No my warning is not about the awful weather we have been having of late but about a flood of flash fiction that will arrive at midnight.
Tomorrow is National Flash Fiction Day and things have been getting a little crazy over on Twitter as those of us addicted to writing flash fiction are deliberating story ideas for a Flash Flood. The idea is we submit stories of up to 500 words in any genre or style. From midnight the best stories will appear on the
Flash Flood Journal.
I had an idea but just haven't got around to writing it so I decided to plunder my old Word documents and I found the story below.
A tiny bit of editing and tidying up and it comes under the 500 words limit at 422.
Now there's just four and a half hours to go until the deadline - the question is do I pull out all the stops and get my original idea written too? (you can enter 3 stories in total) It could be a late night but I will keep you posted...
The Scene of a Crime
I lay on the
ground, still, sheltered by the bushes. Unnoticed except by the man who had
shoved me there earlier.
He gently tapped me with his foot.
Partly to reassure himself of my presence but also to kick me further
into the undergrowth making sure I was covered.
He was aware my discovery would scupper his plans.
He needn’t worry, I wouldn’t make a sound. I’d keep silent, while all
around there were raised voices.
“How
touching, coming down here to protect your lover. First I’m going to kill him and then I’m going
to kill you.” A gruff man’s voice.
A woman was sobbing, “It’s not what
you think. Don’t kill him Bill please!”
There was a thud. Some heavy object swung with great force
collided with, what? A tree perhaps? From my vantage point there’d have been
little to see even if I were able.
The man swung his weapon again, this
time there was a cracking of wood as if it had struck a branch held up in
defence.
The woman continued her pleading and
sobbing.
“Get out of my way bitch!” The gruff man shouted.
She yelped as she fell to the floor.
While the skirmish continued above us both.
It was then she saw me although she
didn’t know at first just what she had found.
She reached out. I could not move. She
touched me with her manicured fingers.
There was fresh blood in her nails from where she had joined in the
fight. Finally she grabbed hold and pulled
me roughly towards her. Releasing me from my hiding place I fell apart in her
arms.
Liberated I spewed my innards. Twenty-pound notes blew in all directions
like confetti.
Both men stopped for a second, and
thought of catching what they could.
One man watching with bitterness thinking of what he stood to lose.
The other exhilarated by thoughts of the unexpected rewards to be gained.
But it was the woman who had found
the real prize.
She unburdened me of my heavy
heart. Its coldness now rested in her
hands.
A shot rang out and then another,
her aim was true. Maybe she needed neither of them anymore after all.
Frantically she gathered together
what money she might require, stuffing notes into her pockets.
She’d taken my heart, now she scraped out my very soul and discarded me
too in her wake.
Two bloodied bodies and an abandoned shoe box. None of us able to talk, but we all have a
story to tell…..
At just after 2 pm I found out there was Flash Fiction Write-in. It closed at 3pm which gave me a little under an hour to get something written and posted!
