Friday 21 June 2013

National Flash Fiction Day

Tomorrow, 22nd June, is National Flash Fiction Day.

As I'll be up the allotment sorting me sprouts and beans out tomorrow (rock and roll, eh?), I'll post this a day early. It's a little piece of flash I wrote a year or so ago. This was the original version, I also cut it down to 100 words, but I think this one works better.



Buy Me and Stop One


Rain pounded the car’s roof. Twenty-second of July, sixty degrees and rain. British summer: the worldwide joke.
Ricky left the car and walked to the ice-cream van. The man inside yawned.
“First customer today, what’ll it be?”
“I’ll be your last customer.” Ricky pointed his gun through the hatch. The server’s face contorted, eyes narrowed as he stared.
“You from the council? I was gonna get a licence. I swear I was.”
Ricky shook his head.
“Shit. You’re Carrie’s dad?”
Ricky nodded. Holiday memories from last year came back when he heard her name. Carrie’s sixteenth birthday. All grown up. Her first proper boyfriend. Then, back home. The pregnancy. The useless piece of shit of a boyfriend who wouldn’t return her calls. She was determined to keep the baby. Then the complications. The labour problems. Both of them dying in childbirth.
“I’m sorry,” the boyfriend shook his head.
“So am I.” Ricky pulled the trigger.



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