October 9, 2006

Flash Fiction Fright

"Vanity"

In a hotel downtown I bought a 1900’s vanity with mirrors. It made me feel glamorous. I loaded my vanity with cosmetics and brushes, and left the room for a predate beauty walk. The sun sank behind the autumnal hills as I donned my sexy wench Halloween costume. I arranged my long red curls. As I leaned forward to powder my décolleté I heard a long painful breath. The red wig flopped off as my head whipped around searching for the intruder. Again the breath exuded from the mirrors. “Make it good, baby. It’s the last night you get.”


an entry to Fireflies in the the Cloud's 1st Annual Flash Fiction Contest!

I am reminded by this exersize of Mark Twain's quotation -- "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning- bug and the lightning."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wasn't there once a contest? Something along the lines of, "Make the girl with the beret say 'flash fiction' for points contest?"

Kate Thornton said...

Nice entry! Very creepy!

Joanne said...

Nice piece!

Dayngr said...

Excellent! Spooky too!

SMG said...

You ever notice how much trouble mirrors give people?

emeraldcite said...

Ah, vanity. Sweet, sweet vanity... :)

ohdawno said...

Definitely NOT lightning bugs. Great story!