_{Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.}

July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. I had to take a few days off FFM. It’s been difficult to write this year, but with a little encouragement from the FFM Discord, I found enough inspiration to write two very different Les Mis fanfictions. The first is just a fan theory of mine, and the second  is…well, you’ll see. Remixes of the latter story are highly encouraged.

---

Painless

Jean Valjean does not feel pain. Not in Toulon, where he slept in chains. Not down in the mud of Montreuil-sur-Mer, lifting a wagon with his back. Not even when he branded himself with a red hot poker.

His strength is that of an oridnary man’s. He simply cannot feel the pain of his deeds.

Until Cosette cries. She is his light, and everything he has done since she came into his life was all for her.

That is a pain that he cannot bear.

And if he must go to the barricades to soothe that pain, so be it.

---

Jean Valjean Beats Up Everyone

2

“Your time is up and your parole’s begun. You know what that means.” Inspector Javert snarled down at the convict.

Jean Valjean socked him in the mouth with a cross jab.

4


“Let’s not haggle for darling Cosette,” crooned Thénardier.

Valjean swung a mean right hook into Thénaedier’s kidneys.

6

Eponine’s scream rang out. Valjean raced outside and uppercut the nearest would-be-thief.

0

Valjean would have hidden Cosette away from all the ugliness of the world if he could. But now her happiness hung with Marius’s survival. Valjean would see that Marius lived, no matter the cost.

1

For decades Javert and Valjean circled each other, knives drawn. Javert had always known that Valjean was a monster. Valjean had tried for most of his life to believe that he was not. Now, the man who had dogged him his entire life was tied up and fully at Valjean’s mercy.

Valjean was living proof that a man could change. He could rise above the sins of the past. He could do the one thing that Javert could never do.

Jean Valjean could forgive.

He punched Javert in the face.