I’ve written quite a few microfictions over the years, but until recently, I hadn’t considered posting them here because of how short they are. For those who aren’t familiar with microfictions, they are a form of storytelling limited to two hundred fifty words or less. I decided to post my favorites in a single document so my readers would have a little more content to browse through.

Anytime I do a new competition, I’ll update this page with the new story, so be sure to check back every now and then!

A Fatal Nod

The stench of rotten meat wakes her. Desperately, she tries returning to her nightmares, but sleep again mocks her with its flight.

She presses an ear to the wall separating her bedroom from the bathroom.

Splashes. An occasional wail. She whimpers.

Pain lances up the inside of her arm. The track marks no longer faded scars but hundreds of tiny scabs.

Karma. Utter torment every night because he’d drowned after she’d popped a vein and nodded off.

The bathroom door swings open. The toddler standing in the tub is bloated, his pale, marbled skin peeling away from reddened tissue.

“Mommy?”

A Serious Squeaker

“Man, how long is this gonna take?”

Jimmy straightens inside the shallow grave and drops the shovel. His palms have blisters. “Be faster if you helped.”

“And dirty the floppy shoes? What would the kids think?”

“You shouldn’t be within a hundred miles of a child, fuckin weirdo.”

“I told you it’s Beardo, not weirdo.”

“Whatever.” Jimmy resumes digging. Before long, the metal head scrapes the coffin.

“Hurry, open it!”

“I will! Don’t get your balloons twisted!”

The scent of rotted cabbage and sulfur assaults him. After losing a battle with his stomach, he shines a flashlight on the rotted remains.

“Ha! I knew that bitch buried it with her!”

Choking back bile, Jimmy plucks a bulbous red nose off the corpse’s face. It squeaks in disgusting protest.

“This is what you wanted?”

“Loudest squeaker in the Midwest, bud, thanks. I’ll leave you to clean up the mess.”

Worse Than Scrooge

“Dad, I need $10 for the movies.”

“What happened to the ten I gave you?”

I shrug.

He sighs. “You’ll have to work for it.”

I wait for the inevitable blow.

“Mow the lawn, then. All of it. Front and back.”

“What?! Dad, the backyard is like a hundred square miles!”

He grins toothily. “Ok, guess you don’t need it that bad.”

“Ugh, how much will you pay me?”

Scrooge lays two $5 bills on the counter.

“That’s slavery!”

He shrugs and reaches for the bills. I snatch them first. “Fine! Slaver!”

“Mmhmm. Don’t mow over your mom’s coreopsis flowers.”

Tattoos & Butterflies

“Ow, Ow, Ow!” Ricky complains, gritting his teeth. “Not so hard!”

Aaron grins, though his hazel-colored eyes remain focused as he stretches the skin on Ricky’s forearm, preparing to make another pass with the shader. “Don’t be such a screamer, love.”

“Is it supposed to hurt this much?” Ricky moans. He stares at the silver butterfly charm dangling from Aaron’s necklace and wonders how awful a half-drawn tattoo could really be. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

Setting the machine down, Aaron takes a moment to wipe blood and excess ink from Ricky’s skin. “You’ve been coming here and watching me tattoo other people for almost two weeks now. What do you think?” He raises a pierced eyebrow, the steel ball making Ricky think of mercury drops stitched onto a perfect milky canvas.

“Not just you,” Ricky mutters, looking away.

Aaron’s laugh is rich in warmth. Ricky’s heart skips. “It gets a little spicy closer to the wrist, love. Just breathe through it.”

Ricky nods and closes his eyes, tensing as the machine hums and the needles grind against his flesh. He hisses through his teeth when the needle scrapes a particularly sensitive spot.

“Fuck, why did I convince myself to do this?”

“Why, indeed,” Aaron chuckles, a knowing sparkle lighting his gaze. “Seems like a rather torturous way to get to know someone.”

Ricky laughs weakly. “I’m such an idiot.”

“That’s debatable,” Aaron smiles, finishing the butterfly’s wings. “Why don’t we talk about it over an espresso?”

What Would Wonder Woman Do?

Lilly opens her bedroom door. Hallway light slants across the grey carpet, illuminating the corner of her Barbie blanket against the bedpost. Beside it is a narrow strip of darkness, where the monster has been watching for the past three nights. Waiting to feed.

Stomach churning, Lilly ambles to the edge of the bed. She pauses there, heart hammering, straining, listening.

Its voice is slow, warbled, and deep as an underground cavern. “Heeeee hee heeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Lilly chokes back a scream, all but certain that an undead killer is waiting to stab her through the mattress once she lies down.

Wonder Woman wouldn’t be afraid. She’s brave like Mommy.

Quickly, Lilly runs to her dresser and pulls out a flashlight. Its bulb floods the dark room with bright light. Cautiously, she crouches by the bedroom door and focuses the beam into the narrow void.

“Heeeee hee heeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Her breath catches, but Wonder Woman wouldn’t look away, so she won’t either. The beam shows her a few scattered pennies, a couple of old dolls covered in dust, and a dirty towel partially covering something red and furry.

“Heeeee hee heeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Lilly’s body shakes so bad she almost drops the flashlight. Hesitantly, she crawls closer to the bed. She reaches with trembling fingers, grasping the edge of the towel. It slides off easily at her tug, and the thing it was concealing rolls toward her. She squeaks . . . then sags in relief.

“Elmo!” Lilly admonishes. “Your batteries are dying!”

“Heeeee hee heeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Bitter Gains

Too late, Boyd sees.

The premature balding, disproportionate muscle growth, and severe acne carpeting his chest.

His wife’s broken body, thumb-shaped bruises on her throat. The boy beside her, chest stilled.

Unheeded warnings reflected in a dry, rusty red haze.

Snarling, Boyd hurls the hand mirror against the wall, weeping.

A Healing Leap

Susan fixates on the airplane’s jump door and swallows. Well, what’s it gonna be, Susan? she thinks. Your promise or common sense?

“Are you ready, ma’am?” The man she’s strapped to asks.

It’s now or never. Susan’s blood hammers through her veins. She wants to say no, to forget the whole moronic venture. This is so fucking reckless!

“Ma’am?”

“Yes,” Susan manages to croak, and forces her hands not to snatch the safety bar outside the door as the tandem instructor leaps out of the plane, pulling her with him.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!” Susan almost faints in the first few seconds, her heart thudding so hard she feels it in her throat.

She forces her eyes open. From this high up, the ground is a blur of vague shapes and colors beneath her watery gaze, but the sight takes her breath.

Smiling for the first time, she looks to her right, to the empty space where Jessica would have been, if she were still alive.

“We have to go skydiving at least once,” Jessica had said, hugging Susan’s shoulders. “You can’t go through life afraid of everything.”

“Yeah, sure,” Susan replied, thinking never in a million years.

“Promise?”

Now, as the air whips through Susan’s red curls, she laughs. It’s the first time she has since Jessica died, and it comes out sounding like a sob. Jessica would have loved this!

“Ma’am, are you okay?” The instructor shouts.

“I am!” Susan shouts back. Her chest swells. Perhaps now, she will be.

Madam Zola, Clairvoyant & Medium

Madam Zola: “He is here with us now, child!”

Britney, frowning: “Yes, I know.”

“He loves you so much.”

“I’ve . . . never doubted?”

“He hopes his error won’t tarnish the fond memories you share.”

“Uhhh-huh. And the combination?”

“I’m hearing . . . an anniversary? Yours?”

Britney, shouting toward the audience: “That right, Joe?”

Man in audience, pale and clearly nervous: “Erm, I - uh, d-don’t recall the year, Hunny.”

Madam Zola, alarmed: “Um, is that your husband?”

Britney: “Yes.”

“Didn’t you say your late husband forgot to write down the combination to your safe deposit box?”

“I said my husband, not my late husband.”

“Shit.”

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For NQW’s second round of flash fiction, I decided to do a satire regarding the West’s strange ability to control the narrative of anything they find embarrassing or sheds any negative light on the supposed glorious Western Empire. The prompts for this competition were: Include the word “disco,” incorporate the name of a dance move, and have an action that can be interpreted as “freaking out.”

I had so much fun writing this. I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think in the comments below:

George Orwell’s 1984

“Alright, sir,” the officer says. “First, we’re gonna do a heel-toe step test.”

“Ugh, can’t I take the breathalyzer?” I plead. I’ve only had one beer, after all.

“No. It’s waiting on repairs. Now, pay atten –”

That’s when a giant, discoidal spacecraft about the size of a small warehouse drops from the night sky like a fucking meteor, crashing onto the road beside us with a terrible, grinding screech.

“Holy shit!” I yell, covering my ears. “Did you see that?”

“Um. See what?” He says, brushing debris off his pants.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I point to the ship and gesture at the jagged chunks of asphalt forming a semi-crater around it. Dirt and metallic dust glitter in the moonlight like falling snowflakes. The smell of hot metal burns my throat.

“Sir, are you okay?”

I feel my jaw drop. Am I going crazy? No. I glance once more at the wreckage, then turn back to the officer looking at me as though I’d stated windmills cause cancer. He seems to be intentionally avoiding looking at anything but me.

“You don’t see that spaceship right there?” I splutter, gesturing wildly.

“There’s nothing there, sir,” he calmly replies, and is suddenly very interested in straightening the silver badge pinned to his shirt.

“My god, man! Are you fucking blind?!” My eyes bulge. They might pop out of my head soon, if this uniformed idiot doesn’t start making sense. I know I shouldn’t scream at a cop, but I can’t help myself. “Use your fucking eyes, goddammit!” I start hopping back and forth like a toddler playing on a mattress, using both hands to point. “It’s right here!”

Before he can respond, the chop of helicopter blades approaches from the west. Next thing I know, two dozen feds dressed in fancy suit pants and pressed white shirts are clambering out and setting up a perimeter. One of them, a young blond woman with a severe expression, beckons to the officer and me.

“Officer,” she says. “Take your car north and redirect traffic to the nearest alternative route. We’ve already blocked off the southbound.” He half-salutes and walks away without a word, but I notice he glances over his shoulder at the spacecraft as he does. The fed turns her gaze on me. “Sir, you need to go home. Someone from the Bureau will contact you tomorrow morning.”

I swallow mingled relief and excitement and nod. “Can you believe it? A real alien!”

She raises an eyebrow. “Alien? That’s quite imaginative, sir, but I assure you that’s just a downed hot air balloon.”

The excitement bleeds out of me like oil into a drain pan. Confused, I take another questioning look at the wreckage. It doesn’t look like a hot air balloon, but...

“Are you sure?”

Her nod is firm. Confident. “Just a hot air balloon.”

I shake my head, blow a breath in my palm, and sniff it. Then heel-toe step all the way to my car.

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Miami’s Palladium nightclub is packed shoulder-to-shoulder with Friday night dancers determined to start the weekend with a bit of fun and, in some hopeful cases, debauchery. Strobing lights keep pace with thumping bass. The tang of sweat mixes with that of alcohol and perfume. Everyone, with the exception of the two bart…

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October winds carry chilled tidings over the lake’s murky waters, promising a hard winter. Lillian stands on the shore, a colorful shawl wrapped tightly around her diminutive frame, face tilted upward, eyes closed in contemplative silence. Her tawny, yellowish-brown cheeks are no longer etched with worry lines but s…

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Harper shouldered through the Hyde Park crowd, feigning disinterest as she glanced backward. The bloke in the brown coat was still following, a silver badge featuring a bird with outstretched wings pinned high on his chest.

Her lungs constricted. Goddess, help me!

Ahead, a young girl stood fiddling beside an alley. Harper…

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Most people pay little heed to signs. You know the kind—portents, omens, harbringers of bad juju—but I’m not most people. I read my daily horoscope, spend a good amount of time interpreting my own dreams, and look for synchronicities in my daily life. So, how I didn’t see this disaster of a date coming, I’ll never kn…

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Amor, how I’ve longed for you to see me, tangled in the living green ropes stretched above you. I wanted to come to you, but I don’t have the strength to break free of these wrought iron bars.

I’d almost given up hope, resigning myself to a cold life lived in shadow without the warmth of your smile. But at last, you’ve…

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Lilly opens her bedroom door. Hallway light slants across the grey carpet, illuminating the corner of her Barbie blanket against the bedpost. Beside it is a narrow strip of darkness, where the monster has been watching for the past three nights. Waiting to feed.

Stomach churning, Lilly ambles to the edge of the bed. She pauses there, heart hammering, str…

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A/N: This story was initially published on Vocal Media last year. A few weeks ago, I submitted it to one of their summer competitions, “Leave the Light On.” Yesterday, I found out I won! Anyway, please enjoy my winning short story, The Countdown, and be sure to let me know what you think!

A deafening cheer erupts from the …

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Photo by Jonathan Castañeda via Unsplash

Dogust 2, 2024

Attn: Colonel Floppy “Long Ears” McSniffles.

418 Waggin Street

New Yorkie, NY 10017

Colonel,

I regret to inform you that I've failed my 347th escape attempt. After this latest defeat, I've come to believe the initial reports of human simplicity provided by the Central Canine-telligence Agency are either …

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Photo by A.C. on Unsplash

“Oh my God, Quinn, would you hurry up?!” Vic glanced at his watch - 6:46. Fourteen minutes until the library closed, and he lost his chance with Monica forever. “What’s taking so long?”

Quinn inched his square-framed glasses down his broad nose with a slim finger and raised a bushy eyebrow. “If you think you can do this any faste…

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Hello, everyone, and thank you for reading. Last week, I promised to publish my group-winning story for NYC Midnight’s Short Story Competition. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this one, and I hope you enjoy reading it. The judges stated it was ‘beautifully crafted’ and a ‘wonderful setup for a new fairytale. I’d love to know if you agree!

…

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Today, I caught up on a challenge issued by fellow vocal media creator L.C. Schäfer. The original publication is linked below if you’d like to read it:

Dollar Challenge (August/September 2024) - Let the Magic Begin

L.C.’s challenge immediately drew my interest: Write a short story of 300-600 words and include a quote inspi…

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