Flash Club February Flash Club

[Emily]

This month the challenge is a short story of up to 1000 words, using this photo as inspiration



The entry with the most votes on the 29th of February 2024, will be the winner of an extraordinary hand-crafted (!!) virtual trophy. And, more importantly: some of our very prized, and internationally-renowned, virtual Litopi-cake.


***NOTE!***
A thumbs up/like = 1 vote
"heart-eyes" and a "laughing face" emoji vote = 2 VOTES.



The competition is open to all members. Feel free to enter more than once.


-The main rules here are:

Your entry must be original work

We ask you not to critique

AND

Please make your entry anonymous by clicking the anonymous button, but if you forget, don't worry, that's okay too. (Note: Guardians can see who posts.)


Best of luck!

 

[Anonymous (19d6)]

The war between east and west had been raging for decades. By now the soldiers had forgotten what had started it. All they knew was that they were stuck in this Godforsaken jungle village, hiding from an invisible enemy. Tired, hungry and with no hope of rescue.

Jimmy was pacing the length of the room, a coiled spring clinging to sanity by his bitten-down fingernails.

Malachi perched at the window, gun cocked, expressionless as aways.

I sat crouched against a wall, smoking my last cigarette. I didn’t know how I’d control the shaking once it was gone, but I’d deal with that later.

If there was a later.

“I wish this fucking rain would stop,” Jimmy burst out.

Malachi glanced at him. “It’s the wet season.”

“No shit.”

No answer.

“Why don’t they just attack and get it the fuck over with?” Jimmy’s eyes were wide, his breaths rapid. He reminded me of a bull about to charge. I looked away.

“Because they’re enjoying playing with us,” Malachi answered in that calm voice of his.

“Machines don’t fucking play!” Jimmy shot back.

“It seems this new generation does.”

I took a deep drag, kept my gaze focused on the wall opposite.

It was true that the machines were growing more and more sophisticated, but we had one thing on our side: numbers. The tech needed to make each individual weapon (as the powers-that-be called them) involved the mining of rare metals. Hence the low volume of machines being created. But boy could they do damage.

“Do you think Steve-o was right?” Jimmy asked.

“Steve-o was a nut job,” Malachi said.

“But what if he wasn’t?”

No answer.

Ash crumbled from the tip of my cigarette and landed on my khaki uniform. I brushed it away. The grey smudge that remained behind blended in with the rest of the dirt.

I thought of Steve-o, dead a week already and no one to mourn him. We were too busy trying to survive. He’d had a crackpot theory that the humans controlling the machines had been wiped out, that the weapons were now acting autonomously. That we had a new enemy.

It was true that we had seen no indigenous people during our deployment, but they wouldn’t exactly hang around in a warzone, would they?

Fuck it.

I tossed the spent cigarette to the floor and ground it out with my boot heel. I felt Jimmy and Malachi’s stares as I strode to the door and opened it.

 

[Anonymous (d208)]

Me an’ ower kiddo… sorry… my friend and I… were walking down Frankley Beeches Road.

“This reminds me of when me and the missus were on holiday in the far east a few years ago,” he remarked.

I couldn’t see the connection myself. “Owd’ye mean, then? Can’t have been the same type of buildings as these.”

“No, different architecture, but I recall one day like this… rainy… misty… same brooding atmosphere. We were walking through a market area when we got separated for a couple of minutes. Suddenly, a beautiful young lady appeared beside me.”

“Blimey!” I exclaimed.

“She looked like Miss World… big eyes, red lipstick, a low-cut top and a short, figure-hugging skirt.”

“Dressed like that in the rain?”

“Well, she had a coat draped around her shoulders, but open at the front.”

“Blimey!” I exclaimed again. “What happened then?”

“She was a very friendly girl… linked arms with me and said, ‘hello, darling’. I thought that must be the normal way to greet people round those parts, so I just replied, ‘hello bab… nice to meet you’. She had a very disarming smile.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just said, “Well, I’ll goo to the foot of ower stairs!”

“It all took a bit of a weird turn then,” he continued, “she said to me, ‘are looking to buy sugar?’ Then she gave a funny little wiggle.”

I was gobsmacked. “Why would you want to buy sugar?”

“That’s what I thought, so I just told her the truth… that I hadn’t had sugar in my tea for more than 30 years.”

“What did she say then?”

“Never said another word. She just looked at me strangely for a few moments, then turned around and walked away. I never saw her again.”

“Very strange. The poor girl can’t be making much money by trying to sell sugar to tourists… ‘specially on a rainy day.”

“Yes, not much of a living for her,” he remarked sadly. “If she’d had a little market stall selling trinkets, souvenirs and things like that, I’d certainly have bought something from her.”

We both agreed that it was a funny old world as we carried on down the road… eventually arriving at our favourite cafe’.

“It’ll be good to get out of this rain,” he declared. “I’m starving… could eat a scabby ‘orse!”

“Me too,” I replied. “Yow fancy faggots ‘n’ pays with a nice kipper tie?”

“Sounds good to me. No sugar though!”