The Flash Factory's Sunday 5 to 50/55 prompt words are in bold.
Her final episode of The Mistress at the Bar complete, Dawn exited the hotel with no regrets. It wouldn't take a genius to understand the note saying she was leaving. Her husband would get it. A breeze tickled her cheek as she entered the cab waiting to take her to the airport.
"Where to?"
"Freedom."
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Her Friends Didn't Know
Everyone called her Butterscotch because of her orange hair. She was an all-terrain partygoer. Happy was how her friends described her, until she bid them farewell and jumped from the roof. A crowd gathered on the sidewalk, looked at her as if they cared, called her Dead.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
The Distracted Hostess
*The Flash Factory's Sunday 5 to 50 challenge words in bold.
An anonymous crescendo fills the room as the hostess mingles with the guests. A velvet smile hides her pain. A trial from God, she calls it. She thought she knew her husband, thought he cared about her friends. Nobody’s asked where he is. The police will. Soon. Her smile tightens.
An anonymous crescendo fills the room as the hostess mingles with the guests. A velvet smile hides her pain. A trial from God, she calls it. She thought she knew her husband, thought he cared about her friends. Nobody’s asked where he is. The police will. Soon. Her smile tightens.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Good Lie
First published at Microstory a Week (2011)
My mother sits across from me, a sliver of white slip visible beneath the hem of her wool skirt. She looks out the window of the single room that’s now her home, a question forming in her mind. It’s the same one she always asks.
My answer is the same each time, too. One she struggles to process, but eventually accepts. I can tell her the truth. She won’t remember what I say any longer than she remembers what she eats for lunch. But I don’t. Ignorance is less painful than truth.
I used to regret lying to my mother. Not anymore. The truth might do more damage, like when she shut down after my older sister, Susan, died. I tell mom the truth about Susan, though. A tumor the doctors found too late is more acceptable to a woman of mom’s upbringing than carbon monoxide poisoning, in Germany, in a car, with a married man, while serving in the army.
“Do you know how Kathryn died?” she asks.
I glance at the picture of my other sister, Kathryn, part of a family montage pinned to a corkboard hanging on the wall.
“No, Mom. They never told us what happened.”
I look her straight in the eye, sincere, remorseless, and thank God she’s the way she is.
My mother sits across from me, a sliver of white slip visible beneath the hem of her wool skirt. She looks out the window of the single room that’s now her home, a question forming in her mind. It’s the same one she always asks.
My answer is the same each time, too. One she struggles to process, but eventually accepts. I can tell her the truth. She won’t remember what I say any longer than she remembers what she eats for lunch. But I don’t. Ignorance is less painful than truth.
I used to regret lying to my mother. Not anymore. The truth might do more damage, like when she shut down after my older sister, Susan, died. I tell mom the truth about Susan, though. A tumor the doctors found too late is more acceptable to a woman of mom’s upbringing than carbon monoxide poisoning, in Germany, in a car, with a married man, while serving in the army.
“Do you know how Kathryn died?” she asks.
I glance at the picture of my other sister, Kathryn, part of a family montage pinned to a corkboard hanging on the wall.
“No, Mom. They never told us what happened.”
I look her straight in the eye, sincere, remorseless, and thank God she’s the way she is.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
It Didn't Last
NOTE: Every Sunday, The Flash Factory (a private office at Zoetrope.com) challenges the members to write a 50- or 55-word story using a set of five words. Today's words were orgy, innocuous, window, river, and tarp. Here's my 50-word story.
It Didn't Last
He thought asking her to the orgy was an innocuous proposal. They’d known each other for six months and had been intimate a number of times. He stood by the window, gazed at the river--the water flowing freely--waiting for her response. She remained under the tarp, warm, safe.
It Didn't Last
He thought asking her to the orgy was an innocuous proposal. They’d known each other for six months and had been intimate a number of times. He stood by the window, gazed at the river--the water flowing freely--waiting for her response. She remained under the tarp, warm, safe.
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