On Flashfic

Most of the stuff here at the Unpronounceable´s is pretty easy to read and lighthearted. I try not to post anything too long and tedious, such as short stories and semi-written novels.

However, there are times when I can´t resist adding a more (or less) serious body of work in here. In order to maintain readability I have confined these stories to be strictly of the flash fiction variety. Flash fiction, for those who are unaware of the term, means extremely short stories, with brevity restricted to 300-1000 words, depending on who you ask. I have decided on a 500 word cap, because I like to think of these as “one minute stories” (a term coined by the Hungarian genius István Örkény) and a word count higher than that would take more than a minute to read.

Today I posted the first of these stories. Like comedy articles and other items here, they have a category button of their own at the top of the page, so you can either concentrate on them alone or filter them out altogether, depending on your views on them.

Please enjoy. Or don´t. Like everything in life, it´s your choice.

Phoenix Monochrome

 

It starts out almost as an afterthought. A memory, perhaps.

They have finished feeding and stand content when, unexpected, one of them will move like this. And, as close to always as can be, that is where it also ends. But sometimes the next one responds by moving like that. And the one beside it will follow with another complicated motion. And the others will join in.

It seems so easy and graceful. Move follows move in a spiraling ballet until the whole flock tunes in. The beauty of the dance, the unity of it is overwhelming.

And then they take flight.

If you were there and saw them ascend

(you aren´t and you won´t and you never will),

you would never believe your eyes. Science would cover them, tell them:

“What you see is impossible. We can prove it.”

And science would not be lying. But this has nothing to do with science at all.

There they are, up in the sky as one. There is magnificence to them, but also a sadness as they hover over the icy prison where the world with no stories has forced them to dwell. Together they are all the colors of imagination, all the shapes of legend. They are Bennu, Thunderbird and Simurgh. They are Phoenix. They are Crow and they are Minokawa.

For that one moment there are no belly-slides, no waddling, no orcas, no fear.

For that one moment they are whole.

Blink and it´s gone.