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.
Whack Your Head with a Rubber Mallet
The local fair held a contest called, ‘Whack Your Head with a Rubber Mallet’.
The host, Bob Yuseless, stood on stage in front of a large audience and welcomed the first contestant: Lumpy Noggins.
“Welcome,” said the host. “I’m going to ask you three questions. If you answer correctly, you’ll win money. If you answer incorrectly, the audience will shout, ‘Whack your head with a rubber mallet!’, and you’ll hit yourself on the head with a rubber mallet. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Here we go. Question one: They were two early American explorers. Lewis and…?”
“Moe?”
“Sorry. The answer is Clark. Lewis and Clark. Audience?”
“Whack your head with a rubber mallet!”
WHACK.
“How do you feel?”
Rubbing his head. “I’ve felt better, Bob.”
“Second question: They were two famous comedians. Abbott and…?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“No.”
“Is it… Moe?”
“Wrong again. It’s Costello. Audience?”
“Whack your head with a rubber mallet!”
WHACK.
Staggering slightly, Lumpy asked, “How hard do I have to hit myself, Bob?”
“You’re doing fine. You’re still coherent.”
Applause.
“The last question: They were an early television comedic team. “Larry, Curly, and…?”
“Uh… Homer?”
“Sorry. The answer is Moe. You know what to do.”
WHACK.
As the show ended, Lumpy staggered off stage, mumbling, “Thank goodness there’s only three questions…”
Bob Yuseless waved to the audience. “Our next show is tomorrow. And be sure to buy the Home Edition of the Game* and have fun with the whole family.”
*Helmet sold separately
Dinner Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Swine
“Look!”
“At what?”
“The sign.”
“Okay. I’m lookin’.”
“And?”
“It’s the fall farm fair sign. The whole countryside’s a buzz. It’s a farmer thing. They do it every year…or so I hear.”
“And?”
“Where are you going with this? You’re always rutting around in some La La land intellectually zoned mudpuddle that I simply don’t get.”
“READ THE BLOODY SIGN.”
“Okay, you don’t have to be so pushy…Dairy…milk…cheese…curds…whatever curds are…goats…stupid critters…horses…love them…wish I could ride one…FOOD…farmers grow food…the breadbasket of the world…they love to eat…beef…dumb cows…burger fodder…yuk…swine…huh?”
“Exactly. SWINE! That’s us, you ninny.
“What are you saying? I’m not swine. I am prime pork.”
“You bet your porcine little body, you are. And so am I. We are pigs. Proud pigs. And, dare I say, the smartest barnyard creatures ever. Orwell proved it in his seminal work, Animal Farm.”
“Never read it. Meant too. I sure have read a lot of other swill. I’ll get to it.”
“Might be too late for you., And you miss the point. The sign says it all. WE ARE NOTHING TO THEM. Not even pigs. Sheep are sheep. Goats are goats. WE ARE SWINE. That reinforces their view of us. It’s pure jealousy. That damned Orwell. He warned them. We would take over control.”
“Ease up. You’ll have a coronary. It’s just a sign. It means nothing.”
“You’re right. I get worked up easily. Let’s go get breakfast. How do bacon and eggs sound?”
For Editors’ Choice Award Only
“I used to take your father to the country fair every August until he and his friend Bert were old enough to go by themselves,” the grandmother said wistfully as she, holding her grandson’s hand, walked toward where the horses were stabled.
She pictured her teenage son in her mind’s eye on those hot summer days, oh so long ago, when he and his best friend, Bert, would come home from the county fairgrounds with their arms loaded with Teddy bears for the neighborhood girls.
“I know how you got those,” she remembers saying. “You naughty boys!”
They’d always wink at her as they distributed the big, brightly colored bears among the shrieking children.
They couldn’t keep a secret from her. She knew Bert probably parked his old Ford sedan on a country road, walked through Calvary Cemetery, and jumped the old stone wall into the fair grounds. Then, they’d make a beeline for the coin-pitching carnival tent, where Bert, who was more than 6-feet tall, would lean over and drop dimes onto plates while Ted distracted the attendant at the opposite end of the attraction by asking for change. It didn’t take Bert long to win multiple prizes.
They did this for several years in a row, until both, despite her son being a father and before President Johnson’s Executive Order regarding the draft for men with children, were drafted and sent to Vietnam.
Neither made it home alive.
Fair Time
Feeling inspired and invigorated, our group of apocalypse survivors were searching for others and useful supplies. Walking through a park was relaxing and nostalgic. The women of the group chattered amiably twining fuchsia petunias in their hair. Beyond exotically colored flowers was an old time fair sign. A fair once filled with the scent of sticky candy floss, salted popcorn, fried onions and pasties. I could almost hear vendors shouting to attract crowds to their stalls.
Friedl jokingly declared, “It was fair time.” Bantering with her, I strongly disagreed. With the world dissolved into chaos, loss and uncertainty, how could any one think the time was fair.
The sign was one of those wooden home made jobs. Oddly, numerous arrows pointed right and only one left. Bold letters indicated goats, sheep and rabbits to the right. A horse or stables to the left.
The word “swine” made me chuckle. Was this a reference to the farm animal bred for meat or people who were badly behaved? Would obnoxious men naturally turn to the right joining a conga line of unpleasant contemptible people?
We turned left. And there HE was. A magnificent horse as if conjured up from some fairy tale in which the magical animal mystically appears to save the princess. Black Beauty – a cliché name- but one he richly deserved. Perhaps there was some fairness in life; we had a farrier amongst us.
Fair Lesson
“Not very smart.”
“What?”
“I gave you two hundred dollars to get the required fair entrance signage completed.”
“I did, and I have twenty dollars left over.”
“Yes, and you can keep it.”
“Thanks boss.”
“When I was your age, I would have made much more money on this project.”
“Care to share?”
“Sure. You spent twenty dollars on each sign, correct?”
“Yup, she wanted more than that, but I got her to do each one for twenty dollars.”
“That’s great, and that’s one of the reasons I gave you this task. I would have put well over a hundred dollars in my pocket. Let me get to the point – how many signs did we actually need?”
“Nine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, nine covers everything.”
“Okay, I need another set for the other fair entrance. I’ll give you another two hundred dollars and anything left over you can keep. Give some thought as to what you need to give folks the right direction for what they want to see.”
*.*.*
“Are you wearing a new Stetson and cowboy boots?”
“Pretty sharp, aren’t they?”
“Very ‘smart’ looking.”
Schrödinger’s Stallion
“Of course, the horses will have to go,” the ministry’s official said. “They’re all contaminated. You could probably read a book without a nightlight in their stable. On a cloudy, moonless night in midwinter. But at least you’ll be able to see where they’ve been because their dirty doings will be luminous.”
Erwin, the farmer, shook his head. “Of course, that depends. Do I have any horses? Maybe I don’t. It’s debatable. Until you see them, you can’t be sure. It’s open to conjecture.” He smiled, imagining it; a race meeting at midnight, the jockeys wearing head torches. Their mounts would be lined up at the starting gate, every horse glowing in the gloom. The stands would be filled with enthusiastic racegoers, everyone struggling to determine the results. You could manipulate the odds to your advantage; nobody would ever be able to tell the races were rigged.
The official shook his head. He’d got the bit between his teeth: he wasn’t going to be deterred. “And the names that you’ve given them. They’re hardly subtle. Radium and Pitchblende. Cobalt 60. Polonium 210. You’re hardly trying to disguise what you’re doing. I’m surprised some of them haven’t grown extra legs. That’d be a huge advantage on the straights.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Ewin said. “I’ll segregate them all. That way nobody needs to see anything. I’ll put their stables in the east fields and move all my other business to the west. Out of sight, out of mind. Okay?”
“Let’s go to the fair.”
It should’ve been an exciting excursion, but Elaine couldn’t work up any enthusiasm. Too many bad memories of trudging through exhibits she didn’t care about, of having her lack of interest taken as a personal affront.
She wished she hadn’t overheard Ted Alandale telling his wife to cut her slack. “She’s been stepped on and hurt. She needs time to warm up to things.”
At least it was better than her father’s demand that she stop “sulking” and enjoy her first county fair or he’d give her something to cry about. But it still stung to know her guardians were disappointed in her and felt the need to excuse her downheartedness.
And then they came out of the commercial building into a little plaza with a tower of direction signs. Whoever had done it must’ve painted them separately and put them together without considering how absurd it looked to have the arrow pointing to the food stand right in the middle of the stack of signs for various livestock barns.
Yet smiling felt too much like Schadenfreude.