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.

Flash! Friday: "All The World's A Stage"

by Michael Seese

Another good week on the Flash! Friday front. We were given a photo of this rogue.

The photo is from 1847; his name is Louis Dodier, and he is in prison. I guess I could look him up. But it's late.

So I thought about the idea of prisoners, and came up with two rough ideas. Then I read that the setting had to be a theater. "I can work that in," I said. 

So first is "The Fourth Wall."

Samantha overcooked the eggs. Again. She also burned the toast. But she knew Jonathan wouldn't be angry. He probably wouldn't say a word. He could no longer be bothered to recite his lines. She, too, had grown weary of intoning the same stilted, dated dialogue, night after night.

For years, Samantha and Jonathan followed the script.

Dutifully.

Get married. Buy a house in Middle Generica. Have a child. Have another. Daycare. Play dates. Chuck-E-Cheese. Skinned knees. Soccer. Ballet. Acne. First heartbreak. Driving lessons. Acceptance letters. Graduation. Freshman orientation. Student loans. A $150,000 scrap of paper, times two.

After the children began inking their own stories, the leads' lives lost their direction. They played each night to an empty house. A change in scenery, downsizing, could not disguise the inescapable fact that their production, despite a great run, would soon be closing.

Prisoners in their own lives, Samantha and Jonathan continued to go through the motions, trying to flesh out their once-robust, now two-dimensional, roles. But after so many stagings, all of the drama – the ad-libbing – had been wrung from their performances. The only question left in Samantha's mind was when the curtain would fall.

And which of them would be the first to exeunt.

And then, around 11:20, I finished the allegorical "Prisoners."


Darkness fears light. For light is inquisitive. Insistent. Indefatigable.

I often wonder what I could have done to merit incarceration, though, in reality, I recognize my ruminations are merely an exercise in philosophical esoterica.

Cogito ergo inimīcus.

I think, therefore I am the enemy.

My crime?

I told the truth.

The Bard opined, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."

Unfortunately, fools erroneously believe the boards upon which they tread were harvested from the Tree Of Knowledge, and their lines were scripted from pens divine.

Theater Of The Absurd, at its finest.

Lamentably, the truth is welcomed only begrudgingly, and embraced only at arm's length. Indeed, it is regarded with suspicion, a slippery, slithering inconvenience. We all know how mankind views snakes. As an inherent evil, one which should be vilified, feared, and driven from Éire.

So, here I sit, in solitary confinement, waiting while the powers-that-be search for a jury of my peers.

I am reason.

Thus, I rot, locked away by a human stain which fears the light of truth. Still, I cannot remain idle. I must find a way to escape.

For if I were to stay here, how long would it be before I share my cell with hope?

Let me know what you think of either.