A Troubling Hare
I have a lot of problems. Let me restate that. A lot of problems have me. Having a problem is an illusion. It implies I have control over that problem. I don’t. The problem has control over me.
The Social Worker
I got a call. I needed to go to a home. A redneck case. Trailer trash in an apartment. Truancy issue with a 6th grader, as if showing up to school was going to change his future.
The Sax
Call Thru The Metal
And the tendril is the spark is the stem creeping a creep ominous and slow from the poisonous spotted orchid named malice. The tendril of disease sprawled to clutch at the softest tissue of the closest one.
Lewis and Fredo
I got it. It was now my move. Should I succumb to his demand? It was a dark, wind whipped subzero ominous god-forsaken Chicago blizzard.
Microsoft Teams is the Devil’s Tool
“This is no way to pray. This is no way to send our loved one off to the Great Beyond. To Heaven? I don’t know. I’m not sure anymore. I’m not even sure I was ever so sure at all.”
Typical Fr. Harrington. Always starting his sermons with a sense of existential dread and confusion. Topped off with a sprinkle of self-doubt. He’s the Woody Allen of Catholicism. He even had a questionable relationship with an ingénue at his old parish in Portland, Maine. That’s how he ended up here. In my church.
The Storytellers
It was a long signal and we were silent for a beat. Just enough time for my gaze to drift for no reason at all, over the door down to the blacktop where a female praying mantis lay crushed and paved over.
In The Young Century
There was a lot of noise and shouting by this time, but my grandmother knew just what came next. She reached for the matches for her cigarettes in her apron pocket and began to light the massive bobbins. Moving down the row, crawling fast and watching from the floor as the flames climbed the yarn and smoke began to billow at the ceiling. The workers went fast for the exits when she was pulled from under the spooler and tied to a sewing table chair by a floor manager.
Selfish Love
It was a hard decision. One Marie had to make alone. Her poor, sick kitty couldn’t weigh in even though it was his opinion that should have mattered most. Cancer. It’s a bummer no matter the species.
Slothy's Day Out
Slothy has been a good friend to Harry. He’s always been there to play with and comfort Harry. Slothy has always had Harry’s back. He was Harry’s biggest cheerleader when Harry was learning to walk. Because a walking Harry meant Slothy could have more adventures.
The Cereal Wish | 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.
The Cereal Wish | Part 7
“Those motherfuckers—spying on me again,” I said.
“Who’s spying on you?” Sarah asked.
Stray Humans
Shockingly, I was placed on the ground outside. Outside! This had never happened before. My fear washed away and I was overwhelmed by the feel of grass, the way the light touched my skin. I stretched out into the dirt, face down, and breathed as though I’d never breathed before.
The Cereal Wish | 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.
The Cereal Wish | 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.
The Cereal Wish | Part 4
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.
The Cereal Wish | 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.
The Cereal Wish | 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.
The Cereal Wish
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.
The Cereal Wish | 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.
...that intense and deep aren’t the same thing even if you’ve convinced yourself they are. Intense is momentary and fleeting; deep is the result of time and energy.