Flash! Friday About... Flash!

by Michael Seese

Before I get into the business of this week's Flash! Friday, I suppose I should crow, boast, shout from the mountaintops casually mention that the previous two weeks my stories "The Fourth Wall" and "Don't Worry, Little One" (the story I wrote on my phone while cooking dinner) were both named first runner up.

Let's see if I can't bring home the gold this week.

I'm pretty happy with my entries. We were asked to incorporate as a character a writer, and this photo of Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon.

My first idea came out as "Worship."

It was the eyes. They burrowed into her very soul with a relentless, seductive grip, and refused to release her. As if she'd want that to happen.

Or perhaps the lips. So pinched and precise when verbally jousting with Ming, yet so tender when caressing hers with the mercy of a butterfly's wings.

No. It was the hands. A pair of velvet vises that could at once fend off a legion of the Evil Emperor's minions while cradling her waist like a newborn.

He would return. Such was their fate as written. He would come back for her. She knew it. Until that day, nothing could...

"Please move along, Miss. The movie is over."

Why did he call me "Miss?" she wondered. He knows my name. Everyone knows I'm Dale Arden.

She wasn't moving. She'd paid her 25¢, damn it! As she had done last week. And the week before. And the week before that. And...

One of the men in the white coats picked her up, and draped her over his shoulder like unfolded linen. Of course she now weighed 85 pounds. Not eating will do that to a girl.

"Don't worry, Miss. They'll take care of you."

Angela was not worried. He would come. Flash would rescue her.

Then, "A Work Of Fiction."

How could she not fall in love with him?

Chastity Hunter's greatest gift as an author, she believed, was her talent for capturing realistic characters. Whereas other writers' creatures lay flat, hers positively leapt into her life. Once she had a solid image to work with, raw masculinity and inescapable sex appeal would ooze from her fingers. The brawny, yet fallible heroes always proved so real that her readers – bored housewives, a piteous label she once applied to herself – could not help but swoon.

She always began with a physical description.

"Ocean blue eyes that would pull under an Olympic swimmer."

"A steely gaze, which tenderly pierced the armor surrounding a wounded heroine's heart."

"A careless cascade of blond hair."

Once she had the man in front of her, the plot lines would flow.

"What kind of trouble can I get you into, my lovely little pet?" Chastity said aloud.

Assuming she was addressing him, he tried again.

"Please," said the man with the blue eyes and the blond hair, the latter now dirty and disheveled, three weeks removed from his last shower. "Please let me go. My wife... My children... They're worrying about me."

"I can't do that," Chastity said, returning to her keyboard. "I haven't finished you yet."

Please share your thoughts about the stories, or about Flash Gordon.