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.
Breaking News
“Local Football Team’s Star Player Levitates During Game”
By Carrie Careless for LINN
(Low Intelligence News Network)
In an unforgettable moment during last night’s football game between the Home Town Heroes and the visiting team, the Heroes’ star player, Jack, seemed to defy gravity and levitated on the field.
Eyewitnesses reported that Jack had made a particularly impressive tackle, and it was as if the momentum from the hit had propelled him into the air. However, experts have since debunked this theory, citing that the physics of the situation would not have allowed for such a feat.
“It was like something out of a sci-fi movie,” said one spectator. “I mean, who levitates during a football game?!”
The Home Town Heroes’ coach was equally perplexed. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said in a post-game interview. “I’m not sure if it was a stunt or if Jack really levitated.”
The visiting team’s coach was less than amused, however. “That was a cheap stunt,” he complained. “I demand an investigation.”
The league has since announced that it will be looking into the incident.
Some fans, however, believe the entire thing was simply a case of mass hysteria.
Whatever the reason, one thing is certain: Jack’s levitation has been the talk of the town, and his team’s victory has been overshadowed by the bizarre incident.
“I just hope he doesn’t try to levitate again,” said one player. “I don’t think our team can handle that kind of pressure.”
Levitating
Another storyteller eerily began, “On the subject of creepy, I once witnessed something bizarre, baffling and bewildering. Thinking about it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. I was at an American football game. It was my first, so I was puzzled by the rules and the terms. Those players looked far from fit and athletic; they were overweight puddings with legs. Anyway, my friend was helping explain the game, but it just made it more confusing. Finally in exasperation, I asked him to stop. I was determined to work out the complexities of this national game by myself.
“Then it happened. Extraordinary. The spectators could not believe it. The players were all running forward. Except … Oh, I know you won’t believe me.”
We all learned forward in expectation, encouraging him to reveal what he had seen.
Dramatically, drying his forehead he continued in a subdued voice, “The player in blue was striding forth, but.. Oh, it is most extraordinary! His feet were not on the ground. He was running in mid-air.”
We all looked at each other thinking this was another tall tale. The listeners winked at each other thinking perhaps this was some silly joke. Alternatively, the speaker could be a little crazy.
“My heart thudded. My breathing laboured. My eyes glazed then refocussed. There were no wires. No illusion. No trick. It was not a case of smoke and mirrors. The player was really running on air. Yet he was no god! No superman!”
Dilemmas
As Gronsky plotted his writing strategy, his direction, the themes he wanted to embrace, he understood that he owed his principal character, Danny Hawkins, a curious duty of care. He had come to appreciate the qualities in Danny that he had ingrained into his creation. As he had initially located Danny in the Island community of Nanaimo in the spring, summer, and fall of 1948., this sequel he was composing moved Danny forward into the summer of 1961. Though it was an arbitrary decision to describe Danny in thirteen years along, this time-travel allowed his character to have developed, to ponder his own maturity, to garner the trappings of a good life lived, a wife, two children and a successful career as a private investigator.
It also allowed Gronsky to have thirteen years of events to draw on as memory, as reflection. Author and character could rise above the years, levitate over their time, their life lived, and draw on the past, draw on it and give it nuance.
A year earlier, in real time, September 30th, 1960, the entire community of Nanaimo’s Chinatown exploded in flame.
It was a fierce event and Gronsky had every hope that he could weave that tragedy into Danny’s world view. Reality and fiction comingling as if they were lovers, once parted and now in tune with each other.
Gronsky was passionate in his belief that truth and fiction belonged on the same path, that they shared the same dream of joyous unity.
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
“Hey Bobby, Coach was here. He wanted to see how yer doing…”
(Right… the bastard couldn’t even look at me.)
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
“Oh… yeah… he, uh, wanted to say “Thanks for all the great contributions you made to team.”
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
(Wha..valuable… me? Ohhh… he must mean that time when my “teammates” broke into my locker and stole all my stuff.)
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
“He wanted to let you know what a valuable player you were… “
(I was so valuable, so precious, I never played in a game. Lotsa practices, but never a game… I s’pose they din’t want me to get broken or something… least not by the other team.)
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
“He said he knew how you loved to play…”
(Loved to play? Huh? ‘LOVED TO PLAY’?… No, I didn’t ‘Love to play’… I frickin’ hated every damn minute of it. All I did on the team was get hit and hurt. That’s it. I was a tackling dummy. That’s all I ever was… a damn tackling dummy.)
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
“…and he’s real sorry for what happened…”
(No Dad, he din’t say that… y’know I can still hear, right?
Y’know he thought it would be fun for the two biggest guys on the team to hit me like that… and he laughed when they did it, Dad… HE LAUGHED…)
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
“… and he hoped you would get well soon.”
(Yeah… we all know that’s not gonna happen.)
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
pssssssst… phshawwwwww…
I must’ve been five or six at the time. I was staying the night at my grandmother’s, and we were watching old movies on her ancient console TV, as big as my dresser back home. The one that stuck in my mind was the story of a professor who invented a rubber-like substance which gained energy instead of expending it when bounced.
As the years went by, I often thought about it. Physics classes taught me such a thing was impossible – but the enormous number of hours I logged playing video and computer games taught me that one could create a believable imaginary world in which the impossible became possible.
So when I got my final assignment in our software class, I decided to create a game based upon an updated version of that old movie. Think something like an otome game, but for guys, with a storyline revolving around sports instead of romance. The protagonist is a wide receiver, and to get to the ending, he has to get five special pieces of football equipment, including a pair of flying-rubber shoes that allow him to bound across the field to catch his quarterback’s passes, or leap into the air to intercept the opposing team’s.
My professor was going to flunk me because he said nobody would buy such a game. Two weeks later my Kickstarter hit fifty grand, and he decided to give me an A for the whole course.
Title: Blimpy
It had taken him several attempts, but he finally had the correct amount.
One difficulty he had was walking. He had to consciously step so that he wouldn’t propel himself.
The real test would be Friday night under the lights.
*~*~*~
Stepping off the bus at the visitor’s field, he got airborne and bumped into two teammates who yelled to save it for the game.
He was on the second-string Junior Varsity team. That meant that he would only see the last few minutes of the fourth quarter if he was lucky.
He was a receiver and had the necessary speed to outrun most, if not all of the defenders.
They were losing 42 to 7 and only had five minutes left. The coach put the second string in, and it was time to really see what his invention could do.
On the first play, he noticed that with every footfall, he was levitating and rushing over three yards. That’s when the coach noticed his lengthy stride. The next play involved a pass to him.
He took off, bouncing up and down the field. He jumped what must have been five feet in the air and caught the ball. The fans on both sides went crazy!
When he removed the Helium-filled packets from his pads, he had to be careful to put them in his sports bag, or they would fly away.
The next game, he was playing on the first string and the fans called him Blimpy.
HIGH HOPES:
Hovercraft Hollis’ had a signature move. It consisted of him levitating and shooting for the goal, none of the other team’s players being able to tackle him. Skyrocket Ward used to loft the ball in his general direction and then… BAM. Another three points for the Chiefs.
It was going so well at first. The Chiefs racked up a series of seven consecutive wins, none of the opposing teams barely troubling the scoreboard. The pundits were beginning to speculate that the Feathered Ones might go the whole season without suffering a defeat. But when they met up with the Titans, their odds took a hit.
The Referees’ Association had been busy fielding protests from all the other teams ever since Hollis’ debut, there being nothing specific in the rules to outlaw the Chiefs’ innovative new tactic. The Lions and the Bears had done little but growl and threaten physical damage, both the Raiders and the Vikings happy to protest and pillage the fast-food concession stands and the opposition’s merchandise outlets.
But the Titans had their own big hitters. Colossal men built large, their thighs the size of mountains, huge hands easily quick enough to knock the wind out of anyone willing to make themselves a target.
And after that, it was open season. The Eagles and the Ravens. The Falcons and the Seahawks. Even the Jets, if you gave them a long enough strip to get aloft. The Chiefs had had their day, and now they were finished.