Variety of Shorts: Collection of 'Short' Works

By Elsha Hawk

Collection of microfiction writing, NOW COMPLETE!! Descriptive scenes, comedic moments, heartbreak, and friendship stories will make you laugh, cry and wonder. At less than 500 words each, this collection is a quick read. Perfect for break rooms, bathrooms, or those days when a sudden rain storm causes a 15 minute power outage!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsha Hawk
• Release date: Sep 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9781465968579

Elsha Hawk

Elsha Hawk is working on two full-length novels and several short stories. She writes YA fantasy, cyberpunk, noir, dystopian, and sci-fi. You can find her sci-fi works on hawkandyoung.com where she co-authors with Eddie-Joe Young.Winner of “Write to Win” contest Fall 2009Published in Eclectic Flash 2010Published in Antimatter Magazine 2017Published in Rejected Manuscripts 2018Published in #SFFiction anthology of #vss 2020She also writes with her husband. She teaches Middle Schoolers with special needs while also being a wife to a wonderful husband and mother to two smart boys.

Book preview

Variety of Shorts

For my family at ficly.com whose community outpouring of criticism given in love have made me a better writer.

~Elsha Hawk~

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book, please link to this book’s webpage. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Published by Elsha Hawk at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Elsha Hawk

~Rust Red~

The bicycle lay on its side, rust showing through red. From the mud caked on the fender to the tires bare of any tread in the middle, none of it spoke the real story. It had seen rough usage in its lifetime, but nothing like this.

Laying on its side, the handlebars, one pedal, and seat propping it up; a tripod of abandonment, the bicycle’s rear wheel defiantly balanced diagonally in the air, slowly spinning. A bent rim threw off the wheel’s inertia. Gravity pulled the bend down, but the broken frame wobbled and brought the bend spinning back around. Endlessly cycling, the ghost of a good long ride screeched a long metallic howl forlornly to the breeze.

It couldn’t be ridden anymore and was left in the grass, forgotten. Its sudden end had drawn the curtain on the bicycle’s usefulness and value as a mode of transportation. The sky turned a shade of rust, paying tribute to the fallen simple machine, before darkness cloaked it in a memory.

Lights and sirens long gone, the haunting squeal spoke to no one.

~The White Chair~

It was so beautiful! Perfectly white and begging for an image, the new wall under the interstate bypass gleamed in the full moon. I couldn’t resist. I lugged my brushes, paints, and mixing trays down to the underpass.

I studied it, tilting my head, looking from all angles as an image and colors appeared in my mind’s eye. Then I opened the pigments and from the moment my brush touched the wet paint until the image was complete, I was under its spell.

I never heard any cars pull up and stop. I only heard the clearing of a throat when I finally stood back and eyed my masterpiece. Three police cars hummed, lights off, behind me. A burly detective in a long black coat with a scrawny assistant hanging behind him beckoned me with a gloved finger to come nearer to him. Four officers dared me to run, fanned out to the left and right.

That’s how I was recruited into the Institution; kidnapped.

And they destroyed my Magnum Opus.

The place they hauled me to was more of an asylum than a prison. I had to share a room with another ‘artist’, but we had a curtain to draw between us for privacy. Every day the white clothed workers would bring us meals and once a day we would be summoned one at a time to a room.

The room was bright, stark, and colorless with a single chair bolted to the floor. It was white. I longed to paint that chair.

The torture was not the endless questioning about my loyalties, nor being made to listen to and repeat back brainwashing recordings of a monotone speaker about obeying the ‘laws’. The torture was in fighting with myself, overcoming the urge to do something to see some color! The white room was begging for it.

My roommate was caught spray painting a wall; one of many. He’d been here a day longer than I had. Didn’t even fight them when he was caught; just silently left his last words in a rainbow of Krylon: Long Live The Arts.

He and I would never talk about our ‘sessions’ in the white room. Instead, in the middle of the night we’d barely whisper the names of colors to each other, hoping the cameras couldn’t pick it up.

Then I’d imagine the chair in those colors and I would resolve yet again to never let them win.

~Trapeze Artist~

I entered the semi-dark red and yellow tent. The scent of popcorn filled the air. Applause and cheering of hundreds of people erupted. My blue and white sequined leotard was riding up and I pulled it out behind the stands before walking to the third ring.

Climbing the tall ladder, I tested each rung with my slippered foot. The top platform swayed slightly under my weight, but I countered it without thinking.

Suddenly blinded by the spotlight, I waved to the now invisible crowd. As I blinked, the