Flash Fiction With Reflections

Below is a piece of flash fiction with a explanation following. I think it could prove instructive to see all of the thought that went behind a 500 word story.

Life Is Beautiful

     Falling is about as close to flying as a human can ever get. Other than the final second, there is little difference. I can hear the air rushing through my ears, feel all of the sensation as it plays upon my skin. There is an intensity to it that I have never experienced before. Every single cell of me is alive, thrillingly, gloriously alive.

     It’s funny how extremity brings things into focus, slows the rapid flow of time to a near standstill. I appreciate now every scrap of life that has been given me, although scant moments ago life was something I was quite anxious to throw away. I realize now what a precious gift it is that was mine to do with as I chose. The simplest things fill my heart with the most exquisite joy: the endless waves lapping on the shore and the mysterious force that moves them forward. Birds spiral above me, fulfilling purposes I’ll never understand. I feel a kinship with them, feel a kinship with every living thing on earth. Even now I have time to ponder the mysteries of the universe. Funny how I lived a lifetime in darkness. Funny how I walked an endless path of routine.

     But now I experience life as it was meant to be experienced. The desire that I should be able to convey these ideas to the person I was a moment ago flits briefly through my mind until I let it go, realizing now there is no more time for regrets. What I could have or should have done is of little importance to me now. Every regret I have ever had flees from me like rats from a sinking ship.

     I have been given a gift. In the scant seconds since I decided to end my life, the beauty of life has been shown me. What damnation my decision headed me towards has been erased as I head towards my end. And I realize that whatever bad decisions we make are not the final answer. Life has always been short, been insufficient for all the things I wanted to do with it. It has always been about what to do with the time given to you. And in this final moment, I shall spend it glorifying what time I have left. My eyes take in all the beauty of the waters below me, the sun reflecting from a thousand facets the jewel that is the ocean. How far away now the darkness and despair that made me toss myself from the bridge above. It’s seems odd to say, but I was quite a different person back then. The seconds stretch in the intensity of my vitality.

      And for a moment I have experienced the miracle of life. Mysteries become obvious to me. The simple and the complex are aligned so that I see a grand order to existence. Answers appear that make my deepest questions seem quite absurd and small. The answers aren’t, never were, things you could find in a book. But now I—

I guess the first thing I want to point out is the enormity of time which seems to pass in what would actually be only a couple of seconds. It has been often mentioned that time tends to slow down when in a crisis situation. I’m thinking of the song Ballet of the Impact by Spock’s Beard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEx8wgqpcKE but I’m sure there are thousands of examples. Seneca said Life is long if you know how to use it. I guess the point I want to make is that we can spend vast amounts of our lives not really living, and so when we look back on those stretches, we remember little of them. But those precious moments we feel truly alive we recall in great detail. It is a matter of quality mattering more than quantity.

Another aspect to this story is the human tendency to become stuck in a negative thought process and the dramatic circumstances that are sometimes required to shake us out of them. Life IS at its roots a miracle, but we can be so involved in the overarching flow of our own lives that we forget that we are a part of something much larger and that just to be a part of it for an instant is an awesome thing.

Somewhat tied to the last topic and yet different is the idea of redemption. It is never too late to change the road you are on. Sometimes we feel that it is too late for us, but what we are really saying is we’ve wasted a lot of time. But the past is the past. That is no reason to throw away the present.

Again related to the prior topic, it does not pay worrying about where you are not. It is what you have and where you are at right now that you have an opportunity to appreciate.

I am getting to an age now where more of my life is behind me than in front of me. Time is becoming more precious to me, where I do not want to waste a scrap of it on those things that are of no value to me. I can imagine when I am old that I will realize the moments of my life are like a handful of sand, a finite amount. When I get to that point, I do not wish to be in a panic worrying about what to do with them or wishing I had more. I hope to be able to savor them, to truly feel the amazingness of what I have lived through.

I hope my little blog post was worth the time it took to read.

P.S. Another Seneca quote for you: “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”

Ashes On The Water

Somewhere between short story and flash fiction, this was inspired by a true occurence:

Ashes On The Water

Bob was in a good mood as he drove down the country road on a glorious day. He chatted amiably to his wife, even though he knew she wasn’t listening. The incessant rain and all of the troubles of the past week were finally over. It was the first true summer day of the year and the classic rock station was playing all of his favorite songs back to back. But the real reason for his good mood was that he knew now that he had succeeded. There had been some tense moments in the last few weeks; the plans he had so carefully drawn out had really been put to the test. All the plans in the world cannot prepare one for the way things play out in reality. But he was proud of himself. When the story deviated from the script he had written, he reacted as an actor inspired. He realized flaws in his story when questioned and adapted to the situation. And now he was on the final stretch. He had merely to dispose of the ashes of his victim and the last traces of the murder he committed would be gone forever.

He looked over at his wife, who was on the front seat next to him in a little black plastic box. He missed her company and wished he could share this moment with her. He patted the box gently in remembrance. He didn’t hate her—far from it, he had always been fond of her. It seemed somewhat regrettable that she had to be the victim of his plot. It’s just that the idea had taken hold of him. Surely everyone at one time or another has wondered if they could commit murder and get away with it. Well he was no different, he just took the idea to its conclusion. It’s hard to explain how an idea can grow in the mind until it becomes a compulsion, but sometimes the only way to get rid of a temptation is to give in to it.

“Wish You Were Here” came on the radio, ruining for him the streak of upbeat tunes. He switched stations just in time to catch the weather. Sunny and warm for the next few days, it said. Good. He was driving up to the cabin to dispose of his wife’s ashes. The good weather would give him the opportunity to do a little work on the property they…he had inherited from his wife’s parents.

The radio was still on, and the local news followed the weather. It seemed that a body was discovered floating in the river somewhere outside of town. Bob immediately wondered if there was another murderer in town. “Dumb”, he thought to himself. To leave a body is to leave evidence. He was aware of how clever the police could be once their suspicion was aroused. Pride arose in him again as he started to compare himself to this possible new murderer. He had seen too many criminal investigation shows to make his plan complicated. His scheme rested solely on not leaving any evidence behind. There was no murder weapon; he had poisoned her using chemicals that were in their house, that were in most households. The result was similar to a heart attack. She was in her mid-fifties with a family history of heart disease so there was no real reason for anyone to dig too deeply for explanations for her death. And he had always been both a model citizen and husband. His whole plan rested upon him being able to get rid of the body before anyone could suspect something. As long as they did not have a body on which to perform an autopsy, he would be home free. Fortunatately, the Tri-State Crematory had taken care of that detail for him. All that was left was ashes now. He did not know if modern technology could decipher anything from these, but they would be gone soon too, scattered on the lake he and his wife had so often looked out upon from their cabin. And then he would be free.

It was a three hour trip to their cabin up north, and he continued to listen for further news on the body discovered in the river. After a time, an update was given. Two more bodies had been found and police were reporting body parts of several more. “Wow”, he thought, “I give this guy credit for quantity at least. Good, let him get all the notoriety. This ought to keep the police busy and off of my case.”

This news item held Bob’s attention now. He turned to the all-news station in order to get the latest updates. He felt some kinship with this presumed mass-murderer, felt as they were both members of an elite club. The count was at least six people now, and Bob suspected, half-hoped, that there would be more. It was about two hours into his trip that the newest information was given: a storage shed filled with stacked corpses was found upriver from town. A thrill of vicarious excitement went up Bob’s back as he realized the accomplishment of this imagined murderer. Here was a real killer, a psychopath. He imagined this man in his mind, tried to re-construct his experiences using his own as a blueprint.

As he drove into the town nearest his cabin retreat, the radio revealed the story behind the mystery. The serial killer was a figment of his imagination, no murders had taken place. He pulled the car over and sat in stunned silence as the radio report continued. It was unclear why, but it seems that the Tri-State Crematory had not been doing its job. Bodies had been hidden in the woods, stored in sheds or buried in shallow graves. The recent heavy rains had unearthed some of the bodies, washing several of them into the river. Autopsies would have to be performed on the corpses to determine identity so that loved ones could be alerted. As the radio moved on to other news, Bob sat with his head in his hands, sobbing uncontrollably.

 

  

This short story was based upon a real-life occurrence, a crematory that never got around to cremating many of their customers and instead gave concrete dust to the loved ones of the deceased. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-State_Crematory

 

Eternity, Inc

Yesterday, I was running errands, listening to NPR when I heard them make an announcement for a sci-fi flash-fiction contest. I thought up this story and wrote it up when I got home. It's over the 600 word limit, but I like it better this way.

Eternity Inc

 

“It’s not like I want to live forever, you know,” I said to the man connecting electrodes to my shaven skull, “it’s just that I wasn’t ready to sleep the final sleep quite yet. After all, death is quite a big commitment.”

The man nodded as he worked, preparing me for what could quite possibly be life after death. I wasn’t convinced that downloading my consciousness to a computer was going to work, but it least it took the edge off the whole inevitability of death thing. There was still hope. That is why I volunteered for the project, and when I say volunteer, I mean to say I paid a considerable percentage of my family’s inheritance to Eternity Incorporated in order to be their guinea pig. Everybody I spoke to seemed to believe the project was legitimate, the idea for continuing my existence until some other arrangement could be found a viable one. At least, as far as something as radical as this could be. In fact, the backers of the project seemed to be even more invested than I was, if such a thing was possible. Apparently, there was a good deal of money riding on my success. I was to be a pioneer (though, I learned later, not the first).

As my death approached, the attention increased, until as I breathed my last, there was a crowd of workers and observers that surrounded my bed. The last thing I remembered was the sound of a saw and a dim awareness of what they were going to do with it. Technically, I suppose, they prematurely put an end to my life, but you really couldn’t call it murder since I’m still around to testify to the contrary. You see, they managed to maintain my consciousness, enabled me to beat death in a way no one else has before. My awareness was dropped into an awaiting CPU the way a guppy is dropped into a new fishbowl and, plop, I was soon swimming in an unfamiliar habitat, with people tapping on the glass and staring inside. Not only was I alive, for the first time in my life I had no fear of dying. The entire resources of Eternity Inc. were vested in my continued existence. I was their cyber astronaut, the first ever to explore cyberspace. But while that may sound important to you, in fact I felt little different than that guppy bouncing its head into walls of glass.

But to Eternity Inc., I was a celebrity, like the first man with a Jarvik heart. While I couldn’t see them, I imagined a crowd of executives, technicians and investors gathered around a monitor high-fiving each other and opening champagne. They were able to communicate with me, just not in a way I really recognized as human contact. But all of us took joy in the fact that I was alive.

Of course, this was only step one in the process. I was now in a sort of holding pattern. To retain my consciousness was one thing, but to give it some kind of physical life afterwards was another. We had discussed it earlier, the potential for a body donor, the hushed conversation of a clone body, a robotic body superior to any human one. You see, we potentially had forever to come up with a solution. My consciousness was stored in one of the most complex computer systems ever designed, backed up by generators and storage that guaranteed that no catastrophe would interrupt my existence. I was protected in a way normal human life never could be.

They treated me like royalty, if such a thing can be said regarding an incorporeal being. They were very careful to visit me often, keep me amused. You see, as a consciousness living in a computer, they were unable to shut me off. Perhaps they could have, I believed they could, but they were afraid of losing their investment. And so I was left on twenty four hours a day, adrift with only my thoughts and whatever companionship they provided. They tried to keep my mind—which is to say me—as busy as possible, so that I might not think too much on the fact of what I was or what my fate might be. And in this way, I found my constant awareness endurable.

But one day, they did not come. I was left alone drifting lost for a long enough time to worry, enough time to be terrified, enough time to realize they were never coming back. Perhaps it was war, perhaps it was a plague, I could only guess. For all eternity, I can only guess.

Once I feared the finality of death. But I never wanted to live forever.

 

 

 

The Cloak-A Very Short Story

The Cloak

 

It was another day in her inexplicable existence, and she rose from her bed because it had ceased to give her comfort. She knew that today she must go into town to buy groceries if she was to have anything to eat, but she considered going hungry for the day. In times past she had gone for days without food in order to delay the ordeal that the trip meant, but as she grew older she learned that this was foolish. It was not that she despised the trip any less, in fact her hatred had grown. But delaying the unavoidable only caused her more discomfort. And so she dressed as she prepared herself mentally for the cold wind that shook her windows. Lastly, she donned her black cloak without which she never left her house. It protected her from the harsh breeze and the cold eyes that she had noticed looking at her when she had still dared to look at the townspeople. It protected them from having to look at her and in so doing, it protected her from their looks of disgust. She had been told when she was young that she was not pretty, and so she hid her ugliness in what even then was an old and rancid piece of clothing. It was preferable, she thought, than to hide her ugliness behind beautiful clothing: better the ugly truth than a pretty lie. And as she grew older and came to know herself more, she did not care that the cloak became ever more black and hideous. However hideous the cloak was, it was but a hint of what lay beneath it. And so she left her home and began her walk toward her destination. The cold weather was a good reason for her to hide behind the cloak all the more, so that her face was all but hidden. She walked until she saw in the distance a group of people walking toward her. She pulled the cloak still closer as she felt the coldness rise within her. This coldness she had long come to recognize as hatred, and its chill grew ever the more keen as the days and years passed. This black ice within her soul grew with every cold stare, was fed even more by each averted glance. But as the people passed her, she would not allow herself to observe their reaction. Instead she concentrated on the horrible swell of emotion that grew within her, forcing her to exert all her will simply to continue her pace. No sooner had this group passed than she looked down the street to see a couple approaching from a distance.

Anything that grows within us, left unchecked, will eventually overflow us and spill out onto others. And so it was with her. Though she continually pushed the hatred down, tried to contain it, it ever and again sprang up stronger than before. Until, on this day, the hatred found her too small a thing to pour itself onto; she was not a big enough target for the hate she felt. A lifetime of self-hatred taught to her by the outside world sought a victim other than her, whom it had already drained. The equilibrium between self-loathing and hatred for the outside world that caused her suffering was lost, and that which was contained for so long spilled over. For so long was the eruption contained that the overflow was explosive. The rush of released energy made her giddy. Her deepest vileness she could no longer contain, nor did she want to. She was exalted in the cataclysm that finally found release; today she would no longer bear alone the burden of her repulsiveness. She thrilled at the thought of exposing her deepest, darkest self to those who would be horrified by it. Eyeing the approaching couple, she removed the cloak that would no longer shield an ugliness which was no more her fault than the world's. Freed from the cloak, her skin was awakened by the cold breeze. She wore a maniacal smile on her face, as though she could feel the blackness radiating from her. She walked on in a fury, and as the people approached she stared them straight in the eye in challenge. But the couple simply smiled genially, and walked on.