A Story in a Flash - A Collection of 300 Word Flashfiction Stories Read online



  A Story in a Flash

  A Collection of 300 Word Flashfiction Stories

  BY

  MICHAEL DRAKE

  Copyright 2006-2013 Michael Drake

  Cover Art Copyright 2013 Michael Drake

  50 Flshfiction stories by Michael Drake. Each exactly 300 words in length. Sci-fi, fractured fairy tales and more.

  The stories in this collection are works of fiction. Names, Characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  Table of Contents

  A Day In The Life Of A Rock

  A View From The Top

  Alice Doesn’t Sleep Here Anymore

  Always Learn From Your Parents

  And The Band Played On

  Backfired

  City of Equals

  Closed Door Negotiations

  Dead on Time

  Decision Alpha

  Decisions, Decisions

  Dinner In

  Long Road Down

  Fatal Mistake

  Fifth Back in the Third Row

  Flight of the Newling

  Forbidden Eden

  Message In A Bottle With Wings

  New World View

  Getting Home

  Goes Around What Comes Around

  Goldilocks And The Four Bears

  Hansel and Gretel Eat Out

  #aprayertogod

  Head to the Edge

  Historic Hosehead

  Humpty’s Downfall

  Lady Godiva Gets Johnny’s Appleseed

  Leave It In Las Vegas

  The Michigan Monster

  Milestone on the Moon

  Murdering Baby

  Pie In The Sky

  Puppy Love

  Running Lost

  Sammy Assembly Required

  Six To Three

  Break Out The Bacon For Breakfast

  Sleep Over

  Real Downtime

  Stinger

  Super Heroes In Tights Support

  Swinging Savior

  Tech, Tock, Boom

  The Memory Cocoon

  The Price of Silence

  They Even Take Out The Trash

  To Do Or Not To Do

  Whey To Eat

  Wool Mittens

  A Day In The Life Of A Rock

  By

  Michael Drake

  Rivero the rock began the day at midnight enjoying a light rain. It felt refreshing to be cleaned without being drenched.

  “I wish I could do my back,” the rock thought slowly.

  Rivero lay out front of a house in a rough part of town. He actually liked his current spot marking the corner of a row of bushes that ran along the sidewalk; much better than the year he spent getting soaked under the leaky gutter.

  The rain tapered off by sunrise and the sun evaporated what was left on Rivero and his neighbors.

  “Ahhh, clean and dry,” thought Rivero.

  No sooner did it complete that very slow thought than a group of kids came down the sidewalk and up to Rivero.

  “This one should have some,” said one of the kids.

  Two others in the group upended Rivero, heaving the rock completely over and on the damp leaves under the bush.

  “Cool! There are lots of worms. Quick, get them before they go back underground,” shouted one of the older kids.

  The group left Rivero lying on its back and continued, worms in hand down the sidewalk.

  Rivero spent the rest of the morning feeling quite dirty and wishing the rain would come back. No sooner did it complete that very slow thought than a dog came down the sidewalk and up to Rivero.

  “Yuck! Not how I wanted a shower,” thought Rivero (in a rocklike slowness, of course), as the dog walked away relieved.

  It took the remainder of the afternoon for the slickness to finally dry. Rivero rested, lying on its back, trying to enjoy the cool evening.

  Just before midnight, Rivero found itself suddenly flying through the air. It shattered a large picture window and crashed through a coffee table. The flames began soon after.

  A View From The Top

  By

  Michael Drake

  Everyone knows I am Top Gun. My experience in warfare put me there.

  When in the heat of battle, I respond without hesitation, firing when told; no mercy, no regrets. That’s what makes me the best.

  I’ve been at the top of my game for a year now. I am the first choice by brass for their most covert missions.

  I’ve flown over more enemy territory than friendly. I’ve seen action on a daily basis day and night.

  The stealth mission over the eastern mountains proved the most difficult of the year. The enemy’s gunfire was barely recognizable through my own barrage of bullets. The mission had taken it out of me. It took a full four months before I was to fly again.

  When I finally did take to the air, I found my condition excellent and I was ready for action. The missions came non-stop. Global skirmishes required global travel, such as I had never experienced before. Deserts and artic tundra, historic villages and equatorial waters were all on the itinerary. Breathtaking vistas made way to desolate despair. Ravaged landscape flamed to total destruction with my accuracy the propellant.

  Raze and return; another mission completed and back at command. From my position in the hanger I could see a megacrane wheeling its massive body across the expansive enclosure. It changed course and approached me.

  I could hear the voices of men below me.

  “Out with the old and in with the latest and greatest,” said one of the men.

  “To think, this used to be the top gun available to us,” said the other man.

  It was then the workmen began detaching me from the fighter jet.

  “Glory may only come once in your life. Enjoy it when it does,” I thought, as the crane carried me away.

  Alice Doesn’t Sleep Here Anymore

  By

  Michael Drake

  Alice pulled the rest of herself out of the storybook sized rabbit hole. She brushed dust and mud off her expensive Italian party dress and refused to think about what her father would bellow when she got home.

  Alice stepped onto the sidewalk just in time to see a little boy run past. She could swear that he had a plum stuck on his thumb, but Alice never swore. A woman ran, shouting after the boy.

  “You come back here Jack. It’s not bad enough that you got in trouble with Jill on that hill but now you ruin my pie and run away. Why do you refuse to tell me how you grew that giant beanstalk in the backyard overnight?” she shouted after him.

  The little boy and his mother kept running but a rabbit passed them both like he was in a race. Alice was sure she saw a tortoise, trudging behind.

  Mr. Todd Tortoise insisted that he did not mind Alice taking a ride on his back. “I will most certainly still win this race with the rabbit, excuse me, ‘Hare’ as he likes to be called. I told him some girl rabbits would get turned off finding Hare a short hair. What if they were hirsute lovers expecting more from a name like that. But anyway, that’s my opinion,” the tortoise babbled on.

  Alice, of course, had fallen asleep after the words ‘I will’ and awoke some hours later to the words ‘my opinion’

  “You are entitled to your opinions Todd,” said Alice sleepily, as they crossed the finish line in first place.

  Alice awoke rel
ieved; fully realizing it had all been a dream. She had fallen asleep on her Uncle Todd’s huge, hairy beer belly. Alice saw no dirt, just hair stuck to her dress.

  Always Learn From Your Parents

  By

  Michael Drake

  On the car ride to the 1967 Montreal World’s Fair, Carl Cambridge III was about to have his life perspective changed forever.

  “Dad and Mah-uh-um! Cindy is talking like some alien and won’t stop,” complained Carl to his parents Carl I and Cathy Cambridge.

  Carl became still from fear when he saw his father turn around looking quite serious.

  “Carl, your mother and I think it’s time you knew; your sister actually is an alien and so are we. Cindy was speaking our language.”

  Now the usual reaction to a situation like this would be either fight or flight, but with Carl (the III, that is) he found the news to be reassuring.

  Anyone could make claim to fathers who make up bad puns on the spot or mothers who were better computer programmers than the teacher at school, but most of the time Carl couldn’t figure out what, exactly his family was doing.

  Just by knowing his parents were aliens, Carl’s past revealed its true nature.

  His father had reacted to events by uttering strange sayings, followed by his mother saying something like “No Carl, not until the Eighties, dear” or “I think you better save that one for the Seventies.”

  Growing up Carl III assumed there had been a Carl II, but Carl’s parents explained they were still learning their numbers when Carl the III came into their lives. Now Carl understood they must have been learning the entire human language back then.

  Carl finally responded to the news. “Cool! Aliens, for real?” he asked. They nodded affirmations. “Can you teach me how to speak that stuff? I don’t want Cindy talking about me behind my back.”

  The three aliens began to morph into completely different people.

  “Oh, we can teach you much more than that,” they said.

  And The Band Played On

  By

  Michael Drake

  Vinnie Predaira, drummer for the world renowned RoadRage dematerialized, along with his drums while in the middle of his solo in front of a sold out crowd at Wembley Stadium. The crowd thought it was part of the show.

  Ace Freeman was relaxing with a bevy of female fans. They were all sitting in front of his wall sized television, drinking vodka when he dematerialized along with his guitar that had been hanging on the wall.

  George "BoneBoy" Jackson, his arm in a makeshift tourniquet was shooting up on the way to his recording studio to lay down tracks for a new song. He dematerialized, without so much as a sound; his bass guitar disappearing with him, his needle falling to the limo floor.

  Dwayne Godlieb, the world’s most popular vocalist, had fallen asleep aboard his tour bus. He dematerialized, while dreaming he was singing in a concert set on a mountainside, throngs of thousands of concertgoers spread out below him.

  Vinnie Predaira rematerialized on a large round stage along with his drums. He continued drumming for a moment before realizing he was no longer at Wembley Stadium.

  Ace Freeman went to take a swig from his vodka bottle and instead got a mouthful of his prize guitar. He sat next to renowned bassist, BoneBoy and gave him a questioning look.

  Dwayne Godlieb woke with a microphone in front of him. He and the other musicians faced an audience of utterly alien creatures on a thoroughly bizarre spaceship. He figured he must still be dreaming until he turned around and saw the Earth, visible through a window behind him.

  “Play for us,” said one of the aliens, handing them music.

  Confused, they began to play. The Earth exploded silently behind them, the alien crowd cheered and the band played on.

  Backfired

  By

  Michael Drake

  Thomas Russell’s life was a failure. Everything he tried in life backfired so he was determined that his suicide would not only succeed but be a spectacular end to an unspectacular life.

  The flight up was exhilarating which gave Thomas second doubts.

  The pilot spoke for the first time. “Hey loser, you ready or what?” he asked with a chuckle. “I hope you checked your chute before we left. You only get one chance you know.”

  Oh I know!

  Thomas jumped out of the plane with no intention of ever pulling his ripcord. Only a square meter of cornfield far below would feel the impact of his death. It was during the long fall down that Thomas looked over and saw an alien falling next to him as if they had jumped out of the plane together. Thomas' first thought was How did you get there? His next, suddenly frightened thought, was What are you exactly?

  It was then that Takaindabaksydtoo asked Thomas a question.

  "What are you doing human?"

  Thomas figured no one would know he went insane at the end and was talking to aliens so he answered most truthfully,"I'm committing suicide and ending my useless life."

  "You are ending your only life and doing this of your own free will?" asked an amazed Takaindabaksydtoo.

  "Yes. No one gets hurt but me."

  Takaindabaksydtoo was from a planet where life was sacred and suicide was the most forbidden of all acts. Takaindabaksydtoo realized his plan to bring humans into the Realm was a failure. He would sadly have to terminate humanity for this grievous act of selfishness.

  Thomas’ last thought was, At least I did this right.

  Takaindabaksydtoo activated the planet buster from his ship. He watched humanity end in a cosmic mess, sad that his plan backfired.

  City of Equals

  By

  Michael Drake

  A bloody red glow reached up covering the highest levels of Tensport as the sun set. Dalton looked down from his balcony into the depths of the city, glimpsing the always-on lights of the lowest levels where soon their masses of humanity would finally catch up with the highest elite residents.

  Dalton saw the flybomb round the building opposite him as he jumped from his balcony. AG board strapped to his feet, he had plunged fifty feet before he heard the sound of the flybomb ripping apart his residence.

  He knew the TPU had been on his tail but the rain of personal debris above him showed how close they had been.

  The AG board wouldn’t work until the last few meters of his descent, but by shifting the board with his feet Dalton was able to angle his drop away from the canyon edge of buildings he was falling between and deploy his parachute. He used the slower fall to begin throwing canisters in every direction. He dumped the chute as the board kicked in jumping off on the rooftop park of the Chinasia arcology

  Dalton grabbed the already folding board and ran towards the maintenance lot at the edge of the park, pieces of his residence falling past. He threw canisters in trash chutes as they dispersed their trillions of invisible nanbots and crammed himself into the back of a maintenance drone, activating the override chip on his thumb. The drone flung itself over the edge of the arcology, nearly ejecting Dalton as it plunged down it’s access cable to the lowest level of the city. Dalton stuffed the drone with the last of the Peoplechanger nanbot canisters sending it to the next arcology and lowered himself through a manhole to safety below.

  The Equalizer Revolution had begun.

  Closed Door Negotiations

  By

  Michael Drake

  The ship, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, had been detected, tumbling on a trajectory past the Faraday asteroid complex. A quick scan determined the contents were six P-souls in suspended mode. No aggressives or trojans detected. Tuck and Mox made the decision to freegrab the ship, pass it through decontamination and prep it for a virtual isolation load.

  Each of the P-souls started out a living person. They chose to have their entire brain scanned and captured. Their bodies discarded. The six were safely tucked into a sippy-cup sized canister.

  Nanoneural surgery reversed the process back into
a living brain, usually encased in a skull and usually attached to a body. Of course that process had been banned by most nations in known space. Faraday complex saw things differently.

  Those ideas changed after Mox and Tuck watched the virtual mode which kept the p-souls in isolation. These were no ordinary citizens. These were all the national leaders whose recent disappearance had put the Seven Planets in a turmoil. These were leaders from opposing nations who had gone missing all on the same day.

  These p-souls thought they were in a real space, in their real bodies. Seeing, then arguing with, then lashing out at their enemies, they were flummoxed that they couldn't reach what they thought were their real opponents.

  Virtual space was created to separate the p-souls. But even then they were just miserable vessels of negativity sulking by themselves.

  The virtual isolation was shut off. The ship with the suspended p-souls readied for re-launch. The same tumble and trajectory were selected and at the last minute Tuck started a countdown on the ship that would reactivate the p-souls within the capsule. There they would discover a whole different meaning to 'closed door negotiations'.

  Dead on Time

  By

  Michael Drake

  Kelly Francesco, a time operative for EraSpan, couldn’t believe the predicament she had gotten herself into.