Welcome to another round of Cracked Flash Fiction Competition!
Judge this week: Kelly
Word count: 300 max
How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.
Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT.
Results announced: Next Wednesday afternoon.
Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories: they're for inspiration and amusement.)
Prompt:
Word Count: 286
ReplyDeletePrompt: I can handle this
@nancymbeach
www.filledtoempty.com
“I can handle this,” thought Ellie as he gritted his teeth. Bracing his back, he heard the whiz of the belt through the air seconds before it made contact with his small frame. He would not cry, for that would give his dad the victory. A sob choked silently in his throat as his dad snapped the belt between his hands.
“Have you had enough, son? Just say the word. Say the word and I’ll stop. You know I love you, right?
Bile rose in Ellie’s throat. He determined in his 8-year-old brain to never, ever say the word -no matter what it cost him.
Whiz - whip. Whiz - whip.
Ellie heard his dad talking, but it sounded far away and like the grown-ups on Charlie Brown.
“Mwa-mwa-mwa”
Every time the belt connected with his back the determination to remain silent grew stronger. He was numb now -no longer feeling any pain. He coasted to a safe place in his brain snuggled next to his mom’s pink robe.
Whiz - whip. Whiz - whip.
Then it stopped. He’d won! He heard the belt drop to the ground. He stood board-straight still with his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He would show no pain. He waited as he heard his father’s footsteps leaving the room. He would wait until he was sure his dad was gone and then slip upstairs victorious.
He was so caught up in his thoughts he didn’t hear his father return. All he felt was the cold metal chamber against his right temple.
“Say the word.” His father growled. “This is because I love you. Say it! Say it now!”
“Sorry.” Ellie’s shoulder’s slumped as the word squeaked out of his mouth.
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ReplyDeleteI'll see your 300 words and raise you
@billmelaterplea
www.engleson.ca
You’ll Never Get Burned by A Hot Poker Hand
I can handle this. I‘ve been here before. In my head, at any rate. Gotta stay focussed. Read the tells. Read the damn tells.
Christ, I’ve never been in this deep before. And face to face. What made me think I could play with the big boys? Big girls?
That doesn’t sound right.
Nothing sounds right.
I’ve been playing a long time. I was five the first time the old man let me sit in on a game up at Last Chance Lake. We owned one of six private cabins and a caretaker’s shack spread out on half acre lots on the west side of the lake. My folks and the other owners hired the caretaker (or the concierge as my mother liked to call them) to keep the property spic and span year-round.
Swede Porter was the first. He was a great poker player, and supplemented his stipend from winnings off the owners. They were all well heeled city men and didn’t mind dropping some greenbacks.
Well, they pretended it was okay.
“Let the whelp sit in, Mr. Gorman. Might as well learn from the best,” said Swede, ruffling my hair, flashing his choppers that glinted like a crosscut saw in the kerosene light.
In the off-season, Swede had built a covered platform near the communal dock. Four lanterns provided light as the summer sun set. I squeezed in next to my father.
“Jacks or better,” said Johnny Watts, the senior member of the group.
And that’s the way I learned. Happy-go-lucky poker played with men who could afford to lose, but hated the thought of loss.
I was no longer a child.
And here, for the first time off-line, I was playing with strangers, men and women who wanted to royally crush me.
Can I really handle this?
Dave Mikulas
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 215
Prompt: I can handle This
“I. Can. Handle. This,” I say as I wheeze like an asthmatic fat kid after gym. My heart is bouncing around the inside of my chest hard enough that I think it’s about to burst out of my chest and keep running without me.
Earlier my Fit Bit said I had 8542 steps, and taking a quick walk should have put me well over, but after fifteen minutes of walking it said I had only gone another hundred steps and my heart rate was forty-two. So, I started running. Running like Forest Gump. Like the Devil himself was chasing me. I was in the zone. I hadn’t run like that since I ran down the ice cream man.
But I learned an important lesson today; don’t look at your Fit Bit while running along an unfamiliar road. I tripped and ended up in the bottom of a concrete cesspool.
While I sat bleeding in a mosquito’s wet dream, the Fit Bit said I had 8644 steps. I’d only taken two more steps! I took my pulse and I counted forty beats in ten seconds. 240 beats in a freaking minute! The Fit Bit only registered seventy! What’s wrong with this freaking thing?
That’s when I knew it for sure…my Fit Bit was trying to kill me.
Oh my goodness - I can relate! So funny - and true!
DeleteIs my entry late?
ReplyDelete“Wants and Needs”
By TipTim
@HomemadeHalo
www.medium.com/@HomemadeHalo
“I can handle this.” Stewart thought as he was being wheeled along on a gurney. He looked up at the lights on the ceiling passing hypnotically in a train as they went down the long corridor headed for the theater room. It was for a good cause. It was a necessary cost. Things had taken a rough bend down the past 2 years. He was staring at bankruptcy in the face and was in danger of being kicked out on the streets. And if selling a kidney would get him the money required, to take care of his son Alex’s financial needs, his tuition for college…. Heck, even food on the table, then it was price he could pay. He was by chance a rare match to Lord Mel. They had come to him with an offer he couldn’t refuse. Besides, he had been assured that it was routine, and one kidney could more than adequately serve him well for the rest of his life.
“I can handle this.” Doctor Mulberry scrubbed his trembling hands prepping for surgery. He knew what he had to do, but he was scared. He wasn’t supposed to be the doctor on call. An hour earlier, he had gotten the phone call and had argued feebly for a bit, but he knew it was futile; they had him dead to rights. He could only comply. He had been assured that everyone else that would be in the surgery room would be in on it. Lord Mel had lived a riotous lifestyle generous to his appetite. Right now, he needed ALL the kidneys he could get.
270 words
DeleteNo. you're in. Have a great day.
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