This is something new I’m starting, a series of flashes typed onto photographs that tell a continuation of a story. This set and many others are now being sold on my Etsy.
Tag Archives: relationships
A Birthday Alone (repost) and Her Second Year There (new)
Posted in flash fiction, photos of strangers, Typography
Tagged 1960s, alone, art, beauty, birthday, children, family, fiction, flash fiction, found art, friends, fun, happy ending, kids, kitsch, life, lonely, love, moving, parenting, people, photo, photography, photos, pictures, relationships, sad, typewriter, typography, vintage, writing
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa
She slowly backed the car into a spot, then pulled up a bit, then backed up a little as he eyed up the row of artwork lined up at a yard sale.
“Would you park already!” he yelled playfully. She giggled and started pulling forward again just to get him riled.
“Hey!” he said, pretending to shove her. She laughed harder.
“It’s fine! Go on without me!”
“You know I can’t do that. Yard sale etiquette.”
She stopped the car and turned off the engine, but by that time he was already out the door.
“Come on!” she heard him say, muffled through the closed windows. She smiled; she couldn’t help but love him. She undid her seatbelt and joined him.
They were both pulled toward the same piece of art at the same time.
“Wow,” he said, picking it up. “I love this.”
“Me too,” she agreed.
The artwork was a dark blue silhouette screen print of a man with a big had, bushy beard and old-fashioned glasses. Next to the image was the name Lautrec in fancy lettering.
“I wonder who this is! I want it.”
“It would look great on our red wall,” she said as she pulled out her phone and started typing what he could only assume was the name on Google. He waited a moment knowing what she would say.
“Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa.”
“Well that’s a mouthful. Glad the artist shortened it for this print.”
She ignored him and continued. “Post-impressionist French painter, printmaker, draftsman and illustrator, wow he sounds interesting. Says he is as well known as Cezanne and Van Gogh.”
“Hmm…then why haven’t I heard of him, but I know them?”
She ran her finger up the screen. “Um…you have. We brought one of his back from Paris.”
“No we didn’t!” He thought for a moment. “Did we?”
“Yup. Look!” She showed him the phone.
“Funny. Who knew? I like Lautrec!”
“We do, honey. We do.”
He looked at the print once more then held it up to the purveyor of the sale.
“How much?”
Posted in flash fiction, Zoey and Xander
Tagged art, fiction, flash fiction, France, French, French art, garage sale, Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse Lautrex Monfra, Lautrec, life, love, photography, photos, pictures, Post Impressionism, print, relationships, romance, vintage, yard sale, Zoey and Xander
Coffee and Passion
Photograph by Tracy Zhang. Her blog can be found here. Model is Betsy from RazorBlonde.
This was supposed to be the biggest event of her life so far. Her first exhibit. Press practically drooling over her work. People stepping on each other to be the first to congratulate her. And yet the hollowness continued to consume her even in the face of possible fame.
More effort went into this day than any other. She’d been at the gallery before the sun started its shift, and still wore the striped shirt she’d thrown on as she stumbled out of her studio apartment. Coffee sustained her, passion kept her going when the former failed her, and the culminating moment was upon her before she knew it as the crowd gathered and whispered and praised her photographs.
She walked down the aisle between walls covered in her work, black and white photographs of people, some looking at her as she passed, some looking away, as hands kept patting her on the back, tapping her shoulder, asking question after question that she answered in a daze.
Why hadn’t he shown up? Could he really stand her up on such a momentous occasion?
Ignoring the questions and deflecting the fans onto her agent and the gallery owner, Belle headed outside to the loading dock behind the gallery for a moment of respite.
She leaned against the brick wall, recently painted white, and thought back to the last year. She’d been to every single one of his events, large or small, dressed as beautiful and elegant as she could just to impress him and his clients. She’d given up a lot for him, and maybe this was the final sign that he wasn’t the one .
Her head rested against the cold brick as her ring scraped against the wall, waking her up from a melancholy daze. She stood away from the wall as if an alarm went off, checked her makeup in the reflection of her nearby car’s side mirror, grabbed the simple black dress hanging in the back seat and went back inside, ready to face the crowd, the fans, and the possibility of future fame.
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged art, artist, boys, broken heart, coffee, dating, depression, exhibit, fame, fiction, flash fiction, gallery, girls, little black dress, passion, photography, photos, pictures, RazorBlonde, relationships, romance, success, Tracy Zhang
La Nuit Française
“I’ve never seen a balloon cause so much trouble!”
“I know, right?” she said to me.
We had just finished watching the 1956 French classic Le Balloon Rouge, or The Red Balloon.
“That kid got into so much trouble!” she said. I nodded. “How did you know there was so little dialogue?”
“Someone told me.” I had come up with the idea of creating our own soundtrack to it, side two of Françoise Hardy’s Maid in Paris, then side one of the Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin record.
“It made it more fun, didn’t it?”
“Oui!”
“Dork.”
She fell back onto the couch and started staring at the ceiling. “I’m glad we didn’t 
sell them.”
“Even though we could use the money.”
“Money can’t replace the beauty of those records.”
Someone had just offered me a shit-ton of money for my collection of record française. Yeah right, like I would part with them.
“Yeah right, like I would part with them. I lugged half of them all the way across Montreal, and most of the others, I left clothing behind in Paris for those. They are definitely worth more than money to me.”
“Me too. They’re half the reason I liked you at first.”
“Very funny.”
“Fine, that’s a lie, but on the first date it is how you lured me back to your place. French records, a little wine, you sure know how to make a girl melt.”
“You’d be surprised how often that line works. I have a nice collection of French records at my place…”
“Nice.” She frowned. “Wait, you are kidding, right?”
“Of course. I’ve never shared these records with another woman.” She looked at me. “What?”
“Never?
I thought about it and decided to come clean. “Fine, fine, I have tried. None of 
them appreciated them.”
“Not as much as me, right?” she said, grabbing my arm and pulling me into her arms.
“Nope!” I said as I kissed her. We made out for a bit until the needle started scratching against nothing, then returned to its arm rest.
“Should I flip it?” she asked. “Or should we maybe watch the movie again with the real audio, just to see if the effect is different?”
I smiled and picked up the remote to start the movie again. The balloon once again floated down to the little boy and I laughed as he was once again told he could not bring it on the bus, thus being late for school again.
“I’ve never seen a balloon cause so much trouble.”
Posted in flash fiction, Zoey and Xander
Tagged Balloon Rouge, comedy, dates, dating, entertainment, fiction, flash fiction, Francaise, Francoise Hardy, French, friends, friendship, fun, hipsters, humor, Jane Birkin, life, lifestyle, love, movies, music, people, photography, photos, pictures, random, records, relationships, romance, Serge Gainsbourg, silly, The Red Balloon, vinyl
Damsel in Distress
This print and many others are also now for sale on my ETSY.
Posted in flash fiction, photos of strangers, Typography
Tagged black and white, castle, Disney, Etsy, fairy tale, fiction, flash fiction, hero, kitsch, love, photo, photograph, pictures, prince, princess, relationships, romance, tower, typography, vintage, writing
The Rooftop Getaway
The party, her party, was in full swing, as they say. Hundreds of her friends, her friends’ friends, and many complete strangers showed up for her food, her booze, to abuse the pool and the rest of her mansion. She felt like someone was secretly filming her and she had to escape.
The living room was full, as was the billiard room, the sauna, and all of the thirteen bedrooms. The foyer was full of coats and hats, the library was strewn with half-full cups hanging dangerously close to the edges of tables, threatening her aged and antique books. People had even spilled into the butler’s quarters, vacated for the weekend by her parents’employee for a trip.
She really only had one place to go, her secret place. She trudged up to the third story and unlocked the attic door, passed piles of vintage expensive furniture hiding under old sheets, passed the old moose head and stuffed bear her grandfather had shot decades before, to the oversized window that led to the roof. She pushed it and relaxed a bit as it squeaked open.
As she stepped out onto the roof she found that some of the balloons had gotten away from the guests and somehow landed here. She stepped onto the sill and stretched, her elbows rubbing the red brick walls, making her wince and check them for blood. No blood. Just a bit of red irritated skin with a little brick stubble mixed in. She would live.
She walked onto the roof toward the slanted shingles and began tidying up by picking up a bunch of the balloons, and then she stopped and sighed. Her odd neighbor always showed up handing out random balloons to guests, the reason something she could not fathom.
She never understood how these parties happened, what led all of those people to her home when her parents were away, but they always just seemed to know. They would come, abuse her home and her family money, and then go, leaving behind a mess that would take days to clean. And the damage…if the house weren’t so big her parents would notice, but these days they didn’t seem to notice anything.
She walked to the edge and looked down at the party, then walked to the other side and peered over the slant roof down into the rectangular pool that went unused for the past few years, ever since they had the endless pool installed on the other side of the house. Captured in the water were a few more rogue balloons floating slowly around the glass-like water, and past the pool a bit was the odd neighbor, still holding a bunch of balloons.
She returned to the wall next to the window and leaned against it, sliding down until she landed on the shingles under her and she sighed, holding the balloons, waiting for the party to end.
Photos by Geraldine, who has a Flickr. The model is Manon, and this is her blog. The concept for the photographs was a collaboration of the two.
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged alone, art, balloons, drama, fiction, flash fiction, friends, friendships, loneliness, party, partying, peace, people, photo, photography, photos, quiet, relationships, sadness, special place, writing
Years Later On the Beach
I am now selling digital prints and ORIGINAL one-of-a-kind prints of my typography stories on ETSY. Please stop by the shop and check them out!
Posted in flash fiction, photos of strangers, Typography
Tagged beach, childhood, dennis finocchiaro, fiction, flash fiction, friendship, jersey shore, kitsch, life, love, marriage, memories, ocean, old age, photography, photos, relationships, romance, shore, typography, vintage
Read a Comic in Public Day
He was sitting on the bench on his street reading The Walking Dead when the stranger approached him.
“Hi there. Reading a comic, huh?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“In public?”
“Yeah, that’s the general idea.”
“You know Read a Comic in Public Day was yesterday, right?”
He looked over his copy of The Walking Dead and raised his eyebrows.
“You’re a day late,” she said with a sly smile.
“I worked all day yesterday. A double. And it doesn’t have to be Read a Comic in Public Day to read a comic in public. Maybe I sit here every Sunday and read. Maybe I read novels, literature, classics, and everything else on Sundays. Maybe this week just happens to be a comic.”
“Maybe,” she said with a hint of doubt, “But I doubt it,” she finished as she sat next to him. “Walking Dead, huh? Like zombies?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“True, true. So what did you read sitting here last week? War and Peace? Great Gatsby, perhaps?”
His face turned the slightest hint of red. “The Last Man,” he mumbled.
“Thought so,” she smiled.
She riffled through her bag and pulled out an earlier copy of The Walking Dead.
“Mind if I join you? I worked a double yesterday too.”
“Sure.”
She opened it to page one. “Just don’t tell me what happens. You’re ahead of me.”
He continued to read, but now with a big smile on his face.
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged comics, dating, fiction, flash fiction, life, love, novels, photography, photos, Read a Comic in Public Day, reading, relationships, romance, sarcasm, The Great Gatsby, The Last Man, The Walking Dead, War and Peace
Missed Connections
You: the type of girl who reads the missed connections in the adorable hope that someone, somewhere noticed how amazing you are but in the brief moment he first saw you, it was too late and you were gone, possibly because you’d been waiting for a bus and it came, or maybe because he couldn’t go in the coffee shop you sat in drinking your tea because he had his dog and there was a clear sign that said “No Dogs Allowed” so he rushed his poor little pup home and ran back only to find you gone. Maybe this post is about the pretty red sundress you had, or your copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, or perhaps it was your backpack shaped like Kermit or your hair in pigtails held in place with little vintage barrettes or your big sad eyes, or maybe it was just the low-cut shirt or your painstakingly perfect face. Maybe it was that sad, distant look on your face that spoke to him; there’s a pretty good chance it’s that. He saw you and in that moment he saw it all, his awkward first approach, your walk in the park that lead to the inevitable first kiss, the initial lovemaking that wasn’t exactly his A-game but he knows he will do better the second time, the second time where you clearly enjoy it more, all the way up to the wedding day, the honeymoon, the kids and the white picket fence.
Me: The kind of guy who believes in missed connections, and thinks that any girl who reads them as often as I must be a keeper, regardless of what it was that made you first talk to me.
This is a fictional missed connection I made up.
After the Picnic
Found photo with typography from my Brother Typewriter.
NEW! This print, along with others, is now available on my ETSY.
Posted in flash fiction, photos of strangers, Typography
Tagged 1960s, asking her to marry you, fiction, flash fiction, kitsch, love, marraige, marriage, photography, photos, picnic, popping the question, relationships, retro, romance, typography, vintage
A Flash of Inspiration 