What is... Flash Fiction?

Mitchell Warren describes Flash Fiction as “short, funny and allowed only so much pathos before the word count is up. Like a stand-up comic graduating from an hour-long show to an eight-minute set on a late night talk show, flash fiction is a ceremonious demotion to professional writing. Readers of flash fiction are demanding, overly critical, and of course, are only humbly asking to be entertained.”

I love this stuff… there’s some real gems. But for all the ones that make you laugh, cry or blanch in horror, there a ten that just don’t quite succeed. I’ve tried a couple of times but can’t get do it, it takes more talent than I’ve got :)

So here’s some fun examples…

The first two are by Giles Hobbs and can be found at http://www.mystorypage.com/flashfiction_one_hundred_words.html


The Sale (only 100 words!!)

"Nice car! Can I buy it?” He asked.
“Now?” I say.
“Now, including everything in it. I’ll pay you double what it’s worth.”
I look around the car, finding nothing of real value.
“OK” I say, “but I need to get home first.”
He follows me home and I sign a hasty contract whilst sat in the driver’s seat.
Inside my house my dog starts barking as I hand back the contract.
In his hand the man holds a studded dog collar.
“My dog wasn’t in the car!” I protest.
“Your dog wasn’t.” he says and reaches for my throat.


Wild Horses (only 100 words!!)

When the hooves strike and splinter your front door with a crash, your body will freeze. The familiar clip-clop, out of place on your stairs, will seem less benign than you remember. Then near silence, hooves muffled by carpet as you wait, unsure if you’re dreaming, terrified, until the large equine head finally peers around your bedroom door. “What did I ever do to you?” A stupid question. Will you really expect an answer? No, because you will know well before it rears it’s hooves above your head, you will know that this horse is in no mood for talking.


Now here’s three by Hugh Cook, beginning with this nasty little horror…

Waiting for the Americans

My wife doesn't like it when I play attack helicopters, though it's a perfectly harmless game. The baby doesn't mind being levitated through the air to the accompaniment of "budda-budda-budda" chopper noises. But I've been told to stop.
So we play "Waiting for the Americans" instead. This is a very quiet game. Your wife may not even be aware that you're playing it. All it involves is a father. Sitting quietly. In a corner. With his daughter. Waiting. For the Americans.
But the Americans do not come, and it's been another long hot month, and the thunder on the horizon is neither war nor rain, merely the discontentment of the sky. One month more, and I still have my wife and baby daughter.
Well. Really. Do I need to wait for the Americans? After all, I have a hammer. And a shovel. And two burlap sacks. And that, I think, is all I really need.


Under the Alien Yoke

When the aliens arrived on planet Earth, one of the first things they did was to ban ice hockey. The aliens were the Glish Galzish, a remorseless race of logicians who were in the process of conquering the known universe in the name of Rational Ethics.
"No ice hockey," they said. "No football. No beer. Everyone in bed by eleven at night, please."
The inevitable result? Revolution. No way, ultimately, to thwart those dreams of ice hockey, of sharpened blades, of blood glistening on the glittering ice. The revolutionaries used a stolen alien space drive to trigger a massive solar eruption which killed ninety per cent of the human race, but effectively threw the Glish Galzish off balance and allowed the revolutionaries to triumph.
Now the invincible starships of the Fans of Sport are fanning out from planet Earth, and the appalled civilizations of the ethicalized are falling before them, unable to contend against the true barbarians -- against the horror, the horror.


Meeting My Agent

So we get together in this restaurant in the World Trade Center, and Ronnie gives me the bad news about the proposal.
"No," says Ronnie.
Just like that. Flat no.
"Why?" I say.
Thinking to myself: I need the advance, you bastard!
"It's just not credible," said Ronnie. "They out the spy? For, like ... what's the word? Pique?"
"Yeah," I say. "It's refreshing, original."
"No," says Ronnie. "It's not original. It's nutso. The government doesn't out its own spies. We don't betray our own side, not without, you know, motivation. Someone sells out for a million bucks, something like that."
"But that's what makes this so original," I say. "I've created unique monsters. They've disconnected from ... what can I call it? The protocols of necessity, shall we say. Make sense?"
"No," says Ronnie. "It doesn't."
"The smallest thing," I persist. "The smallest thing, they'll set it up so people are killed, tortured, thrown in jail ... they out her, it's headline news, her contacts get rounded up -"
"Yeah, yeah, sticks in orifices," says Ronnie, impatiently, cutting me off. "That's your problem. You're just wacko. You're just too much into this stuff. I mean, this is one sick fantasy. People getting disappeared, beaten up, deported off to these, these - "
"Torture camps. The overseas torture camps."
"Yeah, that. And the bit about the guy with the gunshot wounds ...."
"That's just how I see it," I protest. "You know my ethos."
"Yeah, yeah," says Ronnie. "The reality thing. But you gotta accept, this isn't reality, this is just, like I said, just -"
"My demented imagination."
"Yeah, that."
And, five minutes later, Ronnie is gone. Leaving me with the bill for the dead duck and the oyster shells. Alone in the restaurant, looking out at the view of the blue sky and an airplane.


…and to finish off, here’s two by Jared Axelrod…


Invaded

We think large. We may be small creatures to you, but our lives extend far beyond the miniscule moments you possess. We think large, and we think long.
Have you ever looked at a mosquito, closely? It’s a strange shape, all hunched over and crooked. Even by your insect standards, it is a bizarre creature. And you never realized. It’s one of the few insects that survive your winters. Did you ever wonder why?
It was us, of course. We didn’t have to do much; it was already such a glorious creature. And what with that penetrating…what’s the word? Oh, there it is. Proboscis. Lovely word. Proboscis. What with that proboscis, we had the perfect conveyance.
Naturally, you were still too great in number, so a certain degree of population destruction, a bit of “shock and awe,” if you will, was necessary. What was it you called it? Malaria? How…quaint. If the boys in the infantry don’t already know what you call them, I’ll have to tell them. Sounds like a girl you used to have sex with, doesn’t it? “I just met a girl named Malaria…” The things you people think up.
And all this time, you blamed the mosquitoes! Not totally, I see. You called them “carriers.” Too true. What does that make you then, I wonder?
I do apologize for all the mucous that clogged your throat and sinuses, the aching of your muscles, your general weakness for the past few days. I can see that you thought it was a just a cold, but I feel the need to own up. We’ve become so close, after all. It was me. Your nervous system is surprisingly hard to operate.
Tell you what, before we meet up with the rest of the invasion fleet, let’s go find a girl that arouses you and have sex with it. First one we find, huh? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, boy?
Look, I’m trying to be nice, here. I don’t have to be.
After all, your world is ours. From the first time you coughed, you had already lost.


How Much Will You Take?

With each stroke of the knife, I knew he loved me.
It started with my nipples, him telling me how much he loved me and how sexy I would look without them. He touched my face as he did it, cooing and kissing my forehead and telling me how much he loved me. He kissed away every one of my tears and held me within his powerful arms as I bled.
For six weeks there was no mention of knives. My heart leapt every time he looked at me, a joy and longing in his eyes. The six weeks after I gave up my nipples were quite possibly the happiest of my entire life.
But the seventh and eighth and ninth passed, and he grew distant, moody. He would spend nights away from the house and return drunken and grumbling. One night, I asked what was wrong, and what I could do to help him.
And so the knives came out again.
He shaved my head, including my eyebrows that night. Soon after, all of my hair from my body was removed through his amateur electrolysis. He took off my nose with one clean slice and, using a device I didn’t recognize, sealed up the wound and made it smooth to the touch, as if nothing had ever been there. I could only breathe through my mouth, and told him so, panicking. He just smiled, kissed the smoothness in the center of my face, and told me I was beautiful.
My toes and fingers took nearly two months, one joint at a time. He took similar relish with each of my teeth. He said he was sad when he went for my crotch, but I saw how happy his eyes were and how his hands shook with arousal as he smoothed out my groin.
He used that same device to seal off my sockets after he cut out my eyes. He also used it to fuse my ass cheeks, and later, my mouth leaving only a small hole in each case. I heard him laugh and tell me how sexy I looked. He kissed me all over, and made jokes about how easy it would now be to confuse my two ends. He sounded so happy.
One night -- or what I assumed was night, at the very least -- he drew a heart on my smooth chest with his finger. He told me it meant “I love you.” Then he cut off my ears.
Between long stretches of nothing, I would suck vitamin-enriched water from a straw he would press against lips and feel his strong fingers all over what was left of my naked body. I was too weak to react physically, but I reveled in his touch and the way traced that heart on my chest over and over. My life was spent this way, waiting for these moments.
It is difficult to love a being from another planet, but there are sacrifices to be made in every relationship. And now my alien lover will never leave me.