Flash Fiction 2007

Winner - September/October Flash Fiction Contest

L. J. Pike

"Breaking Bread"

“You ordered better,” my mother says. She flatters to be liked.

So, I insulted to be respected as I grew up.

“Do you remember? Always going through those cafeterias?” I ask.

Not today. Just before noon, she silently guided me toward the trendiest eatery in the mall: Italian-Japanese fusion with a hostess next to a potted rosemary bush pushing bamboo shoots from its top like knuckled antennae capturing the waves of shoppers. As a waiter ushered us past the stained glass divider, my mother whispered, “Order whatever you want.”

“But I liked those trips. I didn’t have to cook,” she answers. “The camping trips were only more work for me.”

“When we saw buffalo,” I say.

“Your father insisted that you see buffalo.”

“And we had buffalo burgers. They just taste like hamburgers. Do you remember the trip to Arkansas ?” I continue. “When the waiters set the table up in front of the receptionist’s desk? We ate in the reception room of a hotel! I had cat fish and hushpuppies.”

“Your father always wanted you to see the country.”

“The table was so long, it pinned the screen door shut. And the man who brought the catfish had the milkiest blue eyes. He lingered by me and touched my hand with his finger when he set down my plate. I was embarrassed. But, I felt pretty for the first time.”

“You were always pretty.”

“He asked me if I wanted more ice tea and I said yes, even though I didn’t. I think he actually had to make it. We waited and waited. I felt horrible when he finally brought the glass. I couldn’t look at him.”

“How do you remember all of that? You’ve seen the world since then Wherever you are, I picture you there. I imagine you with the people you describe. The churches, the temples, the food The food always sounds so good. You should write about food.”

“Just because he thought I was pretty.”

My mother lowers her head and says only that she loves to reread my letters.

“That’s just culture-hopping,” I say. “In the end, it’s all Wizard of Oz. Everything that mattered was here all along.”

She takes a bite of soba noodles with sun-dried tomato sauce as I tell her about the man in Beijing who wanted to sketch my portrait. She watches my mouth, so like Grandma’s. She looks in my eyes and sees herself in China . But I know she wants her daughter to come home. It’s always there, whenever she writes me, whenever I call her, the few times I see her. Years ago, as we crossed a bridge after another day at the mall, she told me that when you can finally go home is when you’ve finally grown up.

She stands at the till, her credit card slipped back in her wallet, and presses her handbag against her chest to stop the flow as she watches me walk toward her with our jackets. Such an effulgent and watery stare, I don’t know how well she sees me through it.

I lift her jacket off mine, but she doesn’t reach for it; she continues to clutch the heavy leather shield that’s meant to block the blow.

“Don’t come back,” she whispers.

She gasps a period to the sentence. Swallowing her hope.

I look at her and see her, perhaps for the first time. And understand that she has seen me.

And now I’ve seen myself.

____________________________________________________________

Honorable Mention - September/October Flash Fiction Contest

Scott Bell

"Vagrants"

"Yeah screw you too buddy, why don't cha leave the kid alone!" said the passing stranger before rejoining the others, all walking in singular direction along the crowded thoroughfare.

"He chooses to be here!" the old man yelled back.

Scott quickly hid his face between his knees. The old man sitting next to him shot him a sideways glance in time to see his cheeks glowing like a freshly stoked poker.

He laughed, seeing Scott's embarrassment at their exchange, not giving a square squat about his tender, new-to-the-streets feelings.

The old man (Snipe as Scott would come to call him) tapped his last cigarette half way out the pack's torn opening, raised it to his mouth and patted down his pockets for matches, figuring to light it off the kid's hot face if he couldn't find them.

"It's alright," Snipe said, smiling broadly through decaying teeth. "We're your new family now piglet."

The two of them sat beneath the brushed aluminum sky, watching the number of pedestrians swell (always more at night) as darkness asserted itself.

In the "Tween" it never rained, never snowed, but the night remembered the seasons and Scott soon found himself standing with Snipe, warming their hands with the other vagrants in front of one of many dented metal barrels which had long ago been converted to fire pits. In the never-world of the "Tween", it was not necessary to eat. Nonetheless, many of the vagrants would often feed.

On his first night, Scott witnessed a group of vagrants lure a man from the walking river and into an argument. After losing the ensuing fight and several teeth, he was dragged off behind the mass of cardboard hovels and, based on the timbre of his screams, was most certainly eaten alive.

While food was no longer required, sleep, like an old habit remembered, was. Adrenaline and fear carried Scott through the first sleepless nights but it had now become an imperative.

"You best sleep with me tonight piglet," Snipe called from the opening of his cardboard lair. "Fall where you stand or end up in the wrong box and we might not be seeing each other in the 'morrow." Fearing the alternatives, Scott reluctantly crawled in.

"Have a blanket." Snipe said sarcastically, tossing Scott several sheets of ancient newspaper.

Later, through the gauze of sleep, Scott heard a faint rustling then felt a hand touch the skin of his flank where his shirt had pulled away from his jeans. Scott kicked frantically and fled the box retreating to the edge of the constantly streaming crowd.

"That's ok for now piglet, but the colder nights are coming, the bitter nights...and then?" Snipe ambled to a nearby fire as he spoke, his yellow eyes fixed on Scott, who stood shivering near the boulevard. Engrossed in tenuous detente, Scott did not see the figure approaching from behind until his hands were upon him.

"Scotty, is that you?" Scott spun around in horror, then sorrow, as his eyes met those of his departed friend.

"Leave me alone Cart, I killed you, burnt you up and I belong here now."

"You killed us both actually," Carter replied, Scott's face blazing red at the clarification.

"The burns are gone Scott. It's different here. But there's one last thing you can do for me."

"Do what? Haven't I done enough?"

"Scott, I forgive you...will you forgive yourself?"

There was a long pause, then, tears flowed from Scott's eyes. In a choked voice he said,

"I love you like my brother Cart."

With arms around each other's shoulders, the boys moved to join the mass of people walking collectively down the thoroughfare.

"You can't walk away you little inbreed!" Snipe yelled frantically after them. His face shifted and jagged between that of an old man and something sharp and ravenous lying underneath. "I own you piglet! You killed your friend and your God has forgotten you!"

The two boys bravely walked away, not looking back toward Snipe or the remaining dead, the vagrant dead, who weep and gnash outside the light here in the "Tween", this corridor of death, where the multitudes pass in countless numbers by day and always more by night.

______________________________________________________________________

Honorable Mention - September/October Flash Fiction Contest

Sally O'Quinn

"Craftsmanship"

Galvanized tin walls are cooling down as the sun sets and I ring the bell of the woodworking shop. An electric saw’s metallic whine goes quiet as the carpenter appears from behind a tarp separating the workshop from the “office”, wiping his hands before reaching to greet me.

I despise shaking hands. But he stands there waiting, smiling, his calloused palm extended, so I oblige. Then I wait for a reaction. None.

He directs me to follow behind the dusty tarp where pieces-a table, desk, bookshelf- wait in various states of completion. Not what I’m looking for. Then he removes a packing blanket to reveal the piece I have commissioned, and I am immediately pleased.

Dark rose wood with brass hinges. A rectangle three feet by seven feet by two feet. Without opening the lid I know it is lined with fragrant sandalwood, as nearly like the one I left in Europe as possible, given the location and the materials available. The quality is more than I expected from this sweating laborer in his makeshift studio.

We discuss delivery and I press money into his hand as he gives me a ragged smile. I seldom smile myself. Too dangerous.

I wonder what the carpenter thinks when I tell him to deliver the piece to my home instead of a funeral parlor. But unusual requests are made often in these days, I suppose. He writes the address down without question and offers to open the box.

“Don’t you want to see the inside?” he asks. “I’m kinda proud of the way it turned out.”

I nod and he brings the lid up, revealing the expected woodwork and more. Ivory satin covers the bottom of the box, tucked and pleated over a six inch cushion. The interior wood has been polished to a reflective smoothness. And there’s more.

From a small brass box affixed to the lid, music plays! I am momentarily startled, and then I recognize the tune as an old Romanian waltz. It plinks softly with tinny music box tones, reminding me of my childhood so long ago. What were the words? Something about the forest and a maiden with golden hair…

“What do you think?” he asks enthusiastically. “Ain’t it pretty?”

I listen for another minute before I answer, letting the music remind me of the deep, dark forests of home and the mountains reaching high into the vivid blue sky. There was a girl once, with hair more auburn than golden, and she had held a special place in my heart before it went cold. Strange that these memories could still touch me now, so many years later. Music was truly an amazing device.

“It’s a bit loud”, I say, then, seeing the disappointment on his face, I add,” But beautiful.”

He offers me another smile and explains, “The music plays whenever the lid is opened, but shuts off after a while when the lid is closed again.”

I assure him that this is okay, and repeat my instructions regarding delivery as the tune spills over us, poignant and tender. It is a lovely piece.

With a final handshake, I leave the dusty workshop and step out into the glow of street lights. The moon is rising and I’m feeling a little hungry as I melt into the dinnertime crowd to seek sustenance.

*****

The carpenter listens to the music for a moment, and then closes the lid to the wooden box. Yes, it is a bit loud, but that seems necessary to cover the noise of the steel mechanism under the satin mattress. Before delivery, he will set the timer on its spring-loaded hinge for one hour. That should be long enough for the blood drinker to fall into his coma-like sleep at sunrise. When the hour is up, the timer will release a foot-long blade mounted at chest level behind the mattress. Sure, a blade through the heart is not very original, but it was good enough in his great-grandfather’s day.

He wished his mother was alive to share this moment.

Margaret Van Helsing would be very proud of her boy.

____________________________________________________________