The old saying is, it’s easier to find a job when you already have a job. Well, I have a job now but it’s temporary, minimum wage and no benefits.
Tomorrow, I have an interview with another company for a better paying job in a permanent position with benefits.
Wish me luck.
GHH
B.J. Kent asked Judy Lamar to join him after class for a couple of beers, his treat. Judy said sure. It would be the fourth time in two weeks that Judy had said yes to joining B.J. for a few beers. B.J. was sure Judy liked him. He sure liked Judy. Judy had large, firm breasts and wore low cut tops.
The two left their classroom in the Cathedral of Learning of the University of Pittsburgh and headed for a bar. Only a few customers were in the bar when B.J. and Judy walked in. He and she sat at the bar. Usher was jamming on the jukebox. After their second pitcher of beer B.J. said to Judy, “Another pitcher?”
“One more,” she said. “The next time we’re here it’s on me.”
“Great.”
The other customers left. The bartender brought their pitcher of beer and said, “I got to run downstairs for awhile. If anyone comes in tell them I’ll be right up.”
B.J. looked in the mirror behind the bar. Judy was talking about a particular professor who always stared at her chest when he addressed her. B.J. wondered what would happen if he placed a hand on one of her breasts. As she talked, her face turned toward him, he kept his eyes on her face. Then B.J. started sweating. He knew what he was going to do.
Judy stopped talking to drink some beer. B.J. stood up and stood behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders. She put down her glass and smiled into the mirror behind the bar at him. B.J. thought, she probably thinks I’m going to do something romantic like give her a back massage. Using every ounce of courage he had, B.J. slid his hands down inside her top and inside her bra. He cupped both breasts in his hands. In the mirror, her expression was one of complete surprise. She froze. He began massaging her breasts. The nipples of her breasts got harder. Her body swayed with his massaging.
“B.J.!” she said.
He yanked his hands out of her top. The bartender opened the door from the basement and walked behind the bar lugging two cases of beer. Judy swivelled on her stool and faced B.J.
She said in a low intense voice, “This is not the right place.”
Flash fiction cannot sustain much narrative movement. The story’s too short; but it is not a sketch. It must have movement. There must be development. Something must be different by the end of the story. If nothing has changed then the story is a sketch. If you’re writing a flash fiction story there must be change. This change can be slight and happen inside of a character (or inside of the reader). Sometimes a character will simply feel differently about something. He or she will act and/or talk differently by the end of the story.
Understory is what the story is really about. Understory decides setting, tone, characterization, description and action. The surface story, the words on the page, is made up of the particular concrete. The understory is the universal abstract. The surface story is the projection of the understory. Does this make sense? If you have two characters arguing about the weather they’re really not arguing about the weather at all. What they’re really arguing about is the understory. Pretty cool, huh? So, remember, the shorter a story is the deeper it must be. It must have an understory to make it deep.
Finally, we have backstory. Backstory is the history of the surface story. How did your characters get to where they are right now? To keep the story as tight as possible, the backstory is best implied through the dialogue. The following are some useful definitions:
Diction: the choice of words.
Syntax: the arrangement of words.
Concrete: what can be seen, heard, smelled, touched or tasted.
Detail: a particular thing.
Significant: a detail that suggest something more than itself.
The new flash fiction is a much more effective way of rendering a story than the traditional exposition-driven flash fiction for the simple reason that a picture is worth a thousand words. The new flash fiction is about using words to paint a picture and then letting the picture illustrate the story. The new flash fiction is like watching a movie. It allows the reader to join in the creative process by using his or her imagination to complete the story. It’s more fun this way for the reader. And even though this advice is about flash fiction, it also applies to any length of effective fiction writing; but flash fiction is easier to publish on the Internet.
The new flash fiction was made for the Internet.
You want to write great flash fiction? You want to be a respected practitioner of the genre? Here’s what Hemingway had to say about flash fiction.
Now of course Hemingway didn’t actually give me a check list for flash fiction; but anyone who has read the fiction on this blog can sense the impact this great American writer has had on my work and the kind of work I look for to publish in the…Gazette. So, here is a check list of the things I’ve learned from Poppa about writing flash fiction.
1) Don’t explain why your characters do what they do. Just have them do it.
2) If you want a character to be sympathetic give that character a flaw or an “internal conflict” to struggle mightily against.
3) The weather and the physical environment in flash fiction are not only important for grounding the story in reality but they should also hint to the reader the “deeper” meaning of the story.
4) Write about things, not ideas. The ideas drive the story but should not show on the surface of the story. The actions of the characters are the projections of the ideas.
5) Make sure each character has a different agenda. Only in this way will each character act and speak differently; so that you won’t have to explain what makes each character different. And in flash fiction you have to use as few words as possible to “show” the story thru the actions of the characters.
6) Sex and violence are great ways to grab a reader’s attention. But the sex and violence had better point to a larger issue or the sex and violence will cheapen the story, the characters and the writer.
7) Clarity, clarity, and more clarity until there is no possibility of the reader getting lost.
8) If you’re a male writer take extra care with your female characters. They should seem to represent real people, too.
9) Know what your’re writing about. Just because the story is fiction doesn’t mean it’s alright to let your ignorance show proving you don’t know what you’re writing about.
10) And finally revise, revise, revise and revise some more. Good flash fiction only comes from the ability to give an infinite amount of attention to detail. The reading of the story should be effortless; which always means the writing of the story was not.
Now none of the above points should be taken as gospel; but they’re a pretty good place to start.
The Words Inside My Cheeks
This morning I fed my father, as he lay tubed up and helpless in his hospital bed. Feed him soft food, the doctor wrote. So he opened his mouth greedily to the farina and cut up pieces of pancake. Make a tunnel, I thought as I approached his mouth with the spoon. Here comes the airplane—whoosh—the farina hummed and I thought about my granddaughter.
“Oh what a good boy,” I could hear my mother say when she would feed my father his lunch. “Don’t put your hand up to me mister, you have to eat—you need your strength.”
His mouth was sunken, his teeth in their other container on the nightstand. I patted down the wisps of hair and kissed his 94-year-old head. He took my hand in both of his and kissed it. I continued feeding him when he let me go and only stopped after he raised his hand to signify enough.
I left him in the room with an aide and his dignity to be cleaned.
That night my wife and I babysat for our one-year-old granddaughter. I cut up her peaches and toasted cheese sandwich and spread them out on her high chair table. She popped pieces into her mouth when she could and I, remembering feeding her father when he was her age, picked up pieces and said, “Airplane,” and flew the pieces into her smiling mouth.
Make a tunnel, I said as I made car sounds and zigzagged my hand with food towards her mouth. She couldn’t have known what a tunnel was but did know when she didn’t want any more food. She offered me pieces from her mouth and then swiped the remaining food off her table onto the floor in a series of semi-controllable arm flails.
I kissed her puffed out cheek and she opened her mouth wide to kiss my cheek in return and chunks of sandwich fell from here mouth
I went and read as her grandmother cleaned her and then returned her to me changed and spanky fresh.
My son and his wife came home from their night out and I wanted to tell him as I hugged him goodnight to please not play airplane with me when I get old; but the words stayed inside my cheeks.
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Paul Beckman sells real estate. Some publishing credits: The Connecticut Review, Onthebus, The Writer’s Voice, Playboy, 5 Trope, Other Voices, Dogmatika, Northeast Magazine, Parting Gifts, Fiction Warehouse, Web Del Sol, Jewish Currents, Tight, Riverbabble, Exquisite Corpse, Collectedstories.Com, Opium, Clean Sheets and Sugar Mule.
I finally got a hold of my brother on the 25th and wished him a Merry Christmas. He’s in the VA Hospital in Aspinwall near Pittsburgh. He sounded sober and more upbeat then I’ve heard him sound in months. Since he doesn’t have to spend money on food, rent or medicine at the hospital he’s saving over $1,000 a month from his SSI check and his city pension.
Well, he’s better off being at the VA Hospital then walking the streets and sleeping in shelters which he was doing just a few weeks ago. The man needs help. He’s in the best place he can be in. Family and friends can’t help him. He needed professional intervention.
The intervention is the best Christmas gift our mother got this year.
GHH
Creature Comfort
They both stared at the garbage can. It shook and rattled. Scratching came from inside.
“It’s a raccoon,” Tom said, picking up the baseball bat and heading down the deck steps. Vanessa stepped onto the deck and peered over the railing. “Be careful!”
Tom positioned himself next to the metal can, bat raised. “Get out,” he said, trying to sound threatening without shouting. It was, after all, 3 a.m. The can stopped moving.
“I’ve scared it.” Tom tapped gingerly at the can with his bat. The animal arose from the can, garbage falling out as it did so. Tom saw it first: The face glowing, an iridescent moon in the starlight, the silvery blonde hair that was both eerie and lovely. Tom’s mouth formed an “O” of surprise.
“What is it?” Vanessa asked, walking down the deck steps. Then she saw it. Not a raccoon. But a boy. Ragamuffin described him perfectly; tousled hair, filthy face, ripped jeans, no shirt. They guessed his age at four, but he could have been older so frail was he.
Tom said, “He’s hungry.”
“Obviously.” Vanessa ran into the house, to the refrigerator, and grabbed some grapes and a peanut butter cup. She headed back down the deck steps and reached out to the boy, holding the food as a lure. The boy sniffed. Vanessa and Tom would later say that they could almost see the white plumes from the smell of the food tickling the boy’s nose, as in a cartoon. Slowly, Vanessa edged backwards, up the deck steps. Spit trailed down the boy’s chin as he grabbed at the food.
“A little further,” Vanessa said. Tom followed behind the boy.
Moments later, the child sat in a kitchen chair, a bag of Reese’s cups and a bowl of grapes in front of him. He ate, taking in the food in great gobs, barely chewing. Tom sat at the table. Vanessa stood preparing pancakes and bacon.
“Hurry,” Tom said.
“They’re ready.” Vanessa flipped four perfectly formed pancakes onto a plate and smothered them in butter and syrup. She placed the plate in front of the boy. He tore into them with grubby fingers. Neither Vanessa or Tom cared.
…They’d lost the baby three months before. Vanessa was far along—so far, they’d named the boy, Colin. A name they’d both agreed on and loved. The room was ready. Vanessa had made painstaking preparations, painting, selecting linens and overseeing Tom putting together the convertible crib that would grow with the baby, so that they’d never need to purchase another bed…
“Uhn.” The voice startled them. Gruff, an old man’s voice, but pleading.
“So we know his vocal chords work,” Tom said, staring at the child. He turned to Vanessa. “He wants more. Is the bacon ready?”
Vanessa hurried to the microwave and pulled out a plate of steaming bacon. Fat sizzled in the strips. She slid four slices onto the boy’s empty plate. The bacon settled into the leftover syrup as the boy ate the food with both hands.
Vanessa smiled. “He’ll be a sticky mess.”
Tom reached up and touched her cheek. “That’s the first smile since…”
“It’s a problem that he can’t speak,” Vanessa said as worry crossed her face.
“You’re a teacher.”
“But…”
Tom rose and cradled her face in his hands. “You can do it. We’ll keep him inside, in the house, until we make the appropriate arrangements. I’m a lawyer. I can pull strings, create paperwork. While you,” Tom looked again at the boy, “make a human out of him.”
Vanessa followed Tom’s gaze. The child had Tom’s dark eyes, her blonde hair and pointy chin.
“He’s Colin, come back to us,” she murmured, bending down to face the boy. She reached out and touched him. He stopped eating and looked at her. His eyes were black, magnetic,pulling her to him. She moved slowly, caressing his face gently. He grabbed her arm with a sticky hand. Syrup clung to her skin. She whispered, “Your name is Colin. Do you know what that name means?”
Tom answered. “Gaelic. It means young creature.”
“Yes,” Vanessa said. “Our young creature.”
********************
Kaye Sebastian is a Philadelphia, PA-based writer whose passion is “flash fiction with a twist.”
The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette is looking for short story submissions. Read some of the stories on this blog. Read a few of the articles on writing flash fiction. Get a sense of the quality. Read and follow the guidelines and send in your best “literary” flash fiction.
There are 30 short stories on this blog for your reading pleasure. Just go to the sidebar and under Categories click on “Flash Fiction Stories.” Once you read to the bottom of a page of stories just click on the link you find at the bottom to read more stories. You can do this until you’ve read all the stories on the site. The stories are:
Postmodern Love
The Greeter
Basic Training
Happiness
Light My Fire
Porno
The Bar Scene
A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy
An E-Mail To Zoe
The Vietnam Veteran
Crazy Mocha
Denial
Lust
Jocks And Ballerinas
Meeting Rachel’s Family
Boobs
Pittsburgh Confidential
The Hemingway Hero
When I Was A Young Man
La Dolce Vita
The Cathedral Of Learning
The End Of Innocence
The Twenty Dollar Suit
In The Shadow Of The Cathedral Of Learning
Life Is Art
Pittsburgh Snow
California Dreamin’
Oakland Nights
Uptown
Schenley Park
