Lightning: A Collection of Very Small Stories

By Claudia Brevis

FLASH, MICRO, FUN-SIZE, mini fiction.

Twenty-seven very small stories written by Claudia Brevis. All are under five hundred words. Seven are exactly one hundred words. And seven—plus a few scattered additional stories—are just #sixwords each.

Waiting inside...

A farmer, serial killers, a confused old woman, a magician, a panic attack, a ghost,
a vampire, a mouse, a dog, great-grandparents, a girl with orange shoes,
a Siren, a shape-shifter and much, much more.

#Invitation

Come on in. The water's fine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Claudia Brevis
• Release date: Oct 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310447587

Claudia Brevis

CLAUDIA BREVIS is an author, songwriter, playwright, genealogist and New Yorker living with her husband, Skip Brevis, on Manhattan’s upper east side.Claudia’s music and lyrics have been featured on stage, television, film and recordings.She vocal-arranged and composed original music for the off-Broadway hit Beehive, the 60′s Musical, and she and her husband co-wrote the 2011 New York International Fringe Festival hit, Winner Take All (A Rock Opera).Other works include Norwegian Cruise Line’s Showdown, an interactive American Idol spoof now in its sixth year on the high seas.When she isn’t writing music or working on her next novel, Claudia can be found exploring NYC, researching genealogy, cooking, or, most often, just hanging with her family!The post-apocalyptic A GAZILLION LITTLE BITS is Claudia’s debut novel, available in kindle and paperback on amazon.com. LIGHTNING: A COLLECTION OF VERY SMALL STORIES is Claudia's newest offering, a flash fiction collection available on Smashwords and in paperback on Amazon.com.

Book preview

Lightning:

A

Collection

of

Very Small Stories

Claudia Brevis

Copyright 2014 Claudia Brevis

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art & Design by Sam Tsui

All rights reserved.

#dedication

Kathy Hauck. This one’s for you.

.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Put Another Nickel In

Abracadabra

Her Son’s Idea

#NotHome

The Fat Mouse

Please Come Back

Mellisandra

#Grilling

Cocooned

Boxed In

Nourishment

#Dreams

Garden Glass

Reasonable Explanation

Lightning

#Her

Best Friends Forever

Pot of Gold

Ancestors

#Hemingway

Joan

Choosing Eyes

Ernesto

#SummerVacation

The Last Zookeeper

Ever Hopeful

#theEnd

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I DON’T KNOW that I would have completed these stories without Casey and Dylan and Skip cheering me on.

I’m the luckiest gal in the world.

A big thank you to my Mom & Dad for everything, always.

Sam, thank you so much for the beautiful cover design. I am forever...

#Grateful

I love my family. Oh yeah.

FOREWORD

FLASH, MICRO, FUN-SIZE, mini fiction.

For this collection, I present twenty-seven very small stories. All are under five hundred words. Seven are exactly one hundred words. And seven—plus a few scattered additional stories—are just #sixwords each.

The twenty-seven were sprouted by combing my notebooks and scouring files full of curious words, phrases and what-ifs. By browsing folders of intriguing and often incomprehensible—what was I thinking?—images collected over the years. By sitting with my cards on the table and my eyes on a blank laptop screen, hoping that something, anything, would happen before I deserted the effort for snacks and Netflix.

Enjoy the amuse-bouches. An hors d'oeuvres platter of magical realism, urban fantasy, sci-fi, confusion, animals, rainbows, creatures good, creatures evil, and more.

Sometimes several appetizers make a meal.

But if you’re still hungry after you’ve finished, you can always dig into my post-apocalyptic, sci-fi novel, A GAZILLION LITTLE BITS, also available on Amazon. Stay tuned. More coming soon!

#amwriting

Lying in active wait. Hunting words.

Claudia Brevis

@cbrevis

PUT ANOTHER NICKEL IN

DOZENS OF RED candles line a rough bench in a seaside church. A sand bucket filled with burnt wooden tapers sits beneath it next to