yards in Chicago.
“Yep,” the old cowboy repeated, “not sure how many more I have left. Losing Cookie in that stampede down by Chickasha just about ripped my heart out.”
The queue inched forward. The Voice crackled through the grille. I couldn’t comprehend its words, but their tone was harsh and forbidding. My view to the front was impeded by the back of the man immediately ahead. The corridor was narrowing, now too tight for us to pass.
The line moved again. Again, I heard the Voice. I shuffled forward twelve inches, my feet moving more heavily now. The man behind me overstepped, his angular knee jabbing my thigh. I cursed and choked back an oath, suddenly afraid.
Advancing again. Slowly dragging my feet. The Voice was cold and metallic, matching the mesh of the grille. I thought I heard it say four words, five at the most.
Forward once more. The man behind overstepping yet again. This time, I took an elbow in my back. I released a low moan and tried to sag away, resisting the pressing of the barriers to both sides. I felt confused, anxiety banding my chest, crushing my throat. The man ahead stubbornly stalled, making us crash into one another. I tried to croak out an apology but had nothing, my own voice now barely a whisper.
Then it was me. “Freedom, fire or body bank,” the Voice barked, the shackles at my feet engaging the metal rail, its single-track then immediately splitting into a three-way. I could feel the flames of the way ahead and saw darkness to the right.
So I chose the arena: the only chance I might ever be freed.
WAITING
Curly shuffled past the long line of cattle waiting in the chute with his head down. His classic cowboy gait, an unmistakably proud swagger, was missing. It was gone, along with the shock of wavy, wild hair that once earned him his nickname. No one dared talk to the old cowhand as he walked back to the stockade, wiping errant moisture from his leathery cheeks. He called this the hardest part of his job.
“Man, I raised those little doggies since their mamas dropped ‘em. I rode the range in all kinds of ungodly weather and protected ‘em, Reds. I feel like a Judas goat betraying my young‘uns.”
“I know how ya feel, Curly. Ain’t many of our breed left. We added a personal touch with every beastie we ever herded. It’s just big agri-business now. Hell, most hands won’t bed down with the livestock out on the land to keep predators away. You and I grew up doin’ that as second nature.”
“You see that dappled brown one? That’s my favorite ‘cause it always ran alongside me. I don’t know why, but maybe the beast appreciated my work.”
“Hey, brother, I’m headin’ up north since this drive is over. Some family farms are raisin’ tiny herds of bison. Wanna join me?”
“Will I hafta watch ‘em go to slaughter?”
“Don’t think so. They cull the herds differently up there since it’s a custom, artisanal, organic meat business.”
“Count me in, Reds, ‘cause the times, they are a changing.”
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Waiting
Waiting. Waiting is a fools’ game chewing away our patience. In the bunker, many storeys underground, we are rootless. A month after the apocalypse, the new group remains quaranteed for two weeks. The wait is alarming because we have so many urgent questions to ask. Are there more survivors? How have they managed to eat?
At night some bright soul suggests we tell oral stories around the theme “waiting.” The twitchy bewhiskered man began, “The longhorns were packed tight in the corral like so many lumps of meat. Beautiful creatures. All colours from sunset orange to rusty brown. They were heaving with life, vitality and power. Muscles were taunt under their fur. These were prime animals- tall, regal and mighty. No, they were not going to the slaughter house. Good news because as a vegetarian I would have had to free them. The animals were shortly to be let loose for Running of the Bulls. The runners sang, “We ask Saint Fermin to guide us through the encierro and give us his blessing.” Unfortunately, Saints are fickle and only blessed some with a safe passage. Dressed in white shirts, trousers with a red waistband and neckerchief. The more sensible held a newspaper in case they had to distract the bull. No knives. No weapons. I would not say that the runners were brave so much as foolhardy! Well, now I think that the bulls were rather like us. They were waiting.”
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Sweet Pea
“Get ‘er in the truck boy.”
‘at’s my pa yelling’ at me from the porch. He’s hollerin’ ‘bout Sweet Pea, my bull. I raised Pea from a calf ’n now my pa says I need to take her t’ the “Laughter House”, (‘as what pa calls the slaughter house… ha ha… big joke) ‘cause we’ need the money for the house ‘spences.
“C’mon boy, I said get that damn cow in the truck!”
Oh fer heck’s sake… he’s got a bottle… ’n the sun ain’t even over the barn yet.
Y’know, he ain’t even my real pa. He’s just a guy who lived with my ma ’til she died a couple years ago. Now he says he’s the “Man o’ the House” like he’s all important and stuff… ya know, the boss o’ me… even though my ma lef’ me the house and everything. I do all th’ work ‘round her… all th’ chores. ’n I have a job too. I pay all th’ bills n’ stuff. He jes’ lays ‘round drinkin’ and watchin’ TV and playin’ video games n’ stuff.
“Boy… I tol’ you to get that cow outta here! C’mon, les’ move yer ass. Vegas is waitin’ on me!”
House ‘spences, huh?
I git Sweet Pea outta th’ truck and set him free in his pasture. I get my fists ready n’ start to th’ house.
Since ma died, I’d growed a fair bit so it’s time fo’ me n’ “pa” to have a lil’ talk.
Basil had grown up on his mother’s stories of visiting Grandma and Grandpa Miller’s dairy farm over Christmas break, of getting up before sunrise to help out with the chores. However, he’d never imagined just how big cattle could be until he’d decided to come down here and visit Uncle Cory and Aunt Ruby’s ranch and meet his cousins. These things were huge.
Not to mention those wicked horns. Yes, they were defensive weapons rather than offensive like a mountain lion’s fangs and claws. But Basil was Spartan’s son, trained as a fighter of Sparta Point, so he knew defense always had the advantage. And the cattle prod in his hand seemed awful small in the face of half a ton of beef on the hoof, multiplied by a dozen.
Basil’s training kicked in. He checked his lines of retreat, only to see his cousins smirking with amusement.
Damn if he was going to let them think he was a coward. He squared his shoulders and stepped forward with firm resolve to help herd the cattle down the chute to the stock trailer that would take them to the slaughterhouse.