It's dead letter week on Foolish Notions, just because. Here's no. 3:

Sirs,

As you are no doubt aware, the discussion over as to whether our universe is expanding or contracting continues despite recent evidence. Most people now accept that it is indeed expanding, I too, concur with this theory. However, many still believe that once it has stopped expanding – from the explosion of the Big Bang – the universe will then start contracting. I would like to ask how many of these people have ever seen an exploding bulb gather itself together and return to the light-fitting from whence it came (even if it was allowed enough time). How many fireworks have re-formed (considering the time since the very first ones made by the ancient Chinese peoples)? Or, to perhaps bring it closer to these blinkered theorists understanding, how many times have they seen diarrhoea retreat back up the arse of a dog which has just squittered it out?

Thank you

Bob Smith

There was a man. Guilt and malnutrition. Emptier than hollow things for storing a history of sin. No grace entered and no redemption left. A single sound of falling, again. Again. Again.

He tried to leap but misjudged himself, being already where he would land.

And a woman saw and knew. Eyes made illumination and terror of the truth. Speak, speaking, spoken and knowledge given silence wings to flutter deathly in the open. A mess was made. A coming together and a departure.

There is threat that all of this is meant. Who plans the absence of plans? Designs the deft ingenuity of saints without viscera. Crumble now and crumble always. Collapsing sometimes unknown.

Take care of her and lead to peaceful living softly.

Watch over him that he might learn to die again and finally.

Not much is said of this, where words are chocking on themselves with laughter.

And that is what it is, how it goes, without ever knowing why. This machinery obsoleting towards perfection. Tiny whimsy laughing corpses holding scaffolds aloft the grave.

Never.

Hear a buzzing. It is the phone. On a table.

Everything buzzes. Or beeps.

And always disappoints, or stirs in the despair good and proper.

The phone convulses in a barely visible blur next to bills which is next to a pouch of tobacco next a mug or glass of something.

Whatever it is.

There is hardly enough table for it all.

*    *    *

I assume I answer it because I begin to hear a voice coming from the earpiece and so I answer the voice through the mouthpiece. I’m unsure what the voice is asking and equally unsure of what I’m saying by way of response.

Failing me.

Electrical signals supposed to form words squirm like drugged tapeworms through the sick fat in my head before deforming; becoming black, crackling spiders encased in marshmallow, dropping like dog shit into my voice box and spilling incomprehensible sound bilge from my gob.

Speech reduced to rubble.

The voice responding to all this feels frustrated but I couldn’t tell you why. Indeed, I realise that I have stopped ‘communicating’ altogether.

*   *   *

Fallout strokes the ghostly movement of air on the other side of the window pane. I feel my heart banging away on my ribcage. I hear a faint, crackled whirr coming from the phone, followed by a deep breath.

It doesn’t belong to me.

Then there is no sound except for the shouting outside. Car’s failing to start.

Planes overhead.

A repetitive thudding sound like bodies hitting and breaking upon the pavement over and over again.

*    *    *

I hold the phone in my hand and play with the sliding motion of the handset until the display displays: ‘Low Battery’.

I realise that both my hands and feet are painfully cold.

Pulling the blanket across my body is the last thing I do before the morning.

It's dead letter week on Foolish Notions, just because. Here's no. 2:

Dear Mr Editor,

I would like to draw your attention (if you haven’t already noticed their blatant nescience to a large part of our society) to the long running advertising campaign by the breakfast cereal manufacturers, Kellogg’s, for their product, Rice Krispies. They claim that this product ‘snaps’, ‘crackles’ and ‘pops’, but to a congenitally deaf person this means nothing. I would like to call on your readers to boycott this product and the Kellogg’s company as a whole for their contemptuous audist attitude.

Thank you.

Yours

Robert H. Smith

He drank constantly. Liquids flowed through him like a river snaking through the humid body of a dense tropical rainforest.

He drank milk.

He drank water.

He drank beer and wine and pomegranate juice.

For lunch he drank yogurt and he’d liquefy his evening meals. He even went so far as to buy a small, portable blender which he brought to restaurants and turned cheeseburgers and samosas into smoothies. After years of not eating solid foods, he had his teeth removed by a dentist in Mexico.

While convalescing at a resort, he washed down several crushed codeine pills with tap water and died from the consequential blood infection.

Visit Mr. Dapper’s Twitter for stories told 140 characters per day.

It's dead letter week on Foolish Notions, just because. Here's no. 1:

Sir,

According to the Law of Conservation of Matter, every atom is continually recycled in the universe and never lost. In other words, we breathe the same atoms as those breathed by Galileo (approx 4.3 x 109 atoms per breath). Similarly, we drink – in every glass of water – some atoms of Adolph Hitler’s urine, while, on a lighter note, we also drink some atoms of Jennifer Lopez’s body fluids (provided they have had sufficient time to disperse). Conversely, Jennifer Lopez is drinking – in every glass of water she swallows – some of my body fluids. I would, therefore, like to ask Jennifer (if, indeed, she is prone to brush over this esteemed organ) if she would like to try the undiluted variety … purely for the purposes of scientific investigation. Of course.

Yours

R.H. Schmitt

Evo used to have a really cool spoon. Like a teaspoon, but with a really long handle. Like something you’d get to scoop out your milk shake. He’d moulded it, curving the handle upwards about the height of a skinny syringe, then shaped the end back flat and horizontal. To make it even easier to hold, he gave it a tight rubber coating so the heat wouldn’t travel up and inconvenience his fingers. Hell, he used to slip it between his lips, heat the bowl and tug on the tourniquet all at the same time.

The closest Evo gets to a spoon these days is when he curls up in a doorway with his dog. And that never lasts long. One of them always stirs to scratch some itch. He cooks his junk in the bottom of an old beer can. And never the same one twice. He can never find them a second time. He works on the premise that the alcohol has kept it clean, even from the old hobo’s lung bugs. Shame really, Evo had a fine gift for bending spoons.

Tammy Woo tapped in the last few dots to Rodo’s new tattoo. He was stoked. He stamped the floor with his big flat feet, jangled the joints of his gangling limbs.

‘Does it look cool?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ she said, tidying the needle back into the sewing box.

‘Real cool? Like Robert De Niro cool? You know, like, in Taxi Driver?’

‘What?’ Tammy Woo caught her bubble gum in her molars, she’d've choked if she hadn’t.

‘No, I know.’ Rodo sprayed spit on to his own chin. ‘Is it cool like Nicholson cool? You know, like, “Heeeeere’s Johnneee”. That kinda cool?’

‘What the fuck, Rodo?’

‘No, no.’ Rodo bounced, stressing the bolts in the little Ikea desk chair. ‘Is it Harrison Ford cool? You know, like Han Solo? Or Indiana?’

Tammy Woo stared. ‘What colour is the sky where you live, Rodo?’

His face faded a few shades lighter. ‘Like, Dr Walker in Frantic cool?’

‘Fuck you, Rodo.’ Tammy Woo threw the broken biro into the basket. ‘It’s like, like … I dunno…’ She shrugged. ‘Like Lurch cool, I guess. Look.’

Tammy Woo showed him the little make-up mirror. Rodo looked, angled it to the letters on his forehead. He saw: odor.

‘What the fuck?’ cried Rodo. ‘That’s not my fucking name.’

Tammy Woo sighed, decided she was going to start asking for the money upfront.

Story inspired by the 3WW words: frantic, lurch and odor.

“There’s a knife in his back.”

Charles turned and stared down his five foot two associate.

“Please Chester, leave,” Charles replied.

“But sir-”

“Fine, let’s check again.”

Charles opened the bedroom door and saw the body.  This time, it had a knife in its back.

“Well then,” he said blinking his eyes.  “How’d that happen?”

Chester smiled and swung his arm around to Charles.  He hit Charles in the same spot as the first body and Charles fell in the same manner.

“I think I’ll take the lead on this one,” Chester said with his foot on Charles back.

I’d always dismissed my grandmother’s claim to be clairvoyant as an old lady’s eccentricity. Much to my shame, I hadn’t seen her for some weeks when the residential home rang to say she’d taken a turn for the worse. I arrived with a heavy heart, my legs trembling as I walked up the stairs and turned into her bedroom. I discovered her sitting up in bed looking as fresh as the freesias on the bedside table, laughing with a nurse. The nurse smiled and discreetly left us to speak in private.

“Gran,” I began. “Are you okay? The matron suggested you weren’t too good. Actually she said you were on your deathbed.”

“Oh I am, my dear. You know I can foresee these things.” I rolled my eyes. “But I need to explain a few things to you whilst I’m still able. Second sight skips a generation in our family, which is why the gift will directly pass to you. Now I want you to have my cards. They’re in the top drawer.” She paused and looked at me fondly. “Take care, Emma. You know you were always my favourite grandchild.” This was all said in a remarkably matter of fact, quite sane, manner. However, I still looked towards the door to find a nurse so I could interrogate them about the strength of her medication.

“Gran, stop saying these daft things. You’ll be around for a good many … Gran?” I turned back towards her. She lay there motionless, her head on one side with a peaceful smile on her face. I reached out to touch her hand and, as I cried out for the nurse, I felt a jolt of electricity that knocked me back into my chair.

It was a sunny day, blue skies with scarcely a cloud, but the strong breeze gave me goosebumps. I was in my garden but I didn’t how I’d got there. I shielded my eyes with my hand and looked up into the sky. I could see a plane, clearly enough to see the red and blue tailfin, with thick, black smoke emanating from under the wings. The plane started to descend rapidly …

I opened my eyes. There was a pair of ladies’ legs standing on a carpeted ceiling and the blood was rushing to my head. I felt a hand on my back as I slowly sat up.

“You passed out, dear. Here, take a sip of this water,” I heard the nurse’s kindly voice. “I’m sorry for your loss. At least your grandmother was able to say goodbye. She was most adamant she had to speak to you before she departed. You know, it doesn’t do to get too attached to the residents here for obvious reasons, but I‘ll really miss her. She was a proper character.” The nurse moved towards the door. “I have to go and inform the matron and the duty doctor.”

I rose to my feet and took Gran‘s hand for the last time: “I need to go and break the news to the rest of the family and her friends.”

As I turned to go, I remembered Gran’s dying words and opened her drawer with some trepidation, expecting to see a tarot deck. However, much to my surprise, there lay a pack of Happy Families cards, Mr Bun the Baker et al. Judging by the style of clothes, they looked like they were from the 1950s but were still in pristine condition. I slipped them into my bag and left to fulfil my familial duties.

Booking the funeral proved harder than expected. The only date available in the following fortnight unavoidably coincided with a business trip abroad I had planned. Fortunately my line manager and the people I was due to meet were very understanding when I rescheduled for the following week.

On the day of the funeral, I should have been getting up early to catch the plane. Instead, I rose at my usual time and opened the back door to let the cat into the garden and refill the birdfeeders. It was a beautiful, sunny day with a strong breeze; I shuddered as I recalled the fainting episode I’d experienced by Gran’s deathbed. Involuntarily, I shielded my eyes with my hand and looked up into the sky. I saw the plane with the blue and red tailfin, the smoke pluming from under the wings, its rapid descent. I looked at my watch. A nauseating tidal wave of emotion engulfed me. I should have been on that flight.

When I came out the offy this morning I saw a guy with one of these hurdy-gurdy things, standing outside the supermarket. A guy about the same age as me. Turning the fucking handle, like he was a wee kid or something. Fucking arsehole. So I laughed. Of course. Then I looked at myself. Shitey thin jacket still soaked through from the rain, feeling rough as fuck, and carrying four bottles of cheap sherry. And then this bird comes from inside the supermarket, walks straight up to the hurdy-gurdy bloke, kisses him and gives him a packet of sandwiches and a can of coke. Fucking lovely she was. Long chestnut-brown, shaggy kind of hair and a gorgeous face. I fucked off towards the bus, but caught the guy looking at me. With his hand still holding the can of coke, he stuck up his middle fucking finger. Twat.

Ben had smuggled it out under his shirt.  The cold metal of the can against his stomach.   He’d been chosen because he was bigger than the other boys, the outline of the can wouldn’t be as obvious as they walked it out from the small back room kitchen of the church and into the men’s room.  They moved in a fan, Gary, Steve, Andy all around Ben, protecting him, stepping in perfect formation, perfect harmony with their eyes darting about left and right on the look out for any adult who might be looking their way. 
They waited until the coast was clear and then the four of them piled into one bathroom stall.  Ben handed it to Gary and Gary passed it off to Steve and Steve gave it right over to Andy and Andy, seeing he was the last one bit the bullet and looked at it there in his hand, the gold of the can, the buck’s flat dead eyes, the letters in their not quite cursive spelling it out the simple, powerful word:  STAG. 
Andy pulled back the tab and some of it came gushing out at them.  The smell was bad, bready, but almost stale, an old smell.  Andy lifted the can up to his nose to take a closer smell, it didn’t get any better. 
“Well, do it,” Ben said, unsure as if trying to convince himself he’d have the courage when his time came.
“Alright, Alright,”  Andy replied.  He took a breath and then another.  He moved the can around in his hand and finally brought it up to his lifts and took a sip.   He passed it off to Gary with his eyes closed, just holding it out there, and Gary took it tentatively, an even smaller drink than Andy.  Steve chickened out and Ben taunted him while the other two gave a look that seemed to say good call. 
Ben took one long drink and coughed some of it back up when he heard the bathroom door open.  Quickly he threw the entire can down into the toilet bowl, madly tried to flush before a voice came out, “What’s going on in there?”
The boys froze.  They knew all of their feet were on the ground and could be seen.  They didn’t even try to hide.  They knew the jig was up.  So what would it be?  What would they get into it more for, stealing from the church or drinking the beer, is all they could think of as the footsteps approached the stall.

A few weeks ago I started working on some short pieces of fiction as writing exercises. This piece was inspired by a card in The Faeries’ Oracle deck, with art work by my favorite artist, Brian Froud. Hope you enjoy it! (And thanks to Cat Woods for letting me crash her Sunday Short Fiction party.)

The Bright Mother

You’ve wished on the first star of evening, on the full moon and the new, on clouds shaped like cherubs and on rainbows over drenched fields. You’ve lain on  your back, your side, gotten on your knees, in the dark, in the moonlight by the river, in the bright afternoon sunlight of your garden. Swallowed the potions, done the procedures, paid the price.

But every month instead of swelling  your womb releases its rich store of life, and your heart aches a little harder, and you ask why.

This is what you must do.

Tie a pink ribbon in your hair. Go to the woods. Go when the moon is a clear, bright sickle in the night sky, to where the tiny wild roses float on stinging prickled canes, exhaling their fragrance on the leaf-dimmed air. Find the place where the faces in the shadows withdraw when you peer at them, where the red poison mushrooms huddle beneath the thorns. Leave your offering: A clear crystal, a garland of flowers, a vessel of pure water. Make it precious, something you love. Show the Bright Mother the generosity of your spirit.

Carefully, carefully, lest the thorns make you bleed, ease a single pink petal from a five-part blossom. And with that petal’s astringent perfume on your tongue, whisper your prayer to the Lady, the mother of all mothers. Let the night’s beauty overwhelm you.

Go home with gratitude, and wait for your answer.

©Michelle Simkins, 2010

I can remember standing on the pier with my grandfather watching as the boats disappeared over the horizon on the water so perfectly blue like a malleable mirror reflecting the sky.  He smelt of tobacco and I watched as the ashes from his cigarette drifted off in the wind and felt the cold metal of the hand rail on the side of the bench we’d been sitting at all morning.  I have no idea how long we would actually stay there, but we were about to leave he would look at his watch and sigh softly, defeated.

Open up the posthumous floodgates, here comes a torrent.  Holden wouldn’t have made it to 91, if you can outlive your creations that cast a shadow upon your life you’re doing something right.  Recluse is just a word people use so they can describe someone who rejects the things they think they want.

In Markson:
January 28, 2010 JD Salinger died on.

You tell me I’ve changed and I just laugh it off, that new laugh I’ve rehearsed while staring at myself in the mirror loathing the person staring back. I laugh it off, not at all, let’s get drinks, I laugh it off until I’m alone, in the loos, sitting on the dirty floor trying not to heave, listening to girls with smudged lipstick talking over the music. One. Two. Three. I get up. I straighten my dress. I laugh it off.

The elderly lady sat dozing in her favourite chair in the warmth of the conservatory, her fingers loosely touching the silver locket around her neck. The care assistant looked at her fondly. Miss Price, never married, was one of their oldest residents at the home, and a favourite of the staff. Apparently, she had once told another resident that her precious locket contained a lock of hair belonging to the lost love of her life, but unfortunately her beau had died before they could marry. Such a sad story.

Many years ago, Grace Price was a young girl on the threshold of womanhood. She was apprenticed to a seamstress whose atelier was located off the main road. One day, she saw a tall, blond man walk past . He was so beautiful, she thought he looked like an angel. Her friend noticed her gaze and teased Grace, saying he was a man with a ’reputation’. Grace refused to believe her and kept watch for him each day. She began making excuses to run errands when she knew he was due to pass by. She would follow him along the High Street and soon discovered that it was his habit to take afternoon tea at the cafe. She would also linger in other places he frequented, willing him to notice her. But he never did.

On the day of his death, Edward went for afternoon tea as usual. Grace knew he would be there and timed her arrival accordingly, ready to be forward and introduce herself. However, upon entering the café, he embraced a woman she had never seen before and her courage waned. As the couple left, the mystery woman departed in the opposite direction to Edward. Grace decided to follow him on impulse. She pursued him through the town down to the riverbank. She found him there alone, loitering with intent. Then Grace realized that he was waiting for another woman, another tryst.

That night, she returned home after work as usual. Her father was worried as she seemed quiet and withdrawn, but Mother assured him that all young girls went through this phase. Nevertheless, for her birthday the following week, Father bought her a silver locket, costing slightly more than he could really afford, in an effort to raise her spirits. The gift did indeed seem to give her some comfort and she wore the locket day and night, never taking it off. Life went on and, eventually, Grace opened her own workshop. Although she was wooed and proposed to several times over the years, she spurned all suitors and remained a spinster by choice.

On that fateful day, down at the riverbank, Grace finally realized that she could never have Edward, but her young heart was not prepared to let him go without some sort of keepsake. A lock of his hair would be perfect, so she retrieved from her bag a pair of sharpened scissors that she had earlier picked up from the local knife grinders. She approached him quietly from behind.

Edward felt a tug on his hair, and turned to see Grace with the scissors in her hand. It was the first, and only, time he ever laid eyes on her. All he saw was a stranger about to stab him. He stumbled backwards in terror, into the turbulent water thrashing over the rocks beneath. He could not swim and Grace watched helplessly as he was washed away downriver. Some days later, his boulder-battered body was recovered. The police said it was a tragic accident and no further investigation into his death was made. Some whispered that it was suicide as rumours surfaced of his rejection at the hands of a married woman, but only Grace knew the truth.

So Miss Price’s locket was not really the token of love that she would have all believe. It was a ball and chain, a reminder of the dreadful event – her part in the death of another – that changed the course of her life, forever.

I have a story for today, but it’s not here. It’s over on the very excellent Six Sentences site. It’s a flash fiction website presenting stories written in only – you guessed it – six sentences.

If you’ve arrived here from there, you might like to read some of my character stories, or my post from last Friday – Your dad’s a dick. I wrote it for another great web writing initiative – FridayFlash.

After that, have a look around and let me know what you think.

Wearing the clothes his mother picked out for him, he begins the ninth grade. Still a boy – a large child – he carries a new notebook and pencils. He says, “Yes, Ma’am,” and “No, Ma’am.” When he comes into class, he tells me something funny that happened in Spanish class. He wants to know what my favorite show is, and how old my kids are. He still listens to his mother, wants to be a doctor when he goes to college. Or play pro-basketball.

He hasn’t yet learned the odds.

Soon he will begin to see signs that his plans are only slender possibilities. Besides his teachers, he doesn’t know anyone who’s graduated from college. He knows a lot who are in jail. Gangs pressure him; he resists. He keeps his grades up, stays on the honor roll. But it’s becoming clear to him: you can’t be anything you want to be just by getting good grades.

It’s hard to focus on math and English when there are girls wearing tight shirts and short skirts, when other kids are talking about sex and drugs, when fights break out in the cafeteria and kids talk about guns. Anger, threats, ridicule. It’s hard to be a good kid.

A’s are rare. B’s become acceptable, then C’s. He stops doing homework – what’s the point? Parent conferences resolve nothing. He stares at the floor, surly and uncooperative, gives one word replies. He talks back to teachers who inquire about missing assignments. He wants someone to explain to him why there is no place for him in the real world.

Failure is a reasonable choice, under the circumstances. It’s easier to not try, than to try and fail. Or to succeed and find out that it doesn’t make any difference. Dreams of college and career fade.

Suddenly he is taller, more muscular. When he goes into a store he is followed, just because of his skin color. White people cross the street to avoid passing him. His new role models are athletes and rappers. He gets high, wears pants that sag, thinks about being a gansta. Music must be loud, to drown out the world of false hopes. Why should he worry about eardrums, when he probably won’t survive thirty?

He knows a kid who has a gun, and dares to bring it to school.

He knows someone who was shot.

He knows someone who was killed.

Death is more real to him than college, drugs take the place of dreams.

Two years, and the transformation is complete.

Will stayed in the passenger seat of the double parked Audi 500. He watched his dad stride off to buy cigarettes and a newspaper. A tap at the side window startled him. A man. A stranger. ‘Is that your father?’ asked the stranger. ‘Your granddad?’ The stranger didn’t wait for a reply. ‘That guy’s a dick.’ The statement baffled the 10 year old Will. But the stranger spoke his words with such conviction that they were difficult for Will to ignore, or forget. He examined his father more closely after that, objectively, looked at him as the stranger might see him.

Will parks his car carefully, waits patiently for an old woman to pass on the pavement before he holds open the shop door for a young mother. His two sons wait in the back seat of the hybrid. Tom, the 12 year old, nudges Max, 9, and nods out the side window. ‘Dad is such a dick.’ Max smiles. ‘Yeah,’ he adds, ‘he’s such a dick.’

Short stories are a funny thing. A badly written short story feels like a novel with it’s guts ripped out. A good short story, though, can be even better than a novel. Because of it’s brevity, the density is much greater. You can carry an intense emotion all the way through a short story without letting up, if you do it right.

During my decade of writer’s paralysis, I tried writing a few short stories here and there, but never got them off the ground. And when my writing recovery finally began, it felt so tenuous that I didn’t dare explore too much for fear of jinxing myself back in to another decade of not writing. I stuck with what was working; plodding away at one big thing, trying not to think too hard about finishing, learning to love the process, love the characters, love the reality I’m creating.

A year and a few months in to my recovery, I’m finding my excitement about writing beginning to expand. New ideas are popping up everywhere. It’s like spring! “OH! Look at that little sprout! What will it be when it grows up? Exciting!”

I wrote a short story to submit to an e-zine (don’t know yet if it will be accepted). Their word count requirement was between one and two thousand words. My story came out at almost exactly 1200 words. That seemed crazy short after writing over 100,000 words during NaNoWriMo. I had heard about “flash fiction” or “micro-fiction,” and I wondered if my story qualified, so I went to look up some definitions. And I stumbled on to a whole world in fiction that I didn’t know about, one rife with debate over definitions. I also discovered that my tiny 1200 word story was too long to be considered micro-fiction or flash fiction by most people.

What, then, IS flash fiction? So far I’ve found quite a bit of disagreement on how many words constitute flash fiction, but most people seem to agree on the definition given by wikipedia, that “flash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity.” A lot of sites agree that stories under 1,000 words qualify. Others have a shorter cap on the word count. There are a few sites devoted entirely to flash fiction, and several anthologies out there.

To add to the debate, there are some people who feel that fast fiction is the same thing as a prose poem. And it seems just as many people become agitated at that suggestion. And according to poetry.org, “The prose poem can range in length from a few lines to several pages long”–which would make it a very different beast from flash fiction. Which has my little brain going–ooooh! Awesome! I suck at poetry. But I bet I could write a fine prose poem.

I am totally intrigued by the whole concept of flash fiction and micro fiction, and now by the idea of the prose poem as well. They all seem likely to lend themselves well to the things I love about stories–emotional intensity, vivid atmosphere, and those transcendent moments that are so rare in real life and so essential in fiction.

Yesterday morning I wrote a little 250 word story thing. I want to write more of them. Fascinating exercise in language use–stripping your story down to the smallest possible word count without losing impact is an almost giddy challenge (and is very different from the free-for-all rambling of my blogging style!).

It’s almost like a game. And good games have rules, right? So I thought, maybe I would decide on what the rules are–according to me–and play with words according to my rules. After my research, these are the definitions I am choosing to go with, based purely on my own personal preferences after a few hours of poking around. I’m not an expert on–well, much of anything, to be honest–but for those of you who want to be just like me (*cough* Laura *cough*) here are the definitions I’m gonna roll with.

Flash Fiction will be defined for my purposes as  “brief fiction of 500-1000 words”.  To qualify as fiction in my world it has to have a dilemma, and some kind of resolution. I won’t require the resolution to be decisive as far as final outcome though–it’s kind of fun to leave everyone wondering. But there has to be a cut off point for the action. I think I am maybe not making sense to anyone but myself. But that’s okay, it’s all about me.

Micro-Fiction will be defined for my purposes as “fiction of 10-500 words”. I’ve seen it defined as 10 to 300 words, but then my game doesn’t have a place for stories between 300 and 500 words in length, and that would be limiting. Couldn’t have that! HA!

And in case I feel like trying out the whole prose poem thing, I’ve decided that a prose poem in my game will be “poetry written as prose” and will be limited to 750 words. I chose that number because it’s halfway between 500 and 1000 (hey, you can laugh, but you’re lucky I could work that out. Math is not my thing). The appeal of including prose poems in my writing games (I have to use the word “game” because “exercise” is like “chore”. Ugh.) is that I can take snippets of homeless imagery and emotion and write them down and say “No, really, it’s a poem! It’s a PROSE POEM. I am very avant garde.”

Other than that, I’m really not setting any guidelines other than, do it! Play with words! It’s like finger painting, only easier to clean up. Do any of you want to play with me? Should we have Pocket Prose Blog Parties? Miniature Fiction Monday? Or am I alone in this obsession? It wouldn’t be the first time . . . and it won’t be the last.

The water in the lake was coming unfrozen slowly.  Every now and then a loud crack would come off the surface and frighten Eddie as he sat on the dock by himself and thought about how he was going to tell Marissa the news and how she would take it and after all of it settled in his mind he tried to think up a few reasons why she would stick around, why she would stay with him and he could think of only one:  she was good.

Mandy Price, MD and main shareholder of Price Solutions, was being interviewed by a glossy magazine as she had been nominated their ‘Business Woman of the Month‘.

“So, Mandy,“ the interviewer began. “Could you tell our readers about your first job?“

“Well!“ Mandy sat back in her chair. “It’s quite a story, and one you may find hard to believe.

My first job was as a cleaner. I was nearing the end of my second week when a new roster was issued. One of the other girls laughed because I had to clean the Spenser block by myself the following week as it was reputedly haunted. Mrs Dickens, my supervisor, scolded her and told me to take no notice. Old Jim Roberts, the night guard, would look after me and I should remember to take my own milk. Funny, how you remember the small details.

I turned up at 6 pm as normal the following Monday. I took the lift up to the fourth floor as I had been taught to work top down. Normally, in the main block, there would still be some office staff working late, but this place was deserted and I started to wonder if it really was full of ghosts. Shivers went down my spine as I felt a presence behind me and I spun around. There in front of me was a kindly looking, elderly gentleman who announced that he was Mr Roberts, but I could call him Jim. I instantly relaxed, told him who I was and asked if it was true that the block was haunted. Jim just laughed and assured me that no ghost would harm me whilst he was there. His desk was on the second floor and I should call by when it was time for my break.

I carried on with my chores, feeling a lot happier for knowing he was there, then went down for a cup of tea when I finished the third floor. Talking to Jim was like talking to your granddad and when I came to the end of my shift I thought it was the best day of my working life so far. I actually looked forward to going in the following day and, when I picked up my cleaning trolley, Mrs Dickens asked me if everything was okay. I told her that Mr Roberts was a lovely, old gent and she agreed, telling me to make sure I didn’t skive as she knew from experience what it was like when he started chatting.

On the third day, something odd happened. A stapler struck my leg whilst I was working on the fourth floor. Then pens and other items started to fly about. I ran into the lift and sought the safety of the security desk. I told Jim what had happened so he went up the stairs to patrol the floor to reassure me. Fortunately, the rest of the evening passed without incident.

I didn’t tell Mrs Dickens about the airborne stationery as it seemed ridiculous the following day. Nor was I looking forward to the new roster and returning to the main office block. I even considered asking Mrs Dickens if I could work in the Spenser Block permanently, especially if some of the other cleaners would rather avoid it because of its reputation.

My final day began as usual. However, between the third and second floor, the lift lurched, then stopped. Five minutes passed and the lift remained stuck. I yelled for Jim as loudly as I could and banged on the door for ten minutes or so, although it seemed longer, but there was no response. I tried the internal phone and reached an automated message that said help would be on the way as soon as possible. Then I started to panic. Where was Jim? Had he been attacked by robbers? Had they disabled the lift? I settled in the corner, my cleaning implements arranged around me as an arsenal. In the meantime, all I could do was wait.

Time dragged on and I fell asleep, then I heard noises outside and I started to bang on the lift door again. I heard scurrying then someone asked me which floor I had got in on. Eventually, I was rescued from my metal cell. As I sat in Mrs Dickens’ office, surrounded by firemen, I asked after Mr Roberts but Mrs Dickens shushed me and gave me a strong cup of tea. When we were alone, I tried again and asked why Mr Roberts hadn’t heard my cries for help. She gave a big sigh then told me the story. Mr Roberts couldn’t go into the lift lobby as that was how he had died several years ago. He had been stuck in the lift, as I had been, when he suffered a fatal heart attack, but he continuer to linger round the building as he liked to feel useful. Then she asked me, had I experienced things flying around at all? I just stared at her. She told me that they were poltergeists who liked to tease new staff, so Mr Roberts goes up and sorts them out. That was why none of the office workers stayed late.

So, my fledgling career as a cleaner came to an abrupt end. I applied for a place at college and worked in a betting shop to tide me over. Once I had qualified, an opportunity arose in that company but, strange as it may seem, I was never tempted to return.”

The interviewer gave Mandy a long, hard stare, unable to determine whether she was telling the truth or whether she was spinning a tale for the magazine. Who knows?

Outside it was raining.  From  his 42nd story office Dan could see the rain actually falling, which, when he thought about it, seemed eerie.  Birds flew beneath him, he had seen the tops of birds in flight and had almost gotten used to the sight, but the rain, every single time it rained, made him wonder why he made it, why he was the one above all the others, and often it would make him think of all those above him still in an envious, nearly jealous way.