flash fiction

The Library’s Tale

Once upon a time, there was a library. The library had three floors, each with its own distinct personality, although the decor was very similar in all. There were wooden tables, wooden chairs, some beanbags and many shelves of books upon books.

The library liked its function and enjoyed being useful to people. It knew that it was even a comfort to many, and that felt good. But there were two periods of time, three weeks each, that came every year, and which the library dreaded.

These were the weeks when its doors remained open twenty-four hours a day. Most of the time, it got at least seven hours of peace and quiet every night, and while its doors were shut it could breathe in peace and maybe even nap, allowing the books to whisper among themselves and the wooden tables and chairs to stretch their legs and take strolls up and down the aisles before becoming stationary again in the morning.

None of that could happen during those three week periods, though. Instead, the tables and chairs cramped up from the need to stay in the same place for days; the books got bored and sometimes allowed the humans to hear them whispering (which was dangerous); and the library itself, poor thing, began to smell a little bit, to become shabby around the edges, and to feel pale and sickly. Worst of all, though, it had to hear the way the people inside it criticized it, talked about how much they were sick of it and hated it. The library always felt deeply hurt and wounded by this, even though it knew, rationally, that the people didn’t actually mean it; they were only taking their frustration out on the library because they didn’t know it was sentient.

So the library took it, year after year, but it always dreamed of one day allowing itself to expel – with a violent shove out the door – all those spiteful people who decided to curse it for their own need for all-nighters.

Method

Amber imagined what it would be like to be a stone. She sat on the park bench, shivering in the cold, even though it was sunny. Recruiting her mental powers, she attempted to understand the ornamental gray stone that lay across the path. She wanted to empathize with it.

Where was it from? Was it cut away from a rock-face thousands of miles away? Or had it been dug up from a nearby construction site and had its sharp edges smoothed out? There were too many things that Amber didn’t know about the stone, and they were getting in the way of her really penetrating its frame of mind. She became frustrated, and stared at it harder.

Maybe if she curled up on her side and looked at it that way, she would do better. She tried the new position for a while, but still felt herself drawing a blank.

“Damn it!”

She sat up again. She stared some more. The stone stared back. It was being purposefully infuriating. It didn’t appreciate being empathized with. It saw itself as a tragically misunderstood stone.

The Writer’s Typewriter

Forgotten bills lay scattered on the kitchen table, surrounded by banana and orange peels. The room stank of rotting fruit and the sickly sweet smell of plants that have been shut up inside for two long without any air-flow. Ants crawled along one wall, sniffing out the grains of sugar that were sprinkled all over the counter and carrying it back to their nests in orderly lines. The lamp, left on for so long, flickered feebly, not quite yet burned out, but definitely getting there.

Robert L. Cove sat at the table, unmindful of all this. He had a typewriter in front of him, and his fingers were hitting the keys madly. Every few hours, one of the keys seemed to break and he would growl in frustration and take out his specialist’s kit. He had to fix it right away, or the words, the people, the story in his mind – all of it would disappear. He couldn’t type on anything else. He couldn’t write with pen and paper. It had to be this particular typewriter, the one that his grandfather had given his mother who had given it to him. It was superstitious to think that it was the secret to the Coves’ success, but Robert L. Cove couldn’t help being superstitious in this instance, even though he openly laughed at anyone who fear black cats or walking under ladders.

It had started with a dream; all his books had started this way. He would wake up and remember the dream in its entirety, know that he would have to begin writing now, immediately, or else he would lose it forever. He had been writing for six days almost non-stop. When he got up to get food or go to the bathroom, he spoke aloud to himself the sentences that he was going to write the minute he sat down again. The naps he took were no longer than twenty minutes every few hours, because anything longer would erase his memory of what was coming next. He also didn’t want any other dreams intruding on the one that originated a story.

When he finally finished the draft, usually within some two weeks of the dream, it was as if he was waking from a trance. He would be disgusted with his own smell, with the way his apartment looked, with the invasion of bugs that seemed, inevitably, to follow each of these sessions. He would clean vigorously before falling into a deep, restorative sleep that usually lasted twenty-four hours or so. Then, collecting the manuscript, he would meticulously care for his typewriter, load a new ribbon into it, and store it away carefully for the next time he needed it.

Laboratory

“Blaming me won’t work, you know. It’s not my fault.” I can feel the flush rising in my cheeks. I know that I’m right on this. It really isn’t my fault. But then why are my legs shaking? Why am I so nervous?

“You were supposed to be watching, you were supposed to be waiting, you were supposed to be doing your job!”

“I was! I was here the whole time! Listen, no disrespect or anything, but if whatever it is you were doing here didn’t work, it’s certainly not on account of my not being here.” I shut my mouth quickly. I’ve never spoken to him like this. I can’t believe I lost my temper. I back up, even though I want so badly to stand my ground, to be firm for once.

His eyes twinkle in the strange light of this place and I feel as if there’s something building inside him that’s going to explode. The liquids on the wall reflect and break the odd lighting into a hundred shades of color, but the magic and beauty of it has been lost for me in the fear that I feel whenever I’m here at the same time as he is.

He turns around and goes back to the workstation where the apparently unsuccessful results of his handiwork sit, bubbling eerily. I watch him, and wonder if I’m ever going to get out of here or if today is the day he locks me up and cooks me for dinner.

Flight

Flying was not new to Gretchen Mckenna, but it was always wonderful. Adjusting herself, she wheeled to the right, feeling the leap in her stomach as the small craft dipped and caught the next thermal. Her feet resting on a poll behind her, at the bottom of the wingspan, and she felt the inevitable itch that she always seemed to get on her calf at some point during flight. She forced her mind away from it and concentrated on watching the fields below her for a convenient place to land. She didn’t want to flatten a whole row of beautiful corn plants if she could help it.

The sky was a magnificent blue above her, and it seemed impossible that below, on the ground, there was anything wrong with the world. She wondered perversely whether it would be possible to simply exist without any human companionship; maybe then she’d never, ever, need to be exposed to the meanness, the smallness, the pettiness, the stupidity and callousness of those around her. She knew that a fifteen-year old girl shouldn’t be as negative and as done with life as she felt she was already, and she was guilty about that.

If she’d been at all suicidal, she could have snapped herself out of her harness and fallen to her death any time during this and all her other flights. But she had a deep will to live and find something better, something worth living for. She was determined to find it. The family she was born into was all wrong for her; they were bigots, they spurned any kind of education and laughed at her pleasure in reading, they encouraged her to be a “normal” girl and go out to parties where she would get plied with alcohol and lewd offers. There weren’t parents or siblings like she had in most of the books she checked out of the small, rural library that she spent her time in.

A draft carried a scent of damp earth from below and Gretchen realized her mind had wandered and she was getting closer to the ground in her circling. She found an empty expanse of weedy field to land in. She wasn’t looking forward to the long trudge home, lugging the surprisingly heavy craft behind her, but she dreaded even more arriving home and hearing her family berate her for being gone all day, again.

One day, she thought, I’ll fly away for real.

Burden

When the ambulance sirens sounded, I turned over and put the pillow over my head. Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention, but I was scared I knew where they were coming from and the guilt was eating me up.

He said he would kill her. But he said it every day. Still, I probably should have told someone about how his eyes seemed to have fire in them when he said it this time. But who’d believe me, huh? Everyone here is threatening to murder someone. We’re all angry, all the time, and can you blame us? Living on less than minimum wage salaries, half of us not even knowing English real well, needing to raise our children in a place where they can see people shooting up on ever corner – wouldn’t you be angry?

I paid attention in school, though. I knew that talking a bit nicer would get me places. And that makes me angry also, because we all understand each other here, so why can’t the world try to understand us too? Why can’t they start talking like us, huh? Anyway, that doesn’t matter right not. That’s not the story I’m telling.

The story I’m trying to tell is about how those sirens woke me up and how I thought I knew that what he kept threatening had finally happened. But I didn’t know what to do about it. Someone had already called 911, right? So the cops would show up in a bit, and I wasn’t going to go talk to them and squeal right there in the open where everyone could see. Nah, people who do that end up dead all too quick. But I did need to know if what I thought was happening was actually happening.

I pulled on my sweats and a sweatshirt and checked to see that TJ was still sleeping on the couch. He’s my brother. The kids were asleep, too, and I knew that if one of them started crying, TJ would get up and go take care of them. He was good about that sort of thing. He liked being a good uncle to them when he remembered that there were things to life other than booze. Poor guy.

My face looked nasty without the makeup that I use to keep it fresh, but it was night and no one would see me. So I went downstairs, and walked to where I heard the sirens coming from. Just as I started though, they must have gotten to where they were going because they shut up. My heart was beating so quick that I can’t describe it. I knew where to walk even without the sound.

There were plenty of people outside of the apartment building. This area’s never empty, even at night. Some people live only after the sun goes to nap. Sure enough, I saw the medics sitting around and smoking, and I knew what that meant. That meant that they were waiting on the cops now, that there was someone dead in there and not dead cause of nice old age. Nah, there’d been a murder here.

I didn’t go too close. I didn’t want anybody to remember me. I wanted to wait for the cops in the shadows and tell them that I knew who did it. But I sure wasn’t going to tell them that I could have stopped it. That was my own burden to bear.

Worrier

The trembling in the barman’s fingers was noticeable when he brought the next round of drinks to their table. Tabby, the tall brunette who had been eyeing him up all night, spoke up.

“Hey man, you okay?”

“What?” He set down her drink, sloshing some of the brightly colored liquid out onto the table, distracted by the question more than by his hands.

“Your hands. They’re shaking. Everything alright?”

“Of course,” he said, fixing a grin on his face. “Sorry about that,” he pointed to the spilled drink, “I’ll get a rag. Just a sec.” He hurried back to the bar, and Tabby turned to her girlfriends.

“Something’s not right with that guy.”

“Shut up, Tabby, you’re drunk. Also, you’re a fixer.” Joanna was big-boned but lanky, and she was the drunkest of them all at that particular moment. She didn’t notice the way her words were slurring together or how her eyelids were already drooping a little.

Tabby rolled her eyes at Kate and Gina. “If I’m drunk, then you’re a lobster,” she muttered under her breath. Joanna didn’t hear her. She was digging in her wallet for a couple quarters for the old-fashioned jukebox in the corner. “No, but seriously,” Tabby continued. “He’s shaking.”

“I didn’t notice,” Gina said. She shrugged, a dramatic feat that caused her to immediately hitch up her shirt so that nothing would spill out. Kate wasn’t listening to any of them; she had her face buried in her phone and was alternately typing and staring intensely at the screen as if it would grant all her wishes. Tabby raised her eyebrows at Gina and gave Kate a pointed look. Gina rolled her eyes and mouthed “They’re fighting again.”

Some girls’ night out this turned out to be, Tabby thought. Joanna’s drunk already and is going to fall asleep in five minutes, Kate’s having the same old relationship issues as always, Gina is in one of her quiet moods and I’m still stone-cold sober. And worrying about a barman who I’ve never met before.

The barman came back with a rag and wiped the spill. His hands were still shaking. Tabby stared after him. She hoped he was okay.

Town Fire

When the fire was finally put out, the townspeople began to walk among the ashes of what used to be their homes, their livelihoods, their belongings. Thankfully, there were no dead bodies among the ruins, but the twisted and scarred beams, the fragments of beloved old furniture and the stray blackened tool or child’s toy seemed almost like the severed limbs of loved ones.

A child ran into a hollow house, crying. His mother had hardly recognized the place as her own dwelling until he’d shouted and run inside. Now she watched in horror, locked in place by fear, as he began to climb the half collapsed staircase that led to the second floor. Her eldest daughter, who had been walking behind, holding the youngest of the family on her hip, thrust the baby at her frozen mother and ran after the child inside.

“Esav! No!” She snatched him up from the third stair and ran out of the house. As she stepped out of what used to be the front door, a loud crack sounded and a beam tumbled down inside, bring down half the second floor with it. Her mother clutched the baby so hard that the tiny thing began to cry, sensing its mother’s desperation.

“Hush, hush there. Hush now.” the mother snapped out of her stupor and patted the baby’s back. Tears ran down her face in a mixture of relief that her boy was safe, shame that she hadn’t done anything and pride that her daughter had.

They continued to walk through the town, looking for a place to shelter, along with everyone else.

The Circus

The flyers were posted everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It was ridiculous. There was even one taped over the sink and when I brought my cereal bowl into the kitchen to wash it, I had to rip it off an throw it away. Late that same night, when I took my bowl there again, a flyer was taped there again. It really was ridiculous.

THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN

That’s all the flyers said. But nobody had heard of any circus. Nobody knew what the flyers were talking about. And, mind you, it really was as if the damn things were speaking, shouting even. The college’s staff was getting annoyed; they thought the students were playing a prank. They held a few meetings, asking us all to quit it, to stop posting flyers where we weren’t supposed to. If anything, the flyers seemed to be even more numerous after those requests.
But I knew something was coming. I knew something was going to happen. I waited, holding my breath, feeling the clouds of destiny gather over the campus. I knew that the circus would reveal itself; the question wasn’t when or even how. It was why.

Paige [Flash Fiction]

Paige Crandall was frequently to be found standing on the docks, her short hair ruffling up a little in the breeze, a cigarette grasped loosely between the finger and thumb of her right hand. Her hair had gone grey early in life; she couldn’t be much older than forty, but with a head of steely bristles. Her clothing was an almost daily uniform of overalls over a white men’s t-shirt. In the winter, she’d wear a thick black coat over that, but it was usually unbuttoned, and the overalls and t-shirt could be seen underneath.

Nobody knew what to make of her. The residents of the dockside neighborhood knew her both by sight and by name, but none could quite recall how or when they’d ever met her, even though she knew all of them perfectly, and on her way home from the docks would often call out to them, asking this one how his wife fared and that one whether her son was coming home from boarding-school soon. She was friendly, you see. Positively charming, in her own way, although her smile was always tired and her eyes were careworn.

She lived in a small apartment above what used to be stables, but, of course, there were no horses there anymore. The stables were converted into a garage, and that was where Paige worked, mending old engines and changing tires. Everyone said she was the best mechanic in town. Some wondered why, in a dockside city like theirs, she mended cars and not boats. She liked the docks so much, they said, so why didn’t she want to work there?

There used to be rumors about her. People said that she took lovers often. They said she was a feminist. Some said she’d had a family once but that they’d been in an accident – whether they drowned or were killed in a car crash was greatly disputed. Someone said that she’d never had a family of her own but had been single for a long time. Nobody knew the truth, and eventually, they grew tired of talking about it. She was so nice, never hurt a fly, that there didn’t seem to be much point in speculating anymore. It would only lead to circular, pointless arguments, and besides, there were more interesting people moving in all the time for the neighborhood bar-frequenters to talk about.

Paige knew that it wouldn’t last, though. Her past was coming, she knew, and it would come from the ocean. When it did, when it caught up with her, the rumors would start flying around again. She only hoped that people would remember her kindness and interest in them when that happened.