The Confabulator Cafe

Category: Confabulation

  • Paper Cut Revenge (Flash Fiction)

    Sometimes relationships with your co-workers are tenuous at best. I was lucky; most of my co-workers were ambiguously nice. My boss was somewhat indifferent to me, but I was a temp worker at a huge company, so I didn’t expect much else.

    There was only one office resident that I had a mutual loathing for.

    I’ll never forget the first day we met.

    For months the office had been buzzing about it. Our new copy machine. One of these “multifunctional devices” that could print, scan, and copy all in one. All of the administrative support were in a tizzy over it.

    The day it arrived, I watched warily as the tech guys wheeled it in. It was supposed to be some fabulous new device to ease our workload, but it sat, enormous and ominous, glinting evilly in the corner of our copy room.

    (more…)

  • Scout Pack (Flash Fiction)

    You know that expression “you can’t take it with you”? That shit does not apply to resentment.

    Violent death aside, the thing that really chaps my ass is that I saw it coming. I knew better than to turn my back on the creepy, yoked-up, tatted kid. He was trouble, right from the start.

    This kid they called Pope, he was never quite all there. The other guys, they all carried tension in their shoulders every day. They knew that none of this was going to end well. They understood that waking up day after day didn’t make them lucky. It made them outliers.

    Sooner or later the math was going to catch up to them. One day, probably real soon, the statistics they’d been dodging were going to sneak up and pop a cap in their collective asses. And nobody wants to die alone.

    Boy was the joke on them.

    (more…)

  • Pushing Dominoes (Flash Fiction)

    We all have one moment when we decide our life’s course. Most of us don’t recognize our moment until we’ve driven past it, but it is there, the touch of the dominoes that sets the whole thing off.

    Homecoming was my moment. How could it not be? Quarterback and sure-fire homecoming king. One push. It’s all it takes. One push, and the world falls. One push, and you give up control.

    The transmission to my ‘Vette sat in pieces in the garage, waiting for my old man to sober up. I walked the tracks towards Fairfax, one of those little towns that pop up around the railroads all throughout the Midwest. There are a million of them, all the same, but I proclaimed myself king of this one.

    Derek walked with his head down, looking at his shuffling feet through his Coke-bottle thick glasses. The tape still wrapped the frame from when I broke them two weeks prior. Derek’s family didn’t have the money to replace them. His ankles peeked out pale beneath high-water jeans. Derek wiped his nose with the sleeve of his hand-me-down flannel. He didn’t see me. He couldn’t have seen me, or he wouldn’t have come that way. (more…)

  • Flash Fiction Week: Revenge! (Week Ending September 28)

    Not every writer spends his or her days thinking about mayhem and murder. Sure, there are those — like Sara Paretsky, James Patterson, or Michael Connelly — who write mystery or crime stories for a living. But most writers don’t spend their days thinking about the darker side of the human condition.

    We all secretly want to get even with someone at some time or another. Maybe it’s an ex-lover, an evil boss, an annoying co-worker, or a neighbor who mows the lawn at 6:00 a.m. every Saturday. But for most of us, a desire for payback is a fleeting thought that quickly goes away.

    One of our writers (Jason) recommended that our flash fiction assignment this month should challenge our writers to think hard about getting even. With no other conditions or restrictions, he suggested the writers create a 1000-word “revenge story.”

    This week at the Cafe, our writers are giving us flash fiction with a retribution theme. Whether funny or heartbreaking, frightening or amazing, these stories are going to entertain you.

    Until Next Week,

    The Cafe Management

  • Rules (Flash Fiction)

    “Well, that’s it,” Nigel said. “Time to shut it down.” He clicked at his keyboard and the image on the monitor froze, the man towing the bright red wagon caught mid-step as he headed towards the open doorway. “Want me to prep another run?”

    “Actually, no,” Raymond answered. “I want to see where this run is going.”

    Nigel pointed at the screen. “This? This is our latest model opting for the shotgun before heading outside. We both know exactly where it’s going.”

    “There are no wrong answers,” Raymond said.

    (more…)

  • Human Interest (Flash Fiction)

    He sets the toys carefully aside on the floor, revealing the shotgun hidden beneath them. His fingerprints paint red smudges as he brushes the doll’s synthetic curls and remembers the little girl who called her baby.

    His shirt sticks to his wound. He’s tired from the walk but numb to the pain. It’s probably too late for him — definitely too late for her. It’s not too late to make a scene, to ensure their senseless deaths aren’t hidden halfway through the local news.

    The wagon wheels creaking behind him, he limps into the assembly.

    Let them see what they missed.

  • Culvert (Flash Fiction)

    Colin was surprised at how heavy the shotgun was. No one was going to understand until it was all over, but he couldn’t just do nothing. He dragged his sister’s wagon into the house and left mud tracks on the dining room’s white carpet. He’d get it for that, but he had to do something.

    Mom would have to understand.

    *****

    “Where are you going?” His mother stopped cleaning the potatoes in the sink and wiped her forehead with the back of her purple gloves.

    (more…)

  • Witness (Flash Fiction)

    Galen listened to the patrons murmuring their approval as they walked through the gallery. He heard the same conversations, the same trite observations. “Bold choice of color.” “Strong brush strokes.” “Interesting choice of subject.” He wanted to leave and repress the night’s memory with a bottle of whiskey.

    Becky by Dave DeHetre
    “Becky” by Dave DeHetre. Used with permission of the artist.

    A light touch on his elbow alerted him to Amanda’s presence. He breathed in the smell of her perfume, Vanilla Lace.

    “You’re not going anywhere,” whispered Amanda into his ear.

    “What makes you think I was leaving?”

    “You have that look. Your left hand gets twitchy when you’re thinking of using your cane.”

    (more…)

  • Trapped in a Doll’s Body (Flash Fiction)

    I wanted to cry out for him not to leave, but my lips were just stitches on fabric.  He was the best brother a girl could ask for, but he was going to get himself killed.

    When I was seven, I fell into a magical coma. I accidentally triggered the warding spell in my uncle’s study and nobody knew how to contact him to get him to reverse the spell. For as long as I could remember, it was just me and my brother living in our uncle’s house. Our parents left when I was a baby, leaving behind a stuffed tabby cat and two children. Suddenly becoming legally responsible for our well-being didn’t change our uncle’s ways.

    He was never around, always off at some overseas conference or another. He really couldn’t be bothered to raise us—didn’t have the time or desire—so he left us to the tender care of the cook after I started kindergarten. Mrs. Toffee was a sweet and caring lady, but she left for the day after dinner was over and cleaned up, and we were left to our own devices. We were expected to finish our homework and go straight to bed, but that rarely ever happened as planned. (more…)

  • Munitions Run (Flash Fiction)

    “Can I come this time?”Charlotte asked, loudly popping her gum.

    Gale glared at his little sister. “No way. You’re still too young.” He slid the red wagon from its hiding place at the back of the playhouse, under the clunky wooden desk their mother had salvaged from some auction or other.

    “I’m not too young. Sassy goes with her brother all the time. Besides, you’re only three years older than me.”

    “Practically four years,” he said as he pried loose one of the floorboards. Inside, nestled in a cocoon of hay, lay the stash of coal black shotguns and boxes of shotgun shells. He gently picked each one up, checked to make sure they weren’t loaded, set them inside the wagon, and then added several boxes of bullets. “And Sassy knows how to use one of these. You’re still too sporadic.”

    She popped another bubble and crossed her arms over her chest. “Am not. I can hit three out of five.”

    (more…)