Flash Fiction

Fit to be Tied

How should I lace you up? Should I tie your feet as well as your hands? I should probably strip you first. It will make it easier.

What is that? I can’t understand you with that gag in your mouth. Why are you moaning? We agreed to this.
Am I hurting you?

Fine, I’ll loosen the gag. Is that better?

Excellent.

First I’ll slip off your tie. Mmmm, silk. I love this tie. Now give me your hands and lean forward so I can tie your hands behind your back. What, you want them at the front. I… don’t think so. And lift your ass so I can pull down your… oh yes, you’re into this, aren’t you?

Stop struggling or I’ll truss you up like a pig. You don’t like that idea? No, I didn’t think you would.

First your hands. There we go. And then your feet. So nice of you to take off your shoes and socks at the door. Ah, yes, that’s right. You were expecting sex, weren’t you?

So glad we agreed that if I caught you cheating again I could do whatever I want to you.

Your lovers? I think I might have tripped one of them up on her way out the door. There were three of them after all, waiting here in my bed for you to get home from work, weren’t there? Apparently none of you were aware that I was home sick but still doing your laundry in the basement.

So where shall I begin?

Did you get the garden sheers back from being sharpened like I asked you to? I was getting blisters from trying to cut the hedges with dull blades. You did? No? I think you’re just saying that.

Never mind.  I just emptied the water out of the high-powered Shop Vac I bought you for Christmas last year. It took me only three hours to empty the basement after the flood last night while you were out with the boys. I tell you man, that thing sucks so hard you could use it to pull the dandelions out of the ground, roots and all. What, not the sucking you were looking for this afternoon?

For God sake stop trying to scream. We agreed to this, remember?

What’s that you’re saying? You’re sorry? You certainly look sorry.

Just a minute, there’s someone at the door.
….
….
….
Good news. It’s your mother!

Originally posted in 2013 on The Community Storyboard.

Just A Day in the Life of a Villain, Volume 1

“I’m sorry Mason, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to terminate you. You just don’t have what it takes.”

Mason stared at the dank, dripping wall of the cave, in shock. It couldn’t possibly the last time he’d see the inside of this place. His job had been his life.

“But sir…” he began.

“I’m sorry,” Master Humpsmadinck repeated.

Mason stood. He stared at the man who had been his boss – his savior.

“You may as well just take the bicycle.” Master Humpsmadinck said.

Mason’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “Seriously? You’re going to let me just… take it?”

“You may as well,” Master glared at him through lowered eyebrows and his upper lip curled. “I can’t exactly use it now, can I?”

Mason thought of the Master, with his cape flying behind him, riding the bike and he let out a little giggle. He jumped when his superior slammed his palm down on the desk.

“I don’t understand what you thought you were doing!” Humpsmadinck’s face nearly glowed as his colour rose in his cheeks. Mason had never seen him this angry before.

“But sir… you told me to bring him back here.”

“Mason, how many times do I have to tell you? You DON’T carry a dead body on a ten speed!”

“But it was wrapped in a black garbage bag…”

“And that’s supposed to hide the fact that it’s a 200 pound dead man? What if the cops had followed you back here?”

“I didn’t think of that…”

“Exactly!” Master screamed, his voice cracking. “You don’t think! Now I’m going to have to reanimate the man you brought back here to do your job. Do you know how much work that is?”

“I can help you!” Mason said hopefully. He was genuinely shocked when Master began to laugh.

“You have to be joking! You? Help me reanimate a man you just brought back to the office in a garbage bag on a push bike? Puhlease!

“Get out of my sight.”

Mason’s jaw dropped. “That’s it? You’re just going to let me go?”

Master smiled. “That’s right. Thank you for reminding me. I said you would be terminated, didn’t I?” And with that he pulled a gun out of his desk drawer and shot Mason in the chest.

Fishin’ Pole Blues

Inching toward the prize, I’m almost there. I can see it. Hell, I can smell it. It’s almost within my grasp.

It’s been a long road to get here. Years I’ve toiled; miles I’ve traveled and hours I’ve spent thinking about it when I haven’t physically striven to arrive right where I am. Right now. Right here. Just another…

It’s…

Gone.

“Mom! That other horse ate my carrot!”

Out of the Frying Pan – Flash Fiction Challenge: Bad Parents

Sturgis peeked out from the closet and watched the faint line of light between his bedroom door and its jam flicker as the bodies passed back and forth. The fishy smell of his own pee, puddled and dried and puddled again on the shag carpet underneath him filled his nose. He’d tried to go in his shoe but it leaked. At least the screaming had stopped.

The men with the black coats with POLICE came in a while ago. Some of them spoke in low voices, while others laughed and said bad words. Sturgis wondered when they would finally leave.

It started the way it always did. Mom dressed up in her shiny silver pants that showed all her lumps and creases, and shoes that made her almost as tall as a man. She piled her hair on top of her head and painted her eyes so many different colours that it was hard to tell what colour they were supposed to be. Then she bounced him out the door in her tight sparkly top, her bosom patting him on his head, and into the car for the long, boring drive to Auntie Bambi’s house. The car radio was broken, so Mom sang. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire,”  over and over. He’d never heard the song on the radio before, but Mom seemed to know it. She always kissed him on his forehead and told him she’d be back in three days. Sturgis didn’t know why it was always three days, but it was.

Today was only day one.

Sturgis loved Auntie Bambi the best. She called him Fishie hugged him a lot and told him he was handsome. She always felt soft, and sometimes in the winter she would warm him up by opening her shirt so he could get closer. She said her own little boy, Ralfie, had been just like him before Ralf got scooped up by the cops. Auntie Bambie had given Sturgis Ralfie’s room and told Mom to drop him off any time. He thought Auntie Bambi loved him more than his mom, who told him she hated the city he was named after.

This time wasn’t any different from any other time. After Auntie Bambi was done hugging Sturgis, she always got on the phone and invited a man over. While she waited for the man, she told Sturgis that when he was bigger she’d invite him over all for herself, just like the men. Then she’d send Sturgis to his room, even if it was early. Sometimes she forgot to feed him, but most of the time she called him out to the kitchen and sat him down in front of a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while she and the man went out on the veranda and hid in the corner behind the big piece of wood that was nailed up between the house and the house next door. Once, Sturgis peeked out; he never told anyone what he saw. He just really wanted to forget all that soft white flesh bouncing like Mom bounced, but when Auntie Bambi held him, he remembered what it looked like all over again. Only then it wasn’t so bad.

Sturgis thought about getting out of the closet and telling the POLICE he was there. He almost got up once. But then he thought about all the questions they would ask him, just like on TV. They’d take him to the COP SHOP and interragade him. Mom told him that people who got interragaded got Gatorade, but he thought Mom was just joshing him. Even though Sturgis was pretty thirsty, he didn’t want to leave Auntie Bambi’s house. He thought maybe Auntie Bambi didn’t want the POLICE to know he was there either. Maybe that’s why she’d been keeping so quiet.

The other reason Sturgis didn’t want to be interragaded was because he didn’t want to have to tell the POLICE what he heard. The shouting started before dinner time. He didn’t know the man who came over but the man seemed to know Sturgis. The man kept asking about Mom, and wanted to know where he could find her. He said some very very bad words about Auntie Bambi–even worse than the words the POLICE said when they were joking–and then he started looking for Sturgis. That’s when Sturgis hid in the closet.

Then the big sounds, like firecrakers on Canada Day, went off. And then the sirens brought the POLICE.

Sturgis hoped the POLICE would leave soon. He needed to pee again, and Mom would be mad already that he’d gone in his pants. Usually when he had an accident at Auntie Bambi’s house, she washed his pants and didn’t tell Mom. But mostly he wanted a hug from Auntie Bambi. Her softness would make everything better, like always.

 

Find the Flash Fiction Challenge at Chuck Wendig’s site: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/06/27/flash-fiction-challenge-bad-parents/

 

HRChallenge – Build a City

Dust motes drift aimlessly above empty streets. The air is all but still, and yet newspapers litter every corner, along the curbs, fallen alongside darkened skyscrapers from whence they clung during the sandstorm. The city, an oasis of light and diesel-fueled traffic by day, is still at two am. From the perspective of overhead planes, it appears to have been abandoned by aliens, discarded like shining refuse shit out of a UFO. One lonely two-lane blacktop leads in and out, the yellow lines painted upon it the only colour between the dunes.
By day the city bustles, businessmen march up and down, talking to unseen associates on their headsets like crazy bagmen in designer clothing. They leave their wives at home – few women work in the city. There are no schools for the children. The young are kept hidden by their mothers, lest the ones who placed them in this city – this arid sea-scape of dust – return.

Find the HRChallenge here: http://aopinionatedman.com/2014/06/02/harsh-reality-flash-fiction-challenge-part-1-of-2-create-a-city/

Portrait of the Perpetually Lonely

Romance is in the air. It’s what my horoscope keeps tellin’ me. An’ I keep lookin’, keepin’ on searchin’ for that perfect other. The One.

I see him in ever’ face. Ever’ darn word I read here on these internets. But this one’s gone married, an’ that one’s too darn young. Some of ’em are even the gay. Damn shame that is.

I can only write poetry when I’m done drunk. Well not done done, but you know what I mean. Hafta have some of that wine in me. Not the high falutin’ stuff, jes’ the cheapo crap you get down there at the liquor store. The kind with the twist cap. Don’t take much to get my skinny ass plastered. I get a ragin’ headache goin’ on nex’ mornin’ though I tell ya.

So I was talkin’ to my pal Phil t’other day, an’ I tol’ him I was lookin’ for the The One. An’ he says, well damn, Nessie, I got one! So I cuff’d him right ’round the ear an’ I tol’ him where he could stick his one an’ it wa’n’t gonna be in me. Damn Phil. Hehe. Always gettin’ in a good joke.

Yep. The One. Always searchin’.

Deception (SoCS)

“There’s a daemon in the room. Do you feel it?” asked the low-brow ghost, heretofore referred to as LB.

“No,” answered Marie, “I can’t feel it at all. What makes you say that?”

“There’s a disturbance in the air. It’s like a thousand bats are congregating on my forehead. They’re dancing in the space between my frown and my smile.”

“Wait! Yes, I feel it now! It’s like the rain spattering on the window. The beating of their wings…” Marie sighed, slowly exhaling the tension that LB brought with him. “What will the daemon do to me?”

LB chuckled in the dark, ghostly way she was used to hearing after so many years of visitations. “He will surely rape you if I don’t protect you.

“Come. Come to bed with me and I’ll look after you.”

“But,” gasped Marie, “how will you protect me? You are but a low-brow ghost!”

“You must trust me.” His whispery breath gusted gently against her ear.

Marie acquiesced. She shivered beneath the covers. “Am I safe from the deemon now?”

“Of course.” LB curled up beside Marie and mumbled gibberish to her until she went almost mad.

“Stop it! What is this blue language you speak?”

LB was aghast! “Don’t you recognize it? It is the language of exorcising daemons!”

Marie stared at LB–at least as much of the ghost as she could fathom. He was transparent at best.

“I don’t believe in you!” she exclaimed, at which point he disappeared.

Nine months later, she gave birth to a baby – with tiny horns between its frown and its smile.

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This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

Sunny, With a Slim Chance

Your day began sunny, with a slim chance of showers. You took your umbrella from the stand just inside the door as you left for work, just in case.

Your morning coffee spilled on your white shirt when your secretary bumped into you, while attempting to remove herself from the path of the courier with the large box.

When you returned from the washroom, after rubbing the stain with a paper towel only to spread it farther, you found the box on your desk.

It said open with care.

Annoyed though cautious, you took a knife to the tape, gently slicing it from end to end.

Inside was a package with a note. From me.

Dear you,

On your way home tonight after work you will encounter an Angel. The Angel will walk by your side and tell you to raise your umbrella above your head. When you look up, there will be not a cloud in the sky. But you should nevertheless take heed of the Angel’s words.

Sincerely,

Me.

After a reasonably uneventful afternoon, during which you went out and bought a new shirt and a tie as well, just for the hell of it, you left the office to make your way home.

Along the way, you met an Angel. He wasn’t a conventional Angel. His wings were rather dusty and his face, though swathed in a sheen of beauty, seemed tired.

He asked you to raise your umbrella and you looked up to the blue sky. And then you saw it. The piano, getting closer to the ground as it fell from the 35th storey window of the building you were walking by.

You stepped out of the way just in time.

You don’t know me, but I am he, your guardian Angel.

Tomorrow, when you go to work, please wear a suit of armor.

Smell

“Do you smell that?”

“What?”

“I think something’s burning.”

“You always say that this time of night.”

“What do you mean? What time is it?”

“It’s 11:06.”

“I do?”

“Yes dear.”

“…but, I still smell it.”

“No you don’t.”

“How do you know? You haven’t even sniffed.”

“I don’t need to. I know what it is you’re smelling.”

“Okaaay, so what am I smelling if it’s not something burning?”

“I farted.”

“Your farts do NOT smell like burning. Oh look! There’s smoke coming out of the kitchen!”

“No there’s not.”

“Yes there is!!”

“It’s your imagination. You know what you’re like at this time every night.”

“Fuck you! It’s not me! The kitchen is on fire!”

“No it isn’t.”

“Then what the hell is the light in the kitchen!? You won’t even turn around and look for God sake!”

“I don’t need to. It’s just the cat.”

“What do you mean, ‘just the cat’?!?”

“The cat just came in from outside. You know what the radiation is like out there. So the cat glows a little. Big deal.”

“….”

“Just go back to watching the news. Look, they’re talking about the radiation now.”

“…why is there a bear shaking hands with a fish?”

“….”

“The radiation. Right. Well then, I’m going to bed.”

“Okay dear. I’ll be there soon. Just have to put the cat out.”

JusJoJan 21 – Lioness

It’s a fact of science: bread cools quickly when it comes out of the toaster.

But she sits facing him at the kitchen table at breakfast time and thinks,
Look how weak he is that he allows his bread to cool before he butters it
I used to not see this about him
When we were first married I was so infatuated with him
Now he talks to me about ordinary things
Now I can see that he is less than ordinary – he is weak.
How could I not see his weakness back then?

A week later she had an affair.
A month later she was divorced.

Years have passed and she cannot find that perfect love again that she had at one time with her husband
She grows old but not regretful
For he was weak.
And weakness cannot be tolerated.

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