Flash Fiction

Tracing the wood grain with their finger, a hand delicately floated across cracks of the dilapidated wall. A smile discordant of their cautious lips appeared as they felt a slight bump in the oak beam. With one flick of a finger old lightbulbs buzzed on and off humming with their discontent. Cobwebs shimmered from the bronze chains of one hanging lamp to the next revealing just how unkept the building was. Slowly as the bulbs brightened, a decrepit sight revealed itself. Bundles of paper bound to spine lay on shelves reaching from floor to roof. Titles not long forgotten shown both on spine and front cover like few have ever seen. Artwork hinted but never told all the secrets that lay hidden between the pages.

Trembling pens threatened to jump off the table every time the ground quaked. Dust abandoned its long stationed posts on the walls caking the already dirty floors forming tiny burials for the dead bugs long forgotten. Slits of sunlight freshly coming over the eastern mountains reveal particulates of stuffiness filling the basement. Sitting at the end of the five foot high basement is a man–no a woman–at a desk furiously typing. Between pauses of typebars slapping a black ribbon the whole house shakes. Click Clack BOOM another bomb sets off somewhere far too close for comfort.

In movies and books the world is always so simple. God do I wish the world could be simple. There’s no question as to who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist. When something fucked up happens everyone knows it was fucked up. Why couldn’t real life be that way?

Whiskey clinks in my glass as I turn it delicately with my wrist. Memories flash of all the different people I’ve killed with this hand. A simple flick of the wrist can do a lot. A girl at a birthday party not expecting a hidden blade to cut through her throat in front of all her friends at the bar. Making a simple twist of someone else’s hand forcing them off a cliff. Tossing a needle into an old man’s artery as he tried to rush for a phone. All with a simple flick of the wrist.

The room was dark, with the only light coming from a poorly lit monitor. The computer made a soft humming sound to a silent room. A woman sat at a desk fighting. Her hand could not force her finger down. Tears slowly welled in her eyes because her finger refused to come down. An email of resignation filled the monitor. It was dated over a nine months ago, yet her finger would not come down. Behind that email were various windows of code and writing. Her mind’s work splayed across the screen in layers upon layers. Melodies sung through programs that worked flawlessly. Emotions sprung through documentation. Attempt after attempt to write something that meant anything lay behind the email. Unfortunately, that was all they were: attempts. It had taken her this long to learn that at the end of the day, no one gave a damn how beautiful your documentation was. Rich idiots didn’t care how your algorithm made them money. All this work was for nothing. At least to her it was for nothing.

Metallic letters Move Fast to Break shined in the rays of the rising sun as Mr. Smith dragged his feet into the fifty story building. Cold air conditioning blasted the businessman as he wearily lifted his finger to touch the elevator button changing its glowing outline from red to green. Fully-fitted business suits with shadows of humans fit inside them shifted around Mr. Smith busy with whatever tasks the morning called for. All the workers were uninterested in who Mr. Smith was or what he did.