Just wanted to drop in for a few reasons, the first being to redirect you all to jamessick.wordpress.com. There you can see everything I'm posting here, plus a few extras.
Flash fiction is fun, a real challenge. Here are some examples of my entries over the past couple of weeks.
Tales from the Slammer 297 words Inventor/Jail/Comedy Jeff Messick
“I don’t understand.” The officer said.
The Inventor shrugged. “I made an app, hoping it would do a certain chore for me, and it did exactly that.”
“And now, you’re in jail.”
The Inventor looked around, sadly. “’Twould appear that way.”
The officer crooked one arm and held his forefinger to his lips in thought. “What is this app, and what is the chore?”
“The app culls information off the web, collates it, and generates news stories from that information.”
“Wait a minute.” The officer said. “You’re a reporter, as well as an inventor?”
The Inventor nodded. “Inventing is a hobby. I make things to help with my day job.”
The officer still looked to be missing something. “The information off the web…who verifies it?”
The Inventor gave a short bark of laughter. “No one! Who cares anyway? The app kicks out stories, which I glance at, then turn them in to my publisher. He runs them in the paper and I get paid.”
“You get paid for doing nothing?”
The Inventor allowed a sly smile. “Wouldn’t you, if you could?”
“Well, yeah, but how did you wind up here?”
The Inventor’s sly smile vanished faster than the truth at a Liar’s Convention. “Well, when you have fake news, from questionable sources, that you haven’t vetted, things can go wrong.”
The officer grinned. “I can see that. Did you miss some information?”
The Inventor’s sad grin returned. “That’s the crux. I reported the truth, verified even.”
The officer frowned. “Who saw it?”
“My son is the Police Chief and apparently doesn’t like it that everyone now knows he’s had a mistress for the past three years.”
“Oh, my.”
The Inventor continued, “Or that he’s been crafting cocaine-laced beer for two years.”
“Good Lord!”
The Inventor sighed. “Or…”
The Purchase 288 words Thief, Mountains, Historical
The elder sat under the tree at the top of the mountain, gazing eastward into the rising sun. He frowned as a coyote padded upward toward him to sit beside him.
“10 of their ‘muskets.’ Said Coyote. “For the land.”
The elder nodded. “And clothing, metals, and tools. We trade for usage, but they consider the land theirs now. They will take it for their own.”
Coyote chuckled. “They will take everything, all across the nations. Your people will be rounded up and placed in specific areas, reserved for your tribes.”
The elder nodded again, a tear tracing his face. “They will steal this land from us?”
Coyote laughed. “No, they will conquer it, and you. You will be set aside and be considered less than a man to them. Eventually, you will build again, but never to regain what was lost.”
“That is as it should be then. We will accept it.”
Coyote scoffed and pawed at the dirt. “How can you accept it? How can you allow these men to enslave you?”
The elder slowly turned to Coyote and smiled. “We will be conquered, set aside, enslaved, but we will remain alive. How many nations slaughter those that stand before them without a second thought? How many nations allow a conquered people to own land, even if the land is not productive?”
Coyote shivered. “Conquerors take, conquered are ground into dust.”
The elder smiled again, a tired, resigned smile. “Yet, this dust we will be ground into will allow us to live. Perhaps, one day, we will teach these newcomers the ways of this world. We may never be equal in their eyes, but their sight will still hold a remnant of our people within them.”
“Let’s see.” He mumbled, searching through the bag. “Flashlight, Magnifying glass, noir hat.”
Everything looked good, all the things his son needed for their school detective play. It stretched the budget to its breaking point, with that harpy taking nearly everything in the divorce. Still, it was for the kid, and that made him feel like he was walking on rainbows.
What had it been about the two of them? It had to have been some sort of animal magnetism, since neither one of them could be considered good-looking. That one evening, near the heather, flowers weighed down by the bees collecting pollen.
He shook his head, sadly. What did it matter? She had felt the key to her future was to leave him. He grimaced, turned in the chair and firmly planted his cane; pushing himself to his prosthetic feet. A decorated war veteran, barely able to scratch a living together for himself, with even less to set aside for his son.
The bulb over the kitchen table flickered, popped, and went out, leaving his already dim apartment in near blackness. He sat back down, feeling the waves of harsh emotion cresting over his darkened heart. Everything…gone.
He reached under the table, to where his old service weapon was securely strapped and pulled the weapon free. What was a life worth? She had sucked him dry of value. What he was living, could it even be called a life?
His boy valued him though. He slowly put the weapon away. Another battle fought, another battle won.
Breaking the Future Jeff Messick Astronaut/Assassination/Alternate History 259 words
She simply couldn’t live. I wrestled with the words and ideas, as my thumb hovered over the button that would send a signal to detonate the device and destroy the lander.
She would come back from the mission, a heroine. Nothing wrong with that, but the events surrounding it was a different story. She would conscript with certain scientists and create The Door, allowing one to travel through time. The abuses of that invention were catastrophic, enough so that I was forced to use it to save us all.
The lander neared its destination, hovering over the distant red sands of Mars, where her unbelievably fortuitous discovery of alien technology would lead to the death of humanity. My thumb twitched, but I couldn’t do it yet. It had to be an accident.
Technological advances through alien artifacts, abandoned a millennia ago by an unknown, possibly dead race, precipitating the end of another. Thirteen years of horror, disease, famine, and nearly any other travesty you could imagine, ate up the human race and spit them out as a footnote.
Any moment, I would hit the switch, saving humanity. The lander neared its target, crossing a ridge before touching down.
I looked out the portal of the ship I was on, a tear tracing down my cheek. She simply couldn’t live, thus, neither could I. She gave us all death, she gave some life. The scales couldn’t come close to balancing.
“Goodbye mother.” I whispered.
I stabbed the button and the lander exploded. I took a deep brea……..
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