Flashy

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Joel Brouwer apparently coined the flash fiction subsect of the century, a story of exactly 100 words. I find this a most wonderful little exercise. At some point in time, I may perhaps challenge myself to one one-hundred a day, or maybe a week. I could start with a week. Guenette gave us an assignment of some centuries. Kindergarten Studies was one. Here is another:


Conception

On the 21st of September, 1991, as the 94-year-old William ‘Westy’ Brunkow exhaled his last breath in Stigler, Oklahoma’s Haskell County Hospital, AC/DC started their show at the Hippodrome de Vincennes with Brian Johnson whining ‘I was caught in the middle of a railroad track’ to a rousing Parisian chorus of ‘THUNDER,’ followed by Shoot to Thrill, followed by Back in Black, which happened to be the song playing on 100.7 WHUD in Carl Wright’s blue 1972 Chevy Monte Carlo somewhere in Westchester County as Carmen Fuedo conceived her first child on this the third fucking of her second boyfriend.
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And two and a half centuries. This was one of those surprising writings that it wasn't until a coworker asked me about its roots that I realized it was entirely about a true experience of my own, once I got down to the substance. The bold actions metaphorical for something so much more subdued.


Eyes Behind the Blindfold


‘Make sure you get all the blood off.’

Deanne glared at him over her shoulder. She turned off the water, threw the soap into the basin, faced him and wiped her hands on her jeans.

‘Your pouting won’t help. I’m starting to think you didn’t want this.’

Jack was good at that, making her think there was a time when she did want to break into his sister’s home, bind his twin seven-year-old nieces, their mother and father, in the barn and execute them.

‘The hard part is over. Now we just drive. Like when we were kids. Anywhere you want.’

His hands on her waist, he gently turned her toward the sink and began washing her hands. He was so fucking good at that. The sacrifices, always for her.

‘You’ll feel better once you are cleaned up, once we are on the road.’

She watched the blood swirl down the drain, she watched his hands massage the red out of her skin, watched him pat them dry with a rag. Just minutes before it had been tied around the now dead eyes of his sister.

‘There you go. See? Everything is working out exactly how we planned. Finally, Deanne, now it will all begin for us.’

It calmed her to hear him speak like that. He was so good. His voice made it easy. She took the pistol from the countertop, fired twice and went out the backdoor.
There was not a trace of blood on her this time.
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