Flash Fiction Is Short And Sweet



      I remembered that I’ve been planning on writing flash fiction, collect it and probably, just probably, self-publish it when I read this article on yesterday’s issue of Philippine Daily Inquirer about an 11th grader from International School Manila winning in an international writing contest for teens, flash fiction category.  Flash fiction, of course, consists of stories that are only a few hundred words long. I am particularly bent on writing drabbles ( stories that are told in exactly one hundred words) or micro stories (which are told in 300 hundred words or less) or maybe mini sagas (stories that are exactly 50 words long). I will probably try to fulfill that more than a decade-old plan this year (the writing part; the publishing, I don't know). It's hard to think about publishing when you've only got around five potential buyers.

      Here's a sample of a micro story I just wrote, please bear with it:

The June Bride

      He smiled when she entered the church in her white wedding dress. He was filled with overwhelming happiness as she smiled at his direction and dazzlingly walked towards the altar and towards him. He didn’t know if he fell in love with her at first sight. What he knew was that his breathing almost stopped when he first saw her five years ago.  But he thought she was way out of his league so he tried to look away, move away.

      But fate, they said, favored the fearless, so he courted her. He adored her so much that he sometimes thought that he probably wouldn’t bear the loneliness so he’d just kill himself if she’d end up with another guy. Fate also had a twisted sense of humor, he was told. He wooed her for five years, tried to make her happy every day and here she was, marrying a man she just met five weeks ago.

      “It’s definitely love at first sight,” she said, glancing lovingly at her groom.

      She really looked ethereal on her wedding day.

      The day of his interment.

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