I’ve written a few flash fiction stories to appease the voices in my head who don’t like this hiatus I’ve taken. But it’’ll do me good to write while I figure out which direction I want to go in as a writer. This first flash fiction story is about a woman in a less than ideal situation, trying to recall a song by Patsy Cline that’s been roaming around in her head as chaos surrounds her. I hope you enjoy it.
—Alice
It was an old mattress, on one of at least a dozen ancient cots that filled the bleak room. Mine had a spring poking through it, and the twangy sound it made reminded me of a Patsy Cline song, but I couldn’t remember which one.
“Stop—that—shit.” Brenda said. She slept in the cot across from me, and I didn’t care for her one bit.
It was my down time, and if I wanted to flick the spring sticking out from my mattress, by golly I sure as shit was.
Brenda didn’t see it that way though, and came over to my bunk, her face only inches from mine. “I said cut-that-shit-out!”
I often imagined how I could hurt Brenda, dreamed about it in fact, and it always ended with me standing victoriously over her limp body. But Brenda had at least fifty pounds on me, so if I was going to do something, I knew it was going to have to incapacitate her.
It was then that I remembered a movie I saw with Bruce Willis, where he jammed some guy in the throat with his hand, using the webbed part between the thumb and forefinger. It quickly dropped the guy to his knees.
‘Just try it,’ I told myself, ‘What do you got to lose’?
My life if it doesn’t work.
As Brenda moved away, I held my hand the way old Bruce did, pulled my arm back then launched it right into Brenda’s fat neck. She stumbled backward, gasping for air.
Crazy Carla stood up and began clapping “Yay, yay, she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe,” she yelled.
Brenda lunged at me, still taking swift shallow breaths, and I did it again. This time she fell face first on the hard floor,
“She’s not moving, she’s not moving!” Crazy Carla screamed with glee.
I laid back down on my bunk, and continued fiddling with that spring, trying to figure out what Patsy Cline song the sound reminded me of.
“Walking After Midnight,” that’s the song the bed spring reminded me of.
Crazy Carla must’ve thought so too because she began humming the tune and invited me to dance with her around Brenda’s cooling body lying on the cell room floor.
and here I thought you were the sweet, gentle, empathetic one in the old days... now I'm a little nervous and definitely do not want to annoy you.... I think that means you're a great story teller