The day was cold. Camille pulled on her jacket and trudged outside for a cigarette. Damn these new laws that made standing by the dumpster behind the building the only acceptable place to smoke. And what a social pariah she had become. Almost everyone in the call center glared at her when she left, and…
Tag: flash fiction
Flash Fiction Prompt: A Shift in Perspective
The sky was light in the east, and the world had just begun to stir. Calista sat at her kitchen table and thumbed through the LA Times. Where was Brian and why hadn’t he come home last night? He usually called if he wasn’t going to make it home. The dog barked. Calista knew this…
Flash Fiction Prompt: Apricots, Lilacs and Lilies
I am not an apricot kind of girl, all small and soft; squishy and sweet. No, if I had to choose an orange fruit to characterize myself, I would have to pick a cantaloupe: a rough exterior, but sweet once you find a way to break me open. This exercise we’re doing in group therapy…
Prompt: A Photograph of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian House Living Room
The light was soft in the room, the windows covered by three lines of bookshelves that allowed the sunlight to come in but also diffused it. A long built-in wooden couch ran right below the bookshelves, with lime green cushions on the bottom and back with periodic splashes of orange pillows. Jacob lay sprawled on…
Flash Fiction Prompt: Write an Embarrassing Moment for a Person Quite Different Than Yourself
My daughter came home one night and announced, “I’m getting a divorce.” I wasn’t surprised about this since I’d told her before she married James that this was a mistake. First of all, James was a good-looking boy – or young man since he was twenty-five – but he was just not right for my…
Prompt: A Different Way of Thinking
Sally Johnson was angry. Another day without a job and here she was in the prime time in her life. She was smart, she was stable, she was relatively pretty and she had skills that had been honed by years of experience. And yet, no matter where she looked or how hard she tried, she…
Prompt: Just Yesterday
It was just yesterday that it all happened. It felt as if it had been at least a year by now. But no, yesterday was the day that Jeffery walked out, declaring that he’d never really loved her and that he hoped that she eventually found someone who did. It was not so much his…
Prompt: Made-Up Song Lyrics that Popped into My Head
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I am lost and alone in this world today. Mary Ann heard the song and found herself feeling blue. Yes, that was exactly how she felt. Lost and alone and without a clue how to proceed. She didn’t want to feel sorry for…
Prompt: Open my heart
“Open my heart, dear Lord, and guide me. Help me to know how to proceed,” Celeste whispered as she stared out at the dark road. It was midnight, her tire was flat, and she was twenty miles from the nearest town. She looked at the thermometer on her dashboard – 27 degrees – and the…
Prompt: Taxi, Lonely and Nail formed from Random Scrabble Tiles
August Delaney sat in the taxi feeling lonely and sad. How could she ever find another friend as wonderful as Lily? When would she ever get to see Lily again now that she and her family were moving to Brazil? August looked down at her fingernails, freshly manicured with little pink lilies on each nail,…
20 Minutes a Day 