Luralee Kiesel
Flash Fiction
stories in 100 words or less
Short attention span not required
I started writing flash fiction a few years ago for a contest on Literary Agent Janet Reid's blog. The following stories have all appeared there. Both Trueface and Bittersweet were winning entries.
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UPDATE: New stories added! scroll to the end.
Better out than in
Tina horked up another pearl and set it on the tablecloth beside her mimosa.
In a week she'd have enough for a necklace.
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She spooned more caviar onto her waffle and whined,
"I wanted the diamonds."
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"You're welcome to 'em." Todd clutched his gut.
They never should've pissed off that leprechaun. His insides were killing him.
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"Any sign of 'em?"
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He groaned, grabbed the Sports Illustrated, and rushed from the room.
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"Hey!" Her shrill voice followed. "You forgot the seive!"
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Gifted
The family sat in stony silence.
Timothy Fortesque chose a box from the mountain of gifts and read the label.
For: Timmy
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"May I open it now?"
No one objected. He tore off the paper.
"Little surgeon set! Awesome!"
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He fingered the scalpel--so realistic. Now he could do the job properly.
"Thanks for this, uncle Gus!"
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Cadaver smiles all around.
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Who's next?
Not Gertrude. Old fiend might pass for forty, but she smelled of atrophy, lumbago, and formaldehyde.
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Yesterday, Father complained Tim hadn't gotten his brain along with his looks.
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He had it now.
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Herbie
Herbie gamboled through the garden, leaping lilacs, gobbling gladiolas.
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"Keep it away from my tomatoes!"
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Susie recalled the day she brought him home, eager as a puppy in his little cage. This never would have happened if they'd let her have a dog.
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"I'm so sorry."
She hacked him down, swiped her tears, and lit the bonfire.
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Next full moon he was back.
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She danced for joy.
This time she'd train him.
With some new boundaries and a good grooming he was ready for competition.
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"Is that a French poodle?"
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Great form. Nice bark. Look at those paws!
First place: Topiary
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Trueface
Phone rings
I select smileface.
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"How are you celebrating?" her grinface asks.
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I hitch up smileface.
"Watching my screen, same as everyone."
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"Not Moreen, she's going in person!"
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I attempt jealousface.
"Lucky! She could get on TV!"
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Dog, oblivious, sprawls and snores.
I nudge him awake, jealousface finally achieved.
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"Nanna's making popcorn," says yumface.
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My stomach plots dissent.
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Onscreen, music begins.
I paste on amusedface and scan the slavering crowd.
Voiceover condemns the accused.
Trapdoor drops.
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I LOL like everyone and rush to like, but my cryface gives me away.
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Surprise
Leona spied the shoes beside the door.
The shower was running. Fingers to lips, she pointed--sofa, La-Z-boy, curtains, credenza.
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His family hid.
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Cousin Oscar, his new boss, whispered, "Birthday AND a promotion? Glad I gave him the afternoon off."
She forced a smile and whispered, "Me too," and stashed him behind the door. She hung the banner--U ROCK!--and let loose the balloons.
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The shower cut off.
Was she making a mistake? No. A lioness had pride.
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Footsteps
Hushed giggles
"SURPRISE!"
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Her husband yelped.
The intern screamed and clutched her towel.
Leona smiled with demented serenity and whispered,
"Fool me twice."
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Bittersweet
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Sister opens the door. I hop out.
"Can't you sleep in a bed like a normal kid?"
"It's cozy in there."
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I get Skittles on my Captain Crunch.
"Tell me again, how'd we defeat her?"
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"I defeated her. You...didn't do anything."
"And then we ran?"
"Yes."
"As fast as we could?"
"Wasn't far. Maybe a mile."
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We have some music and we bake cupcakes.
I can't eat cookies anymore.
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Late at night I go back.
The house is mostly gone now 'cuz mice and foxes and stuff.
The old coal oven is cold.
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I didn't always have gumdrop eyes.
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Holdout
“A plague of squirrels!”
the Neighbors joke.
Busy rodents tuck nuts in once-smooth lawns
where grass won’t grow.
–too shady–
It’s a mystery.
The sun always glares at Bellwood Estates.
Ironic Name
Beyond the fence
The holdout waits.
The only tree for miles.
On foggy nights the phantom forest looms.
In showcase houses,
neighbors tighten their blindfolds
and prepare for fall.
Rake leaves, blown in from who-knows-where.
Pull sheets over pools that don’t hold water.
Patch cracked foundations yet again.
Siding’s moldy–
scrub with Clorox.
Come spring,
the nuts will sprout.
Beyond the fence,
Fangor is regrouping.
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The Bride
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The corpse is sunken and doughy, but the bride has experience with these matters.
Five minutes on high zaps it back to life. A nip here, a tuck there, fill the core with jam and it looks like something she could sell.
She lights a candle, and, humming the birthday song, big-haired Bertha carries the resuscitated confection down three flights of stairs to the secret underground laboratory where she re-connects the adaxial electrodes on the other corpse to the array of lithium-ion D-cells and flips the switch.
“Wake up, darling, I baked a cake.”
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Angelo's tale
or, The Two Brothers
a story within a story
from:
Time Out Of Mind
(Angelo book 3)
Sometime during their ninth summer, a group of about a dozen clones began meeting in the hologram room for “campfires and ghost stories.” I let it go on because it seemed harmless, even though they were sneaking out of their beds when they were supposed to be asleep.
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The hologram computer provided a direct line on my tablet, so I was able to keep an eye on things from my own room while allowing them to develop their sense of adventure. It soon turned into a contest to see who could tell the scariest story, with each story predictably darker and more gruesome than the one before.
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Angelo hadn’t joined them. Tests that were merely worrisome for his brothers terrified him so badly he often needed an entire day to recover. After suffering those, he said he didn’t see the point in being scared for fun. His brothers called him a crybaby and dared him to join them, but Angelo refused. They kept after him though, and eventually he gave in.
I took notes as he huddled beside the idealistic campfire with his arms wrapped around his knees, his eyes growing wider with each new story. He seemed to be barely holding it together. Would he participate when it was his turn? I tried to recall if he’d ever told a story before. Did he even know how?
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The circle finally got around to him.
Angelo began signing in a slow, exaggerated way, and making eye contact with each of his brothers in turn. “This is a tale of two brothers. One was too selfish, the other too generous.”
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I smiled to see how well he was facing this particular fear, but this sounded like a simple folktale, not the kind of scary story that wins contests. To my surprise, his brothers scooted closer, like it was already the best one they'd heard.
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Angelo continued, “When they were young, it was small things: toys or books, or the last piece of candy. ‘If you loved me, you would let me have it,’ the selfish brother always said, and the generous brother always did. Now they were grown, the selfish brother demanded everything.
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“When the selfish brother needed money, the generous brother gave him his own until he had no more. When the selfish brother asked for them, the generous brother let him have his horse (he worked it to death), and his house (he gambled it away), and his girl (The selfish brother broke her heart, and so she hanged herself). Still, the selfish brother was not satisfied.
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“When the selfish brother suffered bad health, the generous brother gave him blood, then a kidney. One dark night, the selfish brother had an accident. The generous brother gave him his legs and his eyes. The generous brother was no longer able to support himself, and he was tired of living, so he left instructions with the surgeons—any part his brother wanted he could have.
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“More bad luck–an attack by bandits. The surgeons replaced the selfish brother’s heart and his brain.
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“The generous brother sat up and looked around. He thanked the surgeons for their fine work, and walked away with his own legs and no brother to bother him ever again.”
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The moment the story ended, the boys began to scream.
If I’d been in the room I would have noticed Angelo raising the fear level beyond what the others could bear, but his story had been a tame one by their standards, and I didn’t realize what he was doing until they all started screaming. By the time I arrived to intervene, some of them had passed out in fright.
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That was the end of the campfires and ghost stories.
Angelo’s brothers slept with the lights on for weeks. When I asked why he’d frightened them so badly, he explained, “They thought fear was fun. Why would they think that, Laura? Fear is not fun!”
“Maybe they don’t feel it as acutely as you do,” I said.
“Of course they don’t,” he signed emphatically. “I make certain of it.”
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