Flash Fiction Compilation
Hey, y'all. How ya all been? It's kind of a lazy day here. Today being Saturday and all. The sun is shining and it's drizzling at the same time. Can be frustrating if you want to go out. My creative juices ain't flowing through. So, I'm like stuck.
Away from me and my boring day, I want to share something with you. I've got some flash fictions 'lazing around' on my gadgets. Time to put them to good use, don't you think? LOL. I'll share five if them, each less than 500 words. I hope you enjoy them. I know I had fun writing them.
First:
She sits in front of her dressing mirror and works feverishly on her face. Her appearance has changed a little. Last week has been a mass of black hair with two curly bangs. Today, her hair is red and the lipstick on the table says she intends to paint the day bloody. She transforms at will, but one thing never changes; her grey eyes. They're my favourite part of her body. They have a way of drawing you in. She drops the lipstick and flashes a smile at me, proof she's satisfied with her looks. She'll leave in a few and I'll do what I do best, watch and wait. I've been watching and waiting since she brought me to live with her. It's a habit turned into skill, and now, it's become an art. My main focus is her king-sized bed. I never liked it at first but now I don't mind. It's become the center of everything that happens in the house. Another thing I used to do is wonder who she'll come home with. There used to be just one visitor - a tall redhead. I never learned her name. She calls her "My Brat." Now, there're many. Maybe I can wonder one more time, if she'll return with more than one. She did once and I had to watch four women cut themselves up and do crazy things with candles. I see all. I know all. I can't do anything though. I'm only a piece of glass that reflects images.
Second:
It started as a joke, Richard and I, over beer bottles. We were lanky boys, slowly growing into men."You can't do it, Mofe. You don't have the balls," Richard had dared me. I smirked and gave him the middle finger. A bet was struck. The first day we walked in, we were greeted by a sea of expressionless faces. Angry businessmen shamefully shuffling out the door to begin their day of unbearable numbness and despair. Half-finished bad coffees forgotten as men hastily zip themselves up, avoiding eye contact with anyone. Desperate underpaid sex workers getting their heads pushed into stinky crotches. Richard nodded and took the opposite direction. That was when I spotted her. I liked Kay. Her tawny eyes; her soft blonde hair tied into a bun. Above all, her lyric moans as she carried out her duty. Then one day, she disappeared. I didn't ask. You never do. I never stopped going back. With each visit, I sank more into myself. Like I said, it was only a joke, nothing more.
Third:
It's difficult, waking each day as a different person, in a different body, even when you have memories of your real self. You don't know if you'll be black or white, sick or healthy, rich or poor. Today, I open my eyes to a tiny room with a low ceiling. I hear the sound of the ocean before I walk to the window. The door is ajar and there's a pounding sound coming for the next room. "Get your arse over here and help me out, Elena," someone yell above the noise. I smile. I'm a girl and I have a brother. Two days ago, I was a boy and an abusive one. I had felt his anger not only in his memories, but also in the way his lips curled into a smirk when I looked in the mirror. He had a girlfriend who became mine for the day. He would walk hand in hand with her in public. He would hold her hand in the car. To a stranger watching them walk or drive past, they were adorable. But inside, they fought. He would hit her when they were alone. I didn't hold her hand that day. Instead, I had taken her to the tallest tower in the city. I made her smile and bask in the beauty of nature. I let her have a life, just for one day. And I crashed his car after I dropped her off, leaving the tire buried in the soil. I don't usually meddle with the lives of the bodies I inhabit. I was only angry that a human would treat another as such. But today, I'm Elena and I have to do what she will do. I slip out through the back door and take a look around. The house is a tiny one, situated atop a small hill overlooking the beach. I follow a narrow path down and run towards the water. Today, I won't think about the past or the future. All I'll do is bury my feet in the cool soil and watch the waves rush towards me.
Fourth:
It was just a game we used to play. Sally, I and four other children. It was very simple. All we had to do was run into my Mama's garden and hide behind her beautiful flowers, and one of us would be the seeker. Mama had different varieties of flowers - jasmine in winter and dahlias in autumn. Sometimes, we would get lost in the fragrance and begin to pick the flowers, forgetting the game, till the seeker catches someone and she screams. But that day, Sally had a different idea. Her elder sister bought a blonde wig the previous week for her school costume day contest. Sally brought it over and suggested that the seeker wore it. When the rest of us exchanged unsure glances, she decided to go first. We had to spice it up , so I sneaked into Mama's room and got her make up kit. We decided to create a helpless blind girl. The red lipstick went to work on her lips, eyelashes and fingers. Sally had suggested we add bruises to her knuckles to show what she'd been through. I offered her my white rimless glasses for the eyes. The game began, not in the garden this time but in the house. I ran upstairs to my room and hid inside the closet. I heard Sally come in. I knew it was her because I smelled the lipstick and the heavy perfume on the wig. I closed my eyes and waited. Nothing happened. Mama's voice screaming my name brought me back to reality. I crawled out, ran downstairs and saw Sally's mum crying, the blonde wig clutched to her heart. We never saw Sally again. Mama told me she would come back. It was years later, that I learned she opened the window of my room, thinking I went to the roof, and had toppled over and died. I'm nineteen now, and no, I no longer wait for Sally to return. I only smile whenever I think of her.
Fifth:
I was only twelve when I learned what really happened, or rather, when they finally told me. They said my parents died in a car crash. They told it to me like a tale. And that was what it became; another story, like countless others, till the day I saw for myself. The first time I visited the scene, I was seventeen and I had one more year standing in the way of my freedom. That day, I sneaked out, walked down the busy street and turned right, into the narrow path where it happened. They had described the accident so vividly I could feel it. I imagined my father loosing control of the car, just before it shot off the road and crashed into a tree, with my mother seated beside him. I was two years old and in the back seat, unharmed. I stood and studied the tree. The dents were still there, like it happened yesterday. Then, I noticed the strange stares. At first, I thought it was because I’d been standing on the same spot for so long, but then I remembered they were staring because of the way I stood; my right hand in the pocket of my jacket and my left hand placed at the back of my head. It was a pose I learned when I turned five, after I fought with the biggest boy in our room. I had done it to hide my bruised and shaky fingers from them. That was twenty years ago. Now, I try to not remember the dirty floors and stinky bathrooms, or the high bunks and cracked ceiling, or the way other children looked at us and said “you’re dirty because you live in a group home” to our faces. I still walk to the scene every week and I still stand with my one hand in my pocket and the other at the back of my head, not to hide bruised and shaky fingers this time, but to remember everything I’ve been through.
What are your thoughts?