Photo by Bob Collowan
THE SIMPLE LIFE
Turns out the monster taking refuge in the windmill isn’t eating our livestock and demonizing our children. Turns out all these years we’ve been doing it to ourselves. To a one, we gawp, and remove our hats and slap them across our knees. Then we torch that sum bitch and move on to the next windmill.
June’s Flash Fiction Contest came to an end yesterday, and after luring our judges into a closed-door session I sneaked off with the submissions and ultimately chose Scott Ritchie’s ominous (or pleasantly surprising, depending on your point of view) interpretation of our theme “Happy Returns.”
Here’s Scott’s story:
He had seen the letter addressed to him was odd, even before he opened it. Now, there was no doubt that its page was more fabric than paper; coarse, scented and gilded with a single line of glowing script that read, “Dear Dad, I am happy to report I arrived safely and will not tell Mom about the organ transplant.” It caused him to shudder, for he had no children, was not married, and yet here was clearly an abdominal scar where there was none before.
Congratulations, Scott!
Now, as promised, your prize, a glowing three-sentence tribute to the majesty of you. Here goes:
When Scott Ritchie isn’t winning flash fiction contests he’s traveling the country defending his record for most pancake house fires survived (15 as of this writing). Scott Ritchie can dance flawlessly to the rhythm of a clock’s second hand while knee-high in a tub of molasses. When Scott Ritchie sees colors he’s simultaneously seeing them in the billion different ways the earth’s entire human population sees colors.
As evidenced here, Scott Ritchie is certainly someone worth getting to know.
Thank you to everyone who participated in this round, hope you had a good time. Look for another flash fiction contest as soon as I find the key to that room those judges are locked inside.
Photo by Jorge Hernandez Valinani
I don’t want to set off widespread panic across the blogosphere, but the Flash Fiction contest for June ends at the close of business on Sunday June 30. Yep–take a deep breath–that’s less than a week away, and yep–now exhale–here at bryanhilson.com we’re open on Sundays until midnight. Don’t worry about us, however, we get to wear sweatpants and eat Skittles out of a giant fishbowl.
And at the moment, with only two entries, our competition workload is not so taxing. It’s true, the Flash Fiction contest hasn’t quite caught fire just yet, but hey, Alfred Nobel didn’t invent dynamite in a day; i.e., your chances of winning are still pretty darn good. But only if you enter this week.
To reiterate the rules: Write a short short story in three sentences based on a theme, and the winner of all eligible entries receives a dedicated blog post from yours truly with a glowing three sentence celebration of his or her all-around awesomeness.
June’s theme is “Happy Returns” and this is the example I gave:
“The father returned home a year after going out to buy some liquid plumber for the kitchen drain. He started in about a bright light, a ditch, amnesia, but his story was beat out by all the hugs and kisses and laughter. That night while his family slept soundly, the father was in the bathroom having been awakened by a terrible itch along his hairline, and scratching it he peeled off the latex mask disguising a different face.”
You can interpret “Happy Returns” in any way you’d like. Have a good time, go nutty, go sad, go funny, whatever sparks your imagination. As always, thanks for reading, thanks for playing.
Photo by BrokenSphere
Last week I announced a new monthly feature on the blog, a friendly contest called Flash Fiction Monday. The idea is to write a short short story in three sentences based on a theme, and the winner of all eligible entries receives a dedicated blog post from yours truly with a glowing three sentence celebration of his or her all-around awesomeness. Beats a stick in eye, am I right?
June’s theme is “Happy Returns” and this is the example I gave:
“The father returned home a year after going out to buy some liquid plumber for the kitchen drain. He started in about a bright light, a ditch, amnesia, but his story was beat out by all the hugs and kisses and laughter. That night while his family slept soundly, the father was in the bathroom having been awakened by a terrible itch along his hairline, and scratching it he peeled off the latex mask disguising a different face.”
I’ve received one entry so far but to make this a contest I need more. Do you have three sentences to spare that tell a story involving whatever you feel constitutes a happy return? I’m sure you do and all I ask is that you leave it with me in the comments box and we’ll make this thing competitive. In a friendly way, of course. We’re all friends here at bryanhilson.com.
So have it, and as always thanks for reading and thanks for playing!
Photo by Urbaer
Happy Flash Fiction Monday, everybody!
What? FFM isn’t listed on your calendar? Would you mind penciling it in? I’ll wait.
Great, thank you. Onward.
Flash Fiction Monday is a friendly contest celebrating short short fiction based on a theme. However, where conventional wisdom tells us flash fiction is usually constructed out of 300 to 1,000 words, here on bryanhilson.com we’ll tell our stories in three sentences.
The theme for this month’s FFM is “Happy Returns.” If you’d like to participate leave me a three sentence story based on your interpretation of that theme in the comment box, and I’ll pick a winner from all the entries. Said winner receives a glowing three sentence blog post from yours truly. Better than a kick in the pants, wouldn’t you say?
Here’s an example of what I’m getting at:
The father returned home a year after going out to buy some liquid plumber for the kitchen drain. He started in about a bright light, a ditch, amnesia, but his story was beat out by all the hugs and kisses and laughter. That night while his family slept soundly, the father was in the bathroom having been awakened by a terrible itch along his hairline, and scratching it he peeled off the latex mask disguising a different face.
Or something like that.
I look forward to reading your stories. Have fun and thanks for playing.
Spoiler Alert
I.
When you turn the faucet on, water will come out and you won’t hear them coming and when they kill you they’ll have actually done you a favor because of the terminal cancer blooming in your gonads, and when you get to Heaven you’ll meet a woman who you always just missed at the bus stop who will take you under her wing until you’re returned to Earth because the date on your death certificate was misread and you become a slightly grumpier version of yourself, except when you use your favorite razor.
II.
When you shave your face, your beard will go away and you’ll find the secret fingerprints that will help you track down your brother who is actually a woman who says she’s your sister when she’s actually your mother and needs you to be her alibi to be freed from a CIA black site in Prague that was once a renowned brewery that you will revive and bring back to prominence in less than three years time and after which you will return to the United States intent on throwing out all the horse meat in your refrigerator.
III.
When you pull the empty carton from the fridge you won’t be having juice with any leftover horse meat and you’ll see the cash in the crisper is bundled in five stacks of $5000 like you didn’t even ask for, and the moisture that’s accumulated on the plastic bag the money’s in contains a tiny cell-mutating microbe that will absorb into the prominent vein that extends from the knuckle of your middle finger to halfway down your arm and thus you’ll stop returning your books to the library no matter how many librarians sacrifice their lives trying to retrieve them from your garage.
IV.
That hummus is almost a year old.
V.
When you turn the key in the ignition your car will start in the garage and the odometer reading will be one number away from the code for the meaning of life and your bare arms will adhere to the leather interior and when you peel your elbows off the armrests the writing imprinted in the skin will be the highlights of a transgender’s interrogation inside a secret Czech prison that smells vaguely of stale pilsner poorly translated by an angel with unreliable eyesight, and even though the prominent vein in your hand is making figure eights under your skin and you should be treated immediately for missing fingerprints and testicular cancer that you mistake for a horse meat addiction you’ll be determined to fight off as many bloodthirsty librarians as it takes with your favorite razor and $25,000 in cash to get back inside your house to wash off your elbows.