The Shortest "Fronds" Grow in Darkness and in Light

My collection of short fiction called "Fronds" contains four ultra-short or "flash" fiction stories. They are not related to each other; but if you read them together, they form a brief tetralogy moving from a very dark story through a very snarky story to one filled with kindness, creativity, forgiveness, and light.



The Formula

I know why you’re here. The fact that the formula exists is no longer a secret, though I hadn’t expected a reporter to come looking for it so soon. The physicist who discovered it shot himself, you know. Same with the other scientist who worked in the same office, when he found it with the body. Used the same gun to blow his brains all over the whiteboard. They both died because of it. And now you think you can handle it? The cops were spared because they didn’t know what it was.

Do you even know what it is? I bet you think you know. A new kind of energy, that’s what you think. A particle beam or something that can wipe out the sun. It’s what you don’t know that makes the difference. Not a particle beam, an energy wave that travels through time and space. It would make the sun go supernova. Then it would set off a chain reaction, warping through space and time, detonating every star it came into contact with. The universe gone in a cataclysm, and you wouldn’t even have to build a machine to do it. The formula tells how you can do it at home on your couch. While watching TV. Can you even imagine that kind of power?

I have it here. I think you knew that. I wrote it down on this piece of paper. Such a simple little thing. Yet so deadly. Your magazine readers will want to know it, right? Here it is. Take a look. Ah, I see you’ve closed your eyes. Fear. Don’t worry; you will open them. You’re not strong enough to withstand the curiosity.

 I must not look. I must look. I must never know. I must know. To look is to know the death of everything. Not to look is the death of my mind. To look is to know ultimate power. I could hold everyone, every government, every billionaire, ransom; I could gain the universe. I could force peace. End wars, end hunger. I could also destroy everything. Not to look is to regret, for the rest of my life.

 Ah, your eyes are open. Are you surprised? Pi times the square root of mayonnaise is not the formula, of course. Truth is, I knew what they had discovered. I heard the gun shots. I went into their office before the cops arrived. I blindfolded myself, felt around in the dark. I located the whiteboard and erased it. Why? You have just seen why. No one could withstand that power. Not me. Not you. Certainly not those two scientists. Now go back to your magazine and say that they died in a fight because of a legal dispute over intellectual property rights. Tell the editors that the formula was a hoax. It never was. The two of us know otherwise, but we also know better. I won’t survive, knowing that I could have seen it but didn’t. You have another chance.

 

 Ticket Games

“Here comes one now. Let’s see how long we can hold him here.”

“I couldn’t get a ticket for the subway,” Tony frowned later that day. “The app on my phone didn’t work. The machine said ‘no credit cards,’ and spit out every dollar I put in it. It wouldn’t even take a dollar I got from the kiosk. I finally had to buy someone else’s ticket.”

The ticket machine laughed to the others. “Ten minutes. A new record.”

  

Sonata in G Minor: A Ghost Story

Hiromi squinted at the sheet music. That b-flat had just changed into a b-natural.

“It’s the composer,” said the violin teacher. “He’s still changing the sonata, adding and subtracting notes, altering the accompaniment. He died before he finished.”

Hiromi played the new note. The composer’s voice sang along from somewhere, and they both smiled.

  

Staircase Petroglyphs

The wreckers commented on the scratchy children’s drawings.

In the afternoon seventy years ago, Lynn’s mom kept jabbering on the telephone so angry Lynn crayoned a blood-red blossom on the wall next to the bottom step. Older brother Larry saw it, chuckled, and sketched a green T-Rex by the next step up, ready to gobble up the flower. Lynn laughed in turn, and drew another flower. Up they went almost to the top stair, alternating daisies and dinosaurs.

Linda hung up the phone and then spied the drawings. She stared at the children, ready to explode in anger, but paused. A smile came across her lips. She took the crayons and illustrated the top stair with a smiling yellow sun. She addressed the children, “This will be the last time to draw on the walls in our house, but may both of you be great artists in the future.”

The wreckers decided not to demolish the house. The drawings at least should be preserved. After all, this was the childhood home of a great children’s book illustrator and the famous paleontologist who had discovered the prehistoric Lindascia sunflower, named after her mother.



To read the rest of the stories in this book of "Fronds": Amazon.com: Fronds: Stories and Flash Fiction: 9798394939907: Scribner, Steven Eric: Books

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