The 37 stories, vignettes, and apocryphal tales contained in this anthology are reprints of Peter McMillan's and Adam Mac's flash fiction that has been published on the Internet.
Flash! Fiction
Flash! Fiction 2
Flash! Fiction 4
From the book:
The Writer Who Had to Write Big
Some writers write about the small, the everyday, the ordinary, and, turning it over and over and looking at it from all sides, the good ones turn up something never before seen in precisely that light.
Christopher couldn't tolerate the banal, however artistically finessed. He had to have the big theme, larger than life, steeped in history and suggestive of the future.
He should have been a novelist, but he was afflicted with a genius that grew bored very, very quickly. So, he wrote flash fiction fleeting bursts of the imagination compressed into a short story that can be fully digested in 3-5 minutes.
His friends were polite but curious when they asked how he could write about epic themes in only slightly more detail than haiku. Of course, they never asked him directly. They always asked one another, rhetorically.
From an early age, Christopher was fascinated by the transcending. That's the one thing that he enjoyed so much about his religious lessons as a young boy. Religion introduced him to the infinite, and this liberated him from the common and the boring repetition of things and people and places.
Gaining entry was difficult and inexplicable. However, it was impossible for Christopher to navigate through the infinite. He simply yielded to the infinite. Although it was blasphemous, some even maintained that no one had ever mastered the infinite. But that was a large part of the attraction for Christopher—an infinite that got larger the farther you got into it.
Christopher was not a scholar. He didn't have the attentiveness for that kind of work. In a library he would sit quietly at a table for 20-30 minutes, then get up, walk around, look through the stacks and return to his table with another 10 or so books completely unrelated to what he'd been reading. This could go on for an entire afternoon or evening, and afterwards his table would be covered with towering, unsteady piles of books having no discernible theme uniting them.
Christopher wrote better than average. He wasn't a great writer, just like he was not a profound thinker or serious scholar. But he was still captivated by the larger than life. As he grew older and as the limits of life became more and more real to him, he began to reach out again for the world of the infinite that had mesmerized him as a youngster.
He began to write—big. He knew he couldn't capture it on the epic canvas of a great novel. He could only see glimpses of it, and sometimes he couldn't even describe it in words. Often what he wrote would seem to represent his insight, but then on hearing another's opinion, he would realize how miserably he failed.
Over the final years of his life, he wrote hundreds of pieces of flash fiction—finite sketches of the infinite. He never published them, and they were never published posthumously.
First published in Writers Haven Magazine, Issue 13, The Writer.
Hindsight
Street level in the financial district it was dark and the streetlights were still on. Overhead the sky was blue and sunlight glinted off the windows of the upper floors.
Seven o’clock in the morning used to mean a seat on the train all the way in. Now it’s standing room only … if you’re lucky. And in the train station, the concourse is packed from six on. By seven thirty the one-block walk to the subway is an achingly slow shuffle. One step, two steps, stop. Step back to let people into the food court. Step forward, reach for a door, push into the surge of bodies. Pass through the smokers’ gauntlet. Walk through the next set of doors, down the cracked tile steps, carefully through the spinning turnstile and then off to the shortest escalator line-up.
At the office by eight, he rarely had time to himself anymore, because the rest of the management team was also coming in early, and like him they weren’t going home any earlier. By eight he was fully engaged and he didn’t stop until after one, when he and a few of the other managers went to a bar for lunch.
Meetings were booked solid through the day and micro-managed down to the scripts. He lectured and commanded his people. Among his peers in meetings, he was a team player. When summoned by the executive, he nodded on cue.
Sometimes by seven, like tonight, but usually before eight, unless it was end of quarter, meetings were wrapping up and cell phones were coming out to make or change appointments. Ritualistically, allowances were made for a round or two of decompression drinking at a bar on the way to the station.
But not tonight. He had an engagement with his wife. Thanks to her family’s endowments over the years, they were members of the exclusive museum society and had been invited to a special preview. Though not the enthusiast his wife was, he was amenable as long as there were no crowds, pushing and shoving, no offensive odours, and absolutely no children.
The preview didn’t start until 8:30, so when he phoned her he suggested they meet at the little Hungarian place around the corner behind the museum. The service there was polite and friendly—quaint—and the schnitzel and beer were good stout fare for a long evening.
Back at the museum in plenty of time, they were greeted by the director and the curator and then mingled with the other guests before proceeding to the exhibit.
The main hall, its ceiling also the roof of the four-story museum, swallowed the elite gathering. In the centre was what the curator described as a reconstruction of a royal burial structure, made entirely of stone in the shape of a pyramid with a flat top. Its back half was cross-sectioned to reveal a three-dimensional labyrinth and to reduce its base in proportion to its forty-foot height.
According to the curator, a self-described aficionado and autodidact of the architecture, a pyramid structure of this modest scale would have required a few thousand men working between five and ten years to construct, using the primitive tools of the period. A 14-hour day in temperatures above 40°C with limited fresh water and no shade was typical and that was on top of the daily two-hour ritual trek to the site and back.
The rest of the curator’s remarks were directed to the phenomenal human engineering predating the Mesoamerican pyramids, the extraordinary precision of the construction, the intricate underground network connecting the pyramidal structures on barren plains, and the deceptively simple form that disguised an infinitely complex and elaborate interior. The tour was an hour and a half, and at the conclusion, the consensus was that the exhibition would indeed vindicate the museum’s decision to host this large and costly exhibition.
Afterward, he and his wife joined another couple for drinks and chatted about kids, college, vacation plans, retirement, and markets. The exhibit didn’t come up. He and his wife shared a cab to the train station. He caught the train home and slept through his stop. She took the cab on to the airport for her flight to Beijing.
First published in Vending Machine Press, December 1, 2013.
The Doctor's Office
Doc Baxter had been our family doctor going on 50 years. On Momma's side anyway. Daddy was from the city.
The first time I remember going to the doctor was right before I started first grade. Just a checkup, Daddy said. He took me because it was Saturday.
The waiting room was huge and square. Hanging on the blue pastel walls were bright paintings of the town and set against the walls were heavy wooden chairs that couldn't tip over. On the large coffee table in the middle were neatly arranged copies of Southern Living, Field & Stream, Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, and the weekly newspaper.
It was the end of summer and it wasn't crowded. There was a skinny guy with a thick black beard and a cast on his left leg. I asked Daddy why he didn't have any names on his cast like my older sister Tessie had when she broke her arm climbing a tree in our neighbor's backyard. He said it was probably a new cast and he just hadn't gotten around to it.
There was an old woman with sunglasses who seemed to stare right into me. When I told Daddy, he whispered, "She can't see you, son. She just hears your voice. Don't talk so loud."
Up at the reception window, a shaky old man with thick, white eyebrows was taking small bottles of pills out of a brown paper bag and handing them over to the lady. That seemed odd. Daddy saw where I was looking and anticipated my question.
That's Mr. Paul. His wife just passed, and I expect he's bringing back her medication in case someone else can use it."
"That's sad, Daddy."
"Yes, it is, son, and that's why Momma's baking a pie to take over later this evening. Mrs. Paul was one of her favorite teachers."
There were two other people. A young girl and her mother who looked real tired. The girl had been crying. The mother held her daughter's hand and stared straight ahead. I looked up at Daddy, and he said very softly, "Some things aren't proper for us to ask about, son."
Just then the front door opened setting off the tinkling sound of the bell. You couldn't sneak in here, that's for sure. It was a lady from the bank. She was sneezing up a storm, and when she moved her hanky away, I saw her nose was as big and bright as an apple.
"Hay fever," said Daddy.
"But there's not hay yet. Daddy, when do they start making those rolls— "
Before I could finish, the nurse called us to Doc Baxter's consulting rooms in the back.
Doc Baxter welcomed us.
"Well, well, young man. I see you're all grown up and ready to make your mark in the world. We've gotta make sure you're fit as a fiddle. We're gonna give you a checkup, and I betcha you'll pass with flying colors. It'll be just like going into the Army."
"But I thought you were in the Navy?" I asked.
"Yep, now stick out your tongue and say 'Ah' ... again. Now hold still. I'm gonna look in your ears. Now your eyes. This may tickle a bit. I'm gonna tap your funny bone to check your reflexes."
He didn't talk about the Navy, but there were pictures on the wall. I saw them up close when I got on the scales. One was a framed letter with a medal, and next to it was a wide photograph of a bunch of men in green uniforms, 'fatigues,' Daddy called them. I was confused.
"But isn't Navy blue, Daddy?"
"Doc Baxter was a surgeon in a field hospital not on a ship," he answered, and of course he had to explain that one to me, because for me a field was either a corn field or a football or baseball field.
Meanwhile, Doc Baxter had been going over the paperwork at his desk. Before I could ask any more questions, he was congratulating me and patting me on the back.
"You're a healthy and inquisitive young man. Hang on to those two things. And be sure to say hello to your momma for me. You know I was her doctor when she was your age?"
First published in Beyond Imagination Digital Literary Magazine, Issue 2, March 2014.
The Box
Nathalie walked in with a box. Said it was for me. Didn't say who it was from, just that it was left for me.
I asked her to open it since my arthritis was acting up real bad and I was liable to drop it and break or scatter whatever was inside.
She said she'd have to do it later, 'cause she had to go look after Miss Emily down the hall. Miss Emily had fallen again.
Nathalie put the box on my bedside table, within sight but just out of reach in case I tried to get it and pushed it over by accident.
It was a pretty good size box. Not a moving box or anything close to that size. More like a hat box, for women's hats. I never wore a hat, but my late wife, Lizzie, did.
A hat box. Square. Two of them that size would have been a perfect cube. Seemed kinda old to me. Not that it was scratched or damaged in any way. It just looked old, like it couldn't be from today's stores. But then I'm not exactly up-to-date anymore.
Something to think about—this box. I had to figure who could have sent it and what was inside it. Couldn't imagine. Hadn't seen or talked to any friends or family in I don't know how long. Course, most of our friends were on the West Coast and both Lizzie and me were only children and our two boys died young. Their wives remarried and we lost touch.
What could be in there? Didn't look heavy when Nathalie moved it. Didn't rattle around either. Maybe a blanket, an afghan, or whatever they call them, donated by some organization or other in town. That would be nice. Thoughtful. It does get pretty chilly in here some nights and that would feel good on my legs.
Nathalie was back. She started to take my vitals, and I shook my head with as much force as I could muster and said I had to know what was in the box. She asked if I'd been worrying about that all this time. I nodded.
She moved the box close to my bedside and took off the lid. Inside was a framed photograph of me and Lizzie—must have been in our twenties—and another of me and Lizzie and the boys at the Grand Canyon. There was a commencement program for our oldest who graduated first in his class in college. There were letters from our youngest from when he was overseas. His boyhood stamp collection was neatly tucked away. A copy of our first mortgage was in there, partly burned because we changed our minds and decided to stamp it "Paid in Full" and keep it as a souvenir. The dog tags from Tag, Sparky, Pal, and Roxie were carefully wrapped in a kerchief that Roxie used to wear on special occasions. Christmas cards from our closest friends and our grownup boys were carefully bundled. The pocket watch from her grandfather—on her mother's side—that got returned…twice.
I stopped her. "Nathalie, take it away! Please! It's too much. Please take it away."
She did. That evening I begged her for an extra pain killer or sedative or something—just for one night, I said.
The next day I realized that Lizzie had sent the box, sort of. She had kept a box of memorabilia like that in our attic. I never looked in it. After Lizzie passed, I never thought about the box again, so it must have been sitting there until the new owners came across it and pieced together who it belonged to. That was real thoughtful of them.
First published in Quail Bell Magazine, March 15, 2014.