It's National Flash Fiction Day again!
Which means I should
a) promote The Flashnificents AKA the story collective co-founded by me. I write at least one jokey piece for it weekly. The group was inspired by our lecturer's attempt to write a story daily for a year.
Said lecturer incidentally founded National Flash Fiction Day. Which means today I should also
b) Write at least one story. So here it is.
WHAT'S NEXT?
Well, I’ve finished watching everything on Netflix. Time to
go outside…
Oh God. What happened? The world is a wasteland. The
landscape is flattened. The horizon is endless. Man, if only Netflix had
streamed The Ten O’clock News…
I shut my front door and the house collapses behind me.
Shit. Looks like I’m going to need to a new place to sleep. And another laptop.
I walk for hours in seemingly unchanging terrain. I see and
hear no one. Am I the only person left alive?
The sun reaches its peak so I begin to get thirsty. The dirt
around me is bone dry. I can’t see an oasis. I try to produce some saliva to
suck on. I fail.
I walk some more. Soon my legs go on automatically and my
brain disengages. The journey becomes almost relaxing.
Night falls. I keep on walking. Dawn. I keep on walking. I
lose track of how long it’s been since I left home. I keep on walking.
Finally I see something in the distance that breaks the
monotony of my view. I run towards the mysterious mass in the sky. It comes
into focus. No…
Giant letters hover in front of me.
Next episode playing
in 10 seconds.
9
8
7
I fall to my knees.
6
5
4
I sob.
3
WHY?
2
I hate myself.
1.
Bleak, dystopian, not a lot of laughs... Outside your comfort zone?
ReplyDelete(Picky points:
'...seemingly unchanging terrains" is a little illogical - if a terrain seems not to change, why are there more than one of them?
Should the title have a question mark?
Do you have to pay royalties if you mention Calum Kerr by name?)
Sorry I haven't contributed to The Flashnificents lately; I've been overwhelmed trying to field all the tweets from @FlashDogs - and all the other* authors included - about the new #Solstice anthology...
[ *Oh, did I mention that I have two stories in both volumes of the anthology? :-) ]
It's good to be out of the zone once in a while.
DeleteThanks for being picky. I've made corrections.
That's not how royalties work.
Well, as long as you're still writing...
Congratulations on the anthology!
Your blog is very informative and great. Its very great read for me because your writing skills is so good and you will write this post in very good manner. Thanks!
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