Category: Flash

Flash: Remembering the Reason for the Season

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Photo by Juliana Malta on Unsplash

The rocking chair creaked. Looking up and down the street, Douglas moved in the seat where he was wrapped in blankets. We should be inside, the weather was, well, December weather for the Northern United States. “Do you remember Christmas Lights?” he asked, the first words he had spoken to me in close to three days other than “whose cooking?”

What a question. “Of course I remember Christmas Lights.” I responded from the patio swing where I likewise was wrapped in blankets. Even if we weren’t inside, we should have been huddled together for warmth, but, well, he and I were in a spat so here we sat shivering separately like idiots. I took the olive branch. “I remember the green and red stage flooding the streets with surreal colors. Then the icicle stage where everyone though white was it and color was gaudy. McDonalds went into its gray corporate phase and visiting it with the sign-in kiosks made you feel like just a number. Then we got the inflatables with all those ridiculous overboard displays covering the lawns plus the projectors of scenes on houses with their swirling snowflakes and nativity scenes. It’s weird to think that Christmas decorations had a fashion, but they did.”

“What I wouldn’t give to have a kilowatt of that energy we wasted with all those displays.”

I pursed my chapped lips and gave a light whistle of agreement. “We were such wastrels. Why save anything? Untangling the lights wasn’t worth the trouble, into the trash bin.”

“Pine tree bought each year and put to the curb, not burned for cooking.” He bit back a chuckle-sob.

“Not that pine is worth a lick for cooking, the way it burns.”

“True.”

“We could do a Christmas wreath if you want.” I pointed out. “Hang it on the front of the fence here.”

“Nah, who has time for Christmas anymore?” He smiled sadly at me. “It isn’t like it is a Feast Day.”

We get three Feast Days a year by law. One to celebrate the breakaway of the Northern United States from the former USA. One determined locally for when the majority of the harvest is in and the excess cattle are killed. And one in the summer, because, well, we could rub in the fact we had reasonable temperatures up here to the relatives who remained in the Real USA Trademarked and the Reclaimed Lands to the west. We haven’t heard if the West Coast Mavericks have formed a union or just remained their crazy anarchist selves. Likely they have formed enough stability to have some sort of government as new movies are being released again.

“Speaking of food.” I shivered obviously under the blankets. “Do you want to help me prep some potatoes? We got an onion to use up. I was thinking potato soup with a bit of salted ham.”

“Sounds good. I’ll get some water out of the cistern,” He rocked forward to stand. “Do you think we got enough battery today or will it be firewood?”

I look at the cloudless sky but shake my head. “Solar isn’t going to be enough, not with how short the days are. Grab a bit of firewood for the stove.”

We folded the blankets and placed them inside our door. Before he went out with the bucket for the water, Douglas kissed my cheek.

(Words 561; first published 12/12/2024)

Flash: Turn Around Don’t Drown

Erin Penn Leave a comment

ID 216511405 © Kirsty Nadine | Dreamstime.com

I grip and release the steering wheel again, the plastic-leather-wrap creaking just loud enough for me to hear it over the old F150 engine. Keeping my eyes firmly on the road barely visible through the sheets of rain blowing sideways, I allow a corner of my awareness to confirm my boyfriend still had his gun pointed at me from the passenger seat. Anger burns in my belly.

“Just a little further,” he said. “The boys can take care of you.”

He loves me. I told my mom. If we are to have a future, I must let him know.

She is gonna get a decade of I-told-you-sos out of this.

If I get out of this.

“You don’t have to do this.” I say to the windshield, puzzling out a rise ahead. One headlight is out, I meant to get it fixed for the past month, always something if you know what I mean, but the one that did work was coming through the storm like a camp. Something is gleaming to the side of the road on a pole. RR inside a circle. A railroad crossing.

“Yeah I do. Things like you are poison.” Jason shook his head. “I can’t believe I let you touch me. Kiss me.”

Feeling is mutual, pig. Feeling is now very, very mutual.

I slow as my truck climbs the embankment. Living in Texas as long as I have, my trust of the roads during heavy rains rivals my present trust of relationships. For good reason. The other side of the long division between cotton fields caused by the embankment reveals a churning vista of water.

“Keep going.” He waves the pistol like an idiot.

Pressing firmly on the brake, I crack a smile and say. “Nope.”

“Fuck, you. No. Get moving.”

A chuckle escapes. “Turn around, don’t drown.” I indicate the water ahead, previously blocked from our side of reality by the three-foot high embankment acting like a dam. “Not happening.”

“You drive a god-damn truck, keep moving.”

“It ain’t a tall truck. The spark plugs could get wet. Pretty sure the water is above my running boards.”

“Deal with it.”

I shrug. “Your funeral.”

“No, it will be yours. Keep moving.”

“I like this truck.”

“It’s a piece of shit.”

“But it is my piece of shit and paid off.”

He pokes me with the gun. “Drive.”

I could grab the gun. Probably. The new moon had me at the lowest of my powers. Even so, I still move faster than most humans.

It likely didn’t have silver bullets. Except, maybe.

I release the brake and go down into the flood waters.

The truck lifts and moves sideways as soon as we get off the embankment. There is no river nearby, but we are effectively in a river.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He raises the gun for a head shot while bracing himself for the recoil against the passenger side door.

“Me, nothing. Just doing what you told me.”

The truck is floating, I have no control. I take my hands off the steering and release my seatbelt.

I can smell the sudden change of his emotions and slam myself forward into the steering wheel. The driver’s side window shatters, and the back of my head burns. The ringing in my ears makes me want to howl. I twist into him, the hot muzzle blistering my hand as I grab for it. I feel the blood free-flowing down the back of my head. Or it could be the pouring rain. Nope, the rain is making the injury burn. I wish I could call my claws, but a palm slam into his nose will have to do.

The crunch is satisfying.

The truck tilts to his side with the change of occupant positions and continues to tilt, sliding us both along the bench and increasing the instability of the vehicle. At least his window is whole and the seal is holding for now. The engine sputters to a stop as water gets into the compartment.

The gun goes off again. Idiot. He takes out the back window since I had twisted the muzzle away from me, and water, real water, not just rain, starts flooding in. I yank the gun hand into the waterfall; hopefully the powder will stop working. Not sure modern guns have that weakness, but here’s hoping. The blisters heal under the flow of water; the back of the head does not.

Silver bullets. Bastard.

The steering wheel and gear shift had interfered with my grappling, but the slide takes me beyond them and I am now on top of him. With my free hand, I grab his throat and hold him under the stream of water. He fights like a drowning man.

I don’t have size or strength on him. Not when Luna is napping. But gravity and position are on my side.

Plus I have fought before. Fought for my life before.

Jason’s last fight likely was on a school playground.

Instinct has him change his grip on the gun, and I yank it away and toss it out the back window.

Pulling up my legs, I climb on top of him. His seatbelt holds him in place, water up to his neck.

“Help me!” he begs.

I don’t bother answering as I stand to get out the driver’s side window. I wasn’t up to fighting the flood waters coming in the back window, not with a head injury. I may have deliberately stepped on his face, pushing him underwater, as I climbed up and out of Old Sally.

Standing on the driver’s side of my truck, I look out into the storm as the vehicle rotates around in the flood. I can’t make out where the railroad embankment is, any trees, houses, anything.

Wait.

God bless America’s thirst for oil.

A crude oil pump is in the direction my truck is traveling. When the truck is as close as it is going to get, I jump as close as I can to the scaffolding. The flood grabs me like a riptide, but I manage to grasp the metal structure.

Only three days a month when I can’t shift and Jason had to choose today. The River Wolf in me, descended from generations of wetland canines, bolsters my strength as best she can. I pull out of the waters enough to wrap limbs around the metal bars. The back of the head still burns, but I am safe.

Well, safer.

Stable?

The water will subside at some point.

After catching my breath, I wiggle out my cell phone from my back pocket to see if survived.

Maybe a bag of rice could save it. I shove it back into the pocket.

It was going to be a long night.

(words 1,133; written 9/28/2024; first published 11/17/2024)

Flash: Subway Therapy

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Krzysztof Hepner on Unsplash

“Hey man, you okay?”

“Uh?” Haley unfocused from the yellow-green subway tiles she had been staring at to notice a black man with a concerned look on his face.

“The Red just left. You are waiting for a train, right?”

“Yes,” she frowned, “that one in fact. I guess I got another hour wait now.”

The man sat uninvited beside her. “Are you okay?”

“The election,” she muttered, dropping her head to stare at her hands.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Maybe, not really.” She shrugged, turning her head to glance at him. “Actually, I wasn’t thinking about the election, not directly.”

“How so?”

The man wasn’t dressed all out. Business casual, but with a thicker jacket to cut the November winds once he climbed out of the station. The stubble claiming his chin didn’t have the male sculpturing into a goatee favored by most, likely he needed to shave twice a day.

Could she trust him? Isn’t that awful? Already worried about casual strangers like a secret police already moved among them to control thought. That shouldn’t happen for another two months, likely three, though the incoming had promised to hit the ground running, being “a dictator for the first day.”

“Just wondering how long Trump is going to last.” She decided to hedge her bets. “I’m worried about him. You know, he had trouble climbing into the truck and his words have been slurring. He is seventy-eight, the oldest person ever elected president.”

The man frowned. “You a trumpster?”

“No, but I … he is a human.”

A snort questioned that opinion.

“No, really. I don’t think he knows what he bit off.”

“And what did he bite off?” Interest laced the baritone voice, raspy from a day’s labor.

“Well, I don’t think he is going to survive in office. Not with Putin in the mix.” Haley turned her body to completely face the man. “Putin doesn’t like unpredictable. He is very calculated. And Trump, well, as he deteriorates, is not going to be predictable health-wise.” Sanity-wise if he has dementia as many people suspected, she thought to herself. “So the question is, how is Putin going to make the situation predictable?”

“By removing the unpredictable elements.” The man answered.

“Exactly!” Touching her backpack with her feet to make sure it hadn’t gone walking as people started gathering for the Green Line, Haley continued, but softened her voice so only he could hear her. “So the question is do you remove him early, before swearing in, or later? Do you take a personal hand in the planning or just suggest things to your American allies? I am betting the removal is mixed in with plans for another Ukraine attack, but he isn’t likely to do much while we head into winter. Maybe. He made his 2022 move in February, so he probably will wait until the swearing in ceremony, at least.”

“That is a lot of question. Almost a chess game.”

“Oh, it definitely is a chess game. You got JD and the rest of the Project 2025 cabal in the mix too. How patient are they? Do they think they got their puppet strings in place, or will his handlers decide to move quickly because they can’t control him? He did deep throat a mic during a rally.”

The man lifted his left hand. “So you think on one hand Putin may make a move from his interests, or he may just imply actions.” Then he lifted his right. “And on the other hand, the people leading Trump around may decide now that they have won, they don’t need him.”

“Right, so do you act immediately, wait until the Electoral College votes, wait for swearing in, or beyond that? Maybe even let a long life of bad food and worse life choices just take care of things for you. But leaving things in God’s hands, well, those who like power rarely leave things up to chance.”

“Those are some deep thoughts. I can see why you missed the train.”

“What do you think?” she asked.

“Hmm, not immediate. Definitely want to get beyond the Electoral College and have everything official. Getting Congress voting in the mix is always unpredictable and, like you said, Putin can’t stand that and, obviously, Project 2025 people like planning things far in advance. And if you go that far, may as well go to the swearing in.”

“Right, right.” Nodding, she thought things out, “So, then, how do you take the unpredictable off the plate as soon as possible after that?”

“And make it look natural.”

“Yes, natural. So a heart attack, but not a big one. Maybe a month in.”

“February. Putin would approve.”

“Right, that would put JD in charge until Trump comes out of it, but he isn’t going to come out of it with full faculties.”

“Of course not.”

“No, the heart stopped long enough for a little brain damage … no, … there is body damage, Trump is going to need physical therapy … and surgery!”

“Surgery?”

“Yeah, of course, he will need a bypass. JD will be instated ‘temporarily’ with full powers while Trump is under the knife.”

“Didn’t that happen in a movie?” The black man pulled out his phone and typed in a question. “Dave … nah, that isn’t it. Sorry, continue.”

“Anyway, Trump … survives? Doesn’t? Really doesn’t matter, because at this point JD and Trump cronies can remove the chaos from the equation.”

“So February. This starts, you think.”

“Yeah, the first emergency will coincide with an attack on the Ukraine, and likely also a Palestine push as well. That is if Putin has his fingers in the mix.”

“He will.” The man shook his head. “I grew up in the eighties when we had been fighting Russia for years. I can’t believe we let them win like this.”

“Want to meet here on February fifteenth to see how close our guesses are to reality?”

“No, I don’t think so.” He stared into the middle distance. “If you are right, I would terrified. And, besides, my wife would have some objections.”

“Why?”

“The fourteenth of February would be Valentine’s Day, but that is a Friday night and would be crazy. I already made reservations for a Saturday luncheon.”

“Sorry not even thinking about the days in February, just a single cat lady.”

“I hear the Yellow Line coming.” The man stood. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope you are wrong.”

“So do I.”

(words 1,087; first published 11/10/2024)

Flash: Always Lead with Kindness

Erin Penn Leave a comment

ID 75056156 © Mik3812345 | Dreamstime.com

“Pops, will you slow down? Ain’t we suppose to be running in the other direction?” The thirty-five year old man scrambled over fallen pine trees.

At the crest of the impact crater, his gray-haired father bellycrawled the final few feet, his deer bow in hand. Pye, Junior’s teenage daughter, right beside him. Nuts, the two of them. And him, the tree tying them together following in their wake. He crouched crawled to their location.

Looking down in to the cleared sand of the pine barrens, he saw a circular UFO with the disc vertical and the half the circumference buried deep. Junior quiet-whistled against his teeth, “Someone is having a very bad day.”

“I’m not sure,” Pye squinted through the early mist rising out of the aquifer below the pine barrens sand. “I mean if they are a spinning ship, and that is kind-of what it looked like as they streaked overhead, then the gravity would be on the outer edge, so if you were to dismount, it would be through the floor. It would make sense for flying saucers to land edge up, right?”

“Good point, girl” His father whispered.

Junior was glad all those comics and adventure books leaked something into his kid’s brain. “Still it is a crash, pretty sure.”

George grunted agreement.

“Any landing you walk away from is a good landing, isn’t that what you say Pops?” Pye asked.

“Not seeing much walking.” George observed and started to stand. “The mist has made down the walls and isn’t burning off near the hull. Whatever that material is, it took care of the heat quickly. Come on, they might need help.”

Pye bounced up, following her grandfather down the sandy sides of the crater in a sideways slide. Youthful curiosity burst the question out burning in Junior as he followed the two with the dune-sand walk he picked up during his time in Afghanistan.  “What should we do if they say, ‘Take us to your leader’?”

“Well, election is next week, so I guess I’ll make introductions depending on their attitude.” George limped across the loose sand in the bottom of the crater. “If they are rude, they’ll get one. Nice, the other.” He winked at Junior. “But in the meantime, they might be in trouble. Always lead with kindness.”

“But pack heat while doing so.” The perky teenager touched the flare gun she carried beside the hunting arrows.

(words 402; first published 11/2/2024)

Flash: Dies Irae

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Photo by Joel Wyncott on Unsplash

The ghosts were at it again. Squeaking the attic ceiling vents, walking back and forth on the wooden floorboards, and Rascal sounded like he was about to hit the pots and pans in the kitchen. I had to sleep tonight; tomorrow the new job starts and I needed to be fresh. Ugh.

I got out of bed and crossed to my violin collection. So far, I had been nice about all the noise, after all, I just moved in. But enough was enough. They wanted noise, they will get noise.

Do you know just how shrill you can push a treble violin?

I put in my ear plugs, grateful for the lack of neighbors around this old Victorian I picked up for a song, and started playing. After the screecher I nicknamed Nails on Chalkboard in my head, to establish dominance, I switched to my fiddle and rocked Fire on the Mountain.

The temperature in the bedroom dropped enough I could see my breath. The four annoyances were an audience now.

Putting away the fiddle, I reached for case number three of the night, my normal violin.

Looking at their hazy forms, I addressed them for the first time with more than curses.

“Alright, you and I, we need an agreement. I need sleep time to make money to pay for the house. Keep it repaired and a roof over our heads. I assumed you want that since you aren’t going anywhere.”

I waited to see if I would get a reaction. I could feel a hole, an anticipation, a waiting.

“You let me have my eight hours, and I will play a song a night. Don’t let me sleep, and I will find the most hateful songs you have ever heard.”

I could hear them laugh at that.

“Oh, you don’t think I won’t play ‘Be Kind to Your Webfooted Friends’ for three hours? Try me.”

One of them tightened up their mist.

“Oh, you know that song. Good.” I moved my bow to point at the others. “Tell them. Tell them I will find other songs, something from their eras if I must. Trust me that I will find something.” I lifted the violin up. “But I’m not here about the stick. Like I said, a song a night if I am healthy and getting my sleep. Do you want to hear one?”

Two moved, the hole to be filled returned.

I poured Verdi’s Dies Irae into it.

(words 410; first published 10/20/2024)