Birthday Flash!
Don’t worry, it’s nothing inappropriate. As you may have observed, I’m not doing the April A-to-Z Blogging Challenge this year. For the past three years, I’ve posted flash fiction every day in April for this challenge. This year, however, I wanted to work on stories I intend to sell instead. When I told my wife, she was a little disappointed (awww!), since she enjoyed the stories I posted in previous years. “As long as you post one for my birthday,” she said.
My wife’s birthday was on Monday, but I wanted to wait until today to fulfill my end of the bargain, since I knew articles would post on Tuesday, and I didn’t want her to miss it.
But what to write about? I usually have a word or title prompt, so for today’s story, I turned to the trusty Random Word Generator. Here’s what it gave me:
- square
- curtain
- cork
- socks
- capital
So, here’s my 200 word story using those five words. Happy birthday, wifey! 🙂
The Cheeder’s Dance
It’s the strangest square dance I’ve ever been to, but we haven’t been out for a month, and I don’t want Amy to think something’s wrong. Besides, she says the Cheeder’s Dance is legendary.
The caller, Mary Beth, leads us through some traditional moves, then
“Curtain!”
I’m confused. Is this part of her patter? I stand with the other guys, while the girls dance around us. Amy puts her hands in front of my eyes. Ah, yes—curtain. I get it. As her hands fall away, I smell something familiar. But we start promenading, before I can ask.
“Corkscrew!”
The girls remove scarves from around their necks and waists. Amy pulls one from a pocket in her skirt, then begins twirling it around my head as she circles me. I’ve seen that scarf before, but I don’t recall Amy ever wearing it. And we’re promenading again.
“Now then ladies, take your bleeders, let’s get capital with those cheeders!”
The girls in unison pull switchblades from their socks. Cheeders? It come at me in a rush. The scent on her wrists, the scarf… she knows.
There’s that perfume smell again.
The flash of a blade.
A tug of my hair.
Darkness.
You and John Frain need to get together. For A to Z Challenge, he wrote flash fiction where he’s murdered with the alphabet weapon of the day. Most of the killers were his wife. And now your wife [presumably taking lessons from John’s wife] gets in on the action. And on her birthday too! Good for her, and hope she had a happy day.
Ha! I read John’s stories, and they were a lot of fun. Such a good sport letting his wife bump him off in a variety of creative ways. 🙂 Thanks, Dena!
Oh, square dancing has been the ruin of many a poor guy. You join a long list of husbands before you, Colin. And, it appears, you’ll never get to unjoin them. Great stuff.
Also, I’m curious if you’ve seen the new Writer’s Digest yet?! Inquiring minds…
Thanks, John! Oh my goodness!! I’ve had it sitting on my desk for, what, a week now? I’ve read some of the articles (Barbara Poelle’s column, of course, and Jeff Somers’ column particularly). But only now did I take a more careful look. “Spotted on Twitter”–and there I am!! How cool is that!! I’m in Writer’s Digest!!!! 😀
I presume that’s what you meant…?