flash fiction

Flash Fiction: Testimony of Johnathan Lawrence, Murder Trial #4565

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Um, I’m not really sure what happened here. I felt the pressure to write something new tonight, as I don’t want to disappoint those that have been looking for something new from me each night, but also because I really need to push myself to write everyday.

And when I push myself, I really do seem to surprise myself. Nothing is perfect, but it sure is entertaining sometimes. I also might be watching reruns of Bones tonight…which might act as some accidental inspiration. 😉

Happy Weekend everyone!

The Testimony of Johnathan Lawrence, Murder Trial #4565.

She’s got that look that she’s been used too many times. Like her face would have dried up, if she didn’t keep applying make up. Maybe last week she had a someone, maybe it was yesterday. What’s the term they use for women who have…let me say…”been around the bend?”

wpid-img_20150419_180345483.jpgAh, she had her uses I suppose. Her hair was that smooth, silky black, her eyes wounded, her lips pouty. I loved the way she chewed them when she was speaking to me. As if every word next out of that sticky, pink mouth was going to say something holy –  something worthy of remembering. She didn’t really have a sense of humor. It took her a while to get to the point. Or maybe that’s just because she thought too much about the answer. Thinks that maybe saying the wrong thing will get her hit again. Just how it happened when she was ten, just how it happened when she first slept with her ex-boyfriend.

[The first lawyer asks the witness] Did you hit her John?

No! I didn’t hit her! What kind of jackass do you think I am? I just like it when she did what she does. You know…down there. God, the magic of a woman’s mouth. You know, I liked it when she got real slippery…would giggle like a little girl. [Someone clears their throat. Probably the lawyer]. Huh. So that’s why she looked so wounded. You’d think she’d have figured out that’s not the way to be. Turns a man off, you know? I guess all the hitting made her stupid. She sure was nice to look at, though.

What was the name she gave me? Hell, if I remember. Anita? No, Laura? Yes, Laura. Laura Tippleton. She told me that she liked to go downtown sometimes at Midnight. That’s where they would find her. You know…her “conquests.” [Witness laughs]. That’s where she found me.

[The second lawyer, this one female asks:] Did she like to go down to the river?

Well, I guess. Maybe she would skip rocks or something like that. Fish. You know, she used to say if you look at the surface of the water long enough you could see the future, I just thought she got hit in the head too many times.

[The first lawyer looks up from the table where he sits next to a young man; a greasy young man who is hand cuffed and wears an orange jump suit.]

[The female lawyer asks] Do you think she saw anything in the river?

[The witness on the stand looks puzzled. He rubs at the grizzle on his face. Adjusts his red cap with oil-stained fingers.]

[The judge begs him to answer the question.]

[The witness’s eyes cross and his mouth works, then pauses, and then he speaks.] I guess not then, huh? Because that’s where they found her, isn’t? Hell, you never know the finality of life until it is staring you in the face. Plum, staring you in the face. Would have been nice of the river to tell her that. Maybe they wouldn’t have found her like they did. I wish I could have told her that. I, well…I’m sorry I couldn’t remember her name.

[The female lawyer gives him a long, hard look, but it is not completely unkind. Her eyes glance, just once over to the judge. She speaks.]   No further questions.

A start at Flash-fiction: Smelling Sunshine

/ Ajmorse / 2 Comments

Just some musings in the car parking lot while I was waiting for my boyfriend to get out of work this afternoon. I’ve been trying to push my self to write more and more this week and it’s funny how comfortable I seem to be writing in the oddest of places.

Put me in front of my desk at home in my office and suddenly there’s everything else to do and check out. Like youtube. And facebook, and of course, 5 amazingly awesome recipes and articles and gah! I am a terrible person sometimes.

I’m actually pretty proud of this. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but I’ll call it a start to some flash fiction, which I want to try to write more of. I do consider myself a fiction writer afterall, but…I’m having fun dabbling in a little bit of everything at the moment.

I hope everyone is having a great evening. Happy Writing!

Smelling Sunshine

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I blink, unable to see. The glare from the cars in the parking lot blind me; their busty trunks and fenders glisten, catching the day’s brilliance in colors of blue, gray, white and green. I can hear the brrrrggh of cars running and the rumbling cough and sputter of a car that doesn’t want to start.

The cool air blows through my car window and it smells like exhaust, tires and left-over winter, but its icicle-taste has gone stale in my mouth. Spring is in the air now and the world looks cheery, full of fake promises; like when a person says one thing and means another.

Sure, the world can look great on the outside if it wants to. The sky that robin’s egg blue, with white wispy clouds so high up, you wonder if the scientists up in space can see what you see. But inside and outside, everything and everyone is often something different.

Take this person. She is average height. Average looks with a plain T-shirt with writing on that stretches across her boobs, that says something obscene like “Bob’s Big Ones,” that makes you read what it says and everything else underneath.

Maybe she shouldn’t have left the house in those sweat pants. But she looks tired. Her brown hair is pulled back in a pony tail, and she wears a harassed expression. She’ll thank the cashier who wishes her a great day as she grabs her groceries, but inside she’s really thinking: God, just one more day. Am I really where I’m meant to be?

An old man in the deli misses his late wife of fifty years. A middle-aged woman clutches a tomato in her hand in the middle of the produce and worries her husband is having an affair with his secretary; this is just the color of lipstick that she would wear. A college student with braids, glasses and uni-brow, listens to music and thinks about geology as she grabs at a container of hummus.

Every life’s a puzzle, and every puzzle a piece of the mystery. We are never what we say we are, and that includes the weather. Maybe that’s why I have this feeling that something bad is about to happen. I can just hear my mother right now: Oh, stop, you are being ridiculous. My boyfriend would tell me I am being dramatic.

But it’s there waiting for you. Waiting…Waiting…Waiting for you to….Strike! Just kidding. Waiting for you to wake up and open your eyes and smell the sunshine.

And I’ll see and see, and breathe it in as long as I can.

Life is what that is. Life.

15 Minute Journaling: The Butterfly

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I wanted to post last night, but work has kept me busy the last few days. That’s why I think it’s a good idea to relax, and just let the words take me – time for a 15 minute journaling session.

notebook in candlelight

And for those of you who don’t know, “15 Minute Journaling” is something I used to do in one of my creative writing classes in college. The teacher would write a prompt on the board, and then we would write in our journals for 15 minutes.

It’s amazing how many stories have come out of those sessions, and amazing how much of a stress reliever it can be sometimes.

15 Minutes here I go! But first I need to find a writing prompt. Google brought me to this page > http://www.writersdigest.com/prompts < Writing prompts on writersdigest.com.

They remind me of the prompts my teacher used to give us. Quirky and not at all like the norm. My writing prompt app never gives me the idea of writing about a character with an extra arm…everything is so normal. Ah, what defines normal anyway?

Here we go. 15 Minutes on the clock please! Feel free to write along if you want! This is the one I chose:

“A Few Sips Off” – You take a few sips of your drink and feel different. That may be because your torso has an extra arm protruding from it. Another sip, another arm. Then a wing. What happens if you finish the drink?

I asked the magician to give me a potion to make me beautiful. In my mind, I had it all figured out: a dress shimmering a blue and green, like the tail of a mermaid, a pretty version of the Cinderella dress. This isn’t what I asked for.

I choked on the last few drops. It tasted like copper, like the time I bit my tongue and blood poured into my mouth. It was sweet and metallic and I gagged. I looked down at the vial that had held the purple liquid in horror. It crashed to the ground and shattered into a million bits as my fingers began to change. I was shrinking! My arms became long and black and hairy. Two arms sprouted from each side of my torso. My jeans and t-shirt disappeared. My long body was black and green-blue iridescent. I cried out as wings sprouted from my back, long and blue and black. My face elongated and my vision blurred. I had freaking antennas on my head! Was I a butterfly? I felt the wings on my back flit nervously and air brushed my face.

Source: desktopnexus.com

Source: desktopnexus.com

I felt cold, and clammy and brand new. Like the new skin on a wound just beginning to heal after someone ripped the band-aid off. I wasn’t ready for this bright new world. I tried to speak but nothing came out. My vision had doubled, and then quadrupled. I had been standing next to the table in my dining room…now I was standing on top of it. The table shuddered underneath my feet as I watched a huge form coming my way. It was the dark shadow of my tall, older brother coming to the kitchen for a snack.

Would he see me? Would he squish me? Or am I to remain like this forever? Beautiful and tragic? No, tragically small. Forever contained in this simplistic beauty, but as powerless as I was before.

Help me big brother, I cried silently and jumped up and down, my wings lifting me to one spot and then the next. Help!

***Oh, interesting. I have a few more minutes on my 15, but I think I will leave it at that.

What inspires you guys to write? Any writing prompts that you like to use?

Happy Writing!

15 Minute Journaling: Don’t let fear get you down

/ Ajmorse / 3 Comments

I need to do some writing, so what am I doing? I’m sitting here doing everything but that. I’ve painted my fingernails, I’ve gotten on Facebook – I’ve even read a few other blogs here on WordPress, including some of my own posts. Then why aren’t I writing? What am I afraid of? I thought I’ve gotten past all this.

Me, being silly!

Me, being silly!

I guess the fear was this: What’s the point of writing if its going to turn out terrible? Well, that’s not the point is it? The point is WRITING.

All things writing. Write, write, write, write, write!!  Gahhhh….Now why am I sitting here staring and fearing the blank page?

In all things in life you can’t let fear let you get behind, and that includes writing.

I’m even sitting here with my new headphones on (a nice birthday present from yesterday, woo hoo!) trying to drown out the world, and FOCUS.

Hmm…okay, let me visit my book shelf and see if I can scrounge up some writing prompts. That might help.

A few weeks ago at the Barnes and Noble, I found this book: A Writer’s Book of Days: A spirited Companion & Lively Muse for the Writing Life by Judy Reeves.

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It’s basically like a writing devotional. It offers you daily writer prompts, as well as lessons for each month on writing and how to improve the craft. I have a tendency to over think some of the writing prompts – actually now I’m starting to realize that I work best sometimes with a challenge. It’s okay to take the prompts where you need them to go.

It is fun sometimes to see how creative you can get. Instead of just one word or one sentence to get the creative juices flowing, lets try about five of them.

Here are the prompts for five days in June from June 6th – June 10th:

June 6:  While the world sleeps

June 7:  I have a confession to make

June 8: “There is a place somewhere called Paris”

June 9: Across the railroad tracks

June 10:  The place where wild pines grow

15 MINUTES ON THE CLOCK….GO!

“There is a place somewhere called Paris,” she told me with a flick of her blond hair as she started reapplying her lipstick. She squinted at herself in the tiny blue compact mirror and then smacked her lips loudly. “They say that everyone walks around naked, I’d like to go there sometime.”

I eyed her smooth body, the tan legs and free arms, the way her hips curved over her jean shorts. “I bet you would.”

“Don’t be an ass,” she snorted as she put her make-up away. “It exists somewhere out west they say, across some railroad tracks at some nudist colony. You know, the place they say where the wild pines grow.”

I couldn’t imagine her anywhere surrounded by naked people, much less trees as a walk through the park seemed too much for her most of the times. She hated the squirrels that scurried down the trees, she hated the babies that cried on the playground, sometimes I think she even hated me.

I was her boyfriend, too. The one she was supposed to love – supposedly.

“I have a confession to make,” I breathed into her ear as I wrapped my arms around her thin frame and crushed those curves against me. “You’re beautiful.” I kissed her neck. “You’re sexy.” My hands trailed down her hips. “You’re lovely.”

She laughed a cruel, sarcastic laugh, and pushed me away. “Please,” she said with her hand on my chest. “Don’t make a fool of yourself.”

“I didn’t want to be here anyway,” I muttered. She’d taken me for a drive, and then had parked on the side of the road across from the local park. I could see pine trees and several screaming kids running towards picnic tables as she’d put the car in park. The air tasted fresh on my tongue, was cool and fresh in my nose.

Then she’d uttered those dreaded words as she turned towards me. “We need to talk.”

We walked hand and hand for about two minutes and then she pulled away from me. I could see the coldness in her posture, the way her body seemed to be trying to avoid me. She adverted her eyes, pretended like she was crying. But I knew she wasn’t.

“You live in your own world,” she continued then. “Like, everyone else could die, and the world could continue sleeping and you would be the one outside of it, like in slow motion or something. Living your life oblivious to those around you.”

God, she was so stupid sometimes. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Of course you don’t. The world doesn’t evolve around you Isiah Crane.”

“It doesn’t revolve around you either,” I said.

“This is exactly what I’m talking about!” she cried, as she turned back towards me. “That sarcasm! You’re so God-damned sure of yourself!”

I thought about that. I mean, why wouldn’t I be? I was smart, strong…and intelligent. I was pretty sure I was good looking. I shrugged. “Yeah, I got nothing.”

She started to cry then, loud, horrible tears. “I don’t understand why you’re so mean to me.” I didn’t really understand anything either. How she seemed to use everything but the truth to get what she wanted. She played games. She probably thought: maybe today, I’ll grab his balls and tug just a little bit more. I winced as I thought about it.

I didn’t want anyone tugging anywhere. “So this is it, huh?”

She brought her hands away from her face. Her mascara had left black tracks down her cheeks. “Aren’t you even just a little bit sad?”

I looked out at the fresh air surrounding us, the trees and green grass and water gurgling in a fountain nearby. Everything seemed brand new all of a sudden. I laughed once. “Should I be?”

 

 

 

 

 

A bit of flash fiction – At the Ball Park

/ Ajmorse / 4 Comments

I have about 5 minutes before I have to shower, dress and get around for work tonight, but just wanted to share something real quick with you guys.

I signed up for an online class called, “Creativity Training for Writers” and although the class is clearly geared for writers who are more or less getting into the craft of writing, it has really helped me get back on track and is slowly curing my writer’s block – which is what I hoped it would!

The creative mind is still alive and kicking, and what a relief it is to get my writer’s voice back! Our first assignment we were given prompts and a limit of 5 minutes, in which we were to create a story finishing a sentence with a twist at the end. It is the closest I have ever come to writing some decent flash fiction and I was rather proud of it:

At the Ball Park

They called it a near miss, but I called it a coincidence. Sandy called it fate and I kissed her nose whenever she said this and she would smile at me with that wide, red-lipped smile; the kind that she gave me even after I had broken her hip and dislocated her right shoulder.

I’d tried to swerve to the right, but I just couldn’t move fast enough. There were so many people in the way and the lane was crowded. I’d hollered, “Get out of the way!” And before I knew it, my brown, leather glove was in the face of the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen with red-brown hair. How was I to know that I would accidentally push her down the ball park stairs?

I’d visited her at the hospital after I muttered my sorrys to her on the gurney as the EMTs rolled her away, but that still wasn’t quite good enough. I gave her the ball I caught though, which was signed by every memory of the team. And when I was leaning over her hospital bed, the ball out-stretched in my hand, she gave me that red-lipped smile and asked me to marry her. Turns out she was a Yankees fan, too.

***Thoughts below if you got ’em! 🙂