Fantasy

This week’s piece of flash fiction is a parable about parables! Is that deep and “meta”? Or just plain irritating? You decide!

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There were once two parables. One prized honesty, truth and beauty above all things. Her teachings were designed to help those who heard her. The other cared little for principles, much preferring to be comfortable and have the things she wanted. She liked attention and told people what they wanted to hear, so they would listen to her.

One day, while resting in a glade, they saw a handsome young man. The first parable thought his beauty a form of truth and fell in love with him. The second thought that it would be gratifying to have such a handsome creature admire her.

The young man prized truth. He also prized simplicity, which attracted him to lies, which are easier to understand. His friends and colleagues now wondered at the young man, who was suddenly gifted with a silver tongue, able to supply a suitable tale or aphorism for every occasion. And if one tale did not suit his audience, then he had another which would, for both of the parables gifted him with their wisdom to win his admiration. Unfortunately, he was unable to discern which tales came from which parable, and lacked the intelligence to work it out for himself. As a matter of fact, he was not at all aware of the parables’ attention and sometimes found himself wondering what was happening to him, to suddenly know so much.

Nonetheless, he enjoyed how people asked for his opinion, and assumed that he was helping them with his advice, because he was pure of heart. (He was pure of heart, it was just that he was also rather empty of head.) His fame grew to such an extent that he became rich and famous, printing books and t-shirts and posters. And he met a young girl and fell in love with her. She was kind and beautiful, as well as clever. She found it cute that he was so innocent despite his reputation, though sometimes she had to bite her tongue.

The two parables realised they had lost the man for good and hated each other. Each blamed the other for what had happened. The parable which prized beauty believed it was the lies which had sent the young man away on the path to fortune, and the parable which loved comfort and attention believed it was the insistence on truth which caused him to fall in love with the young woman, who was so beautiful and honest.

But, for all they could do for others, the parables were unable to ever decide which of them was which, so they decided to blame the young man and the young girl instead, which was anyway both the truth, as well as being what they wanted to believe.

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This week’s piece of fantastic flash fiction is all about ice-cream, because everyone likes ice-cream. Enjoy!

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“Float, please!”

The kid looks young to be making that decision himself, so I look at the mom over the cold metal counter of my ice-cream fridge.

She’s done herself up: make-up; nice jacket, but her face is rigid, lips compressed.

She nods, trying not to cry. I give them both a scoop of ice cream. She says “keep the change,” and they’re off.

The queue stretches around the block, and there’s an eerie sigh as they lift into the air to join the people already up there. Some of my first customers show which way the wind is blowing. There’s a wedge of them heading out towards Blankenfelde.

“Float please,” says the next kid. Another one with a pretty, heartbroken mom. This job can be a downer sometimes, but I’m helping people out for €3 a scoop. It’s usually a death in the family, or the dad has run off. Or the kid has something terminal. Sometimes I get dads, too, but they’re usually by themselves. Literally: that’s why they’ve come for a scoop. Cheering you… up! That’s the slogan. There’s a look on their faces when their feet leave the ground that makes it all worthwhile.

From the sky, there’s a delighted laugh, as two people collide. I hate that. I prefer to think of them as already gone once they lift out of sight. But they’re happy, that’s the main thing. I try to forget about the laugh, the collision, the headlines in the paper. They’re calling it “The Killing Field” outside Blamkenfelde, where the bodies come down again. What do they expect for €3? Nobody floats forever.

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In this week’s piece of flash fiction, I attempt to explain things. What things? Well, how about everything? Enjoy!

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“I can’t let you onto the site. Sundays are double-time, and the boss won’t like that.”

“Come on, man!” God didn’t need this right now, still hung over from the night before, and tomorrow was the deadline to get the job done. “I just need a couple hours to finish things off. You won’t even notice I’m there. Nobody complained about yesterday.”

“You were here yesterday?”

“No, just… just messing around with a couple of the monkeys.”

The supervisor sucked in a deep breath, shaking his head. “More than my job’s worth,” he said.

“What happens when the whole thing falls apart in a couple thousand years?” asked God. “‘Cause you wouldn’t let me on site?”

“That’s your problem, buddy. I’ll be in some other dimension by then.”

“What about ‘taking pride in your work?’”

The supervisor laughed.

“Look, this job has been a tough gig from the start, there are some major flaws that need to be corrected.”

“And yet you spent yesterday playing with monkeys?”

“Man, they’re the next big thing, I’m telling you. Some of those guys are almost intelligent.”

“Well, explain that to the boss when he turns up, maybe he’ll give one of them your job.”

Gravel crunched outside. The powerful thrum of the boss’s engine reached them.

“Here we go, Lucy’s here.”

The door opened, and the owner of Lucy’s Fair Construction Company walked in, all smiles. “We looking good?” he asked. He was a big man, and charming. It was hard not to tell him what he wanted to hear. God and the supervisor just nodded.

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There we go, that explains everything, I think? See you next week!

Welcome back! This week’s story is about a mysterious group of men who seem to have figured things out…

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They called themselves The Gentleman. The name, I feel, was aspirational. Three large men who played dice at the back of Hoagie’s bar each Thursday.

“Another round for The Gentleman” called one and the waitresses would play their own games of chance to see which of them had to deliver it. Not bad men, not cruel. Just wrong.

Hoagie had tried closing on Thursdays. But The Gentleman came, whether the bar was open or not, and he felt it would be dangerous to leave them unattended, unwatched.

We all assumed they were dead. Ghosts, or some such, and there were legends about how they had been regulars and kept showing up, even after death. No one believed it. They had never been here before they started showing up. If you know what I mean?

But maybe there were some secret to the game they played. Their dice rattled like bones. It put one into a certain style of thinking.

I don’t think many men would mind “living on” drinking and gambling, so Hoagie took notes. A big notebook full of numbers: dice throws and the eyes that landed face up. Even got an overweight kid from the University to look at them, but there was no sense that anyone could see.

Holly started rolling his own dice. I just picked out dice and laid them face up on my table. The kid from University had some formula how many dice he needed each throw to copy the numbers the Gentleman had thrown.

After a while we started doing it at the same table, sharing our results like gentlemen.

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Hi all, this week some tips on how to magically look better. Tip 1: read instructions carefully. Tip 2: don’t lose your head…

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The Book said to lance the boil. But the Book said if he made a blood sacrifice he’d be taller. He was taller, but it had just stretched him, making him skinny, when his shoulders had been one of the things he liked about himself.

Still, he had a date with Shelley Summers tonight. Shelley Summers! He couldn’t turn up with gross spots on his neck.

He read the Book’s instructions carefully, watching for caveats hidden in the disturbing images of people lancing boils with machetes. The images were awful. At least he didn’t have spots there, though. It looked okay. There was no catch to this one. And if things went well, he’d distract Shelley from his weak shoulders by proving he didn’t have spots there.

The needle had lain in holy water, in view of the full moon, with foxglove petals crushed into it. He went over the spell: the words had to be right, and the pronunciation was tricky. He thought about what could go wrong and took his shirt off. It would be just like the Book to get rid of his boil, but have him greet Shelley – Shelley Summers! – In a pus- and blood-covered shirt. The tome contained powerful magic, but had a simple sense of humour.

He double checked everything again, took up the needle, and eyed it. When he touched the boil with it, the boil would disappear.

Simple, but after the last few spells he was nervous. If something could go wrong, it would. He put the needle down and wrote out the spell in large clear writing and stuck it up over the bathroom mirror. He hung his Tommy Hilfiger shirt back in the cupboard, where it couldn’t get splattered.

Everything was prepared. He picked up the needle, and took a deep breath, inched it slowly towards the boil.

He was nervous. Shelley would be here any minute. The needle moved closer.

The doorbell rang, and his hand slipped. He lanced his head.

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