Young Writers Society

Hey all! This is a collection of my older flash fiction stories (each one about 300-500 words). I thought it would be sinful to flood valuable forum space with every single one of these in a separate topic, so I just posted a bunch. Comments are appreciated, but I will definitely understand if you only comment on one or two pieces rather than all of them.

EDIT: Fixed some minor mistakes and removed spoilers, as they ruined the formatting, and added one more (Meadow).

EDIT #2: Fixed up Meadow a bit, added rating.





Bog
The bog is not a good place to be. It is not a good place to look at, or even think about. All it takes is one step to the wrong side, and you will find yourself swallowed by a disgusting mass, smothering and crushing you from all directions. You may try to scream, but it is the bog; you think, who else is silly enough to wander in here?

But saying that it is not a good place to be is a little irrelevant now. You were a fool, and you wandered in anyway. You saw a little puddle and thought to avoid it, and there's that wrong step you never wanted to take. Now the sticky mass is pulling you down faster than you can realize what is going on. The shock from such a development makes sure you never had the chance to find a branch to grab on. It's over, you think, and all you can do now is hope that you will have the luck to die painlessly.

Suddenly - mercy, you think, a god truly does exist in this world - your flailing hand happens upon a thick, moist branch. Survival instincts do the rest of the work for you. You pull harder than you've ever pulled before in your entire life, and you begin to see the gray light of the bog again.

What you don't realize, however, is that the bog is in on it. Just as you pull one last time to free your leg, the branch snaps, and you are back in the clenched fist of the miry filth.

Why, you think. Why did I ever wander into this place? Well, that's the damndest thing - everybody talks about the bog like it is paradise. Provided you don't take the wrong step, of course. Even though you've heard so much about the unfortunate people who couldn't avoid that dreaded wrong step, for some reason you thought you'd be the exception. You were not. Indeed, the only thing you are now is just another victim of the bog.



An Awkward Moment
He had slain thousands on his way up. He remembered each death vividly; every throat he stepped on to silence its death throes, every defeated opponent's back stabbed as they tried vainly to crawl to safety. It would have been very irresponsible of him to leave somebody alive so that they may do to him what he did to them.

With a cold and calculating mind, he destroyed their fortresses. The opposition was strong, but he had learned their every weakness and their every flaw - no loophole went untouched, no crack unmolested. He would come in, and an hour later, the ancient fortress would crumble behind him - the labour of many generations of hands, destroyed in but a moment. Even those that offered no resistance had to die, for the possibility that they would spawn the one that would defeat him remained very real.

His path, of course, was uphill all the way. Nothing but scorched earth remained in his wake, and no living thing but maggots preying on the dead was allowed to survive. He fed off the energy of his fallen victims to keep himself going, and go he did - until now, as he stood finally at the very top, and there was not a soul around him.

And then came the most awkward of moments, when a little thought crawled into his head.

What now?



Apex
In tiny pathways ranked by blades of grass, amongst the heavy wet branches, there crawled an Ant, foraging for food. Thought the Ant to herself, "I am but an ant. I am naught before these great green pillars, and I struggle to make way through the vast forests of felled Trees and foliage. Yet, despite living as a mere ant, I am lord among Aphids." Thence came a loud croak, and the Ant ceased her thoughts, escaping the ominous sound.

Upon a pile of leaves, there sat a rock; and upon the rock there sat a bloated brown Bullfrog, bathing in the sunlight. Thought the Bullfrog to himself, "I am but a bullfrog. I am naught before the Rain, whose absence is my doom, and whose presence is my paradise. Yet, be a bullfrog as I might, I am terror amongst Ants." Thence a jagged shadow slid over the fields, and the Bullfrog hurriedly fled beneath a bush.

And in between the forests and the sky, there soared a proud Aegle, seeking sustenance for her young. Thought the Aegle to herself, "I am the Aegle, master of my domain, above all - no Tree shall impede my way, and no Rain shall wash away my nest. My augury spells death for all that is beneath. Yet, just like my prey respects me, I must respect my prey; for without them, how would my young ever survive?" Thence a bullet cut short the Aegle's musings, and the raptor fell limply to the ground.

In a forest clearing there stood a Man, beholding the Aegle descend from the skies. Thought the Man to itself, "I am Man, and what was that Aegle thinking, soaring so haughtily above all, as if it is the master? No Tree shall impede my way either, for I hold a hatchet; and no Rain shall leave uncorrupted, for I poison the air." Thence another bullet cut short the Man's own thoughts, and it fell before a fellow Man.



The Terrible Tree
No sound flies through the scorched wasteland; even the wind that drives forth the lonely cloud-streaks of the metal sky makes hardly a noise as it sweeps up small clouds of dust. Savage shadows wait in frozen rage behind the slumped and collapsed skeletons of buildings, each more menacing than the last, all hiding from the old, impotent sun. Yet the lord of these lies by the delta of the black river, where the water never foams - it starvedly lashes out from beneath crooked roots, which keep shackled to the earth the last reminder of life: a warped, aged, terrible tree.

A lone symbol adorns the ancient bark, faintly reminiscent of a pentagram, yet with many more lines. They come together in vicious points, run together in unnaturally straight lines, fatten and fast without warning; not truly sketched, but rather traced against a bladed weapon. Five circular burns crown the points of the wicked sigil, and a great black halo of soot spreads outward with flame-like protrusions. None are aware of the existence of the symbol - for even those that enter the barren never make it to its dead heart, whereat grapples the earth the terrible tree.

The whole world fell to its knees at the nameless cataclysm. Despite the many years of recovery, none dare settle even the outskirts the thousand-mile circle on the east cost of the great continent. And, for an event so great, none know how the apocalypse occurred - perhaps the two skeletons by the tree (the ones clutching a metal-bound, though badly burned, book) know what lead up to it, and the ones several hundred miles away know what it looked like, but none have witnessed the entire event - none save for the terrible tree.


Meadow
The sun's rays shone through the leafy canopies of the trees surrounding the meadow, producing dancing shadows in the wavering sea of flowers. Pollen and loose petals gracefully sailed in the air, their flight scored by a chorus of singing forest birds. This peaceful sanctuary teemed with life - a ferret scurried into his hole, and a huntress fox pawed the ground there in defeat. Butterflies fluttered in contest with the petals, carried by the breeze. A playful fawn hopped to the meadow, and trotted right to a nearby mound for the lush grass that grew there. Pieces of burnt and twisted metal stuck out from the curious mound - the gravesite of some forgotten machine - and the metal glistened with the morning dew. Once, a long time ago, there was war here.

The birds' voices momentarily drowned in the roaring of a fleet of black helicopters passing overhead. Gunfire from somewhere in the nearby forest cast jets of green foliage into the air - some shots aimed up at the helicopters, others across the meadow. The fawn fell down with several bullet holes in its side, and the fox ran off into the forest. Heavy metal boots crushed the grass and the flowers, and soon, a platoon of a dozen armoured men stood in the meadow, listening to the barking of their commanding officer.

A strange gust of wind blew leaves from the trees, and a cloud of red vapours settled in the meadow. The soldiers frantically fumbled with their helmets, pulling on gas masks and shutting their visors. Those that did not react in time fell to the ground, blood-streaked foam seeping from their helmets, arms flailing in spasms, bodies writhing. More shots sounded as the soldiers killed their own men to spare them from the agonizing yet prolonged death. That's when small sparks appeared in the fog, igniting the flammable gas mixed with the poison.

The sun's rays shone through the gnarled skeletons of the trees surrounding what was once a meadow, producing ghastly shadows on the blackened earth. Ash and dust clouded the air in dead silence. This bald mound seemed devoid of any life - the charred muzzle of the ferret stuck out from the ground, caked with hardened froth. Dead bugs littered the ground. The folds in a butterfly's wings carefully followed the outline of a heavy military boot's track, trampled into the ground by the few escaping soldiers. The half-burnt carcass of a fawn lay plastered against the metal - a machine ruined but alive with the spirit of war - and the metal glistened with blood. Once, a short time ago, there was peace here.



How the Pen Fell
This is a story about a pen and its vertical voyage. Because such an event took place over the matter of a second, and we have a story we must tell, we will have to resort to slow motion in order to properly chronicle its adventures.

The trip would begin high above the vast plains of the Desktop from the loosening grip of the Person. As the grip weakened due to unusual frustrations, the pen found itself free of one finger and then the next, until it hung weakly between only two fingers. Soon even those relaxed somewhat and at last, the pen was on its way.

For untold milliseconds did the pen sail through the air, point down. The eerie blue glow of the monolithic Monitor dimly lit up the transparent side of the pen's hull, sometimes disappearing in the sunny shine of the Table Lamp. The pen bore witness to and partook in many wonderful happenings - it beheld the yawning of the Housecat, narrowly avoided the Person's other hand trying to catch it, and surfed with reckless abandon in the torrent of air provided by the Fan.

Just as the pen rode out of the Fan's gulfstream, its trip would take place for the worse. As this is a complete, functional, and, according to statistics, quite literate tale, it is wont to have conflict - and, being called upon thusly, conflict indeed came in the form of the Desktop. The pen's point landed a shattering blow on the Desktop, no doubt leaving an inspiring mark for all future falling pens to see, and collapsed on the flat surface.

Of course, no story is complete without a proper ending to tie all the loose ends and to add the essential drama. Because now it turns out that the Person was actually the Writer, and the "unusual frustrations" came after writing about completely pedestrian subjects and embellishing them with fancy diction that, alone, attempted to and failed horribly at giving the story any purpose!

Hello,

I liked the "How The Pen Fell". Anyway, I think most of it is kind of good. Will just keep writing to write even better.

Keep writing,

Alicia.

Bog
How wonderfully ominous! At first, I thought it was just someone stuck in mud, but as the piece progresses, I see that this bog is much, much more than just mud. In fact, it feels like some mythological land, that looks so beautiful on the outside but if you take the dreaded "wrong step" you end up seeing the ugly, cruel inside of the place. It's a trap to capture people who think they are good enough to enjoy the beauty without being devoured -- and I get the sense that even though people think of it as the eden that it looks like, nobody has ever made it out alive. It's like a Venus fly-trap, only for people.

However, all this is just the sense that I got from the story. You didn't actually say that it looked beautiful, only that it had the reputation of being paradise. I'm a little confused about what the bog looks like. On the one hand, you say that it "is't a good place to look at," but on the other hand you say that "everybody talks about the bog like it is paradise." So, why do they say it's paradise if it looks so awful? Is it because they haven't seen it and are just going off of what everyone else says? Or does it actually look beautiful, just not from the... erm... unfortunate perspective of the main character?

I was also intrigued that there isn't really any panic in the story. The tone makes me think of almost amused resignation, which gives the whole thing a sense of irony. Overall, I deem this piece (as e.e. cummings would have it) mud-luscious!


Awkward Moments
This one is certainly feels like a myth! It's a fable, and it's got a moral. It doesn't matter who "he" is, because, really, he could be any of us. He fought and killed and lied his way to success, only to find that since that was all he had done his whole life, it was all he knew how to do and once he "succeeded" it wasn't so much a success as a dead end. I have the image of him standing at the top of a hill, in a gorgeous palace, with everything he could ever want -- and he's the only person left on earth. Which is what he wants, because if there was another person he would kill them. He can never really be happy, because all he knows is striving... it doesn't even matter what he's striving for.

The only problem I had with this piece was the tenses. Consider whether you want to write the flashbacks in simple past tense ("he destroyed their fortresses") or the past perfect tense ("He had slain thousands"). Also, the end is in present tense ("until now, as he is finally at the very top, and there is not a soul around him") but then it switches to simple past again ("And then came the most awkward of moments, when a little thought crawled into his head."). This is just a technicality and will be easily fixed if you just look over it a few times.


...And I have to go now. I'll review the other three when I get a chance.

a

Hi! I'm back for more, as promised. :)

Apex
Again, it has the feeling that it should be some folk tale or something -- which I love! At each hierarchical "tier" the creature has something to feel arrogant about and something to be humbled by. The Ant is small, but still feels powerful (more about this below). The Bullfrog knows that it relies on the Rain to keep it alive, but it also knows that bugs fear it because it eats them. The Aegle is proud and graceful and can look down upon the world, knowing it is feared by many smaller creatures, but it also has a sort of humility and respect for its victims. Man, however, is arrogant and foolish and oblivious to his one enemy: himself. I thought the flow of the piece might be nicer if all of the characters die (except the second Man). So, if the Ant is eaten by the Bullfrog which is then caught by the Aegle. But that's not necessary, it's just a thought I had

Ok. The Ant was an odd choice, I thought, because it doesn't have a reputation for being a hunter -- maybe spider would be a better option, since it is known for trapping and brutally killing its victims? It also has some roots in mythology as a terrible monster (there are a lot of legends about giant spiders) which would fit in with the feel of this piece. It's completely up to you, of course.

Another thing is the old-fashioned-ness. :) For the most part, I think you did it pretty well. It got the flavor across but didn't seem overly stiff or forced, so kudos on that. But I am going to pick it apart anyway. I was confused by the archaic spelling of eagle. According to the OED, that spelling was used in the fifteen- and sixteen-hundreds. Around that time (also according to the OED) "ant" could have been spelled "annt" (okay, that's kind of pushing it) and "bullfrog" wouldn't even be a word for at least another hundred years. Just something to think about. Also, I think you should go through and be more careful about what is capitalized and what isn't. If you do the sort of Germanic thing of capitalizing nouns even if they aren't names, that's fine -- just make sure it's consistent.

The Terrible Tree
This one is different that the others! It doesn't feel as much like a fable (though it still does have that flavor to it)... it's more complex, more sophisticated somehow. The tree is always referred to as terrible, but is it, really? Is it the cause of the cruel destruction, or was it merely used as a tool? The sense I get is that the two skeletons by the tree (what an eerie image!) were performing some "witchcraft." Some pagan magic that used nature (the tree) to destroy the earth. Was the ruination intentional or accidental? Did the skeleton-people cause the earth to smolder out of some petty human war, inconsequential now? Or maybe out of sympathy, knowing it would happen eventually and thinking their way the least cruel? We don't know. That was before. This is after. The only one who knows is the tree, and it will never tell. It's a haunting premise.

You did very well with creating the mood, but -- I'm sorry to say this! -- I fear you might have overdone it a bit on this one. The descriptions in the beginning, for example, are beautiful. But there are just too many words. (Ahh, I feel like Motzart's critics "too many notes!") I've gotten this criticism myself many a time, and I know it stings, but it is true. Let's look at this sentence a moment:

Savage shadows wait in frozen rage behind the slumped and collapsed skeletons of buildings, each more menacing than the last, all hiding from the old, impotent sun.

See how many adjectives there are?! I know it's fun to write like that (I've been diagnosed with 'adjectivitis" myself) but it sort of messes with the flow, and the truth is, I think it might be more effective to convey an image with fewer words. It's harder, but stronger, I think. Especially if you are trying to convey a sense of bleakness. I have a friend who wrote a post-apocalyptic-type scene and didn't use any "judgmental" words, like "bleak" "desolate" or "lonely." She did use "smoking" and "grey," but those are unbiased descriptive words -- they have connotations, but they are not technically part of their definition. Anyway, what I'm getting at with this ramble is that when she didn't use words like "bleak" and "desolate" the scene came of very bleak and desolate, because of the lack of emotion in the telling. OF course, you don't have to do it as much as she did (or even at all, if you don't want to!) but I think a little lightening up on the adjectives would go a long way.


How the Pen Fell
Ah! This was excellent! What a perfect conclusion to your "bits and pieces." I have always liked the effect of anthropomorphizing inanimate objects in writing, and you have done this quite well here. What a fallen hero that pen was. May it be an inspiration for pens to come! It was the victim of pointless Person frustration with which it had nothing to do and still managed to make its mark (quite literally, as it were!). The scuff on the desktop is a sort of revenge from the whole pen-race for their abuse at the hands of People. Its heroism was so potent that even the Person noticed it and, being also the Writer, commemorated the tale in a beautifully told little piece. :) I don't have anything to criticize about this, except that I am a little confused by why you capitalized Person, Desktop, Housecat, Fan, etc. but didn't capitalize pen. Was there a reason for that? Also, unless the Housecat yawned really fast, I don't think the pen would have time to witness it while falling. Maybe a blink would be better? Or a partial-yawn? Of course, it is up to you.


Overall

I loved this collection! Especially with the conclusion. As much as I like How the Pen Fell, I don't agree with its final paragraph. I don't think you have failed at all! Not on that story or on any of them. There is a proverbial flavor that resonates through the whole collection, and I love it. I love folklore and mythology and folk ballads and such, and so I am really glad I came back to YWS in time to find these pieces. :) The stories are metaphors, but very simple metaphors, and very simple stories. The point of the story is to get the moral across. Sometimes people will try to carry out a fable kind of idea in a full short story, which can be great, but it can also just seem to go on and on and because tales like that are so predictable, you find yourself on like the third paragraph and already knowing how the rest will go. So I think the form works really well for flash-fiction -- by the third paragraph, the thing is practically over, so it doesn't matter if you have predictions as to how it will end! One thing I'd like to point out is that they all are well-written, but they feel a little rough (inconsistent capitalization, switching between tenses, etc). I don't mind it terribly, but it can sort of give the impression that you don't care. Some reviewers can get offended that you expect them to spend their time reading and reviewing your work when you didn't take the time to edit it fully before posting it. I don't really feel this way, but there have been complaints about it here on YWS, so you might want to edit your pieces a bit more before you post them next time. You don't want to incur the wrath of young writers!

Please don't hesitate to contact me about anything I've said. I hope my reviews help somewhat.

a

I think 'An Awkward Moment' wasn't the right name for that piece. I liked the idea of conquering the whole world and then going, "WTF do I do now?" but to me, an awkward moment isn't an awkward moment unless there's a witness standing nearby to do the Awkward Turtle.

Yippee, a new one! Thanks for telling me. ^_^ When you told me about this, I was really excited but I didn't get a chance to read it until just now and... well, it lived up to the high expectations I had of it.

Meadow

Anyway, I know you don't like nit-picky things (and they'd be pointless for a piece like this anyway) so I'll just skip ahead to the main pith of the review. First, though, I'd just like to make a comment on your word choices: it is very dense. Reading through the piece feels like wading through some sort of thick soup. The soup is delicious, and I can tell every spice was carefully considered, but it's still thick. The writing feels like you've condensed a whole novella's worth of prose into four short paragraphs, without cutting out anything important. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I just thought I'd point it out--maybe just to let you know that I noticed. In fact, I think it's probably a good thing, as it shows that you take flash-fiction seriously and don't think that just because it's short it should require any less thought than a novel would. It also helps to portray that even though this is but a flash in the history of the earth, it was full of terrible detail.

That said, I'll go through the piece and tell you what I think of it along the way.

The piece starts out with a very beautiful, happy, perfect image. There is sun, there are plants, there are animals. The animals hunt each other, yes, but that is the way of nature! You don't try to play to the whole "big, evil hunter killing poor, innocent bunny-wabbit" image, and I like that. That view is very human, and not using it gives the piece a much less shallow feel. In fact, the prose is almost indifferent-sounding. The words you use aren't emotive, but descriptive, conveying that the narrator (who/whatever he/she/it is) is not emotionally involved at all, but sees the whole image as blissful and harmonious because, in fact, it is. A God-like attitude. Interesting. The one problem I had with this paragraph was that I started to get a Disney-like image in my head. You know, the happy, twittery little birds and animals all singing some mind-numbingly stupid song and making goofy faces at each other. This image was reinforced when you went into the fawn's thoughts and talked about the grass being tasty. That was too much anthropomorphizing, I think, especially for such an otherwise-detached narrative. You may have been trying to say something with that which I haven't understood (in which case, leave it by all means!) but if not, I strongly suggest modifying that, since it gave me a bad impression of the piece. However, maybe you did intend this, because that sugar-coated image that formed in my mind served to make the last two sentences of the paragraph all the more haunting. I still think you could create that contrast some other way, but I have to tell you how beautifully you did that bits about the old bit of machinery. Chilling.

In the second paragraph, at first I thought it was a flashback to that time "a long time ago." I think the reason for this is that the voice doesn't change. It doesn't become harsher, or uglier, or any less indifferent. I don't think you should change this, since it helps to reinforce the detached, God-like image I have of the narrator. By the way, I know you don't like nit-picks, but I think you mean "bore," not "borne." Of course, I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. ^_^ Anyhow, well done with this paragraph. I found myself having a little trouble following what was happening (I had to go back and read over it a few times) but again, that's just because of the emotionless prose, which I wouldn't have you change for anything.

This paragraph felt a little out of place to me. You go into fairly specific detail about the type of warfare--rather than just say that the men fell, you say that they were gassed, and as blood dripped out of their helmets, they caught fire, and you explain what "the enemy" had been thinking. All this involved detail caught me off-guard. I think that might be intentional, since it dirves home the horrors of war, but the fact that you had so many gruesome details in it sort of went against the placid, indifferent tone of the rest of the piece. This makes this paragraph something of a climax. Ordinarily, that would be a good thing... but for this piece, I'm sort of inclined to say that maybe there shouldn't be a climax, because that implies some sort of caring about what's going on in the narrative and (I thought) the whole point of this piece was not caring, but rather observing numbly no matter what happens. As God might, or as the earth might. This kind of detail and getting into the heads of the characters parallels that moment with the fawn that I was rambling about before, and I dislike them both for the same reason: they feel too involved. But if you intended that parallel, then by all means feel free to ignore me.

The final paragraph is a twisted mirror-image of the first one. Leafy canopies are now crooked skeletons; the meadow is no more; shadows are now ghastly and no longer dance; the waving sea of flowers is now blackened earth... and so on, but the wording is nearly the same. (By the way, I appreciate the symbolism of dead bugs, but it would definitely be more realistic--and might even be more poignant--if, rather than littering the ground, the dead butterflies had been trampled into the earth. Butterflies often represent fleeting hope, and possibility, and metamorphosis (both symbolic and literal), so I'm not sure exactly what message you're making with them right now, but (personally) I would find it more chilling if they had been stampeded into the ground. The end, with the repeated mention of the mysterious machinery, was just as (if not more) haunting and terrifying as the end of the first paragraph, and the last line was strong and stinging. I was a little put-off by the not-quite-perfect parallel, though. Let me explain. The first time, you say "a long time ago," and the second time you say "a few minutes ago." The first is very abstract, whereas the second is very precise. Was this solidification intentional? It makes me think that something has been achieved through this whole ordeal--even if I'm not sure what it is. This progression from abstract to concrete feels like, well, progress. I don't want to tell you what to do, because I obviously don't know the exact message you were trying to convey with the piece, but it seems to me that this sense of progress goes against the message of the rest of the narrative.

That done, I'd like to give you my reading of this. Firstly, let me say that this piece is right up my alley. As you know, I love symbolism and allegory and all that good stuff. I am also terrified and disgusted by war and the destruction of the environment. But besides that, I'm also quite intrigued by how you've written this piece. Firstly there are quite a few symbols here. I've already mentioned the one of the butterflies, but deer (especially young ones) often represent innocence, and vulnerability, while both foxes and ferrets represent cunning and slyness. I like that you've shown those last two in the piece, not just birds and butterflies and bunny rabbits--it helps to represent a three-dimensional vision of nature. The machinery, obviously enough, represents that part of human nature that leads us to kill each-other. The part of human nature that gets hidden in peace for a while, before rekindling. It is ancient, it is mysterious, it is cryptic--nobody understands it, and some don't even acknowledge it, but it is there.

The voice, as I've been saying all through the review, is so indifferent that it suggest (to me) the perspective of something superhuman. Could be God, could be the earth, could be nature, could be some sort of Lady Fortune... however you want to say it, it's all really the same, as far as I'm concerned. It's something greater than humans and unconcerned by their antics. Now, there is peace, and the narrating entity recalls war; now there is war and the entity recalls peace. They're almost interchangeable to this entity. After all, wouldn't God look down with equal detachment on a time of war and a time of peace? What is the difference to Him? Both are just things that happen on that little planet called Earth.

Lots of intriguing concepts, carbon, and lovely use of words. You speak my language better than I do. I apologize for the long, rambling review (it's probably more than twice the length of the actual piece >.<), but for such a small bit of flash-fiction, you sure have gotten me thinking. I think this might be one of my favorites you've written yet. Of course, let me know if you've got any questions or the like.

We'll be in touch.

a

Hey Carbon =] You were the first on my creeping list, so here I am! Creeping! So anyway, I really liked Bog and How The Pen Fell, they had totally different feels but both of them were really strong. Actually... all of them were really strong. Flash fiction is something I've been really interested in here lately, and its nice to see someone else has a knack for it =]