Gaie says:
When I first heard of flash fiction, I was, I admit it, sniffy. How could anyone possibly create something worthwhile within such a limited wordcount? Of course, I was struggling to finish a novel at the time and was not in the mood to admit that maybe you could produce good fiction without taking two years and an inordinate number of words to do it.
But then there's poetry, my first love. And poetry, with some epic exceptions, encapsulates an idea, a moment or a feeling within a very small space. It struck me (slowly but with some force, like a doped grizzly) that flash fiction, like poetry, isn't about being lazy, but about being precise.
So I started reading some flash, liked some of it a great deal, and realised I wanted to have a go at writing it.
Folie a Deux might be considered cheating. It was originally a 3,500 word story, and has been cut down to flash size. But there was a great satisfaction to be had from trimming out everything that didn’t need to be there. I may yet do this with other bits of the unpublished back-catalogue I have been keeping in the vague hope they might Come In Useful, like string.
But for those who would consider it cheating, I’ve also got some new ideas; in the same way that reading poetry makes me more inclined to write it, reading flash does the same.
I hope you enjoy the following. And if you don’t, well, at least you won't have wasted a lot of time…
Folie A Deux (829 words)
“I’m getting married,” Marty said.
“Married? To Jeff?”
“Yes. Full commitment.”
I felt my insides clench. Marty was always such a free spirit, it was the last thing I would have expected from her.
“Let’s meet up!” She was all bubbles.
“Great. Um…”
“The Pig in Clover? Tonight?”
***
Too late I remembered the Pig in Clover was where I’d had my final never-darken-my-psyche -again row with Jane. Of course, the only booth left was the site of the row, and of course the place was wall to wall couples.
Marty glowed, she really did. “Jeff, darling, get Kate, oh you have, there you go.”
Jeff put our pints down, and sat, and smiled at me. I wanted to hate him but it probably wasn’t even his idea. Marty’s always had what you might call a whim of iron.
“So,” I said. “You two. Eh?”
Yeah, I know. Brilliant.
“You look funny, Kate,” Marty tilted her head like a puppy. “Oh, don’t say you disapprove, honestly, I’ve had that from my Dad. He just doesn’t get it. You’ve been in love. This is the, like, ultimate. You know?”
“Your Dad must have been in love once,” I said. “And as for me…”
Yes, I’d been in love. In love enough to move in, though never quite in love enough to sign papers. Enough to run along beaches at midnight, but not enough to move to Hawaii. In love enough to do what they were contemplating? Not on your life. “You’re serious.”
“Of course we’re serious!” And she turned to look at Jeff and just beamed at him and he beamed back, a full-on daffy in-love grin.
They really meant it.
“It’s going to cost a fortune, Marty.”
“Oh, Kate. Always the accountant.”
“It’s my job. I mean, seriously, where are you going to get the money?”
“We’ll find it.” She took Jeff’s hand. “People are going back to this kind of commitment, Kate. After all, how else are you supposed to prove how much you love someone?”
***
The months leading to the wedding were horrible. It got so bad I even phoned my ex, Jane.
“Uh, how are you?” I said.
“Over it.”
“Good! I mean, Jesus. Jane, I’m sorry.”
“Yes, well. Oh, come on, you silly cow. What’s up?”
So I told her. I managed to keep the swearing and ranting to a minimum, pretty much. But there was still this long silence at the end.
“They’re going to do it then,” she said.
“Seems like it, yeah.”
“OK. Well, I can get why you’re upset. I mean, I think it’s yuck. But there’s…you know. The other aspect.”
“What other aspect?”
“You know what I mean, Kate.”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“They want to do it. They’re…committed. We were together three years and you wouldn’t put me on your car insurance.”
“Oh come on!”
It didn’t go well, on the whole.
***
I went away, I told Marty I’d booked the holiday the previous year. I couldn’t face the wedding. I spent a lot of my savings. I slept with a few people, including a pair of identical twins I met in a Cairo bar.
That didn’t end well either. There was this moment when I looked at them and thought, Jesus, they’re not really two separate people at all, and I threw up all over the bed.
Some of that was probably the dope, which was another thing I wasn’t used to. But it definitely put a damper on the evening.
I’d only been back a few days when I got the phone call. I was in that disembodied state you get after a lot of travelling, and I picked up without thinking.
“Kate! You’re back!”
I knew who it was, of course.
“Yeah, I am. How…how are you?”
“Great! Still a bit…you know. Let’s meet up!”
It was the Pig in Clover, of course.
I got there too early. Not early enough to be as drunk as I’d have liked, when the door finally opened and somehow I knew who it was. I kept staring at my pint until I heard the chair being pulled out.
“Hi Kate.”
I looked up.
It was tall, and smooth, and androgynous. Good-looking, I suppose, objectively. I recognised Marty’s mouth, and Jeff’s eyes. But it was a bland, blunted face.
My own felt utterly frozen, I don’t know how I spoke at all. “I don’t know what to call you,” I said.
“Well,” the thing said, “We decided on Jeffmar, in the end.”
I started laughing. I couldn’t stop, until the paramedics hit me with the second syringeful.
Jeffmar. Jesus, Marty. You never did have any taste.
***
I sit at home with the phone on my lap, and wonder who to call.
Exes. Friends. People who might be more than that…or not. So many possible combinations, so many possible conjunctions. I wonder about calling Jane.
But in the end, I don’t.
RSS Feed