The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: revenge

  • Refusal to Move (Flash Fiction)

    She was driving ninety-five miles an hour again. She knows I hate it when she goes that fast. I’ve tried to tell her to slow down, but she never listens. I knew she was trouble from the moment I saw her, walking into the dealership in her ruby stilettos and short skirt. She practically had the dealer eating out of the palm of her hand. It was disgusting. An hour later, he placed the keys into her hand. My keys. I’ve hated her ever since.

    This time, when she stuck the keys into the ignition, I refused to start. She called in service technician after service technician, and I started up perfectly for them. But the moment she slipped on her ruby heels and slid into my seat, nothing worked. She’d cajole me, she’d threaten me, she’d scream obscenities. But for once, I had the upper hand.

    If she doesn’t learn to listen soon, I’ll wrap us around a tree.

  • 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…)

  • 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