Microfiction Monday #9 : Adjusting.

…wherein a new home is made…

‘Don’t worry buddy, you’ll get used to it.’ Father promised his son.

‘But it’s too empty and too…noisy.’ The son criticized the vastness of their new home, and the echoes that bounced off the walls.

‘It’s only as empty as we let ourselves imagine it. See that spot? We can bring in sand from the beach and build a sand castle right there.’

‘Whoa! A sand castle?’

‘Yes,’ the father laughed, ‘The biggest sand castle anyone has ever thought of, we can build it me and you. With your mother gone, we can do anything we want now.’

Even as tears stung his eyes, he trusted the words coming out of his mouth like script off a holy book and like a scientist on the cusp of a cosmic discovery, let the thrill of freedom wash over him.

They did get used to it, of course.

Which is why the boy slept soundly in his father’s arms, even as the blistering heat of the noon sun bore down on them and the patter of the cityfolks’ rapid steps on the pavement and the thrum of vehicles around them reached a crescendo.

They made a home and they got used to it.

credit: hobotraveller.com

 

Microfiction Monday #7: The New Trend Kills.

…wherein this story gets a cliché title…

Sharon’s car glided down the freeway, late in the night under the patter of light showers.

She hummed to herself, one arm on the steering wheel, the other making a meal of her phone’s screen as she scrolled up and down her Facebook timeline. She glared gleefully at the latest iteration of her friends exploits with the latest trend to hit the ether: a Facebook app that predicted hilarious ways in which people would die.

She chuckled when Victor, her best friend, posted his result: death by suffocation under a heap of elephant dung. She thought it might spook him to tell him their boss was planning a safari retreat for the end of the year.

Barbara, that snobbish girl from HR, would die from having her head stuck in the poop chute of a donkey. Never mind how her head would end up there in the first place, it made Sharon laugh so much because it seemed absolutely fitting.

Hooked in as she was by the prospects of humor that lay behind her interaction with the app, she submitted her own query. The result played back on her screen in fun, multi sized fonts that danced up and down:

‘You will die in a horrifying and completely avoidable road accident. Cheers!’

She stared at the words as if they made very little sense.

‘Well that’s not funny at all!’ She exclaimed.

And because she desired to be entertained and would not have it any other way except that which pleased her, she hit the refresh button, and then again, and again…