Flash Fiction Friday

This week I’m reposting a couple of stories I posted elsewhere over the last seven days. The first is my entry for this past weekend’s Janet Reid Writing Contest. It didn’t win, but did get a nod for being “not quite a story but utterly chilling.” When I wrote it, I wondered if it was a story (and Janet is usually strict about that), but I entered it anyway because I liked it.

Janet’s challenge was to compose a story in 100 words or fewer using the words red, death, show, me, and state. The words can be part of bigger words, but must remain intact within those words (“redhead” is okay, “read” is not). Here’s my entry:

“At least it’s better than death!”

That’s what Hersh said, and I can’t argue with that statement. Though death feels close. Breathing at my neck. I smelled him in the cattle train, the reek of seven hundred human sardines jostling through the Polish countryside. That’s the closest I’ve been to another person since I left for the work camp.

Now we stand outside and they order us to strip. Dignity and food—-two things I’ve totally lost track of. They tell us we’re taking a shower. Disinfecting. De-lousing. Nice. I doubt it’ll be warm.

At least it’s better than death.

The inspiration for that story was the recent commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the closing of Auschwitz and the liberation of its prisoners.

The second story was my entry for Flash! Friday’s “Warmup Wednesday.” This wasn’t judged, so there was no winner. It was just for fun as a way to lubricate the creative joints in preparation for their weekly Flash! Friday contest. Since Janet is running another contest this weekend, I thought I’d give it a try.

The Flash! Friday folks usually provide a picture prompt and something that must feature in the piece. For this challenge, the picture was:

and the piece had to mention a superhero. They also restricted the word count to precisely 100, no more, no less.

Here’s what I came up with:

“This is awesome, dude!”

I could hear Michael’s voice in my headset.

“This virtual reality is… so real. Genius! I’m Spiderman!”

Yes you are.

I flicked the switch to mute the microphone.

“How long will the hypnosis last?” I asked Peter. He seemed pleased with his accomplishment, and the wad of bills in his back pocket. If this works, it will be worth every penny.

“Until you say the key phrase: ‘Game Over.’”

I nodded and watched the man who just got away with raping my best friend’s girl scale higher and higher.

The twentieth floor should do the trick.

I hope you have a great weekend. And if this has inspired you to write some flash fiction, check out Janet’s contest, or this week’s Flash! Friday challenge–or both!