Flash / Micro Fiction Stories

Here I have a short piece of writing for your delectation!
I wrote this a good while back, i'm not quite so ...angsty, shall we say.
Just to point out that I am in character, and im not actually a psycho or anything.
yeah, powerful but pretty dark.

Noel woke five minutes before his alarm clock. Sitting in the darkness, he let out his breath in a long sigh, knowing today was going to be an interesting one. Sitting up, he turned on his bedside lamp and looked around his room. The paper was still taped to the doorframe. A poor excuse for a lock, but at least it let him know if his parents had come into his room that night.
Stumbling quietly to the bathroom, he noted that his parents’ door was closed; a good sign. Fifteen minutes later and he was dressed. Picking up his messenger bag, he descended the creaking stairs of the rundown duplex he shared with his parents. No time for breakfast. He wanted to be out before they even stirred. Their fight was a long, drawn out, alcohol and drug induced caterwaul that kept waking him throughout the night. Since neither one held a regular job, he knew they would start again that morning.
Creeping into the living room, he saw his father sprawled out on the couch, a blanked bunched around his hips. Noel approached with a kind of wary tenderness. Reaching out, he pulled the blanket up his father’s chest. In an instant, his father lashed out with his fist, almost hitting Noel in the jaw. Prison reflexes, his dad called them. Turning over on the couch, he snored quietly and Noel continued on to the door. His mother would be up in the bedroom then, he supposed.
Grabbing his hoodie on the way out, he quietly opened and closed the door, stepping out into the cold darkness of the early morning. He let out a long breath that he didn’t realize he was holding. Leaving home was always an adventure. Dropping his bag on the ground, he pulled on his sweatshirt, pulling the hood up.
His long legs carried him two doors down, to the next duplex on his street. Half of the building was owned by an old man who would watch the street from his porch. The other half was empty and had been for as long Noel lived in the neighborhood. He cut down the side of the empty half, peering into the dark windows as he did so. Sometimes squatters slept inside, but this time it appeared it was empty. Noel relaxed a bit more, relieved. He didn’t think he could deal with squatters this morning. Pulling out a brick on the side of the house, he reached in and pulled out his stash. Just a bag of weed that he sold to some friends and school kids. Just enough to get him the money he needed to buy food, clothes and all the essentials that his parents could never provide. He never used the stuff himself, he just knew it was the fastest way to get some cash. He didn’t like hiding it, but he knew that if he ever brought it home, it would be gone in no time.
Creeping along the side the building, he stole out of the darkness and hit the sidewalk at an easy jog. His bus was coming soon and he needed to be on it or he’d miss his honors biology class. Mr. Fenton wouldn’t be too happy to hear another excuse and Noel needed to pass the class if he was going to get out of the here.
He reached the bus stop with time to spare. A hooded individual was hunkered down on the curb, hands in pockets and backpack sitting next to him. Noel dropped down beside him and took up a similar position. Like a pair of gargoyles they waited for the bus, not needing to talk, conserving their heat until they could get into the warmth of the bus. Noel looked up and watched the traffic slide by. His gaze fixed on a blue Hyundai Elantra as it rolled past as the driver turned to look at Noel; the two early morning people regarded one another, connected for a brief moment.

I will tell you a story.

On a mild, sunny day a tortoise and a hare struck up a conversation in the woods. The tortoise was calm and chose his every word with care, while the hare was agitated and quick to offer any stray thought that crossed his mind. Soon bored with talking, the hare challenged the tortoise to a race.

The tortoise's already dour face looked mournful as his leathery neck swayed back and forth lightly. "What a waste," he said absently.

The hare was taken aback: "What do you mean, 'a waste'? Why, I'm the fastest animal in all the wood!"

"Well, you're faster than me," the tortoise said, "But who needs a race to prove that? What about proving yourself against the swift? What about leaving a legacy in these woods? What about your name being forever associated with 'speed'?"

The hare was intrigued. "I could do that?!"

Said the tortoise, "Yes, I can think of a way."

Soon, the tortoise had the hare carrying messages throughout the wood. He advertised his courier service and did rather well. As more revenue came in, the tortoise hired more hares. When the first hare protested, the tortoise would say, "If we didn't have more hares, we couldn't know for sure that you were the fastest!" The tortoise was able to expand his business and live off the work of those underneath him, winning a different kind of race than the hare had ever dreamed of running.

If this post is in violation of the rules, feel free to delete.

I started a new writing community. Go to.

randomcore

A score of glossy-covered college brochures littered half of the kitchen table. Monica stared down at them, trying to recall which ones she hadn’t thoroughly examined and dismissed. Each of them held its own collection of photographs, usually of sun-kissed young people gleaming on benches or under thickly foliaged trees. She twirled a strand of salt and pepper hair around her finger.

As she reached for a brochure buried at the bottom of the stack, her phone chirped. She found it under a dirty dishtowel and hit send.

“Hi, mom,” said her seven-year-old daughter, Danae, on the other end.

“Hi, darling. How is it at your father’s?”

“It’s fine. I have a question for you.”

“What is it,” she asked absenetly.

“What does archaic mean?”

“archaic?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it means ancient.”

“Ancient?”

“Yes, ancient. Do you understand?”

“Like old? Yeah, I get it.” Danae breathed soundlessly.

“Danae,” said her mother, “why do you ask?”

“I just…heard it.”

“I see.” Monica felt her face burn. At the end of their marriage, her ex-husband used the word frequently. He would say that she, Monica, was so old that her bones had turned to dust. Now he was saying these things about her to their daughter. God, she thought, I hate him, the cruel bastard. The hand holding the receiver shook.

But now Danae was talking again, so Monica attempted to keep her voice level.

“Dad wouldn’t tell me what it meant. He was pretty upset.”

Monica paused, confused, "Why was your father upset?"

"Oh well..."

"What happened?"

Danae sighed, "He was upset because his girlfriend, Jacylyn, the blonde one...
 
"Yes..."

"she called him archaic."

When she hung up the phone she found her self smiling. She picked up another brochure.

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The old farmer leaned on the fence post, smoking and watching the horizon while his wife carefully checked their work against the drafted design. He was always still and uninvolved in these last moments before dawn. He had learned some years before, early in their marriage, that it was better to follow his wife’s instructions when she gave them, and to let her do the rest when she fell silent. It happened about once a month. The creaking floors told the farmer that his wife would not rest until he came out to the truck with the keys. He always found her waiting in the passenger seat, holding in her lap a bent coat hanger she called “the dowser.” He would drive them down narrow dirt roads with the headlights off, turning when she pointed left or right. Neither he nor she knew whose land they were trespassing on before they started, but it was different every time. A full moon usually lit the fields until dawn came up, at which point they would gather the boards and scythes, climb in the truck, and return.
    The farmer was a simple man, having grown up on a livestock farm where the movement of the sun marked the movement of days. The animals and crops of his family’s livelihood spoke their simple truths to him as he worked alongside his brothers, and he understood them as they were. It was like this with his wife, too; when they were seventeen or eighteen, they both knew they were to be married, and so they had the ceremony to make it official. One night while the wife was breastfeeding their first child, the farmer told her stories of his youthful marauding and the phallic ‘grainograms’ that were left behind. She had laughed at the image, but studied his face intently in the moments that followed the joke. When the spring came and the boy was a toddler, she asked him to take her out into the fields after dark. They made their first design then, with the wife instructing and the farmer stomping grain with an improvised 2 by 4.
    As the months passed, it became as if a something lived within her that stirred only on the full moon. He could not prevent it. Their neighbors grew alarmed at each new creation, so after a few years, the man and his wife gave up the livestock and moved to another house. From then on, the farmer only planted what crops were good in the region. He couldn’t keep the animals since the watchful helicopters and TV cameras drove them to pick up and move more often that he would like. It was just too costly. The farmer began to feel more conscious of their existence among the others, and wondered at how his wife could go on unaffected. Still, they worked long days in the fields and in the house to sustain their modest life.
    After their son had gone off to join the Tulsa police force, the farmer’s wife became even more elaborate in her designs. She even started drafting them the week when the moon started to fill up, and they occupied her thoughts for most of her waking hours. At night, she served him dinner and they would eat, both too exhausted to think of much to say, before going to sleep on the same double bed. He continued to farm what they had, and she did her part in the house, though these duties were somewhat simpler now. After a while in this latest town, they became friends with the local sheriff. He found them to be friendly folks, and the farmer’s wife doted on the sheriff as she would a son. The eye of the law never frowned in their direction.

    Whatever the wife’s compulsion was, she did not share it with the farmer. This did not particularly concern him. He knew her to be hardy enough to do a man’s work herself, but when the time came, she always waited and he always drove her. That night had been no different. Standing in the pale September dark, he watched the impossible designs she made and felt that a certain meaning swayed before him in her fields. This was something that would end soon, along with the growing season. He knew all of this, standing against the post. With dawn coming, he drove her home once more.

Been a while, but here it goes.

Belle left an impression as she left the room. She looked lovely in pink. She had dresses in every shade of it. Today’s dress had no sleeves and hugged all of my favorite parts. Even the little heels that tapped coyly against the ceramic tile were embroidered with pink flowers. One big, lush curl of blond hair brushed against her pink cheek. Every guy in the coffee bar had turned to watch her leave.
Otto chewed on his straw as she left. Sure we’ve been friends for a damn long time, but you couldn’t trust Otto around his exes. Belle was a distant one, but damn significant. I knew before Belle and I started going out that she would always be fair game. I had been lucky so far, but that didn’t mean a thing.
“Some people would say you’re a lucky man, Ben.” Otto told me.
“She’s a sweet thing.” I told him, “I am lucky.”
Otto chuckled darkly.
“You aren’t going to try to make a play for her. Have to kick your ass.”
“I told her you could have her. I meant it. Believe me.”
“Then why are we here? I thought you wanted to have coffee with us.”
“I didn’t, I wanted to talk to you.”
“What now?”
Otto kept chewing
“What, man?”
“Listen… it’s going to sound stupid, but there’s no other way to say it.”
“What?”
“She’s evil… most definitely.”
And the hell of it is he was right.

I wrote this for a project, but I missed the deadline. Since this is my first post, I'd love some constructive criticism.

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