Flash Fiction

Papa

lillian35 Comments

 

It was too much. I should have known.

He’d worn long sleeved shirts for almost fifty years, since the Allies liberated Buchenwald. And so they invited him to come. This new museum, with its hall of portraits so high you had to crane your neck. A pile of shoes and a boxcar, like the one he rode after Kristallnacht. “Get me out,” he gasped.

We waited outside for the walk light. Construction workers poured tar onto new pavement, near the numbered sewer grate. That putrefying smell. His face blanched as he crumpled to the ground. And I knew he was gone.

ce-grate.jpgFriday Fictioneers: 101 words.  Photo by C.E. Ayr

Heaven Sent

lillian36 Comments

Margaret and Kathleen: forever nine years old. Not ones to hold the chalk while others hopped from square to square, they’d met St. Peter at the gates, request in mind.

“Emissary,” was their word for the day that December first. They listened attentively as Sister Mary Kelley used it in a sentence. Henry raised his hand and at that moment, they began to smell the smoke.

And so it came to be. Fifty-seven years later, these cherubic emissaries hovered, waiting by the grave. Soon, a small child would take their hands and be escorted from this world to the next.

jhc5

100 words.  Photo by J. Hardy Carroll and used as this week’s prompt for Friday Fictioneers. Dedicated to those who lost their lives in Chicago’s Our Lady of the Angels Elementary School fire, December 1, 1958.

Panama Worker #898

lillian41 Comments

It was the only evidence left.

He came to build someone else’s dream, a canal between two oceans. One year of back-breaking labor, and then a joyous return to Rosa and young Henry. His pay would ensure simple things they grappled for now. Shoes that fit a young boy’s ever-growing feet, and warm coats for cold winters.

He managed to escape malaria and avoid the brothels. His wiry mud-caked frame always alert. Nimble fingers. Quick legs. Just ten days more. Twist the wires. Set the charge and run like hell. Only this time, hell exploded in his hands.

wired

Photo by Connie Gayer.  Word Count: 98 words.
Flash fiction using this week’s photo prompt for Friday Fictioneers.

Off Course

lillian35 Comments

I’d travelled through time, hopeful to visit the genteel days of Jane Austen’s world. Instead, the calibration mechanism slipped and catapulted me into a reed-covered pond.  Scrambling out of the machine, the corrosion was evident. How far off course had I come?

Sopping wet, I stumbled down the nearby path and came upon them: three young girls writhing on the ground. Suddenly they rose in unison, pointing at an ashen-faced red-haired woman in the surrounding crowd. “It’s her,” they screamed. “She’s the witch! Take her to the pond and test her!”

And they moved toward my beloved machine.

dale-rogerson

Photo by Dale Rogerson.  Word Count: 98
First try at flash fiction using this week’s prompt photo, provided for Friday Fictioneers. Requirements: 100 words or less + photo attribution. Boston is a commuter rail ride away from Salem, Massachusetts — alive this time of year with reminders of its witch trial days! Not sure I’ll continue writing in this genre — but fun to try!