Category: Flash

Flash: My Seat

Erin Penn

Empty Airplane Seats In The Cabin Stock Photo

FreeDigitalPhotos.net photo by jk1991

Someone was sitting in my seat. Every year, upon returning from the family reunion, I would immediately make a reservation for the next year, choosing the middle seat on the row with the emergency wing exit. One of my many plans. I didn’t want the responsibility of opening the door; I wanted to be the first one through in case the plane was on fire. Always safe and always careful.

Until the accident. My gently used Volvo and a run-away truck had an argument. I lost.

My family returned the seat for the refund months ago. I’m just hanging around following my plans. I attended the last of my college classes. Went to all the job interviews I planned during spring break so I would have a job as soon as I graduate. Attended graduation and the three June weddings of friends. The list goes on. All my beautiful plans.

I haven’t seen any other ghosts. I am not sure I am a ghost. Or what the rules are. I like rules and plans. Everything has a structure.

Everything SHOULD have a structure.

I’ve been very annoyed Saint Peter isn’t available as a gate guard or guide.

My best guess, since I seem to be drawn to everywhere I had made commitments and plans, is I am stuck here until my last plan deadline is past. I hope my hypothesis is wrong, since I had everything worked out including retiring to Florida like my grandparents did and had even given thought to which part of the Diocese’s cemetery plots I would be buried in.

My family cremated me.

I am looking forward to what would have been my 30th birthday. My plan was to go to New Zealand if I didn’t marry before then and use it as the honeymoon. In fact, I had been returning from coming back from getting my passport when the truck hit me.

The stewardess finished showing everyone how to work a seatbelt. Can’t believe that is still part of the take-off spiel, but I guess it calms nerves. It’s a full plane so there are a lot of nerves to calm, especially at the start of a three-hour flight.

Someone was sitting in my seat. … I wonder what would happen if I sat in his lap?

(words 383 – first published 5/15/2016)

Flash: Beware the Fingers of Gods

Erin Penn

Lightning Dual Stock Photo

FreeDigitalPhotos.net photo by Jennifer Ellison

Lightening flashed overhead, like the finger of one god reaching out to touch the finger of another. If lightning were fingers of gods, did humans arc between them like static arcs between two human who reached towards each other without quite touching? Were gods forever separated, not quite touching, imprisoned in their starry constellations, like Lester and her?

Why could her parents not see how much they loved each other? Lester was perfect ever since they met online. Skylar was forced to sneak out of the house to meet him. She had envisioned them meeting face-to-face for the first time at sunset, her perfect in her Junior prom gown and Lester in a tuxedo like Jace wore. Kissing, him offering her flowers, and then dining in candlelight at Olson’s Steakhouse private room.

Her dream was far from reality. Wind tried to tear her winter coat from her shivering body. The booming thunder hurt the ears, while the flashing lights rendered her effectively blind against the night’s darkness. Skylar could hear the approaching rain, including popping hail. She dashed for the bus shelter at Second and Oak, where Lester had told her to meet earlier today. She had texted him on a friend’s phone at school, letting him know her parents had grounded her computer time and taken away her phone. She didn’t want to lose him and begged him to wait; her parents always changed their minds, so she didn’t expect the month-long grounding to last a week.

He responded with his own request, one chance to meet her before her parents locked her away in an ivory tower. Lester offered to climb a thorny rose lattice to ascend into the tower her parents were building, if only for a second to gaze upon the beauty he so far had only witnessed through the inadequate photos she furnished. How could a girl resist such poetry?

“Maybe I should ask Lester the question about the fingers of gods when he gets here.” Skylar mused. The bus shelter started to rattle as hail hit. The Plexiglas walls kept the wind shear down; her feet remained freezing as rain driven by wind snuck under the raised plastic. Hail bounced in through the front opening, but the driving wind came from behind so the ice pellets carried no sting.

Her hair lifted from the rear and a voice whispered, “What do you want the fingers of a god to do?”

She jumped, nearly outside the shelter. Behind her was a man she had never seen before. Gray touched his temple, his cheekbones were harshly cut, his eyebrows shaded black eyes. “Lester?” Skylar whispered. Her voice drowned in the winter thunderstorm.

“If that is what you will delight in calling me, I will accept to be called such.” The man twitched his black wool coat like a cape and made a stately bow.

Skylar shook her head in confusion. “No, no. Lester is in school like me. A freshman at the University.”

“I was such once.” The man’s voice soothed, and Skylar found herself relaxing despite her underlying fear. “Time is such an imperfect master. Does one cease to be what one was when one develops into other things, or does that original being still remain within, a part of one’s past, present and future?”

“I…I don’t know.” The man spoke like Lester wrote. In her heart-of-hearts, Skylar was assured this was her forever love. She needed to let him know she understood. The two days past her eighteenth birthday girl reached to the older man.

Clasping her hand with his own, he brought her hand up to touch his cheek like it was the most precious action in his existence. The man who agreed to be called Lester then kissed her palm with reverence. “Yes, for the soul remains as young as it feels.” Skylar’s coat sleeve slipped down, exposing her wrist to his questing lips. “And the soul shall be as old as it thinks.” A flash of lighting caught a hint of teeth before Lester bit down.

(words 675 – first published 11/27/2013; republished in new blog format on 5/8/2016)

Flash: Inside Voice

Erin Penn

Shopping Cart Stock Photo

FreeDigitalPhotos.net photo by Suat Eman

Herding cats would be easier, Cheryl thought as she tried to locate Scott while she pulled the grocery cart into the cashier lane. Maybe a leash would help she thought as annoyance got the better of her when she spotted him near the “As Seen On TV” display. She swore she would not be one of those mothers, but between juggling April who had finally outgrown the child seat and the list of errands she needed to get done before meeting with a client tonight — the “ideal mother” was beginning to be overrun by the “practical mother”.

He wasn’t breaking anything. Still, the store clerks already had a couple of messes to clean up from her foray this afternoon. Her line moved. Once the next person started unloading, Cheryl grabbed the moment to quickly retrieve her wayward four-year old.

Scott looked up as she jogged towards him. He shoved the Gentle Genie box back onto the display and tried to look innocent as he stood up. Ignoring the fact the box was now sandwiched between two MagicClean products, Cheryl instructed Scott “Come on, I’m at the checkout.”

Satisfied he was following her, Cheryl returned to the line in time to move forward. She glanced to make certain Scott didn’t get too distracted on the way back and started unloading the cart. Cheryl smiled as he picked up speed. One of his chores was to unload groceries onto the belt; he loved being old enough to help. Cheryl handed him a bag of diapers nearly as big as he was once he arrived.

She tried not to laugh as she watched him maneuver it over his head onto the shelf. While he was busy, she unloaded the glass jars of baby food and the fragile fruits. When he was ready for the next item, she handed her son a plastic jar of peanut butter.

“Yeah! I love peanut butter!” he shouted to the cashier as he put the peanut butter down too firmly. The jar tipped over and rolled a bit as the conveyor belt moved.

“Inside voice,” Cheryl admonished conversationally.

“But Mom!” He said in a stage whisper; his usual volume change after being asked not to shout.

She gave him a Macaroni and Cheese box. “Yes dear.”

“It is a really BIG inside!” He flung his arms wide since words and actions were basically the same for him, and the box escaped his grip.

Cringing slightly, Cheryl watched it sail past the other two people in line before hitting the cement walkway and skidding to a halt at the carpet edge of the woman’s clothing area.

Going to retrieve the bent, but thankfully unbroken box she admitted the boy had a point. The mega department-grocery combination store had a very big inside.

(words 464 – first published 1/30/2013; republished in new blog format 5/1/2016)

Writing Exercise: POV

Erin Penn

Ship Wreck Stock Photo

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

POV Study
WRITING EXERCISE: Write a scene of 100 words or less. Write is again from a different POV – change to first, second, third person, change the third person, change from close third to omniscient. Whatever floats your boat.

*****

Adam in the Boat 1

Spinning between eddies, the boat never gained the shore despite Adam paddling over the side with his one good hand. The fight, then the storm, had left him bruised, battered, and barely capable of movement. Daylight was approaching, bringing promise of more sunburn and dehydration, with a slim chance of discovery on the abandoned winter beach. Adam will die in that boat if nothing changes. (words 65)

*****

Adam in the Boat 2

Grimacing against the pain of broken ribs, Adam rebraced against the side of the shattered boat. He dangled one arm down in the cold sea water, using his last strength to push against the eddy current keeping him achingly close and forever far away from the twilight shadowed beach. If his other arm worked, he would swim for shore, but the grisly compound fracture made his arm only useful as a maggot breeding ground. Two days he had watched the abandoned winter shoreline tease with promise of solid land, skin blistering under the sun, lips bleeding through the salt-crust under moonlight. He had started losing time. Time his enemies were using to get away. He dared not go unconscious again. He would not wake up. (words 125)

*****

My choice change – omniscient to close third

(first published 2/5/2015; republished in new blog format 4/19/2016)

Flash: Crossing Over through the Dog’s Eyes

Erin Penn

Weimaraner Stock Photo

FreeDigitalPhotos.net photo by Gualberto107

Whining confusion, the dog looked up where her head lay in the old man’s lap. She first looked up at her favorite human through one eye then another, then lifted her head to stare across the swollen mud-choked stream where the rest of the pack just crossed with their herds and looked back in question. Her human just raised his hand and patted her matted, wet fur between her ears, settling her jaw onto his leg as she continued to stare at him.

A sneeze took her, finally clearing the mud from her nostrils allowing her to smell the spring flowers surrounding them. The churned soil from the passing of their many beasts and peoples provided a pleasant underscent to the floral smells, nearly overpowering the wet odor of ice snow melt and rain runoff from half-frozen ground carried by the waterway.

She was sick of the water. The sky fell in broken drops nearly every day since the family had started walking from the flat den to the mountain den. Everywhere streams, trickles, rivers, and creeks carved new passages, stealing the joy of running and herding into an arduous task with sucking-slipping paws. She wasn’t sure why her human had decided to leave the others.

He had gone down to the water with everyone else, her pups and their mates and their pups and humans. Even gone into the twisting waters with the others. But the water was deeper than the others they had crossed on the walk since the snows started melting. She barely paddled across and collapsed on the far shore panting. When she realized he hadn’t followed, she had to swim back and nearly didn’t make it. Swimming wasn’t like running; it tired her. Maybe that was it. He was tired and needed to rest before swimming.

Her nose nudged into his palm, and he lifted it to pet her again. Down the neck and across the back, soothing the soreness in her joints and spine. She had lived a long time with this human, and her body creaked nearly as much as his did.

Finally, he said something in that strange soft speech of theirs ending with “Come on.” She started for the creek again before realizing his scent was getting more distant and looked over her shoulder. Blinking once to clear her failing eyesight, she verified he was walking AWAY from the pack scent trail. A whine escaped between her teeth. But he was her human, so she ran to catch up with him.

(words 420 – first published 4/24/2016)