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Shortline Shorties
About a decade ago, I did a couple of flash fiction tales based on a writing prompt from a now-defunct website. What was provided was a photo depicting the old trope of a girl tied to the railroad tracks and the word “vindictive.” Even though it was a man tied to the tracks in one of the earliest forms of this plot device, the damsel-in-distress format is the one that has stuck in most people’s minds. You could be quite flexible with the interpretation of the prompts in those wild and crazy days, so I wrote two flash fiction tales.
Anyway, here they are, bits from that early part of my authoring life. I know it doesn’t fit with the holiday time frame, but I thought perhaps a break from the tinsel, eggnog, and Amazon Prime was in order…
Sharp Girl
Vanessa sat in the theater where the old movies were playing, but her mind wasn’t on the film. Brad had talked her into going, and then called to cancel at the last minute leaving her standing in the lobby with two tickets. If that wasn’t bad enough, a friend sent a text telling her she’d seen Brad at the beach with another girl. She glanced up just as the scene of the helpless young woman tied to the railroad tracks appeared and smiled. “If she had a blade like mine,” Vanessa thought as her fingers caressed the hunting knife in her purse…
