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.
Never stop is my motto. Who am I ? I am a private eye. If you need someone or something found, I am your man. Have you hired others and they keep coming up empty handed? Have they said it is impossible, the person or thing you are looking for is unfindable? Then I am your man. Once I take on a case I don’t stop until I have my target. If I can’t find them no one can. Just to note there hasn’t been anything or person I couldn’t find. What would happen if I couldn’t find someone or something? Honestly I don’t know. I have always found what I set out to find.
This case is very challenging. What happens when one such as myself’s target doesn’t want to be found. What happens when you are hired to find yourself? When you disappeared from your family at six years old. Or more accurately you were stolen from your family. But you don’t want to go back because the person you were is now dead. You are no longer the person they think you are You have been through hell. You can’t become the person you were originally meant to be. The course of your life has been forever altered. You can never return to the original course. What do you do? What can you do? I guess the only thing you can do is never stop. Keep looking for yourself. Never stop.
“Ya gotta go straight down the ramp Carla!!! Straight!! Ya hear me? Yer all over the place!! Don’t you know how to drive? I guess not! Jeez, yer useless. Get the damn boat straight or I’m gonna… “.
We thought it was funny, until it wasn’t. We had been watching from across the lot. The husband (we guessed) had been yelling at the wife (we also guessed) for at least fifteen minutes straight… ever since they pulled up with their boat.
The husband merely stood and watched as his wife struggled to get the boat into position and, as he slowly filled with rage, shouted nastier and nastier “encouraging” comments.
(Y’know, men can be real jerks sometimes.)
They (she) finally got the boat in the water. Then the “not-fun” really began.
At the dock, “Hubby” hopped in the boat, flopped down on the only lounge chair, and opened a beer. Meanwhile his wife loaded the boat with their fishing gear and what-all from their truck. Opening another beer, he stridently declared that he was the captain, she was the crew, and according to the law of the sea, the captain did little or no work… the crew did.
Her argument that Lake Miniboo was not technically a “sea” earned more scorn and yelling.
The wife, now at the wheel, was dark storm furious as she and the “Captain” headed out.”
“Where’dya think she’s taking him?” I asked nobody in particular.
But one of the guys, “Probably someplace hidden and deep.”
Don’t stop.
That had been his advice to her. He’d poked her in the middle of her chest with one finger, his hand heavy with gold, face swathed with the evil-smelling smoke from his cigar.
He’d been adamant about it then, and she knew he’d be the same now.
If he’d been alive.
He’d been Gus Adam, the self-styled domestic hero for hire. He’d fought for the reputation he’d had – much more modest and not at all the one he’d hoped for – from contesting minor-league pro-bono cases, championing the underdogs against the corporations. There’d never been a case he’d refuse – another of his taglines – and so they’d struggled to keep afloat, especially when he’d continued to lose his civil actions.
She’d overseen the paperwork, the beating heart of every office, and had fought with the rising mounds of foolscap and the notes she’d transcribed. She’d been the one who’d chased up the administrative detail, the procedural forms, and the incessant flow of blurred photos and facsimile copies. She’d also had the legal mind, the nous for the caselaw and precedents. Adam had been the bulldog, the forceful showboating avenger: the one with an eye for a jury member who might waver from her plea of guilty.
Because, of course, he’d been devilishly charming and as articulate as a poet.
But what had it got him? An ulcer and a coronary. And a lonely plot far from this beach.
And that’s why she was stopping. Right now.
Stopover
Sometimes you simply need to go to shore. Perhaps the current’s too strong. Or, perhaps, you’re thirsty and need to find fresh water. Or, more than likely, perhaps you’re just plain exhausted.
Exhaustion seems to easily come these days.
You hate to admit it but its there, right in front of you.
Staring back.
Sneering.
It feels like sneering.
You remember when you could motor in the hot sun for hours, exploring inlets, isles of mystery, pull in anywhere and trek away, deep into strange new woods. Even took the kids along once in a while.
When she let you.
The odd weekend when you could have them.
“Trust!” she’d said, more than once. “You’ve got to earn it back.”
It was too long a journey for you to make.
Maybe all that was further in the past than you care to admit.
Last night, you motored over to another Island, moored, walked up the hill, paid your twenty bucks, listened to rock and roll. Wild youth slam-dancing or whatever. Your ears burst from the rock thunder. Great music but you were a few generations lost from the pleasure of it. One of the dancers, slim, dark, lovely, reminded you of so many years gone.
You wandered back to the wharf.
Lost in a way that was becoming too familiar.
In the dark, you motored away, wondering how far you could go before you fell off the sea. The hum of the engine drowned out the years.
Then, nothing.
Never Stop
To lighten morale, he continued, “Perhaps we should pile into the neat motor launch tied up on shore. I’m referring to the one, we have to row. We could go on an adventure to discover the truth about the ship. If we find a ghost ship, we row back here like demons churning the river. If we find a cruise ship we swing aboard. If it is a glorious party boat, we jump aboard. We need excitement, frivolity and mad times. Dancing, drinking and delighting. I would order a Texas steak served with champagne. ‘Keep the champagne glasses filled. Never stop!’ I would call out to the waiters. What bliss to be hand served and treated like royalty.”
Another joined the discourse, “Running down to the motor launch, even if we have to row, sounds a great idea. But once we discover the function of the ship, I would keep on rowing. I would never stop until we were at sea. Kay is a gracious and welcoming host- one of the best, but it is time to move on to the next adventure. Life is brief and we need to savour it. Live life to the fullest! Live your best life!”
Many inspiration quotes were flung into the night. “We need to dance continually. Let your life shine. Be unique. Dream another dream. Do your utmost to defy the odds. Grasp life by the neck.” My fellow survivors were both borderline plagiarists and humorists! They would never stop.
We found Billy Ray’s boat tied up about three miles from the marina. I knew right away something wasn’t right, even when the police insisted there was nothing suspicious, no signs of foul play. According to them, he was an adult, so he had the right to come and go as he pleased, and the boat was tied up legally, so there was nothing to investigate.
Except they didn’t know my brother the way I did. That boat was his pride and joy. He’d never just tie it up to a post by the river and wander away on a lark. Whatever had happened, it was nothing good.
Hiring private investigators cost more money than I could afford, but I couldn’t just “let it lie” and hope he’d come to his senses and come back home. I got some promising leads, but as soon as we’d start following up, they’d fizzle out in dead ends. Some were simply cases of mistaken identity, but others were far more puzzling. A package of photos that arrived as blank photographic paper, a tape that crumbled the moment I played it back.
Which is how I teamed up with a paranormal investigator. I’ve never had much use for woo-woo – my training is in the sciences – but something seriously weird is going on here. Something that doesn’t want me to know what happened to my brother. But I’ll never stop until I have answers.