Welcome back to another round of Cracked Flash Fiction!
We have some rules c:
Judge this week: Ronel
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:
"Like pain? Try wearing high heels."
Dress Code
ReplyDelete“Like pain? Try wearing high heels. In fact, I’m taking the damn things off.” With that, Cleo leaned against the pillar, back jacked her right foot, yanked off her patent leather discount refugee from hell, tossed it to the side, repeated the process for her left foot, heaved the offending instrument of torture, and then stood there fierce, proud, and securely flat-footed.
A calm look swept over her, a glow of gloriously attained abandon.
Damian Demeter, our new Manager, looked frazzled. Gran would have said he looked fit to be tied. For sure he was tongue tied.
Stonewall Consolidated Insurance Inc. had helicoptered him in a month ago to transform our district office. His pinstriped emergence had set the tone from the get go. Dark days were upon us.
Maybe things had become sartorially slack, at least by traditional business standards. His predecessor, Charlie Raible had been a charmer, efficient, direct, but an easy-going man to work for. Charlie believed that a modern workforce needed gestures of comfort and solicitude to induce stability. The company’s medieval dress code rankled every one except for Mavis Truett, who’d run the claims department since the release of Double Indemnity. Well, that was an old office joke, but Mavis was a lifer who bridled at Charlie’s compassionate approach and likely was the one who caused his downfall.
“Ms. Lambert,” Damian finally broke the stand-off, “If you don’t want to obey Stonewall’s dress code, you are free to depart.”
Damian had slapped Cleo with a stinging gauntlet.
You could have cut the tension with a knife if we were allowed to have them in the office.
Cleo was a smart cookie. I sensed her calculating the odds.
“I’m out of here,” she declared.
Damian grinned. Then glowered.
Maybe, just maybe, his dictatorial days were numbered.
300 ways to run a company
@billmelaterplea
www.engleson.ca
Word count: 243
ReplyDeleteBeauty and the pain
“Like pain? Try wearing high heels. Or pushing something the size of a melon out of a hole the size of a grape. Try burning your hair with peroxide to be the perfect bottle blonde or studying until late at night to be a degreed person with the brains of a brunette. Try spending thousands of dollars on corporate wear to impress a boss who pays you less than your male counterpart then to have him grab your ass that is in an as yet, unpaid skirt. Try running a household on a budget your husband found in a 1950’s newspaper or getting your children schooled while battling with the idiot box to do so. Want nutritious meals? Sure, when I know you’re going to complain that it doesn’t taste like your favorite take-aways. Try wearing make-up every day to look good, only to have your husband ogle the twenty year old next door. Try staying sane and perfect in all this mess.”
“A good woman is faithful in marriage and an exceptional mother. She is a health care provider, serves her family’s needs, she runs household finances while being a hard worker. She is a good homemaker in that she provides an environment that is safe and warm for her family. Lastly and most importantly, she is beautiful, regardless of how much make-up she wears or the clothes she buys. She is a superwoman. It’s painful and beautiful at the same time.”
300 words
ReplyDeleteBy @HomemadeHalo
Www.medium.com/@HomemadeHalo
Pleasure and Pain.
"Like pain? Try wearing high heels!" At this, we bursted out laughing. I laughed clutching my ribs until my laughter turned into coughing fits. I had calmed down only for Maxuel to continue.
"So I did."
It sent me into another round of giggles picturing the Captain in red heels strutting.
"You're lucky to have Ruth, man. As for me, my own last time with my girlfriend Sarah was a night out at some fancy restaurant. Spared no expense. We even got up to waltz at a point. People were watching, but I didn't care. I only had eyes for her. She has this adorable thing she does... always fighting with her hair, trying to put this errand lock back behind, out of the way of her face, only for it to fall over her eyes again minutes later. I could have watched it all night."
Perhaps, it was the silence I noticed that made me turn to the Captain seated on the floor, propped up against the wall next to me, only to see he was dead with his eyes staring vacantly into space. I was alone... but not for long. I could hear them approaching, their boots crunching cautiously on the broken glass around and the empty shell casings of the last rounds of my spent ammo.
I paid them no mind anyway. That last bullet had torn a hole through my gut real good, feeding the pool of blood I was in. The pain... it hurt.
I wasn't afraid of death, I wasn't a coward. But in my last moments, I had a twinge of regret that I had not mustered the courage that night to fish out the box out of my coat pocket, to have the courage to stay in the unfamiliar.
Solicitation (287 words)
ReplyDeleteBy Sara Codair
@shatteredsmooth
"Like pain? Try wearing high heels,” she said slipping one nylon clad foot into a black leather stiletto. The way her long fingers danced the laces around her ankle up her calf made me think that my eyes were supposed to be following her hands up her leg, possible further, but I was more interested in the heels.
“What would you say if I told you I had worn heels, and loved them?” I risked eye contact just long enough to make her think I was interested in her body, then returned my gaze to the shoes.
“I’d say you were a kinky fellow.” She lifted her leg in the air, probably trying to get me to look up her skirt, but it was the perfect opportunity to see what size the shoes were.
An 8.5. Just one size too small. I sighed, reached into my pocket and fingered the bills there. “I’ll pay you for two hours if you tell me where you got those shoes.”
“I’ll show you,” she said and pulled me closer.
I backed away. “I’m serious. I have no interested in your services. Just your shoes. I’ll pay you, and you can spend the two hours doing whatever you like. I was going to buy your pair off of you, but they won’t fit.”
“For real?” she asked sitting up straight and folding her legs.
“For real,” I said taking a couple fifties out of my wallet.
“Stella’s boutique, on the corner of 6th and Rockland. Tell her Caty sent you. She’ll give you a deal.”
I handed her the money, left the hotel room and hailed cab; I was one step closer to finding the holy grail of high heels.