A Freak Storm was made from old films I bought at a yard sale, a G5 Macintosh and my imagination.
Tag Archives: beauty
The Final Sunset
The government, scientists, specialists, news programs, everyone agreed the time had come. The end was here.
Many people prepared, stocking everything they could get in their basements: batteries, flash lights, canned goods, generators, but a select few knew it was only a matter of time. Without the sun, plants would stop growing, and slowly all life would discontinue.
Those few decided to honor their light giver, the life essence of their world, one last time. In this small town, a collection of people, rather than uselessly bunkering down in a basement, wanted to say goodbye to someone they never thought would abandon them, someone they took for granted, the one who gave them life every day up until this point without ever asking anything in return. Many forgot all about the importance of it, or simply complained when the weather was too hot or they forgot their sunglasses. So few really relished in how much it did for every living being on the planet.
And now it would abandon them.
Today the sun would set for the last time on their world.
And so they gathered to worship their long-time friend, or say goodbye, or mourn its death. They met at the old soccer field and sat in the bleachers as if watching a match, but this time nobody would cheer. The sun slowly reached the horizon, and the colors were more beautiful than any spectator had ever witnessed. A cloud cluster came in from the East, but it would not ruin the absolute perfection of the very last sunset in the history of man.
The sun touched the horizon, and crawled beyond their sight, a few oo’s and ah’s rang up from the crowd as if they were witnessing fireworks. People hugged, they held hands or comforted each other in their own way. The last orange sliver peeked for one more moment, and then was gone forever.
Photograph by the amazingly talented Manon De Sutter. Click here for more of her work.
Posted in flash fiction, Horror
Tagged apocalypse, art, beauty, end of the world, fiction, final sunset, flash fiction, horror, life, love, Manon De Sutter, photography, photos, relationships, science fiction, sunset, writing
Heat Wave
“I appreciate you.”
She looked up from the magazine she was reading and raised an eyebrow.
“What? I do,” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked as she closed her copy of Under the Radar and placed it next to her.
“I was just thinking,” I started, “this is so nice. We’re sitting here together, reading, me on one couch, you on the other, and I’m really…”
“Happy?”
“Yes.”
She smiled and moved over to my couch. “Anything else you’d like to say?”
“Mhmm. I adore you. These simple moments, it’s too hot to cuddle, what with the heat wave, and we can’t really do much, so we’re just sitting here, relaxing, not even really feeling the need to chat.”
“Well, until now. Now you’re talking.”
“True, but now you’re cuddling. And it’s 100+ degrees out.”
“It’s 99.”
“Not if you include the heat index.”
“What does that even mean, the heat index?”
“I love that you always call me out.”
“Hey, you do it too,” she said, sliding even closer and putting her arm around me.
“Dude. It’s too hot to cuddle.”
“It’s too hot to talk, too,” she said as she got up, went back to her couch and returned to her magazine .
Posted in flash fiction, Zoey and Xander
Tagged beauty, entertainment, fiction, heat wave, life, love, magazine, musings, random, reading, relationships, romance, Under the Radar
The Annual Dare
The Annual Dare
Created with a found photograph from the 1940s, my imagination and my typewriter.
Posted in flash fiction, photos of strangers, Typography
Tagged 1940s, art, beauty, cabin, childhood, dare, deck, family, fiction, flash fiction, found art, found photograph, friends, humor, kitsch, lake, life, media, people, photo, photography, relationships, retro, summer, typewriter, typography, vacation, vintage
The Pillow Baby
Olive leaned against the heavy mahogany door upon entering, sighed and tried to relax. The party celebrating her parents’ fortieth anniversary in the most exclusive restaurant in town was a trial, especially with Darren in Africa on business yet again. It seemed as if her mother had informed everyone about how long they’d been trying and failing; aunts, cousins and even strangers were giving her all sorts of ridiculous folk cures. Her mother shared her most intimate and private problems with so many people.
The year of negative pregnancy tests and constant monthly reminders of her fate.
The frantic calls telling him to get home, racing the clock for attempts that never produced.
The genetics test for every defect under the sun on both her and her husband.
The ovulating tests. The monthly, then bi-weekly, and finally weekly ultrasounds.
And the drugs. Oh the drugs. Her medicine cabinet would spill out piles of orange and white bottles, an avalanche of reminders.
Olive sighed and moved away from the door toward the room they’d decorated, in case it ever were to happen, and leaned over the dusty furniture, snatching a frilly pillow that was spotted with small green dots. She meandered up to her room and lowered herself onto the bed without even removing her gold sandals, hugging the pillow to her chest and inhaling the smell of the store where they’d bought it, the cushion still fresh and new as if they had not purchased it years ago. She slid it towards her belly a bit, wondering what it would be like, and then lifted her designer silk dress and placed the pillow under it.
She tried to imagine what it would be like as her hands held the faux belly as if she were feeling for movement. She felt nothing, something she was becoming used to in more ways than one.
She reached over to the bed stand and picked up her phone, left behind for the night on purpose. Her doctor was supposed to call earlier today and let her know if they had been successful, and as she pushed the send button her phone lit up, showing a notification that she had a missed call and a voicemail.
Her head turned toward the photographs on their nearby dresser, family portraits from her childhood, with the family portraits of her three brothers next to them: all the brothers had five of six children. The photos were accompanied by a picture of her sister and her sister’s wife, standing with their adopted daughter. Olive loved each of those children as if they were her own, but in the moment turned away from them in disgust. She wanted to run over and open the top drawer and with her arm shove them all out of her sight forever, or until this all finally ended.
She reached over and dropped the phone back onto the bed stand and let her hands run over the pillow again, drifting off into a listless sleep, imagining the best, but not ready to hear the worst.
Photograph by Tom Hinds.
Watch for this story from Darren’s point of view later this week!
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged art, babies, baby, beauty, depression, family, life, love, marriage, medicine, mother, parenting, photography, pills, pregnancy, pregnancy problems, problems, sadness, ultrasound, wannabe mother, writing
A Flash of Inspiration 