Flash Fic Challenge: Love After Death

 Love After Death

Everyone agreed that the house was haunted. It seemed to have a particular grudge against couples who sneaked in to have a bit of relative privacy for kissing - or more.

“And well,” Josephine mused as she wrapped her arms around Annie, their long skirts merging in the gloom, “'everybody' isn't exactly - wrong.”

Annie laughed and leaned back into Josephine. “Just those who don't know their history and would be doomed to repeat it.”

Behind the two women, some of the graffiti stood out.

One said, “Rubber.”

Another read, “Baby Buggy,” complete with illustration.

“Bumper!” exclaimed a third.

Annie and Josephine fell silent as a boy tugged a girl through the broken doorway. He wasn't listening when she turned her face nervously away, only lifted her chin with two fingers and leaned in for a kiss, small sounds echoing softly from the graffitied walls.

Annie tipped her own head back. “Tell me the old, old story. How does it go?”

“Once upon a time,” Josephine whispered, watching as the boy dismissed the girl's concerns and covered his own with bravado, “there was a boy with a charming smile and a girl who fell in love with him.”

Annie picked up the tale, stepping sideways so that she could hold Josephine's hand rather than be held by her. “He said that he loved her, and she believed him, so he took her somewhere private, and they made the beast with two backs.”

The women drifted closer to the couple, their clothing centuries apart, but heart and tale and purpose all identical.

“He only claimed he loved her until she got with child,” Josephine whispered, and no wall echoed her voice.

Only Annie echoed her. “She got with child,” and they both swept forward together, crying, “and then she died of it!”

The couple shuddered at their touch. The boy fled.

The girl watched him go. She didn't turn and look for the women, only said, “Thank you. He didn't want to listen. I won't intrude on your privacy anymore.”

Then she too was gone.

“And then,” Annie finished, “I met my sweet Josephine. May I?”

Josephine laughed and pulled her in for a kiss. “You may, always and forever, love of my death.”

Flash Fic Challenge: Digging Deeper

 Digging Deeper

I was the first to arrive at the dig, but the other two students weren't far behind. A boy and another girl.

I grinned and waved. "Hi, I'm Eva, nice to meet you."

They introduced themselves in turn as Tom and Jane, and we all went to see what the archeologists in charge wanted us to do. Jane and I ended up on sifting and sorting, while Tom took pictures of the finds with the old film camera that the head archeologist insisted on (no batteries required!).

Tom offered me the camera, but I just shook my head. "You're better. Cameras hate me."

It was hot, of course, during the day, but cold at night. This was the desert, after all. The dig is here because things hang around for longer out here. The work was worth it though, and we did find things for Tom to photograph - bits of pottery mostly.

It wasn't until the last day when the camera caught up with me. Tom and Jane grabbed me between them, grinning for the camera to "use up the last bit of film". I grinned too - I'd had a good run at this dig at least, and there would be another one soon.

Things hang around longer in the desert, me included, and at least this time I'd be gone before the photos had been developed and they realised I didn't show up at all in them.

Flash Fic Challenge: Lost and Found

Lost and Found

 

The school sat in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Faded posters still clung to a few of the walls. A handful of never-claimed items still lay in the old lost property box. Some said that on moonlit nights, you could still hear children's voices echoing inside.

Sam had never been one of them, and on this cold wet night, having missed the last bus out of the village, the abandoned school seemed his best bet for shelter.

He found an unlocked window that could be prised open, and climbed inside. It was dry, and cold and bare. Sam closed the window behind him, settled on the ground, and leaned back against the wall.

A draft ruffled a loose piece of paper, leaving it to flap tiredly from the last staple holding it to the wall. The wind whined a little about the corners of the building, and hitched, just a little, like a muffled sob.

Just the wind. Sam sighed, shifted on the hard concrete, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, there was a little child standing beside him, crying in the soft, hopeless, exhausted way of someone who has been crying for a long time and sees no way out of their situation.

Sam groaned, stiff and cold and tired, and mumbled, still half asleep, "What do you want?"

"I want my Okky," the child sniffed. "One of the big boys stole him and I never got him back."

"And you want me to help look?"

The child stared at Sam, mouth open, tears dying on their cheek. "You.... want to help me? You're not ... leaving?"

"Not right now, anyway." He heaved himself to his feet, and held out a hand. "Where did you last see .... Okky, was it?

The child took it, icy fingers clinging to his warm ones, and he shivered. "This way." They led him to the staff office and pointed through the doorway to a box. "I'm not allowed in. Only grown ups are."

"Well," Sam said. "I guess that's me." He let go of that cold, cold hand, and walked though the doorway and over to the lost property box. There, on the top, grey with dust, was a small stuffed octopus. He held it up for the child to see, and the small face lit up.

"Well then." He carried it out of the staff office and offered it to the child.

Small hands clasped the toy, hugging it tightly, and then the child - faded into nothing.

Not even the wind remained.

Flash Fic Challenge: Tulips

 Tulips

 

The tulips can appear anywhere. Flickers in the air around a table, in a buttonhole, over a heart. I don't know if anyone except me can see them, but I gather them when I can find them, from wherever they are, and take them home. They're never in the same place twice, though they all look much the same - like glass so thin and clear it's barely visible, like a dream on the cusp of being tangible, like the ghost of a tulip, caught in mid-bloom.

I plant them out behind my home, row on row. They don't seem to grow there yet, except to take root, but with every new tulip I find, they gain a little more colour, a little more solidity - and so do I.

Put simply, they are the key to my life and my heart.

I died in a tulip field, on the day that the tulip bubble burst. I became the ghost of all the tulips in the field, and all the dreams that had been pinned on them. Only when I finally gather them all back together will I be whole enough to rest - or to return.

So, if you'll excuse me, I will be taking the tulip tucked behind your ear now.

Don't worry, it won't hurt.

Much.