Flash Fiction I

Ultra-short stories from my book, "Reflections". Each story is accompanied (in the book) by an abstract picture. The pictures relate to the stories aesthetically but do not illustrate them.

Purple in Blue

     On a partly cloudy day with sunlight forming nearly purple streamers in the sky, a man sits on a park bench eating a sandwich. He can hear someone nearby practicing a saxophone, playing a blues song, and he briefly wonders if such music would have been called “yellows” or “purples” if its original mood had been different.    

    A second man passes by, walking his dog. The two men nod to each other, a noncommittal greeting among strangers, and the second continues walking. Unknown to the first, the second is a synesthete who perceives the sax tones in shades of lavender and mauve.

 

The Red-Orange Invasion

     “There is something odd about that world,” said Red, “It’s all clear and white and snowy. It’s monochrome. I’m going down there.”

    “You should not,” replied Green, “They have never seen color. They will not understand you.”

    But Red did not listen. A crimson meteor flashed across the sky above the silver-glass mountains and crystal pillars. It cratered the ground near an alabaster bridge. The inhabitants of the colorless realm found it where it had crashed, and they said to one another, “It burns our eyes and we do not understand.”

    None ever saw Red again on that planet; and there, and in that solar system, no colors apart from silver, grey, and white now exist.

 

A Board, But Not a Board

     Three children found a wooden plank in the park.

    “Cool,” said Sammy, “it looks like it’s new.”

    “Look,” said Amanda, “the pattern of the wood grain looks like clouds on Jupiter.”

    “Let’s use it in the wall to our clubhouse,” said Tyler, “and pretend we’re astronauts.”

    The board recalls this was its happiest day. The children had perceived something of its origin and meaning, for it was not a wooden board at all but a panel from a Jovian robot spacecraft which had crashed and disintegrated some miles away.

 

Two Haiku Inspired by the Sounds of Nature and J. S. Bach’s Sonatas for Solo Violin

    Bare branch, bird perches

    Chirps loss of lover and eggs

    Eagle nearby, squawks.

    Up, beetle, scuttle!

    Skinny legs cross bark, to twigs

    Tasty sap awaits.

 

Midnight, September 1959: Dark Mood while Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” Plays in the Background

     He sat at the bar at Harvey’s Tavern on 27th Street, gazing out at the neon lights in muted midnight. The street was quiet. A perfect setting for a film noir, he thought as he swizzled the ice in his whiskey, and he wondered why she hadn’t shown up.

    She sat at a table at Harley’s Tavern on 22nd Street, staring in at the wooden textured walls. The bar and grill was deserted. A perfect setting for a detective film, she thought as she downed her beer and wondered why he hadn’t shown up.

 

The Letter

     Paul’s reed pen paused and hovered over the papyrus. He squinted, knotted his forehead for a second. He needed to think of a descriptive yet concise metaphor for seeing the Eternal indistinctly now but clear in the coming times. He frowned.

    A sunbeam shown in through a rough window. Paul put down his stylus and watched the light refract in his small room. Light, yes… and glass. But…

    A cloud abruptly obscured the sun and the glass darkened.

    Paul smiled with understanding. “Thank you,” he said to God, and he penned “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

 

Three Artists

    Prince and Jackson Pollock stood in a doorway, facing another world.

    “Look,” said Prince, “it’s purple rain."

    “Look,” said Jackson Pollock, “it’s lavender mist.”

    They did not argue. They were content to gaze at the shifting hues of this realm while they listened to Jimi Hendrix play his guitar in the purple haze.