Insects, Sunshine, & Baldness

• It's apparent that I'll have to specify 'fiction' when I post it. 'Roach Motel' was mistaken by at least several people as a real report on how my day was going. Most were able to figure it out before they got too far, but one was a new reader. I hope I didn't scare her away.
• I am thankful that roaches are not on my daily to-do list. Neither is vacuuming, although it probably should be. However, I am certain that there are other people out there, like the young woman in the flash, who are not so fortunate.
• You'll notice that I edited the 'Roach Motel' post title to include 'Flash Fiction.' I figured it couldn't hurt.
• Speaking of insects: they're back. It was warm enough to sit outside yesterday evening and the insects thought it was warm enough, too. I will gladly take a few gnats and mosquitoes to go along with this gorgeous weather.
• For the second time in a week I took advantage of the warm temperatures and gentle sunshine to take a walk in a place that I don't normally go. And for the second time in a week I did not bring my camera. Be assured that I saw many beautiful things: a hillside draped in the soft comfort of Virginia Bluebells, Spring Beauties, Violets, a bumblebee, two deer grazing quietly just up the hill from where I walked, and, unfortunately, plenty of Garlic Mustard -both 1st and 2nd year plants- and Japanese Knotweed already much higher than any Pokeweed I've yet to see this year.
• My comfrey is up in the garden. It's the first robust sign I've seen from out there so far this year - myself included.
• Yes. I have been very lazy and late with the spring gardening.
• The strawberries survived. We will have fresh strawberries come June.
• Maisie is bald. Yep. You read that right. My big hairy dog got shaved down to nubblies. I will take pictures. (Ha! No more shedding this spring!)

Flash Fiction - Roach Motel

I am sucking up dead roaches with an industrial vacuum cleaner. I can hear the armor of their bodies clinking against the metal tube as they disappear from the floor. Every night, in every unoccupied room, I sprinkle white powder around the scarred baseboards and the next day I come to vacuum. Usually there’s just a smattering of insects to be sucked up, but sometimes, like now, there are piles of them. It never ends; there are always more.
I flip the switch and the roaring dwindles to silence filled by the slap of tennis shoes on concrete. A flurry of skinny children scuttle past the open door. I roll up the cord, preparing to lug the bulky contraption to the next room. I step out under the awning and spy Randy’s long white Cadillac pulling into the lot. I roll the vacuum along on its little pocked wheels, kicking it along to the sound of a woman yelling and a baby crying.
This next room, seventeen, has just a smattering of dead bugs, and since the beds don’t need changed, I’m back outside and on to the next one. It’s much bigger than the other rooms that families live in, and as far as I know they don’t charge much more for it. But then, I don’t handle the money, I just suck up the bugs.

Flash Fiction

Wikipedia says, "Flash fiction is fiction characterized by its extreme brevity, as measured by its length in words...." and, "This principle, taken to the extreme, is illustrated by Ernest Hemingway's six-word flash, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn.""
Go here for the Wiki entry on flash fiction.

I like flashing. Not the trench coat kind, but the brain-storming kind. Every piece of fiction starts with a flash. Uncle Hop is a flash, Vultures (or click here if that link isn't working) started that way, and I have a forty-eleventeen-hundred other examples in my 'old writing' file boxes. A flash is like seeing a small piece of someone's life and setting it to paper. You get to look at it a little closer and see if it's something worth exploring (the hard part is sticking to it and fleshing it out, but that's another post).

During the month of February, I was inspired by Rosie over at the Smokey Mountain Breakdown. She posted a flash every day for the entire month. Pretty impressive. However, I'm not that ambitious and I'm certainly not that prolific. I'm going to shoot for once a week. Maybe turn it into something catchy like all the better bloggers do: Flash Fiction Friday or whatever. But, today's not Friday and I have something to post. Maybe next week I'll try for Friday.

This is something that I dug out of an old pile of yellowing papers. It was printed from my first computer and has moved around with us for about 10 years. I think it's a great flash to start this off with. I'll post it in a fresh and spiffy post here in just a few minutes.....

Uncle Hop

I posted a flash entitled 'Uncle Hop' over at the Appalachian Writers Blog.
Here's the link: Uncle Hop