Flash Fiction!

First, some information: flash fiction is kind of like a hybrid between fiction and poetry (mine definitely leaning more towards the prose poem genre). Basically, it's just a really really short story. And I'm in a flash fiction class now, so that's what I'll be posting. You dig? I sure hope so.

Here's a sample of what's to come, from a series I wrote on Jonah...

Jonah, Swallowed

When I was a prophet, I wanted to be a sailor. When I was a sailor, I was sick on the rails all the time. I planned to marry a tightrope walker so she could keep balance for both of us. But the storm came first, and I tied myself upright against the mast. John tore me off, said you ain’t no sail, said you gonna sink us all. My boots were heavy with rain. I could have emptied them, but the men came so fast and they grabbed me so fast and they threw me over the rails. I thought, find the wire, stick the landing, don’t just fall, don’t just break against the water. My hands hit first, and everything went cold. When I sank under the ship, I could see her giant eye.

She saved me, like a good wife. She made me part of her body. It’s like being inside my mother again, except I don’t remember the last time I was there, so maybe it’s not. I’d like it to be. I’d like to be born again, do the whole thing over. Next time I’ll marry the girl and stay on land. Next time I won’t even learn the word for boat. God will have to flood the earth before I step in his water.

Jonah, Day 17

Decorating is the hard part. There isn’t much you can do with ribs. God can make a woman out of them, but I’m not like him. There will be no woman. There will only be ribs. Maybe a disco ball. Something to put all these scales to use. Something to reflect the scant light. I just need something to do with my hands. Give me a helm, and I’ll steer. Give me a surgical saw, and I’ll cut out the heart. I’ll make this place a home. A woman would say it needs window treatments. She’d say, you aren’t a decorator just because some whale swallowed you whole and you’re lonely and bored. A home needs window treatments. But there is no woman.

Jonah, Day 24

Sometimes the whale opens her mouth and strange objects come inside. Yesterday, a red high-heeled shoe. Jonah pretended it was a telephone. He prank-called God. Is your refrigerator running? Better send the angels to catch it! He felt like a teenager again, and it was exhilarating and sad. He thought that if God really were a Father he’d be playing catch with him in the backyard right now. He tried playing catch with the shoe, but the heel kept coming down in his palm and it hurt and it’s stupid to play catch by yourself anyway. Jonah sat down in a pile of krill and sulked. He thought about the millions of fathers on land playing catch with their sons and about trees and dirt and all the things that don’t smell like fish. He tried calling God again. He dialed 911, because it was an emergency this time, but nobody answered. Nobody answered the first time either.

Jonah, Day 33

Jonah expects to die today. He’s been keeping track of the days and thirty-three sounds awful to him. He doesn’t know about Jesus yet, but he can feel that thirty-three is a dying number. The whale has been acting strange, too. Her calls are lower and longer than usual, like she’s mourning, and he can feel that she’s slowing down. He thinks she’s lost her family. He thinks, Isn’t it just like life? A woman eats a man and loses her family and they both go off to die together at the bottom of the sea. Jonah’s become a bit of cynic about love. He’s had too much time to think about the women he never had. The tightrope walker, the girl who sold oranges near the dock, his childhood sweetheart. He never kissed any of them, and it’s too bad, really, because now he’s dying and they’ll never know how bad he wanted them. Jonah lies down to sleep, because he’d rather dream about the girls than look at the insides of his whale anymore. He wakes up with a piece of whaleflesh in his mouth. He’d being dreaming about eating his way out.