Young Writers Society

You've seen the Haiku Battle. Now, my beautiful bibliophiles, it's your time to shine. The point of this thread is to sharpen your story-telling skills while saying the least possible. That's right. Flash Fiction to the extreme.

Write a story or a scene in 100 words or less. There are rules!

• The first rule of Flash Fiction Fight is to keep it G--and no, I don't mean swagger.
• The second rule of Flash Fiction Fight is to keep it G--and yes, I do mean swagger.
• The third rule of Flash Fiction Fight is that all posts must be under 100 words.

FIGHT.

Fighting was all James was good for. In a ring, bare knuckles, spotlight burning sun, roaring crowd like surf, the other man'd rue waking up, not kissing his lady one last time when his face was still pretty. James won good money.

A rifle felt home in his hands at first. Polished barrel, bayonet, long straight shot into a man.

But consarn it if being in a black, muddy trench didn't strip a man of preconceptions. If a nearby private muttering Hail Marys didn't bring him to his knees, next to Dad, praying to wake innocently intact the next morning.

“Once more,” you request, “from the top.”

This is when the Latin notes roll through your blood, lick at the bones before your toes touch the powdered stage. Maestro has you by strings, strung through consciousness as much as your body can withstand, and it drives you mad upon each minor fall. The night is old, is decaying, and your thoughts fall on a place much further away.

The nerve of the man you call your husband, the man who, right now, holds the face of another woman.

“From the top,” you snap, “again.”

"Don't sing that," you said when I thought you were already asleep. "The stars scare me. The stars and the moon."

"Because they're so bright?" I asked.

"If there wasn't blackness the bright wouldn't be so bad."

"You don't like the dark, then?"

"I don't like that the dark has to have holes in it."

I kissed your forehead and told you that nighttime was beautiful and without it we would never appreciate the day and I kissed your forehead again and patted down the blankets around you.

And once you were asleep I whispered: "the sun scares me."

The first time they met he wanted to tell her that her laugh was like a violin concerto. He watched her navigating the guests, biding his time, thinking of the perfect introduction, the one that would make her realise it was meant to be.

No one expects a glittering Manhattan party to be shrouded in smoke.

He waited in the snow until they found her. Her sequinned dress was dull and her face blank but she was still beautiful.

“Can you identify her, sir?”

He shook his head, realising the awful truth that he had never discovered her name.

No.

Her under-developed body lies spread eagled on the surface. Her tiny fingers are reaching out towards me.

Stop this.

She is covered in blood, wrapped in the link which once connected us. Her mouth is open; she is screaming out to somebody, anybody who would help.

Please…

Her eyes are wrenched open, glazed over. She stares at me, through my skin and into my soul. Who would know what lies there better than her? She was the only one to ever truly see inside me.

And now she will never see the world.

What have I done?

I liked the way the mist curled around her when I looked at her, how it draped over her face like a wedding veil; she wasn't pretty, but I if I looked hard enough, the texture of the air formed young lines at the edges of her mouth. I couldn't tell if she was looking at me, because her eyes were always trailing upward, or northward, or inward. I decided to call to her. Maybe she'd see me.

"Hello?" I said.

She didn't speak. She didn't need to. Her eyes found me, blue and ghostlike.

"Don't leave me again," she says. He ignores her, puts on the heavy coat the same black as his eyes. "I swear to Jesus, you walk out that door you better not expect me when you get back."

Their daughter cries in the next room, eyes watch as he turns each key on the chain, looking for the right one.

"You're a scumbag, Guy."

There it is old and rusted, slowly turning in the door lock. The cold wind blasts him in the face, and the night is as black as his coat. "I'll be back soon."

"Go to hell."

She wanted to be the cuts on her wrist, thin and delicate. Fragile, freshly closed, where a single touch, a tremor, would start the blood again.

And the blood, she wanted to taste it, to savor it like an old Italian wine. She thought she could gain nourishment from it and truly, it was the only thing she allowed in her mouth, to burn down her throat and dripdripdrip into her stomach.

She wasn't crazy, she swore to god, to them, to herself.

"Blood tastes like regret, don't you know?"

It had all built up to this one moment.

His gloved hands were sweaty and he faced his opponent with narrowed eyes. His heart thumped. His fingers itched. He had an overwhelming urge to grab one of his balls but he resisted. It wasn't the time for that yet.

He'd been training for this fight since he was a young boy. Even now, looking down at himself, he still felt like a young boy.

But there was no time for such thoughts. Now was the time to fight. The crowd cheered and Ash turned his cap around.

“But I didn’t do it!”

Mama stared down at me My knees wobbled nervously, but I stayed right where I was, hoping she would actually believe me this time.

“Go upstairs, then. Don’t be surprised if you miss dinner.”

I slouched and made my way to the staircase. When I reach the bottom step, I notice my sister hiding behind the wall, giggling madly. Then I saw what was in her hand.

“Mama--”

“Just go!”

Defeated, I obeyed, and now no one would ever know that my sister stole the last few cookies from the cookie jar.

In sexy black leathers, she swung her leg over the saddle and dismounted her motorbike, tugging at her belt as she stowed the key. She wound a lock of hair around her forefinger, flicked it over her shoulder, and motioned for me to approach.

I dropped my cigarette and crushed it with my boot, closing the door behind me. I walked towards her bike.

"Want a ride, bad boy?" she whispered huskily in my ear.

I slipped my wallet out of my pocket.

"I was going to ask you the same question," I said, showing her my badge. "Prostitution's illegal."