Flash Fiction Friday 2022 – Week 17
Flash Fiction Friday continues in 2022. New pieces appear every Friday on my Patreon throughout the year. The minimum pledge to read them before anyone else is $3 per month. Find out what they’re all about and read some excerpts from the latest update in this post.
Excerpts
Afraid of Scissors
For as long as he could remember, Xavier had been afraid of scissors. If asked why he couldn’t explain it and he preferred not to dwell on the subject, which was often easier said than done. The phobia caused him a lot of grievances growing up, but the major problems arose whenever he needed a haircut. It was either a pair of clippers and a shaver or nothing, preferably in the sanctity of his own home, and the results, while not terrible, were not that great either. His friends often mocked him for his sense of style, but Kyle was an honorable exception.
“The top of your head has seen better days, my friend,” he declared one day over a peanut butter sandwich. “We need to get you sorted, a.s.a.p., and I know just the thing you need?”
“Please, not another barbette!” Xavier responded. “I don’t have the patience for your insane choices anymore.”
(…)
Blank
What is reality but what we make of it and what we choose to believe in every time we open our eyes? I’ve often wondered about this myself, only to realize that it’s possible that my thoughts aren’t my own but mere remnants of skillful programming by a higher being who just revels in the idea of seeing me dance to her tune. These are dangerous notions yet I still entertain them, hoping that by doing so I can finally make sense of the fragments of memories in the back of my mind, but every time it seems I’m getting astray, one word comes to make everything right
Blank.
Blank.
Blank.
It’s such a lovely word, a single vowel wrapped in four consonants that envelop everything else in sweet nothingness. Hmm… hearing it is the same as tasting it on my aching lips and while some things exist only to be tried out once and then put aside, this one begs for seconds and thrives in repetition.
(…)
New Beginnings
August hated endings, he really did. When things were working out as they should, why did they suddenly have to stop? Why couldn’t those wonderful moments be crystallized in time, perfect and immutable so they could be appreciated forever in the same way? The passage of Time wasn’t fair to anyone, but he felt it more intensely with each second that passed into memory. One day, even those would be gone, leaving but a void where his heart used to be and that was gut-wrenching.
Once a troubled teen with suicidal thoughts, August entered adulthood still obsessed with prospects of stillness and turning back the clock at every given chance. It was therefore no surprise he ended up working for a cosmetic company, researching anti-aging formulas as if they were the Holy Grail of all existence, but the emptiness remained. He was still a husk pretending to be a man and that would have continued until his final breath had he not met Chloe.
(…)
Untraceable
Lieutenant Mark Schaeffer struggled against the metallic braces binding his arms, chest, and ankles. Escaping from them had long proved to be a fool’s errand, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Like any well-trained soldier, the POW would rather die of exhaustion than reveal any sensitive information to the enemy. Every day that passed by the prospect of salvation became nothing more than an illusion, so he had to be prepared for the worst. He raised his head toward the beam of white light illuminating his rugged features and tired green eyes, and growled.
The two women standing before him in the subterranean facilities seventy miles west of Miskolc, Hungary, were so alike in facial structure and mannerisms they could easily pass as sisters but the truth is they weren’t even friends. The only bonds between them were professional and those could be easily severed if things didn’t go according to plan. Beatrix was the brains, a genius that never got tired of having her ego massaged by exaggerated compliments whether she deserved them or not, and Erika represented the money that kept the operations running.
(…)
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