Terrible Analogies

Five Minute Fiction is an ongoing experiment. The goal: To write as much as I can in five minutes, letting the fingers do the work, then go back and clean it up.

Enjoy?

The World Inside

When they opened the cadaver they found a tiny brass key lying underneath the spleen.  Next to the liver they found a cobblestone lane that lazily wound its way around the pancreas, through a white picket fence that led through the diaphragm, and finally disappearing under the sternum, ending up outside the doorway of a tiny straw-thatched house tucked safely amidst the ribcage.

With key in forceps, they carefully placed it into the lock of the front door and turned it until they heard a slight click.  Pushing it open with a gloved finger they could hear two people inside arguing and shouting with a rhythm like a heartbeat.

With a delicate, steady hand, they snaked a stethoscope between a miniature birdbath and a freshly tilled postage stamp garden, placing it gingerly it against the wooden wall of the diminutive house.  The passionate disagreement had something to do with the corner chemist being locked up early due to half-day closing.

The sound of glass and crockery could be heard crashing to the floor as if to punctuate vital points each side was desperate to get across.

At what was surely the peak of the heated exchange, where the sound of stomping feet and smashing plates had grown to a crescendo nearly audible to all curious onlookers hovering over the corpse, the stethoscope slipped.  Knocking over the birdbath and crushing a miniature doghouse replete with a red-painted roof and tiny green welcome mat, those looking down at this strange sight uttered a collective gasp.

The lights in the windows instantly flicked off and the house fell deathly silent.  The previously still cadaver gave a quick shiver, and if anyone had been curious enough to notice they would have observed that it had fallen a few degrees below room temperature.

Five Minute Fiction is an ongoing experiment. The goal: To write as much as I can in five minutes, letting the fingers do the work, then go back and clean it up.

Enjoy?

Spoons

Ellie reached under her bed and slowly slid a worn wooden box out from the dark shadow that was its hiding place.  She inserted a small key that she kept tied to a piece of string around her neck into the scuffed brass lock and turned it.  The lock snapped open with a dull click and fell to the floor.

With a careful, well-rehearsed motion Ellie slowly rubbed her palms on the box, feeling the grain where it peeked out behind paint worn thin from years of repeated caresses.  Lovingly, she lifted the lid until brass fittings halted its progress and held it safely open.

Inside lay a large dusting rag, hiding its precious treasure under a thin grey rippling surface in a desperate, final defense.  Ellie paused and smiled the smile of someone with a dark, savory secret, pinched a corner of the rag between finger and thumb and carefully peeled it away.

Lying in small piles in the felt-lined box were spoons.

They were all mismatched, of different sizes and designs.  One had the words “Tom’s Deli” stamped on the handle.  Another had intricate designs and swirls etched into it.  A small, squat spoon bore the design of a windmill in its bowl.  There were dozens of spoons, all from different origins, and each was dotingly polished to a high shine.  Ellie was fond of every single one.

When she held them just so and stared deep into their gleaming concave surfaces, she saw things in them that nobody else could see.

Five Minute Fiction is an ongoing experiment. The goal: To write as much as I can in five minutes, letting the fingers do the work, then go back and clean it up.

Enjoy?

A Town Called Loveless

“What’s so special about love?” Lowery asks as he chews on a Danish. The steam coming off the coffee cup in his gloved right hand glowing a bright orange in the early morning light.

“Yep,” Smith replies, smart enough to know a rhetorical question when he hears one, and in a town called Loveless there was no reason to argue the point. “But why the hell do they do it?”

Lowery, every bit as confused about the whole mess as Smith shakes his head. “Damned if I know. Remember the Olsen kid and what’s her name…”

“Catherine.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Great looking kids. Smart, too. There really was no need for them to do that,” Lowery sighs, tossing the remaining bit of his Danish over his shoulder.  “People around here, people like you and me, we marry our wives to reproduce. To propagate the species. There is no love involved. It’s basic survival and nothing else. But these kids. The older I get, I swear the less I understand ‘em.”

Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, pulling it tight against his body against the cold morning, Smith eyeballs the graffiti on the alley walls as they make their way towards Ash Street. They were all markings carrying a similar theme: “John & Suze 4 Ever”, “Beautiful Death”, “Love Will Be The End Of Us All”. These kids are all too aware of the consequences of this singular emotion that in this town triggers an intense, genetic desire for self-destruction.

Emerging from the alley, Smith and Lowery round the corner and finally see them. Young lovers, hands clasped, staring at each other with glazed, lovesick eyes.

Smith looks up at the broken window on the 9th floor then begins work on the chalk outline around the bodies as Lowery casually drops his unfinished coffee to the ground and helps out the local beat cops with crowd control.

Five Minute Fiction is an ongoing experiment. The goal: To write as much as I can in five minutes, letting the fingers do the work, then go back and clean it up.

Enjoy?

Evergreen

Sarah watched her son through the kitchen window as he blossomed roses with his hands.  ”He’s such a good boy,” she thought, making sure her flowers are always in bloom and that the old oak tree remained green year round.

Sarah washed her hands in the sink then pushed opened he window and shouted, “Kyle!  Lunch is ready.”

“Coming!” Kyle replied, taking long gangly steps towards the kitchen door.  Fresh tomato sprigs instantly sprouting from the impressions his bare feet made in the dark garden soil.

With his hands and feet neatly washed and dried Kyle sat down at the kitchen table.  “Here ya go, hon.  Peanut butter and banana sandwiches just like you wanted.”

“Thanks, mom,” Kyle said, picking up one of the sandwiches from the plate Sarah had placed in front of him.  “Mom?” he asked timidly.

“Yes, hon?”

“There’s a cat that’s been prowling around the garden, and I was wondering if…”

“No.” Sarah sternly interrupted.  “We’ve had this discussion before.  You’re not allowed to touch anything living.  You know better.”

“I know, but…”

“But nothing.  You remember what happened to your father?” Sarah asked, instantly regretting having mentioned it.

Five Minute Fiction is an ongoing experiment. The goal: To write as much as I can in five minutes, letting the fingers do the work, then go back and clean it up.

Enjoy?

Family Matters

I ask Ben to hurry up, finish.  Sadly, he is much like his mother.  I grind molars, my one bad habit.  Well, one of them anyway.

“We have to go or we’ll be late,” I say, placing the molars back into my front pants pocket.  Ben finally appears around the corner, grabs my hand and falls into step with me.  “We have to make a withdrawal from the bank before we get to the turning party.”

“Alright, dad,” he sighs, playing with a spot of blood on the cuff of my shirt.  Damn.  And I just had this shirt dry cleaned.

“Do you think Mylar will be there?” Ben asks expectantly.

“I don’t know, son.  After the last time with his incessant mind probes, not to mention the claw marks he left in your mother’s favorite couch, I don’t think he was invited.”

“But dad!  I won’t know any of the other kids there,” he moans.

Getting down on one knee, I brush back the hair of his widow’s peak, smile and say, “Listen, if you’re good we’ll stop by the butcher shop on the way home and pick you up a heart-on-a-stick.  Okay?”

“Okay!” he says smiling, his baby-sharp fangs glowing in the dank dark.

He’s so much like his mother.