Microfiction Monday – 212th Edition
There Is No Pirate Treasure in Indiana
by Zebulon Huset
They knew it wasn’t likely that pirates had made their way as far inland as Indiana, but they still couldn’t wait to find some sort of buried treasure in their back woods. It was in all of the movies. It wasn’t until the girls found a third human femur in the way of their treasure hunting that the police cordoned off the woods, ending their adventures for good—and sparking a lifelong interest in forensics for one sister, and something darker in the second which laid dormant for years until she found a local mentor, years before the police would.
Bernie’s Buyin’
He shouldn’t, but he’s doin’ it anyway.
Bernie can’t afford to sit here, the one bar in this half-horse town, buying the rest of us codgers rounds. I ‘spect we’re drinking grocery money.
“Anything ya like,” Bernie repeats, saluting us, his pals, with a Coors that’s surely gone warm.
Wives’ll soon be after us.
I wonder if this has to do with Annie’s recent passing. They never had kids. It’s just him and that mutt in the trailer out on the prairie.
“You like dogs, don’tcha, Lou?” Bernie asks, an imploring look in his eye. “You like old Buddy, dont’cha?”
Friends With Guns
by F.D. Jackson
The circumstances have suddenly changed; Will had been pounding Caleb in the face. Caleb has the upper hand now, pulling Will across the yard by his dislocated arm, Will howling in pain. Caleb slams Will’s head against the 47 Chevy’s wheel well.
A shot reverberates through the trees. Caleb leans over Will with his head resting on Will’s left shoulder. A hole the size of a child’s hand is just over the spot where Caleb’s heart would have been.
Will is wide-eyed, holding his breath, blood and tissue smattered on his face and in his hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
Manchild
by G.J. Williams
In another life she’s on her way upstairs, her feet bare, the carpet deep. No one’ll say nothing doing. She’ll climb. She’ll run a bath, go for aromatic and take her time, knowing there’s no man sitting on the bottom step. The stairs are clear. Music is a distinct possibility.
This is Why She Never Gets Anything Accomplished
She deftly placed some curves in her sketchbook until the vague shape of an elephant sitting on an overturned classroom wastebasket appeared. She erased the back and redrew, adding skin folds. After she finished water coloring, she signed the piece. That’s when a foot lifted off the page. The other feet followed suit, and the trunk wrapped around her pencil, so she reluctantly released it. The elephant erased itself, letting the colors float out the window.
Microfiction Monday – 211th Edition
Eyebrow
by Brandy Reinke
Blanket around our shoulders, ankles crossed, mine crossed again over the top of yours. The rubber soles of my slippers do not stop the rain that drips off the edge of the roof from seeping through to my feet. The smell of it- wood and wet-is why we are outside. The snick of the lighter in my hand is loud. You watch me bring the cigarette to my mouth.
I hate when you do that.
I hate when you do that, I say back, grateful for the edge of my right eyebrow, how I can make it arch up.
Unbelievable
by Joseph Howse
I mean, who are you gonna believe, the ones in the kitchen or the ones in the dining room? There’s a flambé to light and a grandfather in ashes. He was a yachtsman and a sportsman and a man, oh, man! Quite a businessman. And how many times he shoved her down the stairs. And if she divorced him he’d get the kid.
Endless Grays
by Roman Albertson
Those I met in the other place speak only of gray.
I first sought the ferryman’s advice, and he told me colors were signs of madness. I thanked him, two gold pieces poorer, and wandered from the bank. I followed her voice, fading into my amnesia.
Then you, the mirror, revealed to me my forgotten truth:
I met my end by the venom of love. I rushed to her side, but she moved no more. I drank deeply of poison, and began my search for her. Now I search, trapped in memory, my endless grays traded for love’s taunting ruby.
Practice
by Scott Burnam
Cassie’s always one-third done her tea when she reaches for her Taoist to-do book. She opens to today’s reading with a heading numbered forty-six. There are no page numbers. She never remembers if her bookmark, a piece of red construction site danger tape, is for the left page or the right one. Or maybe, and likely, she never turned the last page.
Uncaring (some review or preview never hurts), she sips, ponders, then puts the danger tape back. She closes the book on her peaceful space to ready for traffic, work, and whatever else she has not yet figured out.
Short Shrift
by F.D. Jackson
The sheriff, needing chest x-rays, arrives at the county hospital. He doesn’t recognize the radiology tech’s face. Eli’s daughter, Frances, sizes him up, arms folded over her chest. She fits him with the shortest hospital gown she can find.
Standing in the doorway, chewing on a sucker, Frances watches the sheriff walk down the hallway. A sad smile forms at the corners of her mouth.
Despite his best efforts, the sheriff’s privates dangle out from under his gown. A small indignity compared to the one that he visited upon Frances’ father–the night Eli died in his jail cell.
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