Friday 6 May 2011

Joined my first Blog Fest!! Flash Fiction

So I have joined my first Blog Fest! Which is very exciting. And it's a flash fiction blog fest by Cherie Reich, and you all know how much I love flash fiction. 

Anyway, I wrote this story a while back, but it's still one of my favourites :)
Looking forward to reading everyone else's flash fiction stories! 


Maybe

We were watching Pearl Harbour in bed.
You always liked watching war movies, although I never understood why. Perhaps it made you think of your own luck and mortality, or maybe showed you techniques and weapons that made you feel stronger about your country’s army. I just assumed that watching these kinds of films would be hard, and would bring back memories of your own past in a country coloured by war.
I wrap myself around you and mould my body to your contour. You lie still like a rifle and watch the screen intently, making sounds when bombs explode and crude comments on the soldiers’ wives.
‘Have you done something like that?’ I ask, when soldiers lurk in trenches.
‘Have you been in a situation like that?’ I ask, when they run through bushes with bullets flying around their bodies like flies on a summer’s day.
 ‘Have you ever had a gun held up to you?’
You always answered yes.
Then Ben Affleck appears again after we all thought he died in a bombed plane, and he tells Evelyn, his love, that it was her that gave him strength and kept him alive.
I turn to you then, my large eyes wilting tears like a bullet hole oozing blood, and ask if I would keep you alive in a war. You don’t answer at first and I shake you lightly, saying ‘babe, babe, would you stay alive because of me?’ and you shuffle up the bed till you’re almost sitting upright and you mutter,
“Shhh, I’m trying to watch. It’s a stupid question,’
                                                                                    your words slipping out like a rolled grenade. 

10 comments:

  1. nice job. good luck in the contest.

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  2. This is brilliant. Pearl Harbor is one of my guilty pleasures. There are so many reasons not to like it - historical inaccuracy, poor storytelling, blah characters. But somehow I can't help loving it. It's one of the few movies that makes me bawl every time I watch it. This story is a great riff. That ending line is a kicker.

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  3. Wow! Loved the loaded ending - Good job!

    Hub and I lived in Hawaii when they filmed Pearl Harbor - I happened to be a Hickham Air Force Base the afternoon of the morning they shot many of those scenes. The fake 'fires' still burned. Cool!

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  4. Awesome job, Lani. Love your flash fiction! I can see your obsession with war stories shining through ;)

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  5. Thanks for all the comments!
    Sari, I definitely have an obsession with war stories!
    Kittie, that's so cool!

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  6. Ooh. Great ending! Great descriptive phrase: "my large eyes wilting tears like a bullet hole oozing blood".

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  7. Nice job! Being an ex military wife, I can sympathize with your MC. Now following your blog.

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  8. Lana, this has great imagery. I thought the technique was done well. I love the “your words slipping out like a rolled grenade.” I can just see the explosion coming there between those two. Nicely done!

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  9. Great ending! A little hurtful (does he even realize it's hurtful?) but good.

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  10. Thank you so much guys! I really appreciate the comments

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