flash fiction

Egged On

/ Karina Pinella / 4 Comments

Eight-year-old Freddy’s current purpose in life is playing tricks on his five-year-old brother, Jack. In the early morning of Easter, Freddy sneaks outside to the henhouse to place a ceramic egg he made as a school project in one of the hens’ nests. He runs back inside the house and creeps upstairs to wake up Jack.

“Hey, Jack,” Freddy whispers to his little brother, as he shakes him. “Get up.”

Jack’s eyes flutter.

“Jack, you just missed the Easter Bunny.”

Jack stirs and struggles to sit up. He still believes in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and most of all, the Easter Bunny. He moans, “That’s not fair. I missed it again.” Rubbing his eyes, Jack looks at Freddy and says, “Why do you always get to see all the magical stuff?”

“I told you last night to get up early today so you can see the Easter Bunny delivering the eggs.”

Jack swings his legs down to the side of the bed. “What’d you see? Tell me!”

Freddy pulls Jack by his arm. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Together the two brothers dash downstairs and outside to the henhouse.

“Whoa! I’ve never seen an Easter egg like that.” Jack races over to the hen sitting atop a red-colored egg trimmed with gold lines and swirls. The hen clucks and flaps her wings as Jack reaches under to take the egg.

“I’m going to show this to Mom and Dad!” Jack runs outside with the egg, slamming the screen of the henhouse behind him.

Still inside the henhouse, Freddy cracks up and thinks about his next trick.

“That’s not funny.” A voice squawks at him. Startled, Freddy looks around at the hens.  To get away, Freddy tears away outside and sees Jack coming around from the side of the wooden house.

“April Fools!” Jack laughs at Freddy. “I did get up early, but I heard you leave so I looked outside my window and saw you carrying something red in your hands.”

The Day the Toad Stood Still

/ Karina Pinella / 3 Comments

Image: Pixabay

6-word story version:
The Toad croaked his last ribbit.

50-word story version:
Called the “Toad” for resembling the amphibian, Todd tends to toady to everyone. Immune to his fawning ways, Todd’s enemy tricks him into eating a toadstool disguised as a truffle served with succulent ribs. Always aiming to please, Todd ate everything on the plate. The Toad croaked his last ribbit.

Nut Mix

/ Karina Pinella / 6 Comments

They squabble over the nut mix. Every morning, Elvira prepares their breakfast by sprinkling a mix of seeds, nuts, and dried fruit over their hot cereal. Without fail each day, she complains that the mix supply looks significantly less than the day before.

“Of course it does because you use it every day,” Henderson points out to his wife.

“Don’t take me for a fool. I hardly use much. A small handful is all I sprinkle over the oatmeal.” Elvira is annoyed because such exchange between them is starting to become routine. She wonders if she had been too hasty in getting married after knowing him for less than three months. But, she’s always been a decisive woman and they were both in their late fifties and not getting any younger. She also wanted to have a man around the house to help with the yard and her car.  Stuff her father used to do and her mum expected from a man.

As a woman of habit, Elvira would always leave for work soon after breakfast and return home right at dinnertime. Henderson, a freelance graphics artist, always works at home.  She and her husband had a silent understanding that this time apart served as a healthy break from each other. Nevertheless, Elvira’s suspicious nature couldn’t shake the feeling that the nut mix was dwindling faster than it ought to during the week.

To satisfy her curiosity, Elvira decides to break her customary ways for one day. Without telling Henderson, Elvira goes home for lunch, parking her car a block away and sneaking in the house to see if Henderson has been dipping into the nut mix. She knows he always makes a salad for lunch and she is tired of letting him think she doesn’t know what’s been going on.

Stealthily, she peeks through the living room window, sees that her husband is nowhere near, and silently opens the door. Tiptoeing into the kitchen, she screams as she sees a man-sized squirrel on its haunches preparing a big bowl of salad. Slowly turning around, the giant squirrel says, “What a surprise, Elvira.”  He looks down as he pours the nut mix into the salad, “Be glad I don’t eat meat.”

The Bored Chairman

/ Karina Pinella / 10 Comments

The small rental house sits on a hill, far from the neighbors. Its solitary perch is what attracted Tim to the place. Shy by nature, he considered it a find when he came across the cozy cabin lookalike even though it was reputedly haunted. In all his 50 years, he’s never encountered any paranormal or extraterrestrial activities and finds no reason to believe in them now.

As he’s wont to do every evening, Tim finishes eating dinner on his kitchen table, sips his rye, and starts talking to the empty chair across from him. Although timid, he likes to hear the timbre of his own voice when no one is around. He continues to spout about his day when the wooden chair transforms into a wooden head with its facial features and hair looking painted on. Its expression appears focused, fully engaged at what he was saying.

It must be the whiskey, Tim thinks to himself.  Can’t be delirium. Although he’s been called a drunk, he doesn’t believe it because he can still stand and walk after many rounds of shots.

He rubs his eyes and stares at the chair, slapping his hands on the table just to make sure he’s awake.

“Ho now,” the outline of the mouth blurts out.

“Who are you? I didn’t invite you here.” Tim tries to assert himself.

“Day in, day out . . . especially day out, you jabber on and on. So here I am to wackle, wackle back at ‘cha.”

“What does that even mean?” Bewildered, Tim can feel goosebumps forming on his arms and the hair behind his neck rising, as he’s starting to register the deadness of the wide-eyed expression on the face. Tim inches away from the table as he notices the head shaking a little, as if trying to move from its place.

“I’ve always wanted a body to call my own.” The head nods.

The sudden change of subject and the subject itself are enough to cause Tim to bolt out of his chair. As if powered by an invisible slingshot, the head catapults toward Tim, who loses his balance from the hit. Before recovering from his fall, Tim feels a little top-heavy, almost as if he is wearing a football helmet.

“I also wanted a buddy of my own,” Tim hears in his head, knowing the thought is not his own. Heart thudding, he runs to the bathroom mirror and looks at his reflection. The wooden head stares back at him with a wide grin.

Image by blogetta

Smashed

/ Karina Pinella / 6 Comments

Elwood groans from an oncoming headache caused by the sound of a jackhammer, compounded by the whining of a circular saw. Still feeling the effects from last night’s party, he barely catches his breath as he staggers into his office building. As he approaches his desk, he is met with his favorite framed photo smashed on the floor. Memories of when he took it and framed it flash through his mind, followed with stabs of anger. He carefully picks up the big pieces of broken glass and throws them in the waste basket.

Still feeling upset, he almost wants to cry. Elwood surmises his hypersensitivity must be a holdover from getting smashed the night before. Overcome with claustrophobia, he steps outside to get some air and go for a walk. The destroyed picture in his mind distracts him from noticing a huge concrete block suspended above by a rope that starts to unravel. Before any warning can be made, the block breaks free and smashes Elwood to the ground.

Mumble

/ Karina Pinella / 5 Comments

“Ya got a big mouth on ya is yer problem, Eddie. How many people ya ate? Ya gotta pace yerself or we’ll get caught. I gotta do somethin’.” Royal, Eddie’s best friend glares at his shack mate, who is moaning at every chew.

Eyelids half closed, Eddie is too preoccupied savoring the last of his ill-gotten meat. There’s nothing like a good summer barbecued shoulder. Granted, it took him a few hours to wrestle it out of his prey who outweighed him by 65 pounds, but he triumphed, making him especially proud of his latest kill.

“I just looove tourist season,” Eddie mumbles, trying to keep in food from spilling out of his mouth.

With pressed lips, Royal saunters off to get his leather sewing kit. As he approaches his friend from behind, he says, “Sorry, buddy; this is fer yer own good.” Royal takes a swing at the back of Eddie’s head with a big sock filled with heavy rubber balls.

With Eddie stunned, he quickly proceeds to sew his friend’s mouth. As he almost finishes, Eddie’s lids flutter open. Eyes looking panicked, Eddie grunts, “Mmmph . . .”

“Oops, I forgot to ask if ya had any last words,” Royal mumbles, feeling a little guilty as he locks the stitches.

Dealings in the Ceiling

/ Karina Pinella / 19 Comments

Image by Anna

Charlie thinks he is doing his boss a favor when he mentions the sound of scurrying feet above their paneled ceiling.

“I don’t like that. Reminds me of what Johnson, that guy two doors down from us told me last month. He was eating his lunch and suddenly this monster rodent lands in his soup. He lucked out that his bowl of hot liquid got that disease monger good. Ugh.” His boss shivers and continues, “I want you to put some traps up there now. Go to that hardware store a block from us. They should have something appropriate there.”

“Why can’t Ernie do it? He’s the Facilities guy.” Charlie looks around as if Ernie would appear.

“I’ll give you three reasons why . . . first, he’ll take weeks to get to it . . . he’s always got a more serious problem to deal with. Second, he’s afraid of heights so he won’t climb a ladder. That will add even more weeks because he’s going to have to find help; and third, he’s out sick today, so who knows when he’s coming back.”

Charlie regrets speaking up and catching guff from his boss again. As he walks inside the hardware store, he asks the guy behind the counter for help and buys a few mouse traps.

When Charlie returns to the office, his boss tells him he doesn’t want the details. “Just take care of the problem,” he commands.

Charlie places the ladder right under the area where he’s been hearing the muffled sounds. While holding a plastic bag that contains the traps and other supplies, he climbs the ladder and carefully pokes out a tile from the dropped ceiling. He sets the tile aside, along with his bag, inside the plenum space.  He uses the flashlight on his smart phone to scan the surface. He can’t see anything over a foot from where he is, although the smell reminds him of sweaty socks.

As he reaches to place the traps in different parts of the ceiling, he hears a scuffling. From where he is, the sound seems heavier than the light scrabbling of mice. The hairs on the back of his neck stand out. His breathing is strained. As he prepares to scramble out of the area, he sees a large rat with red-rimmed eyes suddenly appear before him.

Lo and behold, the rat speaks, “Shh. I’m just bunking here for the week so I don’t have to take guff from my boss. You feel me?”

Loose Screw

/ Karina Pinella / 8 Comments

Image: Pixabay

They are so miserly, they usually breakfast on moldy bread topped with moldy cheese. Expiration dates on products mean nothing to them. Comfortable with their pace of consumption, they want for nothing. Their brood follows the same values, as they continue to proliferate. They come from a long line of hardy stock. Next time you run into one of them, you might either scream or stomp on their hard shells. Cockroaches are fast though, so be prepared to chase them for months until they leave you unscrewed.

The Accident

/ Karina Pinella / 8 Comments

Image: Pixabay

Vera loves wearing sandals, enjoying the variety of style from simple flip-flops to high-heeled, open-toe gladiators. One day, as she walks through a spring art exhibit, a big elephant statue fell from its perch onto her big toe. The surprise, the pain, the astonishment. Since then, she’s never been the same.

Every day, she seems to slump more, as if shrinking in stature, until one morning, she barely makes it out of  bed. Her whole body is dragging on the floor. Then, out of nowhere a little creature crawls out of her big toe and collapses. Known to its family as Tetra 12, the ant-sized being is ancient and, sadly, its existence is soon ending.

The Custodian

/ Karina Pinella / 19 Comments
Image: Pixabay

Image: Pixabay

The clock strikes five. All the worker bees in Suite 320 suddenly come to life, shutting down their computers, tossing their empty coffee cups. Others lock up their drawers as if afraid somebody might steal their company-issued office supplies.

“Bye, Henry.”

“Have a nice weekend, Linda.”

“TGIF!”

Farewells among colleagues are exchanged; they give and accept their goodbyes like eager squirrels storing away their nuts for winter.

Less than five minutes later, the whole office is cleared. Sounds of rolling wheels break the silence as the little man behind a gray trash barrel comes in. As Head Custodian, he rips up all the computers, along with the desks and pitches them into the bottomless barrel. He has determined this last batch of worker bees does not work hard enough. They will not have a place to work when they return on Monday morning. He wheels away to the next floor to decide on the fate of the group in Suite 420.