Flash Fiction- Avery

This is a sort of first attempt at magical realism. Sort of.



It was a big day, the day she died. Voluminous flowers burst fitfully from their copper-knuckled buds; multicolored birds trumpeted songs just small enough to fit into the crevice of your ear, just hungry enough to eat your eardrum whole. With all of this, the flashing color, impossible music, skies frighteningly expansive, hardly anyone noticed when Rosita Winston sighed gently, tipped back in her rocking chair, and died.

I was in the room at the time, and watched as her soul came pouring from between her slightly parted lips like honey and evaporated rapidly towards the ceiling, concentrating around the lamp that clung there, full of the carcasses of insects. The gold liquid glow disappeared suddenly, taking the light from the lamp with it.

The room was full of carcasses, I the only living thing.

Aunt Frieda came in the room then, and when she saw Rosita, all soulless and still, she began to cry, letting the bowl of soup she had been carrying fall to the floor. The carpet drank in the pale broth, and burped up the celery and carrots. It probably would have lapped up Frieda’s tears thirstily, too, but instead of falling down, they fell up, following the soul of the woman who was once Rosita.

Men wide as elephants came to take her away, and she was just a little husk of a woman. It had been her soul that had been heavy; heavy and sweet. Frieda ended up carrying Rosita out in her arms, too bereft to consider one of these crushing men stealing away her dead mother. I looked around at the room: the furniture was springlike, bright and colorful, and there were pictures framed in gold hung upon the teal walls. A cactus protected one corner, a turntable another. The room closed its eyes gently, as if asking to be left alone awhile. A bee buzzed in the curtains. I shut the door.




One day, a month later when the grief had caught up with me and I was tired of crying but couldn’t yet stop, I walked almost by accident into the room where she had died. The curtains hung lankly across the windows, too stubborn to be moved by the breeze. The plants had been dipped in plastic. The pink chairs held very still, refusing to beckon as they usually did. Instead, I lowered myself into her chair, the rocking chair, and waited.

A ticking interrupted my vigil, frustrated its silence. I turned to look at the clock, which Frieda had turned back one minute to rest at exactly 4:39, the moment when Rosita had died. It remained perfectly still. The ticking stopped.

A humming sound was making the back of my head ache slightly. I turned to interrogate the record player. The needle was settled in its groove contentedly, not making a sound. The humming paused.

My eyes were drawn upwards towards the light fixture, a dark nimbus, Unidentified Soul-Zapping Object, and a humming and a ticking and a scratching all ensued, furiously scrambling at the inside of my heart. I couldn’t turn away.

A golden-striped honeybee arose from the basin of the lamp like the Lady of the Lake, ethereal furry body too round to be lifted by such translucent, tear-shaped wings.

Flash fiction, Chelsey Shannon

This isn't meant to be specific.  

Any feedback is appreciated.

Nature

There were innocent bystanders. Pure, unsullied bystanders, tainted without permission by the stain of coincidence. There were always innocent bystanders: children subjected to parental arguments, chanced witnesses of accidents and mistakes. Victims of happenstance.

But there were also guilty bystanders, those who stood by, fully aware, even involved in whatever travesty they stood by wordlessly. Perhaps they’d caused it. Perhaps it was entirely their fault.

So is the case here. She has caused it all. And it is bigger—much bigger—than the silent child standing by as his classmate is bullied, the silent woman who does not tell her best friend that her husband is unfaithful. It is worse, she knows, than anything so petty, so easily resolved. It is more vital. It is more.

Irony strikes her as a childhood fable flits through her mind:

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too.”

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"

Replies the scorpion: "It’s my nature..."

She almost chokes on the pertinence as she laughs and the world burns around her. For she’s born under the eighth sign, the stinging, stunning set of stars and it is her nature. She is a guilty bystander. And she does not disown her guilt. So she can laugh as the world burns around her. And she can laugh as she goes down with it.

Scoundrels

All these Angels really want is

To lift you up and kick you out

They lie and cheat

Just to get by

They bum from the rich

And steal from the poor

All these Angels want

Is to sell your soul

To keep the profit

Never turning back

Turn Around

The freeway sign read “San Diego, 89 miles”

When the accident occurred. 

It wasn’t my accident, 

Nor was it my fault - 

But I still felt the need to apologize.

Maybe because I could feel the shock.

I wasn’t even close though -

Going the opposite way.

Or maybe part of me just wanted to be the hero?

What a day.

The freeway sign read “San  Diego, 53 miles”

When the incident occurred.

I know my car’s old,

I thought I could make it -

…no, I didn’t.

Maybe I needed a break,

I needed some time away -

Not from any thing in particular.

Or maybe part of me was hoping for this to happen?

What a day.

The freeway sign read “San Diego, 45 miles”

When it all went to hell.

I had it under control,

I thought I did - 

I had it under control?

Maybe it just was not the right time.

What was I doing -

I was going the wrong way.

Or maybe I was trying too hard?

What a day.

The freeway sign read “San Diego, 26 miles”

When I realized that I was in love with you.

What a day.