Category: Flash Fiction

The girl played Kalimba in her flat in the middle of the night. There wasn’t really a reason for her to do it right there and then, she just felt like playing. She didn’t think she was particularly good at it, but the instrument could create a calm and beautiful atmosphere in her hands. She liked sharing this feeling with others.

After a while, she stopped playing to listen for something. Was it the silence, undisturbed by cars for once? Was it the soft humm of her computer fans? Or was it the soft breath of her girlfriend, who finally had fallen asleep on her lap?

The girl took in the scene for a bit. The silence. The darkness outside. Her girlfriend. She smiled, and continued playing.

Ina was running. Running as if chased by someone, as if the destination didn’t matter, just getting away from where she was a step before. She ran, tirelessly, making no turn to the left or to the right, just straight ahead. Every time she caught herself slowing down, she’d try picking up the pace again. A speaker from somewhere was blaring out the news, what terrible things had happened this day, but she continued running, she knew all of this already. And even if she didn’t, there was no point in waiting. Cars were passing her to the left, and some times she would get the impulse to cry “take me with you! I don’t wanna run anymore!”, but she never did. It’d be embarrassing.

Because after all, she even was paying her gym membership fees to be able to use the treadmill.

The girl giggled. She knew she was supposed to be a grown-up, almost done studying and about to start serious jobs at serious companies, but right now she had discovered an echo effect which enabled her to shout and feel like being in an awesome mountain rage while doing it. The echo bounced back and fourth, as if hitting the massive palace in which King Louis XV held his leisurely parties to the left, then a naked cliff not unlike the Carstensz Pyramid which the legendary expedition surrounding Inkiriwang scaled a few years prior to the right. It was a grandiouse echo, and she didn’t even had to leave her computer to get it.
As the echo subsided, she shouted again:

PIPIS!

Magnificent.

She was standing on the bridge connecting her island to the next. She stood there, like someone at a crossroads without a map in a foreign city, confused. Even though it just was a single path forwards she had to take. Even though the bridge was brightly lit, and dawn just around the corner. Even though she knew she couldn’t stay with her mom any longer.

One step after the next, she thought. Cars occasionally would come from ahead, coming way too close due to the lack of a proper foot path. Every time she had to stop and cling to the railing. She wasn’t even halfway across the bridge when she had to take a rest. She could just take an alternative to the dreadful path ahead. The way down always was there. She stared down for a long time, the sun probably rising up behind her, but she couldn’t bring herself to end it while looking.

With her eyes closed, she climbed over the railing, leaned forwards and finally let go. Falling the entirety of a meter or so onto a brightly lit containers of a ship, to the big surprise of herself and the captain who was anxiously watching his vessel pass tightly below the bridge.

“This isn’t happening to me”, thought the party planner as he tripped over the wire in the ball room for the third time, falling into the mirror again. The first two times, he just left some nasty finger print streaks and scratches across the mirror which King Louis XV once owned, but this third time was too much for the old thing. It burst into a hundred pieces.
The party planner was looking around in shock, if he admitted it was him, he’d be fired and, knowing his employer, a rich jeweler who might not get all of his money strictly legally, probably would get thugs sent after him to destroy his live. If he just carried on without fixing it, the jeweler would surely notice the mirror not working the moment he tried to check himself out before entering the ball room, at which point he’d be blamed for not providing an alternative, so this wouldn’t do either. He had to do something, and he had to do it quickly, and found just the right thing for the job

As the jeweler went to the ball room, he checked himself in the mirror as usual. But unlike usual, he didn’t have anything to criticize about his appearance this time. His face was bright, his smile perfect, even his posture seemed to be more elegant. Happy about himself, he went into the ball room, to the awe and surprise of anyone who looked him, for there was a big spaghetti over his face.

The party planner had exchanged the mirror with a photo of him.

The cat was bored. Every day it’d lounge around, not a worry to be seen, every night it’d bounce around, only to get scolded by just its owner. What little had it achieved in life? Thrown down a single flower pot and a cup, before the owners stopped leaving easy prey laying around? Lay on a keyboard while they were trying to work? But don’t all cats do that? It had seen others outside, roaming around freely, stealing fish from the fishermen, pooping on it’s neighbors lawn, it even had seen a cat skate, which had gotten the attention of everyone.

The cat looked around. There was absolutely nothing interesting to destroy, and nothing to get famous with, especially not at 3am. Unless…

The cat jumped on the black box with the many little knobs and switches on it. One of it made a satisfying click, it was the one which the owner would press when he started doing loud things with it. The box started buzzing quietly. The stringy thing was ready.
The cat played a perfect Bmajor7sus4 and henceforth was known as
The Katzenjammer

The rat was fat
The fat rat sat
Wat? Said the rat
Should I be fit, not fat?

The jump was flawless
As it was lawless
The only solace
Speedy Gonzales

The rat met speedy
And was quite needy
“Will you train me, make me strong?”
“of course, you won’t be fat for long”

The fat rat that
Trained now is
A fit rit, whit’s _{( // TODO: Find a better line)}
No food for cat