Category: flashfiction

20min Drabble Challenge: “Terminate”

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Shoutout to @redclaw38812660 on twitter for the word prompt! The 20 minutes is from the moment I jot down the first word till I write the last. I’ll sit and consider the theme and the visual imagery for some minutes beforehand, oftentimes googling images of the word.

When they finally spoke about it, he had wanted to divorce her for eight years. She had wanted to divorce him for about three, maybe more. Things had gotten in the way. Their teenage children were knee-deep in their own troubles, and his senile mother got cancer and died shortly after. They adopted a third child, but it was a poor attempt at a bandaid that didn’t heal the wound it so faithfully protected. There was no good time to talk about it, so they waited.
I waited, too, thinking there was something for me to do.
I’m still thinking.

20min Drabble Challenge: “Monolith”

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Shoutout to @stnorahed on twitter for the word prompt! The 20 minutes is from the moment I jot down the first word till I write the last. I’ll sit and consider the theme and the visual imagery for some minutes beforehand, oftentimes googling images of the word.

Every day the molehill grew higher until it rose like a monolith in my backyard, haloed by the sun and moon. It became obvious it wasn’t a molehill, but my neighbor called the cops before I could decide what to do about it myself. The journalists and photographers came after the cops had done their stint. The scientists came last, carrying equipment bigger than themselves. These days, nobody comes.
I haven’t heard a word from anyone.
The molehill keeps growing.
It’s not a molehill, but nobody will tell me what it is.
Guess I’ll have to find out for myself.

20min Drabble Challenge: “Salacious”

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Shoutout to @CrystalAHill on twitter for the word prompt! The 20 minutes is from the moment I jot down the first word till I write the last. I’ll sit and consider the theme and the visual imagery for some minutes beforehand, oftentimes googling images of the word. Laurell K. Hamilton herself and her body of work – which I hugely admire – inspired the topic of this drabble.

“Don’t call it salacious, mom.”
“I’ll call it what it is, my daughter or not.”
Erica rubbed her tired eyes. “You don’t know what it is.”
Her mother fiddled with her own wedding ring. “I obviously can’t tell you what to do, but—”
“Then stop, right there, and don’t do it.”
Her mother’s lips thinned with the effort of staying silent, but she ultimately failed. “Is Andy not enough for you? There’s couple’s therapy.”
“There’s no problem here, so what’re you trying to fix?”
“Your marriage!”
“It’s not broken.”
“You’re dating other men!”
“It’s called polyamory.”
“And women!”
“Po-ly-a-mo-ry.”