WRITERS VICTORIA - FLASH FICTION APRIL 2022

 As with the last two years, April marked the Writer’s Victoria daily Flash Fiction Challenge. The purpose is to write a 30 word short story, based on the daily prompt and once again it was good fun with the Twitter writing community being as inventive and supportive as ever. This year, I did not manage a story every day. COVID-19 threw a spanner in the works, which was not fun. But I was also working on a longer short story, two pieces of other writing and my day job at the same time, which meant a few days got missed. On the final day, for the first time since I started doing this in 2020, I flat out could not think of an idea! 

All the daily winners can be found at the Writers Victoria website here:

https://writersvictoria.org.au/flash-fiction-2022/

Collected here, are my entries for this year’s contest. Twenty three tales of spiralling doom, unrelenting morbidity and deviant science. Where lycanthrope dentists run amok, where interstellar capitalism ruins lives (just like real capitalism); where Necromancers forget their instructions and Santa is a litigious bastard.  So prepare yourself, traveller. Open your mind to the strange and the weird. Cross the cosmic threshold and feast on the twisted, corrupted wonders inside…

HINT – 1 April 2022

With hindsight, I ignored the hints: no appointments on a full moon, suspicious allergy to silver, killed all those sheep. I just never thought my dentist could be a werewolf.

PYRITE – 2 April 2022

As instructed, I gripped the lumpen nugget of pyrite, focussed on my energy centres and closed my eyes tight. When I opened them, he’d stolen my tent… and my dog.

GLOW – 3 April 2022

Our interstellar visitors stepped from their glowing spacecraft, and were immediately electrocuted in the light evening drizzle. Apparently, beings of pure light and energy do not react well to water.

FORTUNE – 4 April 2022

Earth soil is worth an absolute fortune on Klebmar. Goddamn space millipedes keep digging it up to sell on Space eBay. All I can do is leave ‘em bad feedback.

IDOL – 5 April 2022

The pentagram was drawn, the candles lit and the sacrificial blood spilled across the transdimensional portal. We were awaiting The Traveller, when we realised… Trevor forgot to bring the idol.

INTERMITTENT – 6 April 2022

Space Slug control need not be unpleasant. My advice? Lean into it. Initially, loss of free thought will be intermittent, but soon enough your mind will go ‘full gastropod’

BRIGHT – 7 April 2022

Earth-17 underwent Planetary Relocation because their Sun was (apparently) “too bright.” They were re-orbited around a gas giant, but immediately complained it was “too stinky.” Rich people are never happy.

MOON – 8 April 2022

“Dry your tears Timmy. Remember, when you look up at that moon tomorrow, even though I’m not here I’ll be doing the same thing… right before I blow it up.”

PERCEIVE – 9 April 2022

“Despite my name, bone fide invisibility is patently impossible. I simply ‘persuade’ your brain you can’t see me. And Marketing just felt ‘The Unperceived Man’ wouldn’t test well.”

TWINKLE – 10 April 2022

Your honour, counsel agrees my client’s eyes ‘twinkle’ delightfully. However, his belly does not shake ‘like a bowl full of jelly’ and we will be seeking damages to that effect.

SEQUIN – 11 April 2022

The Fancy Killer, who terrorised the city for months, was finally apprehended when a single sequin from his bedazzled strangling gloves, was found in the gullet of his final victim

SHIMMER – 12 April 2022

The lake shimmered in the afternoon sun. Family picnics buzzed with spring optimism. Birds sang. Children laughed. Until the bloated, toothless corpse of an unidentified state witness breached the surface.

ALTAR – 13 April 2022

Most other cults spend all their money on expensive altars, forgetting you can’t summon a Goat Lord on an empty stomach. That’s why we always budget well for apocalypse catering.

HORIZON – 14 April 2022

We were stationed near that black hole, which we couldn’t see, because no light escapes. It took us two months to realise the event horizon was in the opposite direction.

SUBDUED – 15 April 2022

He thought Bigfoot was subdued, but he never got the full three count. He surprised him with a double suplex, pinned him and Bigfoot was crowned World Sasquatch Wrestling Champion

OASIS – 16 April 2022

Human brains are succulent. Of the billion minds we have subsumed, they are an oasis. My larva thirst. They will find water here. Humanity’s parched consciousness scattered to the void 

DAPPLE – 17 April 2022

As his face became dappled with the fluorescent buboes of the Martian Plague, there was nothing left to do other than admire the terrifying beauty of a toxic universe. 

BLINK – 19 April 2022

On your first day as an interstellar zookeeper you must establish dominance. Stare the creatures down. Blink first and you’re liable to get your throat torn out by Space Gerbils

HOPE – 23 April 2022

They said you can’t put a price on hope. But we wrote an algorithm to simulate hope in robots and it sold quite nicely. The price of hope is $99.95

SPARKLE – 25 April 2022

The Fancy Killer got the chair but crime scenes across the city continued to sparkle. His valet continued his work. Turns out, for once, the butler actually did it.

SOFT  – 27 April 2022

He went soft in his later years. Acquiring a conscience. Muttering regrets about making people cry. But we never forgot. He was the most thrilling Evil Hypnotist in the business.

FLASH  – 28 April 2022

Weirdly, I felt the strike first, then I hit the ground, THEN I heard the thunder. Also weird: the smell of your own flash fried skin is kind of chicken-y.

EYE  – 29 April 2022

Interviewer: Mr Cyclops, what would you say is your biggest weakness?

Mr Cyclops: Most people assume it’s having one eye, but actually, I can’t do maths without a calculator.

Missed Days

18 April 2022

WAVER – 20 April 2022

GOLD – 21 April 2022

SCINTILLATE – 22 April 2022

INKLING – 24 April 2022

NEON  – 26 April 2022

GLIMMER – 30 April 2022

WRITERS VICTORIA - FLASH FICTION APRIL 2021

Once again, I very much enjoyed the daily Flash Fiction Challenge, set by Writers Victoria here in Melbourne. It runs each April and is open to everyone, with the very simple rule to compose a short story in no more than thirty words, using the featured word of the day, one submission per day. The rest is up to interpretation. The story can be inspired by the daily prompt, it does not necessarily have to feature it. There were a lot of great entries again this year, and everyone contributing on Twitter seems to have bucked the trend for that website and been genuinely encouraging and supportive of each other, which is really quite lovely.  You can check out Writers Victoria and all the daily winners here:

https://writersvictoria.org.au/flash-fiction-2021

Strangely, although no less enjoyable, I found this years’ challenge a lot harder than 2020. Perhaps lockdown brain atrophy has finally taken hold, since as of writing I am still working from home; and although Melbourne has been Covid free for a while, we’re still a ways off being back to normal. But somehow I managed to write thirty one stories in thirty days (I wrote two on 5 April for the prompt ‘Hands’, submitting only the second one).

It was however, very exciting to win the daily challenge on 24 April for the story ‘Letter’.



So collected here in once place, thirty one tales of intrigue, paranoia and violence, designed to drive the reader quite mad. Do you dare turn the page on these lunatic ravings? Where weird and unspeakable terrors sit across the page from you - physically touchable, yet mentally unreachable. Where cosmic real estate, Martian haute cuisine and Hell’s admin assistant wait in line to liquefy your mind. Where city officials live in fear of sea beasts, where the dread book Necronomicon taunts you from your ‘must read’ pile, where primates fight with tooth and blade.

I invite you, friend, until our paths cross again in this dimension or the next, to open this portal to madness and discover the truths that lie within….

CREASE
1 April 2021
Several hours passed before I realised we followed a crease in the map, instead of the road. By which time we’d crossed into Bigfoot turf… without a tourist visa


DEVELOP
2 April 2021
Mind Control takes time to develop, you know? Whether it’s heartless assassination, government destabilization or making you a cup of tea, you gotta finesse that brain. They gotta WANT it.


SEGMENTATION
3 April 2021
Armageddon was bureaucratic. Earth was found to be the legal property of cosmic real estate centipedes from beyond Jupiter. They subdivided and sold the segments for crass, but lucrative profit


BLOSSOM
4 April 2021
She melded with their tech. Vital signs went horizon flat. But answers flowed and consciousness blossomed. Corporeal existence exposed as a lie. She was a ghost in their machine.


HANDS
5 April 2021
In his final moments he recalled the hands of his newborn son. Those same hands, now wrapped tight around his throat, squeezing the last breath from his lungs.


HANDS
5 April 2021
There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand. If I have to break all twenty-seven to see to it you never use a Rubik’s Cube again, believe me, I will.
 

ILLUMINATE
6 April 2021
Pro tip: Immortal Night Spider nests are badly illuminated, so bring a torch. It’s dark and they don’t like it when you step on their egg sacks


CRUMPLE
7 April 2021
His breath plumed in the cold morning air. Jamming freezing hands into pockets, he discovered a note, crumpled and age indeterminate. In a hyperactive scrawl it read, simply, ‘you’re next’
 

RENEW
8 April 2021
The lair was filthy, unkempt and the pentagram on the floor had been drawn without a ruler. The final indignity was this joker’s failure to renew his Necromancy License.
 

OPEN
9 April 2021
As a lifestyle, cannibalism has an image problem. So I think it’s important we are clear and open with our food. Sir, I am going to fricassee your eyeballs.
 

POP
10 April 2021
Knuckles broken, hands bloodied, he remembered how his ears popped as he descended from high ground. Unable to determine if the root of his pain was air pressure or guilt.
 

ELABORATE
11 April 2021
It turns out, it was all an elaborate lie. How could we know he was not the rightful King of Spain? Other than the fact he could not speak Spanish…


UNRAVEL
12 April 2021
Across the room, the cat rotated in three full circles, before settling on my favourite jumper. Unravelling the sleeves with his claws, feigning innocence, he was untouchable. That smug bastard
 

MANIFEST
13 April 2021
Thank you for contacting Pandemonium Head Office. We will endeavour to respond, via demonic manifestation or email, within 5 business days. Your bargain with Satan is important to us


SCRUNCH
14 April 2021
He found it underneath the bookcase, among the dustmotes. A scrunched up page from the dread book Necronomicon (abridged). An incantation to raise the dead and locate missing car keys.
 

CONSCIOUSNESS
15 April 2021
The creature rose awkwardly, blinking into consciousness. Headed for the door upon lumpen gait.
“He really built a Frankenstein,” I said.
The creature offered a wry smile
“Frankenstein’s monster, actually”
 

BURST
16 April 2021
That’s the thing everybody always gets wrong about Pyrokinesis. I don’t burst into FLAME, I burst into THOUGHT. To put it simply, I can’t catch on fire… but you can.
 

LEARN
17 April 2021
As an intergalactic food critic, the most valuable lessons I learned were invariably accompanied by casualties. For example, if Martian food is labelled ‘hot’, that means it will vaporise you.
 

EXPLORE
18 April 2021
With every possibility explored, it appeared silver bullets were the only cure for my Lycanthropy. But then I bought this new shampoo and that seemed to work quite well too.
 

REVEAL
19 April 2021
The Mayor’s GPS revealed his location and we found him, partially digested and somewhat liquefied, in the gullet of a giant squid. The sea beast choked on his mayoral robes.
 

ORIGAMI
20 April 2021
He folded countless paper cranes, like the conflicted protagonist in a John Woo movie. But his work was crude and imprecise, and this innate lack of aptitude derailed his ambition.


EXPAND
21 April 2021
Industry expansion was unprecedented, with Warlocks on every street corner. But many of our Demons were summoned on a casual basis, without sick pay or overtime. We had to unionize.


EMERGE
22 April 2021
Pod People aren’t so bad. Sure, they want to subjugate the Earth. But when you see one emerge from its husk, looking just like you, the resemblance is quite flattering
 

UNFURL
23 April 2021
 “So, the scorpion climbed onto my pack, unfurling its stinger”
“Unfurling? Ooh là là! Was it a fancy scorpion?”
“Well, how should I describe it?”
“It chucked its stinger up”
 

LETTER
24 April 2021

Dear Heathrow Airport,

R.e. Penalty Notice
I did not believe I required a flyover permit, on account of the fact I was a bat at the time.

Yours sincerely
Dracula


UNWRAP
25 April 2021
He found the box on the stoop. Embossed with gold, perfumed, exquisitely packaged. He tentatively unwrapped it. There was no note, but instead a single, clean, human eyeball. Tendons attached.


DISPLAY
26 April 2021
“Retail’s for suckers,” apparently. So now we’re stuck with a display model time machine, region locked to 3.7 billion years ago. And I still haven’t seen any freakin’ dinosaurs.


BETRAY
27 April 2021
It’s my job to account for all the expenses, see. In court they called it a ‘betrayal’, but on my balance sheet it was down as fiscally motivated allegiance fluidity


BECOME
28 April
It became increasingly apparent that growing giant, competition vegetables was not for the faint of heart. If he wanted to win Best Cauliflower he’d have to break Reverend Hoskins’ shins.


DISCOVER
29 April 2021
It was with mild surprise I discovered a portal to the Eldritch Dimension in my shed. But the associated costs of mollifying an Elder God’s bloodlust, destroyed my household budget.


UNFOLD
30 April 2021
He watched events unfold on the news. The club president implicated in a chimpanzee fighting ring. Each belligerent primate equipped with a tiny switchblade, rotten attitude and lucrative earning potential.

WRITERS VICTORIA - FLASH FICTION APRIL 2020

So for the last month I very much enjoyed the daily Flash Fiction Challenge, set by Writers Victoria here in Melbourne. It was open to everyone and the simple rules were to compose a short story in no more than thirty words, using the featured word of the day. It was a great, fun challenge and you should check out Writers Victoria and all the daily winners here:

https://writersvictoria.org.au/writing-life/news/flash-fiction-2020

Confession time: I forgot all about the challenge for the first nine days, but once I started it was impossible to stop. I built it into my daily isolation routine and it helped me feel productive during this weird time. The Flash Fiction Challenge also gave my brain a creative boost which helped me focus on other projects. On 10th April I won the daily challenge with the second story I wrote, Lens, which was very exciting.

The upshot is that I enjoyed writing these weird tales so much it seemed like shame to let them evaporate over on Twitter. So I've compiled them all here on my blog, in lieu of me ever getting my own website sorted for my film and fiction writing. I've also included a few stories that I wrote, but didn't post, because I had several tries at the brief. Any feedback is gratefully received and if you feel inclined to provide it you can find me on Twitter and Instagram.

So here for your perusal, are twenty-seven weird tales of intrigue. Where the strange and the mundane cross-pollinate. Where the terrifying and the bizarre shake hands with the boring and the everyday. Where Sasquatch hold medical degrees. Where the Martian Internet delivers internationally. Where cannibals lament the lack of good cookery guidance.

Do you dare read on...*



CRISP  
9 April 2020
Thing is, a flamethrower only got 3 settings: off, ‘gentle flame,’ and a third one no sumbitch Martian raygun stands a chance against… burnt to a goddamned crisp.


LENS
10 April 2020
I’m telling you, there’s absolutely no way to tell without the Monster Lens. Look through here:  human… human… human… monster. See? I told you. Monsters everywhere. Now get my clipboard.


MYOPIA
11 April 2020
The myopic Small Business Manager is the real villain.  Said my business plan was ‘ill conceived’. Said I should stick to Frankenstein’s Monster. But Frankenstein’s Bistro would’ve been way cooler.


CONVERGE
12 April 2020
Summoning a multi-dimensional convergence looks easy on paper, I’ll grant you that. But get your sums wrong and you’ll be sponging liquefied necromancer’s out of your carpet for a week.


SHARP
13 April 2020
If there is a downside to vampirism, and I’ll be honest here… it’s the teeth. They’re too dang sharp. And they make it impossible to eat a piece of fruit.


BULLSEYE
14 April 2020
“Bullseye!” he shouted, and Dr Bigfoot lay unconscious before him.  Now to search his office. If he found it, everyone at Sasquatch Hospital would be shocked by his terrible secret.


GLASSES
15 April 2020
My first order from the Martian Internet. My heart was pounding. At last, my X-Ray Glasses! A sticker on the front caught my eye… ‘not suitable for humanoid perception.’


GLASSES
15 April 2020
The room hummed with anticipatory conversation. He tapped his glass near the microphone, the shrill pitch gathering attention. “Assembled guests, it is my great pleasure to introduce... The Invisible Man.”


PERIPHERAL
16 April 2020
Do you have time to talk about our many-tentacled Lord and Saviour? Technically we’re a ‘peripheral religion,’ despite the fact we’ve seen the steepest sacrificial incline in the country.


VAGUE
17 April 2020
The Boss was pretty vague when he said “take him out.” Plus, it was only my second day as a henchman, you know? So I bought him a nice meal.


VAGUE
17 April 2020
There’s no instruction manual for an Alien autopsy. Did you know their cranial fluid sacs are poisonous? Now that you mention it, health and safety here is a bit vague.


LASER
18 April 2020
We’ve had our top scientists researching it for months. Unfortunately, most of the good animals were already copyrighted for military-industrial complex purposes. So my team devised… guinea pigs with lasers.


DRIFT
19 April 2020
I cannot emphasize this enough: don’t let your mind drift when summoning a Kraken. We do not want sea beasts in our city. Their Trip Advisor reviews are always scathing. 


SPOTLIGHT
20 April 2020
It’s the Abominable Snowman’s fault. ‘Building a media presence’, he says. Hogging the spotlight, is more like it. We’re not all like that, but Very Pleasant Snowman doesn’t sell newspapers.


SWAY
21 April 2020
There’s no justice. Decency holds no sway with those deficient in it. The only thing these motherfuckers understand is money and bureaucracy. Well, that and wasps… go get the wasps.


CENTRE
22 April 2020
Our intrepid expedition to the Centre of the Earth found no dinosaurs, nor cyclops. Instead, at planet’s core we found yolk. Assembled guests, we are living on a Cosmic Egg.


CENTRE
22 April 2020
At The Centre For Advanced Demonology we offer many courses including: Premium Acolyte Selection, Possession For Beginners and Pre-Apocalypse Cardio. For enrolment contact us via pentagram manifestation or email.


READ
23 April 2020
For this month’s book club we’re reading The Necronomicon (unabridged). You should be able to find it in the Warlock’s lair, an adjacent unfriendly dimension or that bookshop at the airport.


MEASURE
24 April 2020
Well sir, there really is no objective measure to quantify a King Kong attack. The aftermath is always tough. If it’s not infrastructure destruction then it’s the dang banana shortages.


RIVET
25 April 2020
The insurance company determined the Roswell crash was due to a loose rivet in the quantum light accelerator. The Earthlings live-autopsied the crew. Official cause of death: Primitive Curiosity.


CLARITY
26 April 2020
His vision drove everything: it put up the compound, erected the effigy, authored the loveliest blood incantations. But clarity of purpose eventually deserted him and, sadly, the apocalypse was postponed.


DISTORTED
27 April 2020
The newspapers call it teleportation, but that’s distorting the truth. Technically, I rip you apart on a sub-atomic level, before replicating you perfectly in another location. Basically, you’re a photocopy.


GATHER
28 April 2020
He gathered, via a medical acquaintance, that the human brain was 73% water. But this one definitely tasted dry. Cannibal recipes are notoriously obtuse. He was also out of basil. 


FIXATED
29 April 2020
Cops caught me red handed, gouging the eyeballs out of shop mannequins with a spork. Judge said I was fixated, but I prefer to use the term ‘enthusiastically detail focussed.’


FOCUS
30 April 2020
Their focus was all wrong. Dracula’s a businessman like anyone else. They should’ve just stuck to Evil Castle property values. They were estate agents, their souls were damned already. 


FOCUS
30 April 2020
Got shitcanned from my job. ‘Dangerous lack of focus’ they said. I was on my phone for 5 minutes, a famous vampire hunter got bit and that’s MY fault, somehow?


FOCUS
30 April 2020
It all came into focus after just one dinner. The Loch Ness Monster is no ‘monster’ at all. He is a gentleman. A charming, erudite and deeply misunderstood Mesozoic reptile



*(please read on)