Category: Flash Fiction

Blog, Flash Fiction

Dark Past – Flash Fiction

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Dark Past

Her honey-colored hair reminded him of the late afternoon sun when he had first seen her.  She was standing at the lakeshore looking across, as if searching for something or someone.  He had often caught glimpses of her in the long shadows, always looking out at the water.  She was a visitor, not a local, he was sure of that.  He found himself timing his schedule to coincide with her afternoon walks just so he could see her again. His interest in her was almost becoming an obsession.

Attracted to the mystery surrounding her he felt those old familiar urges stirring in his body.  Resurfacing from that dark, cold place he had vacated long ago.  It frightened him.  He could still hear his therapist’s voice in his head, “Remember Robert, for beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, for the other person     

Copyright © 2023 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Mish is hosting Prosery Monday at D'Verse Poets.  Her prompt tonight is:

The line I have chosen for you to include in your prose is from the poem, “The First Elegy”, Duinos Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke. You can find the entire poem here.

"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.”

Prosery is a piece of flash fiction consisting of no more than 144 words total excluding the title.  The piece should include the prompt line from Mish's chosen poem
Blog, Flash Fiction

Unforgettable – Flash Fiction

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Unforgettable

In the warm morning air I walked along the beach. My footsteps the only ones visible after the previous night’s storm. Kicking through seaweed and the empty shells of horseshoe crabs I let my mind wander back to you. It was here we built our love on a foundation of sand, ignoring the risks. We’d lay in sunshine as it darkened our skin and tingled our noses. At sunset, when night devoured the day, we made love under a moonlit, starry sky. Our promises were made to be broken. Time stood still as we constructed sandcastles dedicated to a summer love that neither of us wanted to end. Inevitably it did and we went our separate ways.

So long ago but in space in time I sit thousands of feet above the sea and I am still able to conjure an image of you.

Copyright © 2023 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Merril is hosting Prosery Monday at D’Verse and has prompted us to write a piece of flash fiction or non-fiction that includes the following line:

“In space in time I sit thousands of feet above the sea”
From May Sarton, “Meditation in Sunlight”

Prosery is to be no more that 144 words excluding the title.

Blog, Flash Fiction, Healing

Starting Over – Flash Fiction

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The fragrant smell of roses was my wake up call reminding me to savor the moment.  How long had it been?  Was it three or four years?  Shuddering I dispelled the troublesome thoughts that continued to creep into my head, derailing me.  I let my mind come back to the present. Today was going to be about me and I just hoped I could remember how to do that.

Taking my tea, I stepped outside, feeling the warmth of the morning sun.  I sat at the table I had lovingly restored and repainted.  There was a breeze that gently blew away the cobwebs of my past.  I felt almost light-headed as the thought of not one single duty to attend to brought a smile to my face.  Many possibilities suddenly presented themselves and I thought this year’s a different thing – I will not think of you

Copyright © 2023 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Merril js hosting Prosery Monday at D’Verse
We are to write a piece of Flash Fiction or Non Fiction incorporating this line from Charlotte Mews’s poem called I So Liked Spring.

This year’s a different thing - I will not think of you.

Prosery is regarded as a piece of fiction/non fiction of no more than 144 words, excluding the title.



Blog, Flash Fiction

Into the Gray – Flash Fiction

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Into the Gray

I sit by the window looking outside.  The dawn has barely broken, and a fine mist is suspended just above the lake’s surface. The silence of the morning has an eerie feel to it.  The sun yet to show itself, hidden by the foreboding still-dark clouds.

Having barely slept my eyes are sore.  Puffy bags have formed under my lower lids. A small price to pay for a night without bad dreams.  It has been four days since arriving at the cabin and I have yet to see another soul.

I venture outside and down the slope to the water’s edge.  Mist still visible providing a light blanket of cover.  Shedding the confinement of clothing I slip into the cold water.  Allowing it to consume me and in the tender gray, I swim undisturbed.  The water washes away the nightmares that had consumed me.

Copyright © 2022 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved


Lisa from Tao Talk is hosting Prosery Monday at D'Verse.  She has given us the following line of poetry to be the prompt for our piece of Flash Fiction.

"In the tender gray, I swim undisturbed" 
by Celia Dropkin,from, “In Sullivan County”

D'Verse Prosery is Flash Fiction of exactly 144 words excluding the title.

Image by Esther Heide from Pixabay
Blog, Flash Fiction, Pain/Sadness

The Tangled Web We Weave – Flash Fiction

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The Tangled Web We Weave

He never listened. Oh, he heard, but was incapable of listening to her.

In the beginning she loved his intelligence and sweetness. There was something deliciously romantic about his thoughtful gestures. He cast a spell on her, capturing her in his jeweled web. Making sure she was good and stuck in place. She could neither come nor go. The quirkiness of his personality once refreshing and keeping her always on her toes, now suffocating. Trapped by his weirdness that quickly lost its appeal. Squeezing the breath from her lungs and energy from her body.

What she mistakenly took for romance was actually a predator luring his prey. Now his web constricts and chokes her until she is no more.  To her, death is quite romantic. She speaks no more but he didn’t listen to her anyway.  If he couldn’t have her, then nobody would.

Copyright © 2022 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved
 
Bjorn is hosting Prosery Monday at D’Verse. He has prompted us with a line from Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row to be included in our piece of flash fiction to be no more than 144 words.
”To her, death is quite romantic”
Blog, Flash Fiction

Flower Child – Flash Fiction

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Flower Child

Every Sunday without fail, mother and I would walk to the station and catch the morning train to the coast to see my grandmother.   

Mother would tend to grandmother’s garden, caring for roses, mowing grass and trimming bushes. I amused myself as best I could for an eight-year old but mostly I learned about flowers.  Names like Peony, Hollyhock, and Delphinium. The term “bedding plants” made the child I was, giggle.  But pretty blue Lobelia was prefect next to the white Alyssum.

Exhausted we’d return in the early evening with armfuls of her beautiful blooms.   

I did not always want to go.  I know now my mother was escaping from her unhappy life and needed the diversion.  She is no longer here and I think I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace reminding me always of her.

Copyright © 2022 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Sanaa aka adashofsunny is hosting Prosery Monday at D'Verse.
She has prompted us with this line from a poem that is to be included
in our piece of flash fiction exactly as it is.  

"I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace.”  from the poem, “What I would like to grow in my Garden.” by Katherine Riegel.

The piece of flash fiction is to have no more than 144 words'
Blog, Flash Fiction

Happy as a Lark – Flash Fiction

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Happy as a Lark

Time of no consequence on this summer afternoon.  Reclining comfortably on the cool grass, my back against the shady oak.  Around me gossamer wings of dragonflies work overtime returning my incredulous stare.

Birdsong fills the air as buttercups wave in the breeze.  My mind wanders wherever it wishes and I remember childhood family walks through these fields.  Being the youngest I’d sit atop my father’s shoulders. My siblings carrying the makings of a picnic our mother would set on a tartan blanket.  After, we would play hide and seek and make daisy chains to wear.  Happy as larks we would run until exhausted and collapse in a heap under a tree.

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings.  Unrecognizable at first but then as I stir it becomes clearer.  The beautiful sound of a summer lark completing my reverie.

Copyright © 2022 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Lisa is hosting Prosery Monday at D'Verse Poets tonight.  The line we are to use in our piece of Flash Fiction or Non Fiction is by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., from The Chambered Nautilus "Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings"
Prosery is exactly 144 words excluding the title.  It cannot be poetry.
Blog, Flash Fiction

Crooked Smile – Flash Fiction

by  • 

Crooked Smile

She had known pain.  Living with her like a constant companion.  Sometimes nudging, often poking.  Always reminding her of its presence.

The hurt ever-present. Over time festering in her heart, she would lance it like a boil.  Easing out the poison stopping it traveling to her very soul.  Concentrating on this familiar task helped her through another day.

The pain reminded her she was alive. Without it, dead.  To the observer, she was a hamster on a wheel continuously moving, going nowhere, caught in a vicious cycle.  That is how I remembered her.

Now returning to that place I see her vacant look gone.  Replaced with shining eyes I’d never noticed before. Knowing instinctively what happened to the pain she carried.  She’d had it sliced away, leaving a scar, and she wore it proudly on her face in the form of a crooked smile.

Copyright © 2022 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Prosery Monday at D'Verse is hosted tonight by Sarah from SarahSouthwest.  She
has given us a line from a poem by Michael Donaghy.
"She’d had it sliced away, leaving a scar"
We are to use it in exact order in our piece of fiction of exactly 144 words.
Blog, Flash Fiction

Because They Can – Flash Non-Fiction

by  • 

Evil lives in all of us, of that I am certain.  The good have filters, able to sift through madness knowing instinctively right from wrong. The bad have none.  They wear their hatred openly in the guns they carry.  They know their rights and that’s enough for them.  To hell with ‘bleeding heart liberals’ who want to take them away.  How dare they!  

Who teaches this hatred?  What atrocities can bring someone to this place of evil?  What would this person have done if the gun laws were different?  Stabbed people one by one in a grocery store before being stopped after the second victim? Poisoned the lemonade served to children in school? No, of course not.  These are the things they don’t tell us.  Why would they when their country allows purchase of assault rifles to murder innocents in a more expedient manner? 😡

Copyright © 2022 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

The 144 word limit for Prosery Monday was not enough to release the anger inside me for the ugliness I witness at an alarming rate in this country.  It is as if we are at war with mankind.  Such hatred for the innocents whether children or minorities. 

Lisa from Tao Talk is our host tonight for Prosery Monday at D'Verse Poets and she shared a very moving poem she found on Facebook about the slaughter of those young children in Uvalde, Texas.  She picked one line from the poem and asked us to use it in our prosery tonight. 

“These are the things they don’t tell us”
by Girl Du Jour, from Notes on Uvalde

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