Flash Fiction is a type of short story that is extremely short, but which tells a full story in that short amount of time. These are my experiments with that category.
The Journal
It was written along the inside margin at the centerfold of her journal, “If you’d wanted to save him, you would have said ‘yes’.”
I closed the journal quickly and tossed it back atop the pile of papers that littered her desk. It was the last thing written in the journal, and with no marked date it revealed nothing. I fought the urge to reach for it again, just to double check, but lost all hope of that when she walked back through the door. If she’d wanted me to know, she’d say it, not write it where eyes were never meant to reach.
“Is cocoa okay?” she asked politely.
“Yes! Thank you!” I said. The journal was staring at me now. I was afraid she’d notice I’d touched it.
She handed me my mug then set herself down carefully on the chair opposite mine. She took a sip from her own mug and looked around the room once; did I imagine that her gaze paused on the marble patterned journal? Then she looked back at me.
“So! What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked, smiling at me so that she showed all her teeth.
I shifted in my chair, “I’m here about Robert Hausten.”
Her eyes fell and she set down her mug. I sipped my cocoa. It was just a little too hot.
Raven Heights
Her eyes grew wide and she backed away. I held out my hand but she screamed. If you’ve never heard the sound of your own heart shattering, then you cannot pretend to know how I felt when I pulled back my hand to avoid letting it brush her skin. I instead let it brush back the pieces of my love, so they would no longer contaminate her beautiful world.
“You go to church! How can you-?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I slept with you!” she was crying and clutching at the cross around her neck. How many times had I touched that cross as I ran my fingers across her breast? Now it was contrived to be a ward against me.
“I love you,” I said, though my voice broke and strained. I’d meant to apologize again. I stepped back from her, taking with me those small, fragile words.
“I slept with you! You monster! I slept with you!” she was hysterical now, and her hair, which was once a cool fire burning in my hand, was now a boiling red waterfall, shielding her sweet face from me.
I shook my head, but could utter nothing. Somehow I found the doorknob behind me, and managed to stumble down both flights of stairs- never again to set foot upon them again.
In the darkness I found myself crying, and I wept until I wound up upon the deserted steps of the church. There I knelt and cried to the locked door.
How could I be a monster? I was no different now than I was when I was born. Was it really better that she never know? I could have said nothing, but instead I did the cruelest thing and revealed the ugly truth. If I could not rip out my heart with my own hands, I’d settle for the pain she’d left me with. I’d have to settle for monster. Perhaps it suited me better than my own name.
In the morning I vowed to leave town forever after walking one last time past her window, in hopes I just might catch a glimpse of her pale skin and ruby hair. A mistake, as the only red I found was that of the blood beneath her window, still fresh against the morning grass.
Her mother was on her knees upon the porch steps, weeping and crying out, and her father’s eyes would never have met mine. The marshal said there was no sign that this was murder, that she’d climbed out the window of her own accord.
I wish they’d have accused me of murder. Maybe then I could have lived with it.
