Flash Fiction

The Ed Bryant collection of short stories included a few which were VERY short, which reminded me of an old collection I have called "Short Shorts" (1982) edited by Howe and Howe, which includes a lot of famous authors doing 2-3 page stories.  After the success of the Bryant collection I decided I wanted more "short attention span" reading.

Turns out "short shorts" has become a genre now, called "flash fiction."  There are magazines and collections galore devoted to it.

So I ordered three collections: Flash Fiction International (2015) with 86 stories, The Best Small Fictions Of 2017 (55 stories) and Flash Fiction (1992, 72 stories). 

Can't wait to dig in.

Ultra-short stories are definitely a thing that's been around for ever, but it's a specialty that not many authors excel at. I didn't realize it was becoming fashionable (again).

In the science fiction genre, Isaac Asimov produced a few good ones, many years ago.

Reading extremely short stories is like wine tasting.

You take a sip, rolling it around in your mouth..... You imagine the grape fields, the lush summer sun, the smell of the loamy dirt.  You imagine the vintner, testing, holding the precious liquid up to the light, taking in its aroma.  He takes a sip.

And you swallow.  The wine is done.

You have to pause a full minute to cleanse your palate before reaching for the next wine.

I started with the international book. So far, some of them are EXCELLENT, some are good, and some are meh.

Maybe they don't translate.

Paul Lisicky wrote:

Snapshot

My mother is touching her forehead, throwing her green eyes into shade.  Her mouth is pink, her hair blonde like wheat.  She is tanned.  She is the best-looking woman on the beach even though she will never acknowledge it.  She has wrapped her long body in an aqua sarong and is counting, waiting for the camera to flicker shut.

My father's arm weighs down her shoulder.  He is muscular, his stomach flat as a pan.  He looks full ahead into the future, he is pretending he is with my mother but he is already in Florida, developing new cities, pumping the mangroves full of sand. He sees himself building building building.  He will be healthy.  He will have good fortune.  And years in the future, after his Army buddies have grown soft and womanish, all his hard work will pay off: people will remember his name.

Their shoulders touch.  Their pose says: this is how young couples are supposed to look -- aren't we the lucky ones?  But my mother's head is tilted.  What is she looking at?  Is she gazing at the tennis instructor by the outdoor shower, the one with the gentle hands who will teach her to unlearn things?  Or can she already hear, twenty years away, the shockingly-loud sound of the gun my father will use?

With slight revisions by me.

Pamela Painter wrote:

The neighbors are at it again, is what Joey says.  Just what his father would say. And just like his father, Joey shuts off all the lights, peels back the curtains over the sink, and settles in to watch the show.

The kitchen table is piled high with laundry, and I fold in the dark as I sit here listening to Joey describe what is flying out the Angelo's windows.  So far it's plates, clothes, poker chips and a fishing rod.  "Jesus, Mom, Mr. Angelo threw out the toaster.  Wait'll dad hears that."  He turns to ask if I remember when Mrs. Angelo flattened a whole row of my tomatos with a bowling ball.

I tell him it's past bedtime but he just gets his nose closer to the window to identify the next objects to exit the window.  They keep lists, Joey and his father.  Things thrown, sounds effects made, grievances aired.  Tonight it started with Mrs. Angelo's mother's visit, and moved on to Mr. Angelo's unfinished basement projects and his late nights at places unknown.

"Wow," Joey says as Mrs. Angelo yowls one of her favorite four-letter words. "Where's Dad?  He should be seeing this."

Tonight I'll have to tell him.  The streetlight glints off our toaster, safe and sound and plugged in on our kitchen counter.  I think: me and Harry, we should take lessons from the Angelos.  I admire the way they fight, everything flying out the windows in a most public way.  But after everything's said and done, they stay together.

With minor revisions by me

Inspired to try one of my own.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Sin-Eaters

"Here, take some socks," Tami said. "It looks like yours have some holes."

The man, old, tired, dirty, in need of a bath and a shave, took the socks without comment. He could not even look Tami in the eye, so deep was his shame. The socks went into his overcoat pocket, where they poked out against his bare skin. He looked beyond Tami, hoping she'd move on.

She hesitated a moment, but finding no connection she decided not to push it. She'd been spit on, pushed over, kicked, threatened and called a lot of names already today, so her will to insert herself into these lives of quiet desperation was flagging. Just hand out the thrift store clothing she'd bought, she thought to herself, and move on. You can't save everybody.

Tomorrow she'd come back with something warm to eat. A pot of warm soup perhaps, or a meatloaf. That usually got a better reception. She knew most of the men, by face and reputation if not by name, and by-and-large they were a tough but gentle bunch. If she got there early enough she could give most of them the beginning, at least, of a good meal. From the looks on their faces she could tell that was something.

Six days a week for a couple months now Tami had made these rounds. She'd learned, slowly and painfully, that conversation was rarely offered and never welcomed if not offered. She tried to remain cheerful and optimistic, in the face of so many dire circumstances, but there were nights when she came home to her apartment in tears. These were hard times, and these were hard men. Her desire to help them was tested almost every day -- and she came up short.

It took only a few harsh words, or a sullen brush off, for her to feel the pain of rejection all over again. For her to feel the cold lump in her chest, the powerlessness she'd felt when John, her son, had died in one of these camps. It hurt, and she wanted to quit several times per day.

But she owed John and this was her only way to make it up to him.

I've written a half dozen of these now, as the mood hits me.  I have to be "in the mood" where the writing seemingly comes through me, without conscious direction.  This one I wrote yesterday was a total surprise.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Taking God To Lunch

One day I was speaking to God, as I usually do, discussing my day and opining on the things wrong with the world as one does you know, when it suddenly hit me: maybe God would like to go to lunch.

I asked Him, in as casual a manner as I could muster, not wanting to disrespect Him if such an invitation was completely out of order.  

Somewhat to my surprise, he seemed DELIGHTED by the invitation and we quickly made a date for the following Thursday, weekdays being relatively open for the Divine Being.

On the appointed day and hour, He turned up at the agreed-upon bistro, dressed somewhat casually in a cardigan sweater and woolen pants.  I, as usual, wore a pullover with my suede jacket and dark blue trousers.  We found an open table near the back, and settled in for a cozy lunch.

Menus were delivered and I studied mine with my full concentration, not wanting to make my guest uncomfortable by staring.  He, of course, knew exactly what he was going to have without opening the menu.  I selected an arugula salad, He a shrimp louie, and then we faced each other while we waited.

Perhaps due to the casualness of the surroundings and situation, I let down my guard a little bit and began by asking Him casual questions: how was He finding the weather, what did He think of our Prime Minister, would we have an early Fall.  He of course was very sure that Fall would arrive on September 23, at precisely 8:22 a.m. and we should expect a cascade of colours in all of our trees.  I complimented Him, gently, on the gorgeous foliage show every year and He demurred gently as if it were nothing.  On politics He was considerably less forthcoming, and I got the impression He was being fastidiously neutral, as one might in His position.  Our small talk was interrupted by the arrival of our entrées.

I asked Him if he wished any wine, knowing that He employed it in His services and He was keen on a glass of Chardonnay, in which I joined Him.

As we supped and dined, the conversation gradually turned deeper and darker, with Him inquiring as to my state of health and soundness of mind.  I allowed as how the tribulations had left me at somewhat of a loss, and the future seemed quite opaque to me.  He gently reminded my that the future is always unknowable, for mankind, and that this hardly justifies pining about or lethargy.  He assured me that things would turn out the way they turn out, and there was little enough that I could do about it.  Regardless, He chided, one must charge ahead expecting the worst but hoping for the best.

Cheered by His pithy words of comfort, and perhaps not least by the wine, I felt my burden gradually lifting during the meal.  By the time our plates were cleaned I was feeling quite buoyed by our chat, and I told Him so.  He smiled enigmatically, and told me I was quite welcome.

When the bill came I quickly took it, saying it was my treat, and God nodded appreciatively.  We departed the bistro, and once outside I asked Him when I might see Him again, saying again how much I’d enjoyed our little chat.

“Anytime,” he replied with kindness.  “You know where to find me.”

The flash fiction I have liked the best are those short stories that tell a story way beyond the limits of the words, that imply much much more than they spell out.  Stories that make you think, afterwards, and go, wow.  Connie Willis's "The Last Winnebago" is an example, though not a short short story.  Ostensibly it's about a reporter interviewing the owner of the last known Winnebago motor home -- but the world it's set in is very changed from our own.

When "Taking God to Lunch" first poured out of me, it seemed innocuous: a simple story of a devout person having lunch.

But the more I've thought about it, the deeper it seems.  Many devout persons speak of having a personal relationship with god, speaking with it daily as if it were real.  Yet to portray this god as someone you can sit down with for a salad seems sacrilegious.  It points up the chasm between made-up friends and real friends, it lays bare the vacuum of religion that claims you can be friends with a made-up being. And it lays out the pithiness of advice people ascribe to such a "supreme being," which is akin to a street corner fortune teller.  Though ostensibly a pro-religion story, it ends up being strongly atheist -- in my opinion.

Here's another story I wrote in September where I consciously TRIED to imply a backstory.

Quote :

Starry Starry Night

You look up into the vast bright sweep of stars in the sky and think sadly of all the love songs, all the treacly poems, all the sappy adolescent rhymes.  Moon-June.  Moonglow.  Ebb tide.

The future, you say to yourself, will never be the same (but when was it?)  "Unintended consequences"  and all that.  Mankind shooting itself in the foot, once again.  As happens, so often, with our imperfect species.

But never like this before.  The stars are stunning in their heavens.

Nuclear power is still a good idea.  Nuclear waste is still a hazard until the end of time.  These facts do not change.

But what a stupid place to put a reactor.  

The inventor of time travel took a transistor radio back with him to 1677, but having no way to demonstrate it, he was burned as a witch.

NoCoPilot wrote:

The inventor of time travel took a transistor radio back with him to 1677, but having no way to demonstrate it, he was burned as a witch.

That may be the shortest story I ever wrote.

As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate small pleasures even more maybe than the really big ones. A fine meal. A perfect book. A lazy Sunday sitting with my wife doing nothing special.

These are the moments, the beads on a string, that make up our lives. We have the big events -- births, marriages, retirements -- that punctuate the sentences of our life but enjoying the small pleasures along the way is even more important, I think.

Reading these flash fictions is like that. Most of them are not amazing, most of them are not anything I'll remember in a few years. But they're small pleasures, glimpses into other lives, appetizers to a larger meal made up of cruising the appetizer bar. They're perfect little canapés.