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Submit Your Flash Story
Do you have a flash story suitable for publication on this page? Stories must have been inspired by one or more of the exercises in The Field Guide and may not exceed 1,500 words.
Please send me your story pasted into the body of your email (attachments will not be opened at this point), along with the corresponding exercise(s). Also include a 2-sentence bio, but note that prior publication experience is not necessary.
If selected, your story will be posted until another suitable story is chosen. Rights will revert back to the author immediately upon publication. Note that previously published stories are OK, as long as they fit the guidelines.
Questions and submissions to TaraLMasih@aol.com.
A Field Guide Flash Story
Story inspired by Robert Shapard's Field Guide prompt © 2009 Robert Shapard:
Find an image that has a strong appeal or resonance for you and use it as the focus in writing your story. The image may be simple or complex, involving senses other than the visual, such as the spoken word, and it may come from anywhere—your personal experience (real or imagined), a film, or a magazine. The main thing is to choose an image not because you think others will like it but because somehow it matters to you. Try to use the image at the climax or at the very end of the story.
The Slip
Mrs. Franklin began each weekday in a bluebell housedress, huge plastic saucer buttons tugging fabric at her chest, revealing a miniscule peek at the silken slip underneath. Mr. Franklin, the bald spot combed over, dressed in stiff gabardine trousers, pleated and cuffed at the ankle, and the same muted gold tie, and kept his eyes down at the breakfast table. At night, the sun gone, Mr. Franklin arrived home, his tie slung over his shoulder. He opened his arms wide to scoop up his daughter, who grinned, as he swung her round and round like a carousel in the living room, to the swish of the Blue Danube waltz, the air lit with melody. Only then, he halted to allow Mrs. Franklin in a freshly Marcel-styled hairdo and a red gingham skirt to brush his cheek with her Ponds Cream–softened lips, sweet in pink.
Each evening she presented a confection, a lemony-scented cake, a triangular sour cherry tart hand-pressed by the mother’s and the daughter’s tender floured fingers. The dishes done, the house tidied, Mrs. Franklin glowed in the fireside licking light. The household smiled.
This Friday night Mr. Franklin arrived late. Already scrubbed and swathed in flannel pajamas, the daughter rolled her head side to side on the damask pillow. The sound of the front door closing reached her. She stealthily crawled from beneath her grandmother’s diamond-patterned quilt and edged her small back against the wall in the hall. Her toes chilly, her chin in hand, she listened. From inside Mr. and Mrs. Franklin’s bedroom, she heard muffled sounds, and then, her mother shrieking, “Piaf! Edith Piaf?”
Mr. Franklin answered, “Yes, wasn’t that nice, Little Sparrow?”
“Nice, you say, nice? You’re mad, I’m sure.”
“A gift,” he said, “that’s all.”
“Damn, damn, damn,” Mrs. Franklin howled. She crashed against the sturdy, maple double bed. The door opened a sliver. The hand-tooled green leather album the daughter saw her father carrying—not her, not her swinging to music—bumped and thumped, the records trumpeting to the floor, rolling and cracking. Mrs. Franklin, buxom in a peachy charmeuse slip, stood in the doorway a split second, a jagged record in her raised hand; she spotted her daughter and prayerfully crossed her arms over her freckled bosoms.