“The Connection” by Bud Sparhawk and Ramona Wheeler
“Raft” by Larry Tritten
“Zinzi-zinzi-zinzic” by Robert Jeschonek
“The End of the Universe” by Eugie Foster
“Severance Pay” Shane Nelson
“The Connection” by Bud Sparhawk and Ramona Wheeler concerns a working mother who gets a corporate implant to facilitate her career, but feels the addictive rush of being plugged in. She longs for it with an unrelenting passion. A well-written flash piece, not only does the title connote drug addiction, but the mother’s need elucidates this theme as well. Though not a terribly original idea, it delivers a small punch for the two minutes it takes to enter the world.
Larry Tritten’s “Raft” is a short-short of a man and his small beast escaping through deep space. The man is crying while he feeds his beast and is eventually overtaken by a larger ship. Tritten says that this story was inspired by a short story by Evan S. Connell, Jr., titled “The Yellow Raft” about a pilot shot down in the South Pacific during WWII. Though there’s no dialogue—it’s an observation story of all narration—the man who’s never named did somehow come alive for this reader. While leaving many questions unanswered, the author’s descriptions are vivid. Still, I was left wondering what the author’s exact point was.
Robert Jeschonek tells an alien invasion tale in “Zinzi-zinzi-zinzic.” While the Un ambassador shakes hands with Earth’s president, our narrator executes the invasion. Merely a shadow, he and the other Un shadows overtake each human’s shadow to submit it to their will. Soon the invasion is all-pervasive, and only children, madmen, and animals can see any of this, and of course, no one believes them.
This works well as a flash piece, as there is no dialogue and it’s strictly narration. Of course there wouldn’t be a story without conflict, a glitch in the invaders’ plans. Read this tale to find out the penumbra of the MacGuffin.
Eugie Foster combines science and spiritual transcendence in “The End of the Universe.” Tay and his crew experience the winking out of the universe as they travel beyond known reality. Each member of the team has his or her own issues, but basically a bad trip ensues. The characters are well drawn and the writing vivid, but I was puzzled by a couple of aspects about this story. Tay is a junkie with more than a few personal problems, which makes me wonder why he was allowed to pilot the mission in the first place. Also, in the beginning I thought they were aboard some sort of spacecraft, but then I’m led to believe they are in some dome on a mountain, but where this mountain is located is never explained. Foster can usually be counted on to deliver a tight, near-flawless tale, but this isn’t one of them. At 3000 words, this could’ve been longer with these elements explained and the characters given added time on stage for me to care about them more.
Shane Nelson’s “Severance Pay” is a near-future tale of Big Brother and society and how each of us are, for better or worse, part of the greater whole. After his wife is murdered, college professor Nathan Winston takes to the bottle and his two daughters are taken from him. So they won’t escape from the institution where they’re being held, they are strapped to their beds at night and consequently die in a fire. Now, Nathan reports to a government psychologist where he has a medical decision to make that will change his life. I won’t give away the ending, but this has the feel of A Clockwork Orange. But unlike Alex in Anthony Burgess’s classic, Nathan is a “good” man pitted against an uncaring system that gives him little choice. Nelson’s prose is gripping and the tale fast paced.
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