Flash Fiction Challenge: “Death Is On The Table”

Behold last week’s challenge: “Just The Opening Line.”

So, in less than two weeks now, my debut original novel — Blackbirds — enters into the world. Hopefully with a mad flutter of wings and not the thud of a dead crow hitting the windshield of a parked car, but that’s a thing that’s out of my control. The book aims to be a sharp-toothed tale about fate and free will, featuring a girl who can see how you’re going to die just by touching you. (Let me add, in a moment of self-promo whorishness, that if you pre-order the book now from Amazon (US),  Amazon (UK), or B&N, and you email me proof of said pre-ordering to terribleminds at gmail dot com, I will toss you my short story collection and the first Atlanta Burns novella. For free, in PDF or MOBI format.)

What all this means is, today we’re talking about death.

The Big “D.”

Demise. Dirt-Nap. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

You have 1000 words to write a short story that prominently features death. What that means is up to you, of course. And genre is also in your court.

But a death — or the concept of death, or an exploration of death — must be front and center.

I’ll pick my favorite before Blackbirds releases on April 24th, and I’ll send the winner an e-book of my novel from either Amazon (MOBI) or B&N (ePUB).

You’ve got 1000 words.

Post the stories at your blogs or online spaces — don’t post here in the comments as the stories are too long to live at Casa Terribleminds. I’ll delete stories that post here. I’ll bring the hammer down.

Deadline is — well, given that I’m traveling next week, let’s short the deadline by one day.

Your new deadline is Thursday, 4/19, by noon EST.

EDIT:

AND WE HAVE A WINNER.

*pant, pant, pant*

Man, took me a while to go through these — I thought I’d have time traveling but I suspect I underestimated how many of you would enter.

Some really great stories here. The game has been upped. I found myself having to pick apart entries based on tinier details to count them out.

Spritzing death with a douche-spray? Death’s ride? Red and the Wolf? Many many good entries. A couple-few that were hard to read (blogs with images behind the text are unpleasant at best). But mostly top notch.

I’m calling the winner for:

A De/composition.

By Ilona Rose.

It’s short and strongly written and struck me in a very sad way.

A De/composition

Ilona, contact me at terribleminds at gmail dot com.

Thanks, all!