Five Sentence Fiction – Distance

Life Sentence

I knew what she was going to say even before she sat down on the other side of the table and picked up the receiver.

“It’s all right, Janey,” I said, looking at her through the scratched-up glass, “I won’t make you say it out loud.”

I saw her shudder and then she thanked me and pressed her palm against the glass.

“I don’t blame you,” I said, “ninety-nine to life is a long, long time.”

When she was gone I put my hand up to the glass where hers had been and held it there until the guard came to take me back to my cell.

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Five Sentence Fiction – Perseverance

The Workman

It was just after sunrise when they kicked in our doors and hauled us out of our houses at gunpoint.

None of us ever saw our families again.

I survived because I could work, survived despite the efforts of one guard who made breaking me his life’s mission.

I was still working when the Americans came to set us free and after the war I continued to work for twenty years, just to preserve what was left of my sanity.

My old friend the guard thought he was safe in South America but I found him, found him and allowed him to see me, whole and unbroken, before I turned my back and walked away.

Five Sentence Fiction – Scarlet

This was written for Lillie McFerrin’s weekly Five Sentence Fiction flash fiction event.  Writers are tasked with creating a five sentence story inspired by a single-word theme.  The theme for this piece was, “Scarlet”.

Scarlet

The smoke from the engine, the rain, the platform, and the dozens of faceless travellers getting on and off of the train, it was all gray.

I had four minutes until the train pulled out, four more minutes to hope, four more minutes to look through that city of gray for a glimpse of scarlet.

The scarf of scarlet you wore, the hat too if it was raining hard enough.

Four minutes went by and the train rolled out.

The smoke from the engine, the rain, the platform, the dozens of faceless travellers, and what was left of my heart, it was all gray.

Five Sentence Fiction – Composure

This was written for Lillie McFerrin’s weekly Five Sentence Fiction flash fiction event.  Writers are tasked with creating a five sentence story inspired by a single-word theme.  The theme for this piece was, “Composure”.

Composure

“No matter what happens in there,” the prosecuting attorney said without looking me in the eye, “you have to maintain your composure.”

And so I did, even as the jury foreman read the words, “Not guilty,” and set the man who murdered my little girl free.

That man winked at me and grinned as his lawyer patted him on the shoulder and led him out of the courthouse.

The prosecutor wanted to say something to me and she may well have done so but I wasn’t there to hear it because I was busy moving my axe from the trunk of my car to the passenger seat.

A man’s home address is, after all, a matter of public record.

Five Sentence Fiction- Harvest

This was written for Lillie McFerrin’s weekly Five Sentence Fiction flash fiction event.  Writers are tasked with creating a five sentence story inspired by a single-word theme.  The theme for this piece was, “Harvest”.

Barren

The bands were no longer playing and the crowd that attended the commemoration ceremony had long since gone home.

Two generals, former adversaries, stood together in the rain.

Each was lost in his own thoughts as they surveyed the field they’d fought over, now covered with row upon row of gleaming white headstones.

“We reap what we sow, General,” said one to the other.

“Then you and I are both damned.”