/lit/ - Literature

So many fantastic flashes in the last thread! In case you missed any:

>Memoirs of a Goose Battling for Bread >>17819769

>A very dramatic drive-through order >>17824102

>A spurting tree grows to adulthood overnight >>17825272

>A talking pink animal goes into a brief adventure that he enjoys very very much >>17825589

>the life and death of a fishing boat >>17829925

>A man with an orange for a head >>17842149

>An old book cafe becomes the favorite hangout of undergraduate English majors >>17846420

>A very dramatic drive-through order >>17847105

>A truck driver picks up a clown off the side of the road >>17848527

>A Pair of Hawks Guide a Flock of Sheep >>17850849

>A boy is forced to dress as a maid to save the world from an alien invasion >>17854187

>The daily life of a japanese company man >>17854328

>Sometimes, doing the exact opposite is the answer >>17854663

>Sometimes, doing the exact opposite is the answer >>17861329

>Santa's sleigh enters a no fly zone and is shot down deep behind enemy lines >>17864909

>a bouncer at a busy nightclub has an unusual night >>17867382

Where my bone boys at

bump

>>17867391
>a constant parade of ghosts from his former life.
love how this line builds on the dialogue before it.

>>17872529
As other anons said, both the ‘parade of ghosts’ and the ‘bottle-to-mouth lifestyle’ are very good lines (I actually assumed that second one must be a common phrase, but Google says you coined it)

New prompt suggestion:
>A parade of ghosts

46/50

more prompts
>the wind doesn't stop and gradually grows stronger
>a prehistoric tribe reacts to a meteor
>an old cat needs prescription eyeglasses
>feral gibbons living on the outskirts
>a boutique perfume designer needs a break

>17865379
While the continuity in numbering stories is nice, the story specifically about a goose seems to have become about a duck in the title atleast

>>17873790
If i recall, the initial prompt may have said >The perspective of a duck/goose battling for bread
Its no longer in the archive so i can’t validate...

>>17872529
>>17873052
>>17868137
Thank you very much anons.

I realized their is a glaring typo, i'm sure there are many others though. Thanks to the Anons handling the editing.
He wonders what she wanted to talked
should be
He wonders what
she wanted to talk about*

I realized I forgot to leave a prompt as well
>A novice conman does a confidence trick successfully

>>17874440
No worries, typos are easy to fix!

bump

>>17871803
Whoever wrote the Santa Claus story, thank you. I have had the idea of a war themed Christmas story. Over the years I've written a dozen or so stories of it. I wanted to see another take on it. One day I'll full send

>>17873128
>an old cat needs prescription eyeglasses

I've already written one but I have an idea for this one too. I'll work on it this weekend to see if it's something or nothing.

>>17873128
>>the wind doesn't stop and gradually grows stronger
Have an idea for this, not sure if it’ll work though...will try this weekend

Bump

Going to try for one of the last spots today

>>17873128
I might try the boutique perfumer one but no guarantee that I'll actually finish it

>>17880324
God speed. Bump

>>17871794
does anyone have an opinion on recording these and posting to youtube? not THESE necessarily, but just fiction i write. would using a high end tect to voice be worse than someone with a generic voice?

>>17881397
>would using a high end tect to voice be worse than someone with a generic voice
In my opinion, absolutely. You can practice speaking slowly and with controlled inflection. Not sure how much interest this kind of thing gets in general. This person does a good job https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn4PG2ci0tw and doesn't get a crazy numbers of views. Needs a better mic though.

There are many magazines that publish and pay for flash fiction btw, from large to small, in genre and literary fiction. If you like writing flash fiction, give it a shot!

>>17882673
How would you go about finding them?

>>17883173
Not that anon but
>https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/Search/ByFilter
This site is your best friend if you ever want to publish anything. And if you click on the name of the magazine it will show you reported stats from other users who've interacted with that magazine, so you can see how active it is and what percentage of submissions it accepts.

>>17883291
Thanks for the info

>a boutique perfume designer needs a break

Catherine, Rose, Therese, Philomena. She sits at her work bench – her husband had been the first to call the black Ikea desk that, and she’d caught on – and stares into their incomprehensible amber innards. Bridget, Abigail, Josephine. A bold move in today’s political climate, launching a line of fragrances based on Christian saints. There were corresponding scents planned for men, most of them vaguely homoerotic; like Sergius and Bacchus, or the inevitable Sebastian. But only women fall into her realm, and, although the whole project reeks to her of a declining company’s tacky desperation, she’s done her due diligence. There are twenty tabs relating to these mystical women open on her computer at any given time, which frustrates her tech-savvy son to no end. “What the hell’s all this, Mom?” he chides every time he leaves his office at PC Matic for his quarterly inspection of the family’s electronics. Inspiration, is what she’ll tell him. She laughs, shakes her head, and kneads her eye sockets with the heels of her hands. She picks up an Abigail, still in its generic 12ml glass vial like all the others, and swallows the contents all at once.

It’s more bitter than she’d imagined. She gags, retches, scrubs her lips and tongue with her sleeve. Propolis and heather explode around her. Abigail is the name of her daughter, and she’d immediately thought of sweet pastries, something like a medieval Irish birthday party, if such a thing had ever existed. Honey was only natural for this saint with a penchant for beekeeping, but she’d also wanted an underbelly of milk. She’d wavered for weeks between milk lactone and peach lactone; she’d even created a spreadsheet to track the exact quantities of each in two evolving batches of an otherwise identical formulation, and after all this she can’t detect milk at all. Abigail doesn’t eat pastries anymore either. Abigail owns three Fitbits, wears Burberry Sport and is married to a cardiologist in California. She spits out a string of drool, and knocks back a Josephine.

>a boutique perfume designer needs a break

1/3

Catherine, Rose, Therese, Philomena. She sits at her work bench – her husband had been the first to call the black Ikea desk that, and she’d caught on – and stares into their incomprehensible amber innards. Bridget, Abigail, Josephine. A bold move in today’s political climate, launching a line of fragrances based on Christian saints. There were corresponding scents planned for men, most of them vaguely homoerotic; like Sergius and Bacchus, or the inevitable Sebastian. But only women fall into her realm, and, although the whole project reeks to her of a declining company’s tacky desperation, she’s done her due diligence. There are twenty tabs relating to these mystical women open on her computer at any given time, which frustrates her tech-savvy son to no end. “What the hell’s all this, Mom?” he chides every time he leaves his office at PC Matic for his quarterly inspection of the family’s electronics. Inspiration, is what she’ll tell him. She laughs, shakes her head, and kneads her eye sockets with the heels of her hands. She picks up an Abigail, still in its generic 12ml glass vial like all the others, and swallows the contents all at once.

It’s more bitter than she’d imagined. She gags, retches, scrubs her lips and tongue with her sleeve. Propolis and heather explode around her. Abigail is the name of her daughter, and she’d immediately thought of sweet pastries, something like a medieval Irish birthday party, if such a thing had ever existed. Honey was only natural for this saint with a penchant for beekeeping, but she’d also wanted an underbelly of milk. She’d wavered for weeks between milk lactone and peach lactone; she’d even created a spreadsheet to track the exact quantities of each in two evolving batches of an otherwise identical formulation, and after all this she can’t detect milk at all. Abigail doesn’t eat pastries anymore either. Abigail owns three Fitbits, wears Burberry Sport and is married to a cardiologist in California. She spits out a string of drool, and knocks back a Josephine.

>>17884528
2/3

This one’s just as bitter, and she wonders how much perfumer’s alcohol one would need to consume in order to suffer permanent ill effects. Perhaps she should’ve looked this up on the Internet beforehand. It seems cruel, this denaturing of ethanol with toxic and unpalatable additives to prevent recreational use – after all, who are we to judge another’s vices – cruel like the scarification that poor Josephine Bakhita had undergone. There had been some discussion on omitting potentially controversial saints from the collection (Kateri Tekakwitha, while conceptually interesting, might raise accusations of colonialism and cultural appropriation, and even someone entirely uninformed on contemporary issues could see that Agnes would be in poor taste), but Josephine’s slavery and emancipation were deemed benign enough to stay. She recalled she’d had trouble sourcing the African hyraceum for this one, as there were many poor quality products on the market, and she’d fought with her superiors to let her have the good stuff, the good rock hyrax piss. She bursts out laughing, downs a bombastic Catherine, and vomits.

Beneath the top notes of gastric secretions, Irish heather and African myrrh blend languidly with neoclassical orris and myrtle. She drinks a Therese chased with a Rose and vomits twice in rapid succession, adding heart notes of Indian chai and a base of Peruvian balsam. It occurs to her that she’s made her way through four continents and about 250 dollars. But her voyage has made her sleepy, and her intercostal muscles are starting to cramp. An austere Bridget slips through her fingers. She lets her head sink down onto the Ikea work bench and laps at the contents, watching the marbling of vomit and ethanol out of the corner of her eye.

In an hour’s time, her husband will come home from work. She debates whether he will weep when he finds his silly, drooling little wife. Her experiences within and without their twelve years of marriage tell her that he most likely will. He will also demand answers, probably in the interim between lifting her out of her vomit and calling the ambulance. He’ll shout at her, and she’ll be a little frightened, but really, when was the last time she felt frightened of him? She has no real reason to think so – he’d been kind, and she placid – but she’s certain, somehow, that her mother had been afraid of her father.

>>17884538
3/3

Regardless, the ambulance will come, and the paramedics will prize her out of whatever domestic awkwardness might ensue. Perhaps her arrival at the ER might even jolt some boy-faced intern out of his chronic fatigue. Surely she’ll have an impression on him, she thinks, surely she’ll be enfleuraged in his psychic tallow as the Lady of a Thousand Botanicals or something equally romantic. “It was a stupid thing to do,” he’ll tell his girlfriend’s parents over Bud Lights and grilled hotdogs, “but she’ll live.” And he’ll laugh with all the gravity afforded to him by their daughter’s love for medical dramas.

She stretches, somnolent and satisfied, and, like a dark continent, awaits discovery.


Prompt for the next person:
>a jealous parrot is in love with its married owner

>>17884528
nice! my prompt! i'll read it tonight

>>17884528
>>17884538
>>17884547
Nice anon, Seems like a lot of research went into it too.

>>17885520
Thanks anon! And sure, some definitely did, but the truth is I just happen to know a boutique perfumist very well irl.

>>17884547
much better than most of the stuff here

bump

>>17884528
Fantastic!

The small details (and lack of explaining tge broader strokes) really make this f el like being in the brain of a real person

>>17884528
Nice character study

bump

[*not for the anthology*]
>>17873128
>>the wind doesn't stop and gradually grows stronger

My most cherished friend, how I mourn the loss of you. Though, you — flesh and bone — still walk this earth, that which made you ‘friend’ is forever gone. This most recent betrayal has finally unblinded me to your terrible cruelty.

I trusted you so fully — loved you — only to find that this friendship, nurtured over years, was all a great deception...it is all too much to bare. When you asked that I accompany you on a journey I, of course, unhesitatingly obliged. When you held open the door for me, I willingly stepped through. Even the sound of the door locking behind me could not shake my belief that you simply wished me safe. But, as drops of rain carve channels in the hardest stone, the passing of time has eroded my faith in you.

You, who was once my brother, I now call ‘jailor’. This padded cell, my entire universe, today I call ‘home’ and tomorrow, perhaps, ‘coffin’. You have clearly been dreaming of this torture for a great while, for I cannot help but notice the artistry in it’s design. The cushions first appear a comfort, but I soon discover they conspire with the low uneven ceiling to makes standing a strain. There must be a mechanical room adjacent to my cell, for the noise is tremendous and the rumblings constant. My sleep is never restful, for as soon as I feel the first beginnings of Morpheus’ embrace I am startled awake at the sound of some particularly horrible scrape or thud. The cell is large enough to pace, like some caged animal, but I have long ago lost the will to walk. The large windows will occasionally draw my attention, but they serve only to show me a world which is now lost to me. Your mind is a truly devious one.

The true horror of your prison, invisible to any architect or photographer’s scrutiny, is the air itself. There are few things on this earth as wretched, as suffocating, as breathing the hot stale atmosphere of a confined space. And it is my own breath which has transformed this room into a dungeon more dank than any Chateau D’If. This thick, sweet emanation only forces me to fill my lungs further and faster. It is hard, brutal work; mining each breath for each mote of oxygen. Knowing that upon each exhale I have only made my job harder.

Are you deaf to my cries? Or does the sound of my suffering provide you joy? Evidence that you have me well and truly ensnared.

I have spent days, months perhaps, railing against my fate, cursing you and begging you, carving gashes into my cell walls. Now finally I lie down, defeated. Cowed. To tired even to cry. Here I shall die a fool, killed by his own breath in a tomb he entered with enthusiasm.

You have won.

(1/2)

>>17890098

(2/2)

But wait! What is this sensation tickling my nose? Something crisp and clear, briefly streaking through the decaying air. Could this be Heaven? No, my pained lungs confirm I still live. So faint I would never have detected it had deprivation not sharpened my senses. With a great effort I turn toward the accursed window to see — yes, a thin sliver has opened!

I bolt up, clamber across the awkward floor and press my whole face against the crack. A light breeze whistles through it. Though once I may have described such a wind as ‘cool and refreshing’ in my current state it is nothing short of ‘arctic cold and life-saving’. I drink it in. The icy chill freezing my sinuses, my throat, my lungs...yet how it warms my heart. I do not ask the provenance of this gift. I do not know whether you, my kidnapper, intended it as a kindness or a prelude to a second more depraved act of torture. For now I simply breathe, it is enough, it is everything.

Is it my imagination, or does the crack grow ever wider? Perhaps the acidity of this putrid air has melted the glass. Whatever the cause, what was once a babbling brook is now a mighty river! Still too narrow to even put a digit through, the air is powerful enough to whirl through my cell, purging the dense nearly-visible breath and replacing it with a cool spring breeze. Still my prison, to be sure, but perhaps one I could learn to love.

The thick glass continues to melt away and - yes! - I can fit my head outside! I am free, even if the rest of my body is not. The rush of air becomes stronger still. I close my eyes to prevent any flying debris from blinding me. It occurs to me that perhaps this storm may be the reason for my salvation. A hurricane or tornado surely. Squinting I look around to see trees and houses fly by. Maybe I am dreaming, and will awake in Oz. This is all happening so quickly I cannot take it in, yet the window has now been entirely eaten away.

I consider fleeing briefly — leaping from my cell to join this whirling cacophony — but as I do, it occurs to me that unbelievably there is no place in this world I would rather be. My body warm and cushioned, my head still exulting in the new sensation of wind pulling hair.

The gale grows ever stronger, its deafening howl pains me and yet I cannot pull away. In fact, I defiantly lean into it. I had been prepared to perish in hell, what have I to fear from this?

If you worried, my dearest friend, that i should use your generous gift as a means of escape; fear not! Ah yes, you see I use your old appellation once more, for I have learned the nature of your game. You have tested me only so I may accept such a reward. My former self would have long ago retreated to the warmth and safety, but through enduring centuries of suffering at your hands both my mind and senses and perfectly attuned to receive this blessing of wind. I open my mouth wide and let the gust whip my tongue back.

Drive on, brother! Ever faster!!

>>17884547
Damn this is really good

>>17886046
>>17888389
>>17888796
>>17890657
Thank you anons, I appreciate the kind (You)s. I love writing character studies but it's been ages since I wrote a relatively everyday woman character like that, so I'm glad it didn't suck.

>>17890167
Nice, I like how abstract this is but how the conflict still comes across strongly.

>>17890098
>>17890167
Love it!

>>17886046
>>17888389
>>17888796
>>17890657
Thank you anons, I appreciate the kind (You)s. I love writing character studies but it's been ages since I wrote a relatively everyday woman character like that, so I'm glad it didn't suck.

>>17890167
Very nice, I love extremely elaborate and abstract depictions of really mundane events

Bump

>>17890098
I have a dog, this is great! Their lives really are dramatic. Good humor too. Very pleasant read.

>>17891767
>>17891788
>>17893748

Thanks!

This was a fun one to write, my pup is constantly wavering between clingy best friend and scorned lover...i forget the exact prompt, but i think another anon had a very similar story about a dog being left home alone.

Bump and good morning!
Looking forward to new flashes today!!

>>17890167
>that ending
Kek

bump from page ten

>>17897717
Hero

Of course work piles on two nasty surprises this Monday. Not sure when I'll have time to finish my next one.

Bump

Crickets in here! C’mon guys!