Lipstick and Radar

An hour ago, her biggest decision had been which lipstick to wear—the red or the copper. Which would look best on camera with her navy pinstriped pantsuit?

She set her face in a sympathetic yet confident mask for the broadcast. The radar showed a Category 3 hurricane headed for Florida. Her copper-colored lips issued warnings, preparations, evacuations.

Wind intensified and changed direction, heading northwest toward Louisiana. The storm surge would kill hundreds and there was no time to evacuate.

Now her decision was who to text first. She might have time to send two if she was lucky.

 

 

November 26 Prompt: Dissonant (Write a story using two ideas, people, or objects that don’t go together.)
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch
I used an online Random Word Generator
This gave me: “Lipstick” and “Radar”

Cornered

She ran out of ink.

The damn ballpoint pen actually went dry before she could finish scratching out all the limericks with her name and the offers with her cell phone number. She hurled the Bic into the toilet, and picked up her backpack.

Her breath caught as she heard the girls’ room door open, laughter trickling in. It was the pack, cackling like hyenas. The same girls who wrote filth in the bathroom stalls.

“Did you see the look on her face? Priceless!”

“I know! What. A. Loser.”

“Be right back—gotta go pee.”

Footsteps.

The door opened.

 

 

November 19 Prompt: Toilet (Write a story that includes a toilet. In honor of World Toilet Day)
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch

Assassin

He couldn’t do it.

For some reason, he couldn’t kill this one. He leaned in and stared at the eyes. He had never spent any time actually looking before. Sitting back on his heels, he felt the weight of the weapon in his hand.

He thought about the term “taking a life”. What was he taking? Ending a life. That’s what he was doing – what he had done countless times before. He would stop a heart. He would prevent any more air entering lungs. He would crush a body.

“Bloody hell, Carl! Haven’t you killed that damn spider yet?”

 

November 12 Prompt: Photobomb (Write a serious scene interrupted by something absurd)
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch

Go Ask Alice

 

When Alice was three, her teddy bear told her how to shape play-doh into intricate fairy houses with working windows and doors.

When Alice was seven, her Barbie doll showed her blueprints for an underwater city and she won a sand castle competition with her “Mermaid’s Mansion” sculpture.

When Alice was fifteen, her parents brought her to doctors who tried to stop Alice hearing voices and hallucinating.

When Alice entered the psychiatric ward, her doctors said it would be temporary. It was. After Alice died, they found her paintings—now in a gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

November 5 Prompt: Muse
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch

Why Flash?

 

Each week, I have some fun writing flash over at Carrot Ranch where the lovely and talented Charli Mills asks writers to create a themed fiction piece. The flash must be 99 words. No more. No less.

This isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. It’s a wonderful way to challenge yourself as a writer.

Try some flash.

Every Wednesday, a new prompt is posted over at Carrot Ranch. See you there!