Tag / ffm

by booksoverlookedblog

FFM 16: How To Sell Your Home in 11 Easy Steps


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’m in the process of selling my home. Since I’m running out of time for a story today and don’t want to fall further behind, here’s a rant. Stick around after the story to read the poem I wrote on the same topic.

An Easy 11-Step Guide to Selling Your Home

  1. Get your house ready for showing. Purge every scrap of personality your home has. There can be no art on the walls. There can be no plushies on the bed. They don’t matter. Only your granite counter tops matter.
  2. Find a realtor you like. You may wish to meet with a few of them before you decide who to go with. The deciding factor should not be if your realtor has a cool accent or likes your cats. But if he has a cool accent and likes your cats, that’s a big plus.
  3. If your house is fit for a sexless robot to live in, it’s time to schedule showings and open houses. You must hide all evidence that a human lives in this house. Remove all trash cans. Make sure all the books on the shelf are non-controversial and for display purposes only. Hide all cat furniture. You have to pretend that the cats don’t live here, even though they will follow prospective buyers around for the whole showing and take naps on your realtor.
  4. Get kicked out of your house repeatedly so strangers can look at it and then tell you they hate your bathroom decor.
  5. Look on Zillow and secretly judge your neighbor’s houses that are on the market.
  6. It’s been two months, and this sucks. Consider buying a Saint Joseph statue to bury in your yard.
  7. Change your mind about buying the statue. If your mom found out she would think that you’re becoming Catholic again and would get too excited.
  8. Besides, you tried to throw out a broken Virgin Mary statue during the initial purge, but the bag it was in ripped and paint splashed everywhere on the newly power-washed patio. Decide it’s best not to mess around with more statues of holy figures.
  9. Explain to your non-Catholic friends why it’s not idolatry, not really, and that even ex-Catholics love a good religious statue.
  10. Just accept that this is a deeply weird and frustrating experience, but at least you got a poem out of it.
  11. But also if you don’t get any offers soon, you’re getting the damn statue.

Selling Your Home is a Deeply Weird Experience

We begged and fought
to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars
on 1,700 square feet.
We signed the papers. We laid a stake.
This is ours.
No one can take it from us.
This is our home.

My territory is 1,700 square feet
with high ceilings and beige walls,
nubby carpets, a creepy door.

My territory is new granite countertops,
a rebuilt fence
years of love and work
and every picture hung on the wall.

And now–
anyone can come into my territory.
I must smile and welcome them.
Hope that one of them will want to beg and fight for 1,700 square feet.

But all I want to do is snarl.

by booksoverlookedblog

FFM 14: The Queen and The Seal Lord, Pt. 2



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. This part 2 for The Queen and the Seal Lord. I really thought that part 2 would be the end of it, but this is at 999 words already, and I want to give this story a proper conclusion. Which means that there will be a part 3 at some point. Whoops.

Gráinne felt it only a moment after Raghnall heard it. Intruders on a navy ship. She was on her feet at once, cutting through the peace ties on her sword with a letter-opener from her desk. “Raghnall, see to your crew. And for fuck’s sake, get some trousers on.”

Raghnall had checked his weapons with his Réalta, his first mate, as was protocol. He dashed toward the cabin door, Gráinne just footsteps behind. The selkie froze mid-stride and let out a noise somewhere between a yelp and a gasp. He staggered where he stood, then gripped the wall for support. “Someone has my coat.”

Not just someone. A selkie and his seal coat parted at great risk. There were few he would have given it to willingly. Raghnall’s sudden weakness — his stooped posture, knees trembling — came from someone with ill-intent handling his coat.

“Stay here,” Gráinne demanded and shouldered past him. Just past the door to the captain’s quarters, Gráinne saw Réalta dead. The deep puncture wound at the base of her skull told Gráinne that the seal maiden had no chance to fight back. Whoever had done this had chosen stealth, not brute force.

Gráinne spun at the sound of uneven steps behind her, but it was only Raghnall, who by now had availed himself of a spare cloak, which was tied around his waist. His already ashen skin was growing lighter and lighter. “Is Réalta…”

“I’m sorry.” And Gráinne was. For all her differences with Raghnall, she had always liked his first mate.

“They’re taking the coat inland,” Raghnall said. His voice did not hold the rich timbre that Gráinne liked, one of waves lapping at the shore. He collected his weapons from Réalta, a trident and net, and short club that he normally wore on a belt. “If they bury it—”

“I know.” Disgust filled Gráinne. It was one of the unspoken laws of Fae war. Stealing a selkie’s coat was an unforgivable act. If it were to be buried under a black oak tree overnight, Raghnall would die. “Stay here,” she said again.

Raghnall bared his teeth. “It’s my coat.”

“And you’re in no shape to go after it,” Gráinne snapped back. “Stay in the water. It’ll help. I’ll be back before nightfall.” Before Raghnall could object, she threw herself overboard. Docked in the harbor, the ship wasn’t in deep water. Gráinne moved through it was ease, as though she were walking on dry land. When she reached the shore, she placed her bare palms on the ground, closed her eyes, and felt.

The land was part of her, and she was part of it. It couldn’t tell her who had stolen Raghnall’s coat, but she could feel the wrongness of someone, speeding away from the harbor. She sensed the person’s direction, and the vile tang of retribution they carried with them. This creature was moving at full speed, but not fast enough to avoid being overtaken by Gráinne.

She whistled for her horse, a silver dappled courser, who trotted out to the queen. Gráinne mounted easily, not bothering to saddle the mare. They understood each other, in the same way that the sea offered her only passing resistance and the land told her the direction of her quarry. They raced across the sand, following the thief.

The tracks told Gráinne the thief was traveling on a wild boar. Fierce, nasty creatures that rarely tolerated riders. That narrowed the possibilities of her quarry down some: Fir Bolg, true Orc, or Fomorian. Gráinne’s parents had established an uneasy truce with the Fir Bolg some decades before, and Orcs had no use for stealth. Fomorians were sea raiders, and had never entered into a treaty with the crown.

Finally, Gráinne spotted the boar and its rider. Fomorian, just as she had feared. Gráinne spurred her mare forward. She wouldn’t cut off the Fomorian’s path if she had another option. Her mount had been trained for combat, but she didn’t want it going against the boar’s deadly tusks. Instead, she took the sling that she carried on her belt and loaded a stone into it. The first shot missed her target completely. The second bashed the Fomorian in the back of the head.

The Fomorian lurched forward with shock, then wheeled their boar around to face Gráinne. It was a misshapen humanoid, muscles bulging in strange places and limbs with extra joints. It held a pike in gray-green fingers. Thin, yellow hair covered not just its head, but its entire face. It wore a fur coat spotted with gray and brown; Gráinne instantly recognized it as seal skin. Not selkie, but the selkies considered the animals their cousins. Raghnall would’ve had the Fomorian’s head for that.

Under its arm was Raghnall’s coat.

No Fomorian could resist a challenge by the Tuatha Dé Danann, even a half-human one. It dug its spiked heels into the boar’s side, and charged.

Gráinne found herself wishing for her glaive. She shifted to dismount, but as soon as she did, her courser ran at the boar. Gráinne called out for the horse to retreat, but the mare refused. Instead, she kicked up her powerful back legs, knocking the Fomorian out of its rope saddle. Without its rider, the boar abruptly changed course. It was distracted for now, and Gráinne hoped it would give in to its fatigue soon.

She sprang from her mount, sword in hand, and ran at the unseated Fomorian. It jabbed at her with its pike. Gráinne ducked replied with a kick to its stomach, throwing it off balance. She whirled and smashed the hilt of her sword on the side of its head, stunning the foul thing. Then, she took its head. It was a kinder death than Raghnall had given it.

She took his seal coat and tied it around her waist for safe keeping. Her mare was still standing alert, watching the boar trot away. Gráinne mounted her horse, and turned seaward. “Hold on, Raghnall. I’m coming.”

by booksoverlookedblog

FFM 10: Leaving Home

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. More notes at the end of the story.

I left my home many years ago, leaving my clan behind. It broke my heart to turn my back on the mountains that I rambled along, the rocky lake shores that I slept upon. Still, I had no choice.

The badges of honor I had sweat and bled for could not sustain me. I had worn them with such pride when they were awarded to me, but a cape cannot feed me. A helm cannot chase poverty away. I had no choice but to leave. Not to seek my fortune, but my own survival.

I’ve since settled in a new land. I have friends that welcome me at their tables, and a profession that sustains me. I find joy in my new surroundings, difficult as the change might have been. But no matter how far I travel or how long I stay away from my birthplace, the homeland has left an indelible mark on me. I carry it with me, like carrying a lucky stone in my pocket.

I will always have a 165 area code.

Still catching up after missing a few days. 165 isn’t a real area code, but I still have the same phone number for…at least 10 years now, probably more. Still with my hometown’s area code.

by booksoverlookedblog

FFM 9: Speaking Ill of the Dead

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. This is more of a companion piece to the mess that was FFM Day 3: Once There Were, but you don’t need to read it to understand it. In fact, I insist that you don’t. Hoping to get the second part of Gráinne and Raghnall’s story up tomorrow.

Samasita failed. You are allowed to be angry at her for that.

But do not forget how she tried.

She befriended Copper and Brass when unicorns were beginning to shy away from humans. We did not know it then, but they felt the magic that sustained them fading away. They were right to mistrust us. We didn’t hunt unicorns, we never meant to harm them. But we kept shaping the world to what we wanted, and couldn’t see how these primal beings could be hurt by that.

All the magic that was draining away fed the great beast. It was a creature of absence, sustaining itself from magic leaking in the gaps in the world.

Samasita saw what the rest of us did not. She saw a world-devourer, and she saw Copper and Brass suffering. Copper and Brass took her deep below the crust of the earth, and allowed her to reach into the mantle, and bring the world’s glow back to the surface. Only this could banish the great beast. She placed it in her lantern, then she and Copper and Brass rode towards the great beast.

But Copper and Brass were getting smaller. The closer they got to the great beast, the more they shrank. Samasita asked them to turn around. She pleaded. She begged. Each time, they refused.

By the time Samasita reached the maw of the great beast, Copper and Brass were only to her knees. But Samasita did not cower, nor did her friends. Lantern-keeper and unicorns ran into the beast’s maw.

The great beast did not melt away. It did not disperse back to the cracks and gaps of the world. It devoured Samasita, Copper, and Brass.

But it did not devour the lantern, and the golden treasure kept within.

The great beast stopped growing after that, and we have the lantern still to hold it at bay.

I am sorry, too, that unicorns are now found only in dew drops and motes floating in sunbeams. I am angry, too, how we still live in fear of darkness.

But Samasita was the only one among us who was brave enough to face the great beast, and we are still here because of her.

Mourn. Rage. Curse her name all that you need to.

Then, be grateful for all she has spared for you.

by booksoverlookedblog

FFM 2: English Hates Cats

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. More notes (and translations) at the end of the story

Two heads were worse than one, because only one head could look at the idiom dictionary at a time.

Alexei (the American “Alex” had yet to stick) flipped to the index and searched for “C.” “You told Derek we got Judith concert tickets for her birthday, and you wanted to tell him not to give away the secret.”

Alexei’s partner, Kolya, nodded. “Right. I told him, ‘don’t skin the cat out of the bag.’ And he just tried not to laugh.”

“Hm…” Alexei ran his finger down the index. “Kot…kot…”

The idiom dictionary had been one of the best gifts Kolya had given Alexei. Whenever Alexei thumbed through its pages, he looked like a man solving a mystery. His eyes were bright, and there was a small, satisfied smile on his lips when he finally cracked it open.

Kolya liked seeing him like this. Alexei’s first love had been words. Like most children, Alexei and Nikolai had grown up reading fairytales and Soviet propaganda. But soon, they were sharing samizdat works—illegal poetry, dissident pamphlets, the entirety of The Gulag Archipelago painstakingly typed on onionskin paper.

The trouble with Alexei was that he could never bring himself to burn the novels once he was done with them. He hid them in a hollow behind his bathroom mirror, but the secret police had found them anyway. Alexei had been arrested on the spot; Nikolai was already in questioning.

A chill ran over Kolya as the memories came back to him. The beatings, the imprisonment, however temporary…but he tightened his jaw and turned his focus back to Alexei.

“It’s ‘let the cat out of the bag’ and ‘skin the cat.’ ‘Let the cat out of the bag’ is to tell a secret. And ‘skin the cat’ is…zhdat’…”

“Why is this language so mean to cats?” Kolya asked.

Alexei chuckled. “English is a beast. Vot gde sabaka zaryta.”

“I izhu panyatna,” Nikolai replied with a nod.

“P’erviy bl’in vsigda komam.” Alexei shrugged and went back to the book.

What had happened to Kolya was nothing compared with what Alexei had been through. When they were finally reunited after two long, bitter years apart, the man Kolya had fallen in love with had nearly disappeared. He was broken in mind and body, half-dead when they finally, finally escaped to America.

Healing took time. Alexei was not fully himself again. Kolya knew he probably never would be. But on their first anniversary of coming to the United States, Alexei had started writing again. Nothing important at first, just lists of words to help him practice English.

But he kept writing, and kept writing. English was a labyrinth that Alexei explored with fascination. But there were no minotaurs at its center, only truth. Only words.

“Ah! ‘Skin the cat’ is to take off clothes, or ‘there’s more than one way to skin a cat’ means there’s many ways to do something.” Alexei snapped the dictionary shut, a satisfied smile on his face.

“English is cruel.”

“In many ways, yes. But remember Gogol’s overcoat? Lined with cat.”

Of course Alexei would remember such a small detail from the famous story. Seeing his partner smiling, talking about literature, Kolya saw the person he’d fallen in love with, the one who remained beyond the pain, beyond the nightmares, beyond all the bad days he’d survived.

“You came out from under Gogol’s overcoat,” Nikolai remarked, and reached for Alexei’s hand.

Alexei pressed a kiss to Kolya’s forehead. “Only because I had you to help pull me out.”

Let’s gooooo! First FFM Challenge: Malaphor Madness.

Use at least one malaphor (a combination of two idioms; also known as an idiom blend) in your story!

Mine is “don’t skin the cat out of the bag.”

A little background on these two: I started writing about Alexei and Nikolai/Kolya a couple years ago, when my PTSD symptoms were really bad. At first it was just a lot of painful stories, but as things got better, I started seeing that there might be something in that glut of writing that might be worth working on and even sharing. I didn’t plan on using these characters for FFM, since they come from such a tender place in me (with both meanings of the word), but I thought two English language learners were perfect for this challenge. And then I threw in some Russian idioms just for fun. I don’t know enough about the language to to a malaphor with them, but even a hedgehog understands that’s where the dog is buried.

Alexei references the famous short story, “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol. Kolya references the quote attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky, “We all came out of Gogol’s ‘Overcoat.” which speaks to how Gogol’s work influenced some of Russia’s most famous writers.

Kot – cat
Samizdat – literally “self-publishing,” the practice of making and distributing censored literature in the U.S.S.R.
Zhdat’ – wait
Vot gde sabaka zaryta. – literally “that’s where the dog is buried”; to get to the root of a problem
I izhu panyatna – literally “even a hedgehog understands”; something is easy to understand
P’erviy bl’in vsigda komam – literally “The first pancake [blini] is always a blob”; practice makes perfect

by booksoverlookedblog

FFM 1: The Mist

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.

The mist rolls in over the hills. It would be so serene if you didn’t know what it brings. 

You wanted serenity, peace. Calm, after the whirlwind that has consumed your life. Yes, I know it hurts now, you told yourself. But it will all be for the best. You’ll see.

You try to believe yourself.

But when the empty house became too much to bear, you took yourself here: to the hills that you used to love. As you follow the curved road upward, all the memories of your time spent here come flooding back to you.

You stand at the lookout point and remember: watching the sunset with your parents. Kissing boys where your parents couldn’t find you. Watching the birds circle, rising on invisible air currents, indifferent to the small, wingless beings below.

You think that maybe you can let this go. Maybe you will always carry these hills in your heart, even if you never set foot on them again.

Then, the mist.

Those coming changes – so painful, so needed – had filled every corner of your mind and heart. You’d forgotten about the mist.

Somewhere in the distance, the Hydra emerges from its slumber.

The Hydra does not care if you are exhausted, sad, or prepared. Soon, you will hear its many maws snapping, with a blood-chilling “Viva!”

Flash Fiction Month is upon us.

July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. Today’s prompt comes from Teresa “Amehana” Garcia – The mist rolls in over the hills. It would be so serene if you didn’t know what it brings.

I’m very tired. I don’t know how I’m going to manage this month.