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. Over the next two weeks, Literate Ape will publish all eight flash fiction stories individually with a link to the growing compilation. We hope you enjoy this literary experiment.

—DH2 , co-editors

By Brian Sweeney

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?

ME
I 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.