Category Archives: Writing

Short Story (flash fiction) Of the Day, The Barracuda in the Pool by Cecilia Kennedy

Posted on by Bill Chance

I’m suddenly aware that I’m smiling. I’ve finally made it here, to summer—after such a long winter—and I’ve treated myself to a dip in the pool.

—-Cecilia Kennedy, The Barracuda in the Pool

Mural, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Good writing will bring back memories. Flash fiction can artificially extend its length and value that way – by tacking strong memories onto the end of the text itself.

Today’s flash fiction brings back a couple to me (maybe spoilers… maybe read the story first).

One was (maybe 1972) swimming inside the shark netting in the ocean at Fort Sherman (now long gone) on the Atlantic side of the Canal Zone. I remember the taste of salt, the sweltering heat, and the primordial green of the neighboring rain forest. There was a large active crowd in the water and I put on my mask and dipped my face below the surface to take a look. There was a barracuda, a big one, gliding smoothly between the writhing bodies. Minding his own business. He looked so streamlined, so powerful, so prehistoric… like something from another world. I felt embarrassed because I dared contaminate his ocean with my pitiful presence.

The second was… maybe two years later and 500 miles northwest of there, diving into a pool in a country club in Managua. I mistook the shallow end and plunged my face into the rough gunite bottom. It hurt but the worst was when I stood up. A young woman standing in the pool looked at my face and the gore pouring down and let out the most blood curdling movie scream I have heard in my life. I was ultimately fine, the worst wound was the sound of her voice and the terror on her face. That remains after a half century has passed.

Read it here:

The Barracuda in the Pool by Cecilia Kennedy

from Flash Fiction Magazine

by Cecilia Kennedy

Cecilia Kennedy Twitter

Short Story (flash fiction) Of the Day, Partition by Susan Carol

Posted on by Bill Chance

Here, in the Pink Zone, we are safe, but we are sad. Once a week carts arrive with provisions: rice, beans, tea. Sometimes there are fruits. Mangoes, apples, persimmons. The youngest of us rush at them as if to quench a longing for our fathers’ arrival.

—-Susan Carol, Partition

Ravens Drug Store, Oak Cliff

I keep reading about dystopia, refugees, or the end of the world. Should read about something happy – but it doesn’t read realistic right now.

Partition by Susan Carol

from Reflex Fiction

Short Story (Very Short Flash Fiction) Of the Day, “Give It Up!” by Franz Kafka

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
― Franz Kafka

St. Vincent’s Guest House, New Orleans

Tough days – tired days – days where you are not sure what day it is or where you are or where you’re going or why you’re going you don’t know where. Franz Kafka days.

There are several translations of Give It Up! scattered in many places across the web. It’s so short, though, instead of a link I’ll past the whole thing in here – one abbreviated paragraph of despair.

“Give It Up!” by Franz Kafka

It was very early in the morning, the streets clean and deserted, I was walking to the station. As I compared the tower clock with my watch I realized that it was already much later than I had thought, I had to hurry, the shock of this discovery made me unsure of the way, I did not yet know my way very well in this town; luckily, a policeman was nearby, I ran up to him and breathlessly asked him the way. He smiled and said: “From me you want to know the way?” “Yes,” I said, “since I cannot find it myself.” “Give it up! Give it up,” he said, and turned away with a sudden jerk, like people who want to be alone with their laughter.

Short Story Of the Day (Flash Fiction) A Trace of Music by Robert Garner McBrearty

Posted on by Bill Chance

During all my drinking days, I listened for that music and thought it might be worth continuing to drink just to hear it once more. But, of course, it wasn’t.

—-Robert Garner McBrearty, A Trace of Music

Music at Ciclovia Dallas

Working my knee back with ice, rest and ibuprofen. Yesterday, I rode my spin bike on very light resistance for an hour and today, one week after I slipped coming out of the shower and twisted my knee, I rode my road bike for the first time – five miles around the ‘hood. It was fine – not entirely pain-free, but bearable. Maybe ten miles tomorrow after work (I have to work, I am essential). The nice thing about the road bike is that with my feet clipped in they are held rigid with no lateral flex in my leg or knee. That helps. It’s a bitch getting my shoes on, however.

A day at a time – small improvements – each day a little better than the day before.

Like in today’s story….

Read it here:

A Trace of Music by Robert Garner McBrearty

from Heart of Flesh Literary Journal

Robert Garner McBrearty Homepage

 

Short Story (flash fiction) Of the Day, The Repurposing of Harold Foster by Debbi Voisey

Posted on by Bill Chance

‘Photons are bouncing around all the time,’ he’d said. ‘They’re landing on you. They’re disturbed by your smile and they gather in your eyes.’

—-Debbi Voisey, The Repurposing of Harold Foster 

George Herold, Dallas Contemporary

There is physics and there is life and death. They must be related in ways too subtle and complex for us to comprehend – but they must be the same. Even though your soul must be in there somewhere – your consciousness strung out along fields of electrical energy – every atom in your body obeys the same rules as the atoms in a high school demonstration laboratory experiment. The little spring cannon shoots a steel sphere across a big sheet of paper – you measure the distance, write it down in a spiral notebook… your thoughts flutter between writing up the assignment and the girl in the next group (why couldn’t she be in yours… she never is). But I digress.

I have been thinking a lot about the brain of a dilapidated decrepit old man and how it compares to the brain of a vibrant vigorous young one. There is no difference.

A nice, wistful little piece of short fiction today. Read it here:

The Repurposing of Harold Foster by Debbi Voisey

From Reflex Fiction

Debbi Voisey

Debbi Voisey Twitter

 

Short Story (flash fiction) Of the Day, Weight by Dawn Lowe

Posted on by Bill Chance

He was old, thin and wasted. The space suit lay in the dust at his feet, white and shiny, a US flag on its chest.

“How much?” I asked.

“$1,500,” he said. “Cash.”

—-Dawn Lowe, Weight

(click to enlarge)
Mural, Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas

We all see them, people by the side of the road, selling stuff. Some folks never look and always drive by. Some folks have an irresistible hoarder urge and look for bargains.

Are there things you can buy that will really change your life? For the better? For sure?

Maybe they will change someone else.

A very short story about someone that decides to stop. Not looking for a bargain, they willingly overpay.

Read it here:

Weight, by Dawn Lowe

from issue 1 of Brilliant Flash Fiction

Dawn Lowe (Aurore Lebas) Twitter

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction) – Intersection, Transit and Rose by Gail Anderson

Posted on by Bill Chance

Obscurity or fame. Everyone here craved one or the other.

—-Gail Anderson – Intersection, Transit and Rose

Decaying wall, Ladonia, Texas

I had plans for today. It’s the last nice day before a cold front barrels through. So I mapped out a long bike ride into a part of town I rarely ride now – but remember well from decades ago. Also, I have some ideas and itch to write some fiction so I was going to re-start my old “Sunday Snippets” – and squeeze out something new, original, and crappy.

But getting out of the shower and going to put my cycling clothes on I stepped with wet feet on the cheap imitation wood flooring, which is like snot on ice when damp, and went down in a naked heap. I did save the coffee cup I (for some unknown reason) had in my hand – throwing it into the hamper while I spun to the floor. A clumsy lifetime has taught me how to fall. I’m okay but this getting old shit is not for the faint of heart. My knee is twitchy and my hip is sore and I don’t think I should go very far in this state. The sheet of pain (again, I’m fine but it really hurt for a while) wiped my mind and now I can’t really come up with the lies I need for fiction right now – maybe next week. I’m essential, so it’s another week of work starting tomorrow, too.

So, at any rate, here’s a tasty piece of flash fiction (literally flash fiction) that won the Best of Winter 2019 award from Reflex Fiction. Mystery of its own and action inspired by Hitchcock – what else can you want?

Read it here:

Intersection, Transit and Rose by Gail Anderson

from Reflex Fiction

Gail Anderson Twitter

I’ve always loved the electric hum/whine/screech a Sunpak flash makes while it recharges.

Short Story Of the Day (flash fiction), A Longer Trip Back Home by Hiromi Suzuki

Posted on by Bill Chance

My mother spends all her wages on cigarettes. My mother, a waitress at a café in the center of a suburban residential area at the edge of the world. In the afternoon, the café is filled with ladies. They are housewives coming from elegant houses at the edge of the world, killing time.

—–Hiromi Suzuki, A Longer Trip Back Home

Stray Christmas Ball in the Trinity River, Dallas, Texas

Does a story have to have a classical plot? Does the protagonist have to want something? Is the story always about if they get it or not?

I didn’t know that a French word for mock strawberries was Fraisier de Duchesne. That sounds like a good name for a character – maybe an evil aristocrat or a kindly old neighbor, Fraisier de Duchesne.

Read it here:

A Longer Trip Back Home, by Hiromi Suzuki

from 3AM Magazine

Hiromi Suzuki Twitter

hiromi suzuki microjournal

Short Story Of the Day, The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol

Posted on by Bill Chance

There is nothing more irritable than departments, regiments, courts of justice, and, in a word, every branch of public service.

—-Nikolai Gogol, The Overcoat

Poppies, by W. Stanley Proctor
Liberty Plaza
Farmer’s Branch, Texas
(click to enlarge)

Yesterday, I wrote about George Saunders and his story – The Red Bow

I included this Youtube video of George Saunders and some writing tips.

The first question is “What is your favorite short story?” and he answered “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol. He said, “It’s funny and sad and I think it’s the way that God actually thinks of us if he in fact does.”

I have had the story “The Nose” by Gogol as one of my short stories before.

Like “The Nose” – “The Overcoat” is written in an older style – more telling than showing – but it is as genius, funny, and shattering as Saunders says it is. I had read “The Overcoat” before – long ago – but didn’t remember all the details… only the sadness and feeling of helplessness. Reading it again it was even more heartbreaking, knowing what was going to happen to the hopeless protagonist.

Read it here:

The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol

from East Of the Web

The next question on the interview is “Best piece of writing advice?”.

He replies that a mentor Tobias Wolff told him, “Don’t lose the magic.” Great advice.

I am a huge fan of Tobias Wolff – if you ask me Wolff’s story “In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs”  is my favorite short story (or at least one of them) and one of the best ever written.

I’ve used a couple of online Tobias Wolff stories for my stories of the day before:

Bullet in the Brain

Hunters in the Snow

On both of those entries I wrote about my favorite Tobias Wolff story:

I remember one time, years ago, he was giving a talk at the Dallas Museum of Art as part of the Arts & Letters Live series. Well, I’m poor and can’t afford the full price ticket to these lectures, but, for a lower price, you can attend and sit in an auditorium off to the side where the lecture is beamed in on a screen. I was sitting there, waiting with a few other people (the main room was packed) when I looked up and there was Tobias Wolff, walking between the rows talking to us. He said he didn’t think it was fair that we had to sit in the other room and had arranged for an extra row of seats to be installed down across the front. We all marched into the big room and saw the live lecture, right up on the first row, thanks to the author.

It was really cool and thoughtful of him – and I’ll never forget it.

Short Story Of the Day, The Red Bow by George Saunders

Posted on by Bill Chance

Don’t like that man, Uncle Matt said as we left the Rectory. Never have and never will.

And I knew that. They had gone to high school together and there had been something about a girl, some last-minute prom-date type of situation that had not gone in Uncle Matt’s favor, and I think some shoving on a ball field, some name-calling, but all of this was years ago, during like say the Kennedy administration.

—-George Saunders, The Red Bow

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
Cathey MIller, Cathedonia
(click to enlarge)

As I’ve said before, I’m watching Youtube videos that contain fiction writing tips and such while I ride my spin bike for exercise. Some of my favorite clips are interviews with the writer, George Saunders.

I have written about and linked to George Saunders short stories several times already:

Sticks

Escape From Spiderhead

A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room

Sea Oak

Today’s story is particularly dark, awful to contemplate, and appropriate to the disaster coursing around the world today. How do you respond to a tragedy? Do you respond with a sense of honoring the dead or with preventing it from happening again? Or both? How do you define mercy in uncertain times? Where do you stop? When does the cure become worse than the disease? How do you get through the day when you know it is going to get worse before it gets better? How sure are you that it will get better?

Read it here:

The Red Bow, by George Saunders

From Esquire