Category Archives: Flash Fiction

Flash Fiction is generally described as works of 500 words or less

Flash Fiction

The Watering Can

The two-gallon, galvanized watering can looked out of place sitting in the open on the otherwise manicured front yard. The house behind it sat on an level two acre plot. A white two-story Colonial with a slate roof and copper gutters, the house had the traditional black shutters accompanying each window. The first floor was raised slightly allowing for basement windows which were well hidden by the encircling shrubbery. The three steps and a landing giving access to the front door were all granite and covered by a portico in the federal style.

The property was rectangular, twice the length as its depth. The house, similarly proportional to the property also sat length-wise to the street. A neatly manicured lawn stretched fifty feet from the house to the curb, interrupted only by a large Sycamore, three rock gardens, and the slate walkway that stretched from the sidewalk to the front door. Up the left side of the property sat the cobblestone driveway which, after its fifty foot run-up, turned right and sloped down, down, below grade-level and into the basement garage atop which sat the home’s library. The edging along the granite walkway and on either side of the drive was clean and crisp, as if it had been tended by professionals. Given the neighborhood, one would find it most unlikely that the owners would have the time or inclination to perform this maintenance themselves.

But that can, that galvanized watering can, sat in the dappled shade under the Sycamore tree in the front yard not ten feet from the largest rock garden. From the street, one could clearly see that grass had grown up around it. The grass was high enough to lead one to the conclusion that it had not been moved for at least three mowings. And if one were to lift the can, they would expect to see the grass underneath white and dying from a lack of sunlight. This lone, disjointed, unkempt resident greeted passersby in this coiffed Greenwich neighborhood; no clue left as to how or why it was so glaringly exempt from the ministrations given the rest of the land.

Flash Fiction

Irony and Humor

This piece of flash fiction was published in Conceit magazine in 2010. Unfortunately, they do not have a website with a link and so I have posted it here for you.

 

Irony and Humor

 

Irony and Humor interacted. There had never been anything else that either could recall other than their individual state followed by their interaction. Their constant cycle was of infinite amusement to both and they could imagine nothing better; in fact, nothing at all; that they should think to do with themselves. When they interacted, the result was ecstatic Sublimity and resumption of Attitude.

Being as there was nothing except Irony and Humor, and they being Attitudes, there was no need for else in Existence. Irony and Humor interacted and then resumed Attitude. Things being as they were obviously meant that things were and had always been thus. There was nothing that either could remember except the joy of interaction and resumption of status quo ante. Endlessly.

Neither knew how they had come to be. Neither could imagine what else may have preceded them since it was evident that they were all that had ever been.  Tracing back to the first interaction, there was nothing but they two. Only Attitudes. Then Sublimity. Then Attitudes again, followed by Sublimity. What had set them interacting was a mystery. And Mystery they labeled their Father, as only Mystery lay before them in precedence and awareness.

It was while pondering Mystery that one Attitude; some claim Irony, others Humor; missed interacting fully. We will probably never know which one missed but from this loss of perfect interaction resulted Imbalance and an imperfect resumption of status quo ante: there was residual. This residual lay there but a moment, but then moments were born. It was but a tiny piece, but then substance followed. Space and Time came into existence.

This was new. The Attitudes were worried and curious. This broke with all known experience. In the instant of its occurrence, the instant of observation of what Irony and Humor had wrought, they ceased interaction and resumption. Here is where Time passed and Space expanded.  In alarm, Irony and Humor attempted to interact again, to remedy the error. From this interaction came Cause. And Effect.

Cause and Effect existed within Space and Time, swam through it, drank it in. They could not see Irony nor Humor, who were without. They could see only each other within SpaceTime and they tumbled through It one after the next in sheer ecstasy. Neither could remember a previous moment, nor who may have preceded whom. Theirs became an endless cycle, the one spawning the other over and again. Tumbling over each other from unfolding moment to unfolding moment into the ever expanding Universe; across Space and through Time. An orgiastic freneticism engulfed and enveloped and expanded them until they encompassed all SpaceTime.

Neither could imagine what else there was in Existence since it was evident that they were all that was or had ever been. What had set them in motion was a mystery. They noted the Mystery which lay before them in precedence and awareness and called it their Father.