Flash Fiction: Pizza for Her Parents?

Posted on by Astrid

The last time ever that Amanda visited her parental home, she didn’t expect it to be the last time. She was merely coming home from college for a night. No-one knew that, when leaving the home the next morning to board the train to her college city, it’d be the last time she’d ever seen this home.

Fifteen years later, after a long journey through the province and the care system, Amanda moved back to the area. She sometimes wondered what had become of her parental home. Her parents had sold it many years ago and she’d herself handed in her key several years before that.

One day, she was talking to a virtual stranger, a temp worker coming to care for her in her new care home, probably just a handful of times. As Amanda told him about where she’d grown up and for a reason she didn’t even know herself mentioned her parental home address, the carer was amazed. “When I worked as a pizza delivery guy, I used to get orders for that house about once a week.” He started telling her stories about the time the residents had complained of a hair in their pizza, a blond hair, even though none of the workers at the pizza place were blond.

Even though Amanda knew that the house wouldn’t look the same at all if she went back, not least because most of the furniture had been either hand-crafted or hand-picked by her father and because the large birch tree in the front yard had been cut down before her parents sold the house, she delighted in hearing the staff’s anecdote. Her parents never ordered food delivery. The world can be a small place and yet a town can feel so big…

This piece was inspired by Fandango’s Story Starter #207. I couldn’t fit in the exact fragment. The piece is mostly autobiographical, including the tale about the temp worker who used to be a pizza delivery guy. I can’t remember whether his anecdote about the blond hair was actually about my parental home’s new residents.

Flash Fiction: Of Fish and Tape (Or Horses and Receipts)

Posted on by Astrid

A fish swam in the ocean with a roll of sticky tape in its mouth. It was a copycat really, because it learned to carry something in its mouth from the stick horse a little girl once created for her teacher’s St. Nicholas surprise. The attached poem read
A wooden horse
Without a tail
Flew quickly towards the sun
With in its mouth a receipt
Of an already-eaten cake.

That poem was better in Dutch, as the girl was me, but it was still silly. At least it rhymed in its original Dutch version.

The fish didn’t know this, of course. Its picture had been drawn or otherwise created some 30 years after the girl’s original poem. And even if the fish knew, it didn’t care.

I do wonder though, isn’t a roll of sticky tape far too large for a goldfish? It will know very soon. Or not.

This piece of silliness was written for Simply 6 Minutes. It’s 148 words. My original poem was:
Een houten paard
Zonder staart
Vloog pijlsnel naar de zon
Met in zijn mond een kassabon
Van een opgegeten taart

Flash Fiction: Home Is Where the Train Ride Ends

Posted on by Astrid

She’s riding the train, listening to children’s songs on her headphones. As the music about unicorns and fairies plays in her ears, she contemplates where this journey is going.

As young as she is, she’s already been in half a dozen different foster families since being abandoned by her drug addict Mom when she was just a baby. The last placement was the longest so far. Her foster carer was loving, but she couldn’t keep her long-term.

As the train moves on, the girl stares into the future, wondering whether this new chapter in her life that she’s headed towards, will finally be a longer one. Will she finally be able to come home this Christmas? She hopes, prays and has everything crossed that home is where the train ride ends.

What Do You See? Prompt #268

This piece was inspired by Sadje’s #WDYS. I initially couldn’t seem to be able to link to the image, but I think I figured it out.

Flash Fiction: Don’t Forget the Veg…

Posted on by Astrid

As Joel looked through the kitchen cupboard this evening, what he saw could best be described as “organized chaos”. Oh wait, no, it wasn’t even organized. Just chaos. Like his life.

Joel hated cooking, cleaning and budgeting, but he had to since being leftt to fend for himself at barely sixteen. His mother had abandoned him and his two younger siblings. He had a side job that he went to after school, but money was tight.

Thankfully, he was inventive. Joel managed to whip up a meal for the three of them tonight. It was just pasta, ketchup and kohlrabi, but with an added multivitamin for all of them, this had to do. Besides, no-one could accuse him of forgetting the veg…

This little piece of flash fiction was written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers. I had the image described through my screen reader’s image description option.

The pasta, kohlrabi and ketchup meal was invented by my partner one day when we were spending a Sunday together and every supermarket was closed. We joke that it’s the most delicious meal I’ve ever had.

Flash Fiction: November

Posted on by Astrid

She had always felt that November was the hardest month. Filled with enough darkness to completely cloud her mind, but not enough cold to freeze her thoughts. It didn’t help that the month was filled with just a little too many memories of her totally losing the grip on life. She realized maybe the crises were more a result of her depression than her depression being the result of her memories, but either way she seemed stuck. No therapy or medication had been able to alleviate the gloom that was November yet.

It wasn’t like she exactly wanted to die. Not during these crises and not now. Sometimes though, she looked for an exit, an escape from the deep pit that is this month. Maybe, she mused, snow would be the easy way out.

This post was written for this week’s Prosery. It’s more than a little autobiographical, but since our pieces have to be flash fiction, I decided to write it in third person perspective.

Flash Fiction: Identity Crisis

Posted on by Astrid

I remember what it was like to be a tiny, little lamb. Everybody adored me. They’d cuddle with me. Children would feed me grass they’d just picked from across the fence.

Then, one day, a little boy pointed out to his Mommy that I wasn’t a tiny, little lamb after all. He told his Mommy that I may’ve been dressed in sheep’s clothing, but that didn’t make me a lamb.

From that point on, everybody hated me. No more cuddles for me. No more grass feeds for me. Farmers started campaigning to be allowed to kill me.

But I still feel like that tiny, little lamb. How tragic it is to be a wolf in an identity crisis.

This post was written for Twiglet #326, which is “to be a wolf”.

Flash Fiction: The Journey Home

Posted on by Astrid

As Kevin was boarding the bus, Lauren by his side, he knew he was heading back to the one place he hoped – or had told himself he hoped – he’d never have to see again. He recognized the bus driver – same one who’d driven the bus back on that evening so many years ago. Kevin hoped the bus driver wouldn’t recognize him. He was filled with intense shame having to be on this bus and being confronted with the same bus driver, didn’t help that. However, he had to face his monster now and go back and ask his parents for forgiveness.

Five years ago, Kevin had been on this same bus headed in the other direction. After a massive fight with his parents – over drugs, of course -, they had kicked him out of their house. In a massive breakdown, Kevin had threatened suicide while on this very bus. The driver had called the police and Kevin was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Thankfully, he had gotten his life together eventually. After a short stay in the mental hospital, he was released to an outreach-based addiction rehab program. He had had his relapses, but was now roughly eighteen months clean. He had a steady job, rented a little apartment and had the cutest dog in the whole wide world. Moreover, he had Lauren now. And now that he had proposed to her and she had said “Yes”, it was time to finally make amends.

This piece of flash fiction was written for Fandango’s Story Starter #97. As regular readers of my blog will know, it has some autobiographical elements: I at one point (over fifteen years ago) threatened suicide on a bus and was, on a separate occasion, kicked out of my parents’ house. However, the rest is purely fictional.

Flash Fiction: Can I Go?

Posted on by Astrid

“I just want to go to a friend for two nights,” Patricia yelled, asserting her words with some colorful language, as she grabbed the nearest chair she could reach. “You are NOT going to treat me this way,” nurse Nancy replied with more anger in her voice than she probably intended. More calmly, she added: “If you want to go on leave for longer than originally agreed upon, you need to discuss it with Marjorie, and she’s not available right now.” At that point, a blonde nurse in her mid-thirties entered the ward. As Patricia saw her, her anger rose and, heaving the chair off the floor, she threw it at Marjorie, barely missing her. Turning to the nurse’s station, Nancy told Patricia, not even looking at her: “Here are your meds and the address for the homeless shelter; for your severe aggressive behavior, you’ve been suspended until Monday.”

This piece of flash fiction is based on a true story from a fellow patient at the locked psychiatric unit back in 2008. I always felt rather conflicted about patients, especially those without a home, being suspended for severe challenging behavior. In this case though, the patient got exactly what she wanted.

I am joining the Six Sentence Story Link-Up, for which the prompt this week is “Shelter”. I am also linking up with Friday Writings, even though it’s Saturday. The optional prompt is conversations you’ve overheard. Though I didn’t exactly overhear this conversation, as it was told to me by the fellow patient later on, I thought it’d be fitting enough.

Flash Fiction: ER

Posted on by Astrid

I look(1) at the patient and notice(1) she’s cyanosing(2). I check her pulse, which is very faint(5). I tell my colleague in a whispering)3) voice: “Please get the doc. I don’t know what happened, but she has to come through.” I lovingly(4) stroke her arm. Despite being a nurse, I can’t act. I can’t imagine my own daughter is in such a feeble(5) condition.

This piece of flash fiction was written for MindloveMisery’s Menagerie’s Saturday Mix for this week, which was Same Same But Different. The challenge is to write about the five words provided, but not use them. The words were: see, blue, soft, kind and weak.

I saw that many participants used synonyms for “blue” such as “sad” and “moody”. For me though, immediately, words that convey the color blue came to mind.

Obviously, this piece is entirely the product of my own imagination. I have absolutely no idea whether there’s any realism about this tale, but I loved trying to come up with it.

Flash Fiction: Depression

Posted on by Astrid

I wake up. Another day. Another depressing set of moments in my life. My back hurts. My shoulders are pushed down by the weight of my mood. Today, like sometimes, the great bones of my life feel so heavy. I’m not sure I can take this much longer. So I pray… God, have mercy on my soul. Relieve me from this burden that is the intense sadness of living in the world of 2021. Let me live again, rather than just exist. In Jesus’ name, Amen. I feel better already. Maybe life isn’t so dark after all.

This piece of flash fiction was written for yesterday’s Prosery. The idea of Prosery is to write a piece of flash fiction in 144 words or less (not including the title). It must have a beginning and an end and not be poetry. In addition, you are required to include the line of poetry provided. This week’s line is:

“Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy,”

As you can see, I altered the punctuation, but I did include the entire line.

This piece is partly autobiographical, but still, it is fiction.