Category: flashfiction

20min Drabble Challenge: “Pseudonym”

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Shoutout to @violet_novella 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.

He sits before me by the wooden table we bought at a garage sale in Black Duck. “It’s—it’s like a pseudonym! Like your books!”
I taps my fingers on the wood, scoffing because I’m so very beyond feeling anything but disgust, although perhaps I should. Perhaps I should be sad. Another day, maybe. “A pseudonym? Are you kidding me?”
“A pseudonym. It’s like I’m two persons. Nothing I do with her matters when I’m with you.”
“Cheating is not the same as writing a bestseller under a fake name.”
He hesitates. “I didn’t say bestseller.”
I sigh. “Get out.”

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.