Sharing flash fiction this week

for a little breathing space!

Aug 06, 2024

Today it’s a piece of flash fiction. There are no bees in it. I’ve been writing a good deal of poetry, hashing out and revising, cutting out words and syllables again and again until there’s barely any room left.

Proof:

So it’s time for some fiction, and the meagre crawlspace of oxygen afforded by this shortest storytelling form.

I was reading a lot of Brett Easton Ellis when I wrote it, I think, because you can hear him in there. It’d be great if you could share this post, because my writing will die all alone in a deep well otherwise.1

Here’s the flash fiction piece

When the three of you decided it was time for the party, you’d been talking about it for five years.

The premise was simple: everyone would die with abandon.

You figured people would be just about desperate enough to come. Next weekend seemed the best bet, on account of the war that your country had declared on another country far away that nobody could point to on a map.

That had been months ago.

There had been poison and famine.

“Water’s turned off,” you said. Carter went on poking his lunch and Sylvia was clearly ignoring you just for the hell of it.

So what, you thought. They’ll get theirs in hell when all the major cities and defense forces had been tanked to pieces by a-bombs, you thought.

In theory, a party is simple.

While Carter sketched a nephron on the dining room table with a steak knife, you ran through the shopping list with Sylvia. You had sold your car the day before for half what it had been worth. Sylvia had a sheen to her mouth that unnerved you. Writing the list was the easiest part because all you had to get was anything you ever wanted.

You didn’t know many people to invite because your phones had stopped working.

Carter had turned them into a wall display.

It looked shit.

Friday night the three of you sat there in the house with all the lights on, the heat and the music cranked up, surrounded by supplies.

The mannequin in the corner stared, mildly outraged by the display.

Sylvia’d stolen her from Saks on fifth; they both wore negligees and rollerblades.

“What if nobody comes,” Carter said, playing with his M1903 Springfield.

It didn’t warrant an answer.

Sylvia gave a half shrug. She did a meager line off Carter’s naked thigh that he flexed for her benefit, but she said nothing about it, and you waited for the doorbell to ring

because you couldn’t do anything else.

Hear the audio version: