Fast & Short is a flash fiction collaboration between eight Literate Ape writers. Each was tasked with authoring one piece of flash fiction that would be combined to create a single short story. The writers’ flash fiction needed to serve two purposes: 1) Stand alone as a unique piece of flash fiction and 2) Serve as a vehicle for building a larger story and driving that story forward. Here is that developing story.

Authors: Part 1 —David Himmel, Part 2—Dana Jerman, Part 3—MT Cozzola, Part 4—Brian Sweeney, Part 5—Sheri Reda, Part 6—Joe Janes, Part 7—Brett Dworski, Part 8—J.L. Thurston

Part 1

THANK GOD FOR THE DOG. If not for her, my girlfriend wouldn’t let me leave the house. When the pandemic got serious, she didn’t care about toilet paper; she b-lined it for the milk. Our freezer is perfectly packed with Swedish meatballs, broccoli florets, and twenty-three gallon-size Ziplocs of milk.

“The milk,” she said, “matters most because of how much cereal you eat. And we’re not stepping out of this apartment until this whole thing passes. Not for anything. You can take Maggie out, but that’s it!”

“Thanks for thinking of me,” I said. “What kind of cereal did you stock up on?”

Sarah glared at me like I’d insulted her, like I wasn’t taking this whole thing seriously. There was so much rage in her eyes, and it came so fast. Her jaw clenched so tightly that it changed the shape of her face. I didn’t recognize her. I was sure she was going to explode and kick me and Maggie out of the apartment. Cast us into the infected world to spread the disease and die under an overpass. I carefully asked the question again. “What kind of cereal did you stock up on?”

Through gritted teeth, she replied, “I forgot to get cereal.”

✶

Part 2

AND THERE I WAS, TWENTY MINUTES LATER OUT TRUCKING WITH MAGGIE four blocks away now from our place down Algren Street. It seemed to be nap time for the rest of the world while I took the much-needed air.

Maggie was leading me right to the junk cans. I’d found dog food and treats more than once there, so she picked up the notion she was going to get a snack on our jaunt.

She stopped and barked, and then I heard the annoying buzzing of the pair of light drones that went zipping overhead across the corner. Watching them reminded me of kids playing tag.

My dog tugged me nearly straight into a mud puddle into the alley under the tracks.

Yes! There was cool-looking crapola everywhere. A giant rolled up rug. Two soggy chairs, one with the bottom sort of blown out. Abandoned condiments amid stacks of paper in leaky boxes. Pens and pencils, bits of colored plastic strewn all over. There would be something good here for sure.

Maggie wagged her tail right into an ornate lantern/incense burner/air planter-thingy and it rang like a bell. What’s this? Suddenly it was in my hands. Was it glowing inside?

I smudged on the greasy brass with my thumb at what I thought was a label on the side of it.

And that’s when it started to vibrate.

✶

Part 3

“WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?” asked the funnel of incense as it materialized into a small-boned woman in a red Chanel suit.

“For real?” I gasped. “Like three wishes real? Or like I Dream of Jeannie real, where you move in and there are unlimited wishes, but also possible awkwardness? Not that you would make it awkward. I can tell, you wouldn’t glare about milk. It’s not like I asked her to bag the milk, she doesn’t even like milk. She needs to stop babying me.”

“Is that your wish?”

“How many do I get?”

“Three,” the genie said, as Maggie abandoned a mustard packet and sat adoringly at her stilettoed feet. “Large or small, they will be granted.”

“I could end the pandemic?”

“If you wish. Though there would be other pandemics.”

“I could wish for a better universal response to pandemics.”

“Now you’re catching on.”

“Don’t wish for a box of Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios, but twenty—or no, I wish for a hundred boxes.”

Poof. Before me were three large cartons. “That counted?”

“It did.”

“Dumb! Dumb wish. What if Sarah finds out I had three wishes and I used one on cereal?”

“Must you tell her?”

“What does our love mean if I don’t tell her? But I could finesse it. I could say you gave me two wishes. She’ll never know.”

✶

Part 4

NARRATOR
Cheers is filmed before a live studio audience.

Norm walks into the Cheers bar.

EVERYONE
Norm!

Norm looks at me, sitting at the bar with my dog Maggie, and a hundred boxes of Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios stacked next to me. He gives a quizzical look to Woody, cleaning glasses behind the bar.

NORM
Woody, who’s the guy with the cereal?

WOODY
You know, I didn’t catch his name.

(audience laughs)

As you have already learned, I am a quick thinker. Like, how I used my second wish to live inside of the classic sitcom Cheers. Yep. Everything is going to be smooth sailing from here on out. 

It’s true that I’ll miss my girlfriend, Sarah, but as Dave Matthews said in a Facebook post in 2018, “What a great ending of a great tour!” 

Norm walks over to me.

NORM
Hi there. I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. What’s your name?

MEI
thought everybody knows my name?

(audience laughs)

Boy, this is going better than I imagined. I should have discovered a super hot genie in stilettos and wished to be in the sitcom Cheers years ago.

SAM
You know the thing we hate in this bar?

Oh wow! Sam “Mayday” Malone! He’s right here! This is awesome! I hope Maggie likes this as much as I do. She doesn’t, of course, because she’s a dog. 

SAM
We hate mysteries.

(audience laughs)

I hear the door lock behind me.

CLIFF
You shouldn’t have come here. It’s a little known fact that we don’t like outsiders.

(audience laughs)

Wow! Cliff Clavin! I wonder where that wisecracking waitress Carla is, I think to myself as I feel a blade slide between my ribs. I turn to see a small statured, curly-haired woman.

CARLA
Shhh. Just go to sleep.

WOW! I just got stabbed by Carla Tortelli! Could this day get any better, I think to myself as I begin to lose consciousness from all of the blood that is pouring from my knife wound onto the floor and pooling around the stacks of Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios boxes.

✶

Part 5

I WAKE UP LYING FLAT OUT IN THE ENTRY HALL CLOSET we never use because we are too lazy to open the door. I’m lying on boxes of Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios I had wished into being. There are even some extras to make a pillow for my head. Melted chocolate is streaming out of the boxes like cookie blood. I can hear Maggie snuffling at the doorway.

So—I am not at Cheers anymore? I’d been so confined, it was brilliant to escape into TV Land. I forgot the ’80s were not exactly inclusive.

“Your Cheer’s wish is null,” says my genie. She has materialized over my head and can apparently read my mind. “Third Law of Votum Operandi. Violently imposed changes of consciousness null the reality of human wishes.”

I brighten, lift my head, moan, retreat. “So... I still have two wishes left?”

“Nope.”

Okay, I tell myself. Okay, but I do have one wish left. 

“And no matter what I wish, you will act like the devil in Bedazzled? You will mess it up somehow?”

A sly smile. “I can’t tell you that.”

Yeah, well, I can do sly along with the best of them, I think. Or the second best, anyway. I just need a minute. 

But I don’t have a minute. Sarah has just walked to the door. “What’s up, Maggie?” she coos. “Jerkweed left you at home? I’ll take you out, sweetheart… what the hell is this stream of chocolate?” she’s exclaiming. 

I’m alarmed and yell, “Stop!”

“What? She exclaims. “What the hell is going on here?

“She turns the door knob and I groan, “Sarah, please. Just stop. I wish you would just listen to me for a minute—”

“Granted!” says the genie. The doorknob stops turning. Maggie stops barking and begins whining. I hear the thump of a solid object toppling over. The place is silent. I’m alone.

✶

Part 6

SARAH WAS GONE. All that was in the hall was a big box full of boxes of Product 19 on its side. I hate Product 19, but she wants me to eat it because it’s healthy. She must have bought it to make up for forgetting the cereal. “How is this my wish?” The genie was gone, too. I accidentally wished for Sarah to listen to me for a minute. A dumb ’80s sitcom thing for me to do. I didn’t know what to do, so I took a gallon Ziploc bag of frozen milk out of the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw. I sat down at the island to wait. “Can I microwave milk?” I said as Maggie pawed my leg. Sarah then appeared sitting on the other side of the island. 

“Okay, that was weird.”

“Sarah! What happened to you?”

“I was right here. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. All I could do was hear your voice. You said, ‘How is this my wish?’ and ‘Can I microwave milk?’ My answers are, ‘What are you talking about?’ and ‘You’re an idiot.’”

She wasn’t wrong. I heard a buzzing sound. Maggie started barking. Outside the kitchen sink window, I could see the bobbing of two small drones.

✶

Part 7

“THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS—SPYING ON ME AGAIN,” I said.

“Who’s spying on you?” Sarah asked.

Ignoring her, I hustled to the freezer and grabbed the Swedish meatballs. Not thirty seconds later I was chucking the beef spheres at the drones out the window like a man possessed.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Sarah asked. “That’s our dinner for the next week!”

I didn’t care. I was in the zone. I always wondered when my two years of junior-varsity baseball would pay off, and that time was now. I was blazing guns… meatball after meatball, chuck after chuck. I imagined I was Sandy Koufax in the ’65 World Series—obviously not the game he bailed because of Hanukkah… or was it Passover?—striking out batter after batter.

Oh yeah, baby. You eat those meatballs, you fucking drones! Eat them! Eat them good!, I thought.

The drones fell to the ground and exploded on impact. I jumped around the apartment and raised my arms like Rocky Balboa atop the Philly Art Museum.

This was the most alive I’d felt in years. More than when I met Sarah. More than when we adopted Maggie. More than when I received the negative herpes test in college. 

“Hey!”

I heard Sarah’s voice and was instantly back in the kitchen. The frozen milk was thawing. Maggie was barking at the drones outside the window.

“Huh?” I said.

I opened the freezer. The Swedish meatballs were there.

“You all right?” Sarah asked. “Thought I lost you for a sec. Who’s spying on who?”

✶

Part 8

I TURNED BACK TO THE WINDOW. The drones hovered only a moment, then toured to the right to spy through another apartment window like hornets trying to find their way into a hive. Some bored dudes in quarantine were probably trying to score a peep show.

Maybe.

“Hello?” Sarah was growing impatient.

Maggie was still barking out the window. I went to look. Down the street, almost out of my line of sight, was a black limo. I don’t know why I went after it, exactly, but I was having the weirdest fucking day of my life. I was operating on pure confusion and instinct, by that point. And Maggie was disturbed. So, I was disturbed.

Sarah shouted something about me scaring her as Maggie and I ran out the door. We were in front of the limo before I even knew what I was doing. I banged on the tinted window.

Surprisingly, it rolled down.

My genie stared out at me in her red Chanel suit, with two other beautiful women who looked like they were models for the L.O.L. doll company. All genies, I realized. The three of them wore these sassy little smirks on their faces.

“I need to know what the hell is happening here.”

They watched me for a minute. Sizing me up, maybe. Toying with the idea of using their cosmic powers against me.

At last, my genie shrugged. “I like you, cereal man. You’re a dog person. So, I’ll let you in on a secret.”

The window began to roll up and she threw me a wink. “We’re just running a trial for the apocalypse.”

The moment the window closed, the limo disappeared, and I was standing by the street half covered in crushed up melting cereal with my dog barking at thin air.