Flash Fiction Friday 2024 – Week 41

Flash Fiction Friday continues in 2024. New pieces appear every Friday on my Patreon throughout the year. The minimum pledge to read them before anyone else is $3 per month. and the number of pieces available is tied to the monthly pledge total so the more you support my efforts, the more you’ll get to read. Find out what they’re all about and check out some excerpts from this week’s update in this post.

Hold That Thought

Sam loved his girlfriend, he did, but she wasn’t a nice person. When she wasn’t ignoring him, she would often say the strangest things to irk him or downright make him mad. She never remembered important dates but chastised him when he did the same, and she never helped with any of the chores around the house even though they had been living together for the past three years. Every time he was upset with something and tried to strike a conversation, things went like this,
“We need to talk.”
“Hold that thought, please,” she would purr. “Hold… Hold… Hold…”
He would do that for minutes, sometimes over an hour, and then she would smirk and say, “Okay, let go. What were you going to say?”
“I don’t remember,” Sam said, unsure of how much time had passed.
“I guess it wasn’t important. Nice chat, thanks!”

(…)

Losing All Thoughts

You’re bored. You know it’s true. It’s not something that happens occasionally, and that you can dismiss with a flick of your wrist. Boredom is ingrained in you. Either you were born this way, or you grew into it from a tender age, and now can no longer escape it. Every day, you try to fight off this feeling and the lethargic states, but you can’t. Some people say it’s depression and not boredom at all, but what do they know? They’re not inside your head and their guesses are fallible. You’ve learned not to listen to other people, and you’ll carry that lesson to your grave.
However, you’ll listen to me. You’ll do it out of curiosity because you know I’m not like the others. I don’t fit whatever definition of “person” you can conceive. I’m more than that, more than human. No word or title do me justice, but I like the sound of Goddess. That’s how you’ll think of me because you’re already doing so, and once something gets going in your mind, it’s too hard to stop, isn’t it?

(…)

People Never Change

Some think people can change and become a better version of themselves at any point in their lives; others have no reasons to believe the previous statement to be true. Clara was one of them. Axel had been an asshole during college years, and he remained one, more than a decade gone by. He hadn’t improved at all. If anything, he was worse now.
Seeing him at her best friend’s birthday party was not part of her weekend plans, but once their eyes crossed, there was no avoiding the madness. He still had the same punchable face she remembered, the main difference being a pair of puffed cheeks and a few scattered wrinkles. He came to her with a greasy smile when all she wanted to give him was the finger.
“Long time no see, Clara,” he said.
“It would have been great if it had remained that way,” she replied. “What are you doing here, Axel?”
“My new girl works with Aileen at the law firm. I was invited.”

(…)

The Greatest Treat

It was Halloween and the last thing Frank wanted to do was put up with young trick-or-treaters ringing his doorbell. Eating candy on the sofa was fine, though.
Frank had recently turned forty and he was living alone, following a messy divorce. He had no kids – a choice he didn’t regret one bit – and no pets, something he was thinking about changing. There was a cute tabby cat at the animal shelter around the block that people were always saying looked like him. If his animal spirit was truly out there, then welcoming him in his place would be good karma, for sure.
On his lap, rested a wide assortment of chocolates and caramels, and a bag of chewy pumpkin cookies. He wasn’t worried about a sugar overdose because he was convinced he was going to live until he was eighty, like his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. Still another forty years to go!
Frank munched on his collection of goodness when he heard a tapping on the window closest to the sofa. A tall woman dressed in a gothic fairy costume was peeking inside.

(…)

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