Flash Fiction Exercises
Dry: One Syllable Rejection
He stands from the bed, as if I’d gone. His strides are long as he moves to the edge of the room. His spine pokes up through his skin when he plucks a pair of socks from the heap of clothes. First, he stands at the glass to look into his own eyes, to peer at his honed arms, his full lips. He slides his jeans on each long leg, the ones that are trained to run. Once more, he turns to gaze at the way the light falls on the hard turn of his jaw, each dip in his chest to be viewed. He picks the socks next and sits on the edge of the bed to put them on. This way I have the best view of the veins that snake down his hands. He’s left his chest bare for one last glimpse of him, this boy they all fall on their knees to touch. He yanks a shirt down and turns to see me. His eyes are hard as stone, a shade of dark ice, stunned to see me still here.
“When do you think you’ll head out?”
Autumn Ash: How to describe a season without adjectives
The leaves chatter as a breeze drags them across the cobblestones. The bench beneath me had frozen, the wood hardened to stone. The crispness in the air creeps its way into my lungs. It nips at my shoulders. The trees have long since erupted into flame. The leaves have all burned and shriveled. The reds and rusts of sunset have withered to leather and fallen to the ground. The tourists have gone, finished with their picture taking. In their lenses, they captured the hillsides that blaze once a year. They’ve stolen the beauty and returned to their homes. The natives are left here, with the carcasses of autumn at our feet. The skeletons of trees stretch up to the sky. Winter is coming and felt first in the lungs of a young lover waiting at the bus stop.
more by NOELLE CURRIE
photograph by Azrul Aziz
