Earlier in the week I had a few stories running through my head, I was going to pop them in the flash Friday toaster, but one thing didn’t lead to another and I lost the thread.
One was kind of funny in the conception, was going to be dark in the execution and … I was thinking of historic fiction and garage bands, like a carriage house bands during American revolution, using famous names but just the last names, and it was going to go into the spirit of the garage band and rock and roll as an American core value. I lost the thread to that one.
One was about divorce by cop. That one was dark and had this complicated domestic disturbance set-up. Too complicated as it turned out.
One was the Anti-Christ as a teenage and his dad arguing about basic philosophy. That one was based around a single line of dialogue about virgin birth, which, at the time, seemed all kinds of funny to me, but not funny enough to remember. That’s a pretty common process for me with Flash Fiction, especially promted flash fiction; I get a line I like and build a flash around it, usually somewhere half way through I know if it’s going to be tied up or loose ended. For the most part I’m happiest with my own flashs when they are loose ended. I think the medium is meant to be more like a handful of pie than a neat slice.
I had a few about relationships based on characters I’ve known, given that description you can see why those didn’t catch air.
I had one that began and ended with; There’s an old saying in hacky Sack; Gravity, works everytime. There was the temptation to disporive that, either literally with the magic the author of a flash holds or figuratively with some sort of clever device or another, but, no, it wasn’t going to get any better or worse by adding more words.
I do, however, think those words apply to everything in one way or the other; Gravity, works everytime.
My hacky sack days are over. Every time I do laundry my knee stiffens up. It’s not a function of the laundry, it’s the three flights of stairs with a laundry basket that does it, the going down part. I’m going to get a laundry bag and just toss it down the stairs next time.
I’m less nervous when I have flash fiction in my head then when I don’t. I’ve lost the compunction to get it out of my head. Compulsion maybe. I’m beginning to lose chunks of time. That can’t be good.
Oh and something cryptic to end an entry about things that never happened;
Jesus met a woman at the well
and he told her the things that she done
“Woman, woman, woman, you got you five husbands
and the man that you’re with he ain’t one, he ain’t one”
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