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Gordon Lawrie

Careful What You Wish For

29/3/2016

 
This requires a little explanation. Another Friday Flash Fiction writer, North Carolinan Russell Conover, had posted a little story about Ted the Turtle who wished he could fly. This isn't a follow-on, it's free-standing, but Russell deserves credit for the original idea.

Although content as a slow turtle, Ted still dreamed of flying. One day, he found an old oil lamp, and deciding that ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’, rubbed it. Out popped a Genie.

“I’ll grant you one wish, Turtle. One wish only.”

“I wish I could fly, thanks.”

One puff of smoke later, the Genie vanished. Waving his legs, Ted took off, slowly banking and weaving across the fields – magical.

Then: gunfire. Suddenly he realised that slow-moving flying turtles are indistinguishable from clay pigeons. He desperately hoped that the shotgun party were poor shots.

He heard an echo. “One wish only...”

Flashes Of Genius

17/3/2016

 
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Our American cousins felt that too much talk about Donald Trump was depressing, so I promised them a story about the first thing that caught my eye. Which happened to be a ten-way vertical power adapter across from me in the living room...

2025: The new Verts French government announced it would make the Eiffel Tower greener: the edifice would become a giant vertical socket bar from which the entire city could re-charge its electric cars. In no time, three million car-owners were plugging their cars into the ‘Eiffel Power’, as it became popularly known.
 
But the really clever idea was that the Tower was constantly struck by lightning, energy it was equipped to harness. The drivers unknowingly paid for electricity that the government got for free, in turn allowing the Verts to increase spending, cut taxes, and be re-elected for ever. Genius.


Shower

12/3/2016

 
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Standing in the shower, Louise sighed. For months, her husband David had acted strangely, spent a lot of evenings out, their sex-life had been non-existent. Eventually she’d followed him several times to a house in the next town where he’d been ‘warmly embraced’ each time by the same negligée-dressed blonde.
 
David didn’t deny anything when confronted, just promised to sort things.
 
The shower seemed to be getting hotter – suddenly there was a further gush and she screamed in agony: acid. Louise actually disappeared quite quickly down the drain.
 
David told the neighbours that she’d gone to visit relatives in Australia.

Black Cat

5/3/2016

 
Three in the morning: two drunken teenagers stagger out of a nightclub towards where a black cat sits on the street corner.
 
The cat meows for attention. The youths approach, then one suddenly sends the cat flying with his boot. The cat returns, but now the other youth kicks it, forcing the cat to retreat across the road.
 
Deciding it might be amusing to continue playing cat football, the louts stagger after it – right in front of a passing car that kills them both outright.
 
The cat licks its lips in satisfaction. Mission accomplished; two down, six billion to go.

    Flash Fiction

    Flash fiction is very, very short fiction indeed - short stories of any sort of length from a Haiku to ten minutes' reading. Good for when you're in a hurry. This series is a selection of contributions to Friday Flash Fiction, where there's a limit of 100 words. I try to make all mine exactly 100 words.


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    If you enjoy these stories, why not download Gordon's first two collections of these, called '100 Not Out' and '200 Not Out'? Available for all types of e-readers including Kindle and iPad, for free. Completely free, no strings.

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