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.
The Good Old Days
Fred quickly entered Bill’s apartment. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Your call sounded urgent.”
“It’s my phone,” Bill replied, and showed the device to his friend.
Fred’s eyes widened as he looked at the phone screen.
(((Staring back at him was a blinking Eye)))
“What is this?” he asked, pointing to the phone.
“It’s an eye,” Bill replied. “Don’t you think it looks… odd? Suspicious even?”
(((The Eye glanced at Bill and then back at Fred)))
Fred rubbed his chin. “Well, it does look a bit unusual. Is it a new app?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t download anything in the past few days.”
Fred looked at the phone again. “Maybe it was included in an automatic update.”
Bill shrugged. “Who knows.”
(((The Eye narrowed and looked at Bill: it had a secret and it wasn’t talking)))
“Has it done anything unusual?” queried Fred.
“Not that I can think of. I miss the good old days when we didn’t have to carry a cellphone around all the time. Now, I must have it on me at all times. It’s almost as if the eye has some sort of control over me.”
“That’s nonsense,” said Fred. He paused momentarily to think about the situation, and then quickly checked his own phone. Breathing a sigh of relief, he added, “Thank goodness I don’t have an eye on my phone.”
(((The Eye gave Fred a sinister glance. Wait for it…)))
ELIGIBLE FOR EDITORS CHOICE ONLY
Carl stood at the cabinet, removed the album from the record player, inserted it into the paper sleeve, and then slid it into its cover. After scrounging through his massive record collection, he fished out a new album, removed it from its cover and sleeve, and fitted it onto the turntable.
“That’s one thing I could never figure out,” he said while making minute tweaks to a couple knobs on the amp.
I waited…
and waited…
and waited…
I really didn’t like it when he did this manipulative kind of crap. I know he didn’t mean it, but still…
“C’mon dude… what thing?”
“The music industry, man.”
I waited some more…
and some more…
and some more…
“Okay, okay. Jeez, man… what about the music industry?”
“Well y’know the first records were 78’s, right?”
“Umm… yeah.”
“Well they were large with a little hole.”
“Uh-huh.”
“45’s came next…”
“Yeah, and…?”
“… small disc with a big hole.”
“Right…”
“Then there were the 33-1/3 albums… LP’s…”
“Okay… so?”
“… large with a little hole again.”
“After them came CD’s…”
“And…?”
“… small with a big hole.”
“Okay…”
“Well we’re back to large with a small hole again”, he said as he flicked the stereo into life.
“Gosh… thanks from the bottom of my heart for pointing that out. I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”
“No problem.”
Sometimes I gotta admit it… Carl really needs to get out more.
The Trip Back
After the wedding, a small late spring affair on Gronsky’s lawn with Sam as best man, Anthea as bridesmaid and a few friends, Gronsky, Miriam, and Anthea decided, in lieu of a formal honeymoon, to take a road trip to Anthea’s former life.
It was a meandering six-hundred-kilometre journey that took three days with pleasant stopovers at wineries and rural B and B’s.
At last, they arrived in the Slocan Valley where she had spent all of her life until leaving at the age of sixteen.
“They will so happy to know you are well,” Miriam had said as they approached the mountains.
“They live with loss,” she’d answered. “There was always loss.”
“But you aren’t lost,” Miriam answered. “You just left to find yourself.”
Anthea thought that, yes, she surely had found herself, a fragment of her history that had been stolen. The memory of her reunion with her grandfather Gronsky played like a record on old turntable. This journey back to the hills, the commune half a mile up the mountain, the primitive world that she had been raised, the death of her mother and the final few years with her secretive grandmother who finally, on her deathbed, had shared her past, her stolen past; it all came back as the hills of her first home came into view.
“Perhaps,” she said haltingly, “perhaps we should return to the city. I…”
“Whatever you want, my dear,” Gronsky said as he pulled off the road.
Beast cranked the handle again, hoping it would work this time.
Nothing. Only the same dull clonking as before.
He picked up the box and gave it a shake. There was a metallic tinkling: the sound of something loose. The handle hadn’t felt right again; the resistance he’d expected still not there.
There used to be some tension when he’d wound it before. An increasing pressure, the ratcheting of a pawl engaging with teeth. But now the handle felt slackened, something broken flapping about inside.
So what now? He was alone and unequipped. He had no tools, no replacement parts. No hope of repairing the disk player. He’d already lost three of its grooved platters – now only seven remaining.
A week ago, he’d improvised a new needle, jury-rigging an iron-rose thorn, glueing it in place with gum drained from a tree. He’d felt self-satisfied that day. He’d believed he was the frontiersman he’d claimed to be before selection.
At first, there had been three of them. Harris, Dominic, and Beast. Dominic had been the first to succumb, lasting only two nights after the Fall. They’d not found any trace of him afterwards, making it unlikely he’d survived.
And even if he had, there was no guarantee he’d still be human.
Beast ate Harris two weeks later, winning the draw.
There was no knowing how long Beast would last. Food was short; their tinned supplies finished long ago.
And without the record player working, he’d never hear a voice again.
Days Gone By
Uncontrollable weeping from the restaurant pressured me to investigate. I cautiously stood in the doorway of a room I had never entered before. Kay was crying and repeating the word, “Sacrilege.” She was inconsolable.
The room was a museum; a great storage of items from days gone by. There was an old fashioned record player, records , an antique stained glass lamp and an array of ladies’ formal gloves.
Later, when Kay had gained some control of her sorrow, I learned the room was a shrine to her husband. It had once been his office and was now a sacred place to his memory. Only Kay was allowed here. Owing to raw emotions, she seldom entered this shrine. Kay on discovering The Twins had forced the lock and were touching most hallowed belongings had screamed like a Banshee. The shriek had sent icy claws down The Twins’ spines. It seemed to have vibrated through the walls spreading indignation and fear, which were the reasons The Twins had rushed off so hastily.
Kay twisted a handkerchief in her hands as if she wished to throttle The Twins.
Finally, she thawed and shakily began, “He loved this office- my husband did. Once when I brought him his cup of tea, the room was full of sunshine. He looked just like an angel with gold rays surrounding him. He was my angel.”
I resolved to speak harshly to The Twins concerning privacy, respecting others and days gone by.
Grandma’s house even smelled old, a fusty scent of old newspapers and old-lady medicinals. But here I would stay for the summer, far from every happening place.
It wasn’t exactly a punishment, just my parents not liking my new boyfriend. Instead of forbidding me from seeing him, they were sending me halfway across the country, to an old house with a rotary-dial phone and no cell service, thanks to the quiet zone for the big radio telescopes.
Summer was shaping up to be a long slog of helping Grandma with the housekeeping and doing the outdoor stuff she just couldn’t manage anymore. And then the storm came through and knocked out the power.
There was just enough light for Grandma to light the kerosene lamp on the dining room table. At least we wouldn’t be in the dark, but it wasn’t enough to read by.
And then Grandma got out a device I’d only seen in pictures. “It’s a Victrola. My grandparents got it as a wedding present.”
I’d expected it to have batteries, but no, you wound it up with a crank like something from a steampunk makerspace. The records were like my folks’ old CD’s, but bigger and not shiny. You put the needle on them and the music came out the horn.
All evening we listened to the music of another generation. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, all the greats of days gone by.
I never listened to music quite the same way afterwards.