Flash Fiction, Do I have to do ALL the stuff?

[RobertMBlevins]

I was checking this thread and saw others have not contributed as they should.

It's a sure thing SOME of you can write.

Do you like flash fiction? So do I.

Migrant

“What’s this stuff?”

“It’s called bacon and eggs, dear.” Mother piled the steaming food onto the plate. “They say it’s traditional here.”

“They look like eyes or something.”

“We have to try some of the local customs. They often eat this dish in the morning.”

The boy put a strip of bacon in his mouth and grimaced. “I liked our own food better. And the school here is so backward, Mom. I miss my old school, and my friends.”

“Hush now.” She joined him at the table and poked at her own plate. She took a bite of egg and almost made a face, but finally swallowed it. “You know why we had to leave, dear. They were going to arrest your father. It wasn’t fair.”

“I know,” the boy groaned. He nibbled a few half-hearted bites and then pushed the plate away. “Gotta go, mom.”

“Don’t forget your books.”

“My what?”

“Books. Don’t forget.”

“Oh yeah. I don’t like them. They’re heavy. How about if I just take my…”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“You know why. You’ll be noticed.”

"Yeah, yeah. Okay." He found his backpack and tossed it over a shoulder. The old school bus pulled up the curb in a cloud of diesel smoke and honked its horn. He headed out the door.

“Wait!”

“What is it, Mom? I gotta go.”

She hurried over and gently pushed a finger-sized lump of flesh back down into the boy’s head. “You’ve got to remember to keep your wazalump retracted!”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“We don’t want the Earthlings to know we’re different, do we?”

“Whatever, Mom.”

She gave him a kiss on the forehead and directed him gently toward the waiting bus.

The End

Final Exam

As the dust settled, small bits of Edward plopped to the ground around the mine entrance.

The supervisor shook his head.

“I told him an online course in explosives wasn't enough...”

The End

Memoir


Mrs. Sanders was crying again.

It had been another difficult afternoon for her at the hospital, and now she was sitting in the kitchen sobbing quietly.

Outside it was bright summer and warm. A few songbirds chirped from the apple tree in the side yard and picked at the feeder.

Six-year-old Jenny wandered into the kitchen. “Mommy?”

Mrs. Sanders tried to smile. “Yes, honey?”

“Can I play in the attic?”

“Sure, sweetheart.” It was perfectly safe in the attic and she knew Jenny loved exploring the books and chests. “Have fun.”

After Jenny bounced happily up the attic stairs, her mother took a notebook and began writing something in it.

Up in the attic, the little girl headed for her favorite box, the one with all the pictures. She struggled with a big photo album until it thumped heavily to the floor. She flipped the pages.

Stopping at one particular photograph, she smiled and touched her head, remembering. “That’s when I had hair!” she said brightly to no one in particular.

Down in the kitchen, Mrs. Sanders had written the same phrase over and over in the notebook until the page was filled:

IT’S NOT FAIR.


The End



Resolution

Detective Mike Jefferson held the old photograph between his fingers reverently and studied it.

Can’t see a damn thing on this, he thought. Don’t know why I kept it all these years.

The photo showed a fuzzy black and white image of a parking lot outside a shopping mall in Des Moines. In the center of the picture, a man was opening the door to his car. Someone much smaller than he was being shoved into the car. Other people were walking around, some carrying their shopping bags, or pushing carts.

And no one saw a thing, he thought bitterly.

He flipped the photograph over and checked the date he already knew so well.

April 6, 1998.

Had it really been fifteen years? He ran a hand over his eyes. She would be what ... twenty-one now. The old anger boiled up in his throat again, recalling that morning a week later when he and his partner had finally discovered the little girl's mutilated body in a field outside of town.

She had been so tiny, really.

He laid the picture carefully on the laser scanner and lowered the cover. Switching on the scanner, he waited for it to transfer the results to his laptop. A few moments later he opened the image and activated the new software.

The picture slowly began to come into focus as the computer enhanced the data, recycling it repeatedly and filling in the pixels with an artificial intelligence program.

A license plate appeared.

“Gotcha, you son-of-a-bitch...”

The End

[Jayo]