Snowed under

(100 word flash fiction)

Her eye sockets are filled with snow. She can feel it dripping into her empty cranium where once had pulsated red-hot rages and electric aliveness. Once. Long ago.

Sliding down her spine, past the throat that had sung arias and screamed with equal intensity. Once.

Through an empty ribcage where her heart had often wanted to burst its bars and explode. Once.

Past a vanished solar plexus that had blazed like a sun. Once.

It collects in her pelvis, where a tiny half-formed skeleton lies, surrounding it like amniotic fluid.

He had not known it was there. Her husband / murderer.

~~~

This time I wrote two stories to the Friday Fictioneers prompt below -

The Christmas present

(100 word flash fiction)

Santa has to walk. The Taliban have killed the reindeer. The elves have managed to escape. But, funding for the arms industry has made them redundant.

Mercifully, the kids nowadays only ask for iPhones.

He approaches the secluded house half covered in snow. In the dawn almost-light, he sees the boy outside the door only when he is up close.

“Merry Christmas, young man!”

He reaches into his bag, retrieves a slim case and holds it out to him.

The boy does not move. A sneer distorts his face.

“This is for babies. What I want is a real gun.” 

~~~

Story for Friday Fictioneers

Viewpoints

In all tests of character, when two viewpoints are pitted against each other, in the final analysis, the thing that will strike you the most is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish... but who went to the greater length in considering the other's perspective.

- Mike Dooley

The other side of nightmare

(100 word flash fiction)

She has the same dream again. Tiled roofs. Walking under stately arches. Cycling through cobbled streets. Waves of happiness surge through her, rising in a crest of joy until it explodes in a burst of euphoria so great, it shakes her awake and sitting bolt upright in bed.

Only, there is no bed. Just a torn mat on a bare floor. Around her, sleeping bodies. Mice in the corners. Cold drafts seeping in through the refugee shelter’s broken windows.

Holes, where the city used to be. Where the bombs fell. The biggest hole inside her where home used to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday Fictioneers story to the photo prompt -

 

© Sandra Crook

Girl, gone

(100 word flash fiction)

She opened her eyes to blackness. No slivers of moonlight peeking through chinks in curtains. Gone were the digital clock numerals. Even the teddy with the glowing, neon eyes was eyeless.

She thought she should feel terror but where her body used to be, there was nothing.

So, she shut her eyes. Light poured down on her through a hole in the blackness. And something else, clumps of earth. A spade flashed in and out of view. She tried to shriek. No sound came. Her throat was full of mud.

She opened her eyes again. The nothingness was more bearable.


~~~~

Entry for Friday Fictioneers the amazing group shepherded by Rochelle. Photo prompt below –

PHOTO PROMPT © Stephen Baum

Views from my window

Winter is here and so is the ice on the mountain ranges. It's such a joy to look at them in all seasons, like an ever-changing kaleidoscope. Right now the reigning colour is white....

winter is here

I try hard to keep the cold 

out of heart spaces

then the rainbow peeks

like a playful child in mirth

chanting 'I see you'