FLASH FIC FRIDAY IS HERE
PLEASE JOIN US EACH FRIDAY TO SEE WHO'S FLASHING US
Each Friday a new prompt will be posted along with the previous week's winners
What exactly is a Flash-Fic? It's pretty much a spur of the moment, tiny story, prompted by words, images or silliness. Not sure if you've ever been on twitter when this has happened, but it's pretty awesome when it does. It also happens often in threads, with a combination of people contributing.
How does it work? Each Friday one admin of TLS posts a picture prompt here to the blog. Using this image, entries are created. Entries must be 100-300 words ONLY. No more, no less. The entries are then judged and we post the winning submissions here, each Friday, to share with all of you.
THIS WEEK'S NEW PROMPT
You will have until next Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST to submit your entry. Please leave your submission in the comment section at the bottom of the post using this format:
Your name (use your Twitter, Facebook or FFN name)
Your link to your FFN profile if you choose to share it
Number of submission. Example: #1
Submissions will be judged on Thursdays and on Friday the winning entry will be posted here, on the TLS blog.
This feature is open to everyone, so come one, come all!
LAST WEEK'S PROMPT AND WINNERS
FIRST PLACE WINNER
THEFICCHICK
TheFicChick on FFN, @TheFicChick on twitter
Word count: 162
You’re everything: popular, gifted, a brilliant star on the
rise. I’m nothing: misfit, untalented, a black hole people step around.
You’re hers: high school sweethearts, football captain and
head cheerleader, prom king and queen. I’m nobody’s: table for one, single
ticket to the movies, prom night in.
You wear confidence and swagger, surety and poise like a
superhero’s cape. I carry insecurity and timidity, self-recrimination and doubt
like a cloak to hide beneath.
You’re everything and I’m nothing, but together we are fire.
Your lips against mine. Your hips against mine. Your words
against mine. In the hallway, in the locker room, in the parking lot when we
should both be somewhere, anywhere else.
“Don’t tell,” and “She can’t know,” and “Please,” and all
these words that fall from lips between kisses. I lick your mouth and breathe
your breath and wonder if I can swallow just enough of you to keep something
for myself when the fire burns it all down.
SECOND PLACE
HONEYBEEMEADOWS
Word count: 297
She is the most infuriating person I know.
The way she works herself up into a spin. The way her lips curl around her words and her eyes hollow out like she’s starving. The way she chokes on her air and her tits strain over every gasping breath. The way she paces toe to heel in front of me, stomping over every last detail of our relationship like she might beat it into submission.
Why we can’t can’t can’t.
“I can’t wait,” I interrupt and her stomping falters as she stops to look at me. “I need you. Plain and simple. I won’t settle for less. I won’t wait.”
“You’ve never been this demanding,” she accuses with lethal accuracy and almost takes me down to my knees.
“You’ve never given me a reason to before.”
She stumbles back into her pacing again and I try to listen to her but I’ve become a buzzing hum of electric energy that has nowhere to turn. She’s ranting again, barely understandable and glowing with something that I can’t place. Pearly and brand new, like she just stepped out of a shell and found herself here with me, in this can’t can’t can’t situation.
“Will you shut up?” I tell her and seal my mouth over hers, a wax seal imprinted with everything I can’t say to this infuriating, beautiful girl who kept a secret from me just long enough to let me fall violently in love with her.
To crush all of her can’t can’t can’t’s into the linoleum beneath us.
Her fists hit my chest before they turn into skittering fingertips across my jaw and she breathes her white flag right into my mouth.
Seals it with her lips.
THIRD PLACE
MAZZY STARLA
Word Count: 300
Dear Diary,
There's a time in everyone's life when there's a before and an after.
My after happened in 6th grade, when I saw Edward Cullen.
After that moment, my life was never the same.
Even at twelve, he took my breath away. I still haven't worked up the nerve to speak to him.
I know, I know. Pathetic. Hey, it's not like I've really had the chance. I've been INVISIBLE to him.
But that's okay. Invisible made it easier for me to stare. And dream about kissing his lips and feeling his body against mine.
Thankfully I have you, dear diary, to share my wishes and wants.
Until next time,
~ Bella
After school, I begrudgingly agree to help my best-friend Angela. She's heading up the Prom Committee so I'm in the cafeteria, watching the others come in.
I see him from the corner of my eye. He sets his backpack against the wall near mine, but doesn't look my way. He smiles at Tyler and takes a seat.
God he's beautiful.
After I get home, I grab my backpack, noticing that it's emerald green, not navy blue.
What the??
I unzip it and pull out a notebook and scream when I see Cullen across the top.
HOLY SHIT. MY FUCKING DIARY!! OMG!!!
The next day at school, I'm praying my bag is where I left it. Please God. Please let it still be there.
"Looking for this?"
It's him. He's standing in the doorway with a smile that's making my knees weak.
Unable to respond, I start to run and I hear him call after me.
"Bella, wait! Stop!"
Knowing there's no way to avoid this, I stop and lean against the hallway walls.
And without ever saying a word to him, Edward Cullen’s lips are on mine.
FOURTH PLACE
JO FICFREAK
FictionFreak95 on FFN
Word count: 300
“I don’t want to do this,” I tell him. And this time, I mean it.
“Do what?” he asks angrily.
“Argue.”
“We’re not arguing, I’m begging you not to go. You’re the one that’s arguing.”
“I can’t do this.” He’s killing me and he knows it. I hate that.
“Why not?” he asks. “Because of last week? Last week was…”
I stop and look him square in those piercing blue eyes of his.
“It’s not because of last week.”
It’s because of last week. And the week before, and the one before that. But I can’t tell him that. I can’t give him the satisfaction. He needs to think I’m doing this for me. Which I am.
He takes my hand in his and pulls me back when I try to go. His voice weakens when he speaks this time. “Please. Stay. I’m nothing without you.”
I pause, feeling my shoulders drop a little, because when he talks like this, I forget what a jerk he can be. What an insensitive, flirtatious, jerk.
I quicken my pace. I have to go. For my heart’s sake.
“I told her I’m not interested,” he says as I put some distance between us finally.
However now, my footsteps are slowing.
“My interests lie with you,” I hear him say as he gains some ground on me. “And only you."
He pulls me into him. I fight it but then he kisses me hard. Full of all the things I love about him. Passion and impatience. Greed and lust. And I want to do this. I so want to do this, but…
“It’s only ever been you,” he promises with a husky voice, when our kiss breaks, momentarily.
I see it in his eyes and I smile, because yeah… I’m definitely doing this.
FIFTH PLACE
PRIMARY COLORS
Word count: 298
“There you are.”
There was an edge to his mouth, a touch of savagery in the way it curved into a smile. He had her cornered in this dark section of the hospital, long closed for the weekend. The buzzing of his office party was non-existent thanks to the maze of hallways where she’d gotten herself lost in a pathetic dash to find the parking deck.
Edward stared, waiting and Bella felt as if she were desperately trying to remember the answer when there hadn’t been a question asked. He took a step forward and she took a step back, his eyes dropping to where she wobbled on her heels.
Her hair had come loose, the strands clinging wetly to her cheeks. Breathless and unblinking, she bit her lip, a metallic burn that made his nostrils flare.
“Oh sweetheart, you shouldn’t have run,” he told her, voice low and urgent, his smirk faded. “You know what that does to me.” His eyes were wild, the darkness churning with faint hints of red. Her hands fluttered uselessly at her throat.
“No!” She shook her head violently, hearing a sob, hysterical, frantic and knew it was herself. The emotion was torn from a place so deeply buried inside her that she thought if she could see it, it would a mess of sticky blood and frantic beating heart, the fear seeping out of her and pooling hotly at her feet.
“Please,” she cried. “I don’t want you to—“
“I can smell the wet between your legs,” he growled, a guttural sound caught between humanity and the animal within. “Your body begs for me, don’t deny that.” He moved closer.
“I- I don’t deny it. Just… don’t hurt me.”
“I could never hurt you,” he whispered, seconds before he fell.
.
.
.
The Lemonade Stand would like to thank all of the participants. We thoroughly enjoyed ALL of the entries!
See you next week!
XOXO
Twitter: @k8ln713
ReplyDeleteFFn: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2528887/
Entry #1
Word count: 299
I'd known Edward since childhood. He left town not too long after graduation.
It was eight years later that I found him lying on the ground, beaten almost to a pulp.
He had no recollection of who he was, meaning he looks at me and doesn't know me either.
Doesn't remember me.
Doesn't recall how cruel he was to me throughout high school.
I had loved him from afar despite how he treated me, and this was my chance to make him see me in a new light.
Also make him understand that he wasn't much of a good person now and back then.
He can’t remember anything, even after I showed him information about him. After I told him my memories of him being an asshole to me.
He doesn't understand why he would be that type of person.
After I mentioned how cruel he was to me when we were younger, he had said, "You're so kind and beautiful. Surely I would have knelt down at your feet."
“Unfortunately, that was not true, Edward.”
“I’m sorry for how I treated you. I wish I could remember so it comes off as a better apology.”
“It’s alright,” I waved him off. “I forgive you. It was so long ago.”
Weeks passed and Edward was a different man.
He still doesn't know much of his past, but he has made a pact with himself to change who he was… to start anew.
He regrets how he treated me, despite not remembering it, and he wants to start over with me.
Saying he actually wants me.
I want him back, too.
“Bella… all I know it I can’t remember anything without you. Please stay with me.”
“Of course, Edward.”
“I love you,” he said, kissing me.
“I love you, too.”
Honeybee Meadows
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fanfiction.net/~honeybeemeadows
#2
Word Count: 297
--------------------
It’s been 271 days. I’ve counted them all.
42 days in a coma. 56 with my skull bound to keep everything inside. 68 before I could stand up to take a piss on my own. 94 before they took all of the needles out of me. 109 before they let her bring me home.
77 stitches. 51 bruises. 26 staples. 4 skull fractures. 2 blood transfusions.
She cried they day they released me and she’s cried every day since. 161 days of tears and trying to adjust to the strange new-ness of everything. My skin. Her smell. Shoelaces and forks. Alphabets and family photos. Conversation and cut-off kisses, which are what makes her cry the hardest.
When I look in the mirror, I count my eyelashes because I can barely recognize my face.
When I look at her, I count her freckles because I can’t remember her at all.
Every morning is the same. I wake up and look to the mirror, her handwritten scrawl of pale pink lipstick across the glass to remind me of my name. Edward. Of hers. Bella.
That she loves me.
That I loved her.
Day 271 is different.
Something snaps deep inside my head, painful and blinding. My brain burning as the single most important synapse of all melts back together and - bam - I just know. I lie there in bed and say her name over and over and over, savoring the way it feels in my mouth. Heavy and soft like a pearl I’ve been keeping under my tongue.
I give it to her the moment she comes through the door.
“Bella.”
“You’re back,” she says and her smile . . . I leap off the couch and take it for my own.
I can’t remember anything, but I remember her.
Boom-Boom Jones
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fanfiction.net/~boomboomjones
#3
Word Count: 290
You’re his friend. You’re the one who’s quiet and compliant. You bring an extra six-pack when no one asks. Or maybe someone has and I’ve never noticed because I’ve barely noticed you.
You wear threadbare shirts and you don’t always comb your hair and sometimes when you’re staring down at the ground you get this look on your face and I think you’re keeping a secret and sometimes I want to know what it is.
He makes jokes and I laugh, but you don’t always laugh. His sense of humor is just okay but I feel like I should laugh anyway. You don’t, though. Not always. When you don’t I’m embarrassed that I did. It’s silly.
You’re the last out the door. You hold it open for me and then lock it up for me. I wonder why you don’t have a girlfriend.
When his arm hangs on my shoulder you walk ahead. I watch the way you walk, the way your jeans slouch down a little. They’re really too big for you, but you probably like them that way.
He’s not here, and I tell you but you say you want to come in anyway. I ask you to sit down and offer you a drink. It’s ten in the morning and you ask if I have any beer.
“Sure, yeah. Here you go.”
You don’t even open it. It sits on the coffee table and sweats. There’s going to be a ring on the wood but I don’t say anything because you seem nervous. I ask what’s wrong and then you speak this song that makes me swallow hard and my stomach flutter. You contradict what I’ve always thought I wanted and I wish I noticed you before.
FFn: Mayflay http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1944230/
ReplyDelete#4
Word count: 191
They say that the minute you saw me, you offered me your favorite toy. They say that was the first time I started babbling. The first memory I have includes you. We were three and you pushed me to a small puddle. I started to cry and you panicked and started to cry too.
The first day of school, you were there, nervous beside me. My first kiss, you were there, staring me across the circle as you spun the bottle. It stopped at me.
My first time is going to be with you. As we lie on the couch I can only hear our breathing. We are nervous but we know this is going to happen. I know it’s supposed to be with you. After reflecting our past I know you’ll always be here for me.
I look at you. You are so deep in your thoughts your eyes are glazed. Slowly you open your mouth, then close it again. I let you take your time.
“I can’t remember anything without you,” you finally whisper, vocalizing my own thoughts. Suddenly your body is hovering above mine and you kiss me.
Perry Maxwell on FFN, perrymaxed on Twitter
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fanfiction.net/u/2472784/Perry-Maxwell
#5
300 words
Title: Wishing and Hoping
The moments are few and far between. Though, when they arrive, they’re worth it.
It was simple really. Yesterday you made coffee just the way I like it: black with two sugars. You set the cup before me and sat down across the table. I watched your eyes, looking for telltale signs of lucidity, but just as quickly as it came, it was gone.
Today we sit on the couch. My focus is on you; yours is on the television. Sometimes I wonder if you’ll ever realize you’ve watched this episode every day for the past six years. I can quote it word for word, intonating every nuance of the characters’ voices. But that’s only because my brain works; yours doesn’t. Not like it should anyway.
Since the car accident, you’ve had to learn how to live again. So have I.
I lost you that rainy night, but my heart gets ripped apart just a bit more each time you forget. Or should I say fail to remember?
Where we once we shared smiles over inside jokes, we now share disingenuous expressions of reassurance.
I’m no longer your wife, not really. Instead I’m the woman who reminds you of those items your brain can’t recall.
I do it because I love you, because I made a vow.
We make love sometimes. I pretend it’s still you in there behind those eyes. It’s not. Your questions the next morning are proof.
Still, I’m here, waiting and hoping you’ll return. If not for me, for our son.
I guess there’s a certain irony in life. He arrived the day you disappeared.
His birthday party was yesterday. For the second year in a row, he made the same wish: for Daddy to wake up, for Daddy to remember.
I wish for that too.
@primarycolors1
Deletehttp://www.fanfiction.net/u/1400881/primarycolors
#6
291 words
“I can’t remember anything without you,” he said. “You’ve always been there.”
The threadbare cushion felt rough under her fingers. She’d always hated that couch, hated the color and how it sagged in the middle, how on rainy days it smelled like the dog. But the subtle transition between worn smooth and nubby was mesmerizing and she couldn’t stop rubbing back and forth.
“What do you mean?” she asked, not looking at him, scratching now with her thumbnail.
“I love our life but I think there’s a difference between genuinely loving someone and loving certain things about them. And that it’s easy to confuse the two.” He glanced at her with a small smile and she felt herself flush, embarrassed that the unbecoming purplish-red was staining her chest.
Her hands left the couch and twisted together. “I still don’t understand what you mean. Are you saying you’re not happy? You just said you loved our life.”
“I don’t understand it either,” he whispered to the ceiling. “I’m sorry.”
It had never occurred to her that a person could feel two different ways about anything, like Edward seemed to feel about his life. So she shoved the knowledge down deep inside, where she pushed all the things she’d never learned to deal with.
“Let’s buy a new couch,” she said brightly. “Pottery Barn is having a sale.”
“Tanya, for God’s sake.” He stared at her, real shock in his eyes. “I’ve met someone else. I’m leaving.”
She nodded. Last night’s stars had given way to this morning’s lowering clouds. The air was heavy and thick, and she felt as though she’d been caught underwater. She couldn’t speak, her throat was so full but her chest felt hollowed out, hollow and empty.
Last Aboard
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fanfiction.net/~lastaboard
Word Count: 300
#7
I cried for three days when we found out that we were out of options even though it wasn't me that'd been slapped with an expiration date.
On the fourth day, when I cracked my puffy eyelids open just enough to reach for my phone and call in sick again, he reached out his hand to wrap around my wrist and stop me.
"Sweetheart, this isn't healthy. You have to get up and keep going. We have to keep going." His emerald eyes were tired and his face was thinner than it should have been. It was as if I could see him wasting away and out of my grasp already.
My voice was cracked and raw when I finally spoke. "I can't keep going without you. I can't even remember what my life was like before you. If you're going to die, I want to die too."
He shook his head. "No. No, sweetheart, don't say that. Don't throw away the time you've got on my account. It's not the end for us, I promise."
I didn't call in sick but I didn't go to work either. We stayed in bed where he showed me he loved me as much as he ever did, maybe more, he said. I clung to him, refusing to unlock my arms from his neck or to release him from my body. I needed to memorize the feeling of him inside of me for when he was gone.
Edward died on a Saturday. The sun shone bright in a cornflower blue sky and I opened the window to let the soft breeze in to caress his hollowed cheeks. I heard his breath change and I knew it was soon.
"Not the end," I whispered.
Just before the last breath escaped his lungs, he smiled.
Twilightladies
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fanfiction.net/u/2878973/twilightladies
Word Count – 300
#8
I watch you with him and I know I’m at my limit.
We’ve been friends for years, though I’ve always wanted more. I’d been happy to just have you in my life, even if it wasn’t the way I wanted.
Not now. I can’t do this any longer.
I watch as he wraps his arm around your shoulder and curls a strand of your hair in his fingers.
The hair I had my hands tangled in last night.
My eyes are drawn to your lips as you laugh at something he says.
The lips that—last night—were pink and swollen from our kisses.
He bends down to kiss you and I have to look away.
It kills me to see you with someone else—especially after the night we shared.
Your touch, your kisses… I thought they meant something more. I thought things would finally be different for us.
I thought he’d be gone.
Instead, I see you wearing his engagement ring.
I snap—I know I have to do this now or I never will.
Walking toward you both, I ignore the way he glowers in my direction.
“Can I have a word with you?”
You look to him and then me. “Sure.”
You get up and follow me to the bar. For the first time ever, there’s tension between us and I hate it. I remain strong. If I have any chance at getting over you, I need to be away from you.
“I can’t do this.”
You look confused. “Do what?”
I gesture between us. “This. I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t watch you be with him and pretend it doesn’t hurt.”
Tears fill your eyes. “Please. Don’t…”
“I have to.”
“But…I can’t remember anything without you.”
“Try.”
I don’t look back as I walk away.
@sparrownotes24
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fanfiction.net/~sparrownotes24
Word Count: 300
#9
Mondays: We steal warm, sleepy minutes from the new day to hold onto the weekend.
Tuesdays: We sneak long lunches. "Pickles? I'd rather lick the pavement." I don't test you; your smile tells me you’d really do it.
Wednesdays: You always buy me flowers.
Thursdays: Poker night. The bed dips, and your warmth surrounds me as you whisper your winning hands in my ear. "Full house, Queen of my heart."
Fridays: Date night, always ending in a tangle of sweat-drenched bodies and thumping hearts.
Saturdays: Hikes in the mountains. With a smile crinkling your eyes, you tease you'll leave me behind. You never do.
Sundays: Coffee and crumbs in bed with the crossword. You're so impatient. I can tell you’re holding your tongue on my turn. You tickle and kiss ‘til I give in.
Spring: In our garden. I watch the muscles in your back as you turn the earth. On Wednesdays, you buy me lilacs.
Summer: On our porch swing. Iced tea, fireflies, the spark of barbecues scenting the air. On Wednesdays, you buy me roses.
Autumn: Kneeling on fallen leaves. Lit by the flickering jack-o-lantern, you slide the jelly-ring on my finger. "Be my everything?" On Wednesdays, you buy me lisianthus.
Winter: Stranded in white lace. You dig us out, so handsome in your tuxedo. I become yours. You become mine. On Wednesdays, you buy me violets.
.
.
"What day is it today?" I ask, as snow falls from the silver sky.
"Wednesday."
I nod, with a heart so heavy with memories, I think it might stop.
Pushing my nose into the purple petals, their sweet scent flares you back to life for a second.
I lay my flowers on the cold marble. Two dates failing to tell your story.
You would have brought me violets today.
ChocolateLover82
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 300
#9
I stare at him, sitting in front of me. Only now, it’s like I’m seeing a different person. His eyes, always so bright and happy, now look tired and lifeless; his mouth, always knowing what to say and do against my skin, is now set into a hard line; even his hands, that always knew when to be gentle or rough even before I knew what I wanted, are now set into a tight fist.
Worst of all, are his words: not loving and tender, but cold and senseless.
“What do you mean?” I ask, because I still don’t understand.
“I mean that I’m leaving.” He says, tired of repeating himself.
“I heard that, but why?”
“Because it’s become too much.”
“What has?”
“Us, this.” He stands up and starts pacing. “We’ve been together forever. All my memories, all my life has you wrap around it. It’s suffocating, I can’t take it anymore. I can’t.”
I blink. I always thought we had an advantage over other couples because we knew each other that much, because we were each other’s lives.
I guess I was wrong.
“So that’s it?” I whisper, numbly. I don’t know how I feel right now. Angry? Disappointed? Heartbroken?
He stops pacing and fixes his eyes on me, but unlike in the past, this time his stare makes me sick. He looks at me as if I’m a child who doesn’t understand what her parents are telling her.
I turn away from them.
And in that moment, I know. I know that this is truly it, truly over. Because this is not the man I fell in love with. That man would’ve done anything not to hurt me. He would’ve said something long before today.
The day that I was going to tell him I was pregnant.
#10
DeleteSharon Henderson
ReplyDelete300 words
#10
It's been a year now. I left a letter, and I packed a bag. I didn't take a picture of us. I didn't want a reminder of what I left behind. I wanted to see what I could be without you.
That's funny. I've done nothing.
I left that small town, left you. I moved to this big city, and with stars in my eyes I explored, searching for my muse that would make my words flow like they never have before. I was gonna make my name here. The next big author. Big dreams.
"You can write anywhere, baby." you would say as you kissed down my neck, slid
your hand up my thigh. I would shiver and sigh at your touch. I loved your attention.
But I had to try.
As the time past, my enthusiasm dimmed. My smile, my writing, my self-talk of this is where I'm meant to be, it was all forced. I became another face in the crowd, rushing to work, rushing home.
Home. God, I want to go home. I miss it. I miss you.
It wasn't fucking worth it.Why am I still here? Without you?
My lease is up. I left a letter with the last month’s rent, and packed a bag.
The sun is just coming up when I knock on your door. You just stare at me. I try to make light of how I’ve fucked up. I laugh, “I can’t remember...”
But, you shake your head and turn away. I follow you to the couch, sit beside you. You look exhausted. Your face matches mine. You won’t even look at me. I can’t stop looking at you. You shake your head again, then lean back, “I can’t remember anything without you.”
#11
DeleteTheFicChick
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fanfiction.net/~theficchick
#12
“I can’t remember anything without you,” I almost-whisper, and he reaches out to tuck my hair behind my ear. The gesture makes my heart hurt.
“Me either,” he says softly, his voice rough. “Maybe that’s always been our problem.”
High school sweethearts, each other’s firsts, college sweethearts, post-college sweethearts, betrothed couple, husband and wife. It’s true: he’s in every single one of my memories since I was fifteen.
At fifteen, he made me fly.
At eighteen, he was soaring right alongside me.
At twenty, we were flying in formation.
At twenty-four, I felt like my wings were being clipped.
At twenty-seven, we crash-landed.
He steps back, blends in with the scenery: autumn in New England, variegated hues of copper and green. The only scar on the landscape is the U-Haul at the curb, packed to the gills with everything that’s his but not mine. Not ours.
“Take care of yourself, Bella,” he murmurs against my forehead, and I watch as he swings himself into the cab of the truck, late fall sunlight glinting off the silver band on his finger as he slams it shut.
Starts the engine.
Pulls away.
Leaves me behind.
I can’t remember anything without you.
I thought I wanted to fly again. To soar, unencumbered and untethered. Be reckless, free, uninhibited.
Without you.
It isn’t until the brake lights illuminate in front of the stop sign at the top of our street that the realization hits.
He’s still wearing his ring.
I take off at a run.