FLASH MOB 2013 is a hybrid blog carnival and competition celebrating International Flash Fiction Day, which is on 22nd June.
The organisers are looking for stories that take risks and experiment.
The competition is free and the details are at FLASH MOB 2013.
My attempt is definitely experimental for me:
The View from Heaven
They stood, she and he, embracing in the centre of a perfect garden. Flowers all around. Pinks, reds, yellows, purples, whites. Water cascading down the rocks into the pool. Maturing plums and kumquats nested by sun-frolicked green leaves. Sweet, juicy fruit waiting to be gathered and consumed.
Over there, on the same level, stood a large bald prism. One triangular end thrust out through needle-sharp pine leaves. Acute angles pointed and menaced. Inside the prism, as clear as if its walls had been transparent and its position much closer, people wandered in a daze, struggling to grasp the horrifying enormity exhaled by tragic reminders.
“It looks quite near,” she said. “Could we walk there, down into the valley and up the other side?”
“Do you want to?” he replied in question.
“How long would it take?”
“Oh, about seventy years, going backwards.”
She glanced at him with a frowning half-smile. “We’d die before we got there.”
“Just as well,” he said, without smiling.
Miriam Drori, Author 
14 replies on “FLASH MOB 2013”
I love this. A proper mind bender. A surprise in every line.
Thank you, David! Experiments are scary, so I really appreciate your prompt and delightful comment 🙂
Experiments can be scary. But they can also be fun. This certainly kept me reading from the first line to the last 🙂
That’s true. I had fun tweaking this story, thinking of different ways of saying things and choosing the ones I liked the best.
Miriam, I had to read this twice to ‘get’ it. But I read it without the picture (in my email pics don’t automatically show). Amazingly well written!
Ooh, thank you, Krina 🙂
Wonderful piece, Miriam! (Even if I dislike “him” for his last line.:D )
It sounds as if what you understood wasn’t what I intended – which is what flash is all about, I think. Thank you!
I thought they were quite comfortable with each other until the last line and his lack of a smile made me think he wouldn’t want to live it all over again with her. I see that there are a few ways of interpreting this, but that was my take. 🙂
That’s fine, and I won’t say what I intended because it’s meant to be interpreted as you see it. I’m sure you know much more about writing flash fiction than I do. I wrote it by first writing the story and then replacing the identifying details with more general words.
I enjoyed this. Experimental but it works so well.
Thank you!
I really dig the experimental in this. Glad you went with something so out there… it’s a wonderfully creative story. Great to meet you in the mob!
Great to meet you, too!