Pounding The Keyboard

      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 11 th 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 drabble s ( 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 Jun...

The first time he saw her, they were in a room filled with ten or more women. She was seated and had her back on him, her long hair hanging gloriously on her back, yet he knew her face stood out in that room. And he learned he was right when she glanced at his direction—and he saw her face. Pretty, nay, sublime. No conversation between them occurred. He felt a tug at his heartstrings, but he quickly put it away. A face like that can't possibly be single, he thought and strode out of the room. He went home and swept her out of his mind. The second time he saw her, it was after more than a year, they were in a room filled with six or more men. She was seated in front of him, across the table, her eyes staring at a floor beneath her— yet he knew she wished she was on another ground. Pretty, nay, sublime.  A conversation between them occurred. He again felt a tug at his heartstrings, now stronger, but he quickly put it away. A face like that wo...

       Looking for a piece of an old document, Jude pulled open a cabinet drawer and saw a small box inside, and inside the box, he saw old keys,   a broken watch, an earphone, a couple of small binder clips, a torn bookmark and a tattered candy wrapper—basically, garbage all, except for the binder clips.        He had just thrown the box (and its contents) into a trash can when he remembered what the candy wrapper was.        Many years ago, Jude was around fifteen years old (and in third year high school) when he became strongly infatuated with a girl a year older than him. To say that she was pretty would be a gross understatement, in his young eyes, her beauty transcended ethereal.        She studied in a different school but lived just across the house of Jude’s classmate and almost every day, during vacant periods, Jude, pretending t...

                They were at the cemetery to tend and visit their departed beloveds’ graves. All Saints’ Day was still three days away, so the cemetery still wasn’t crowded. While at the graves, they were sort of waiting for someone to approach them—but he was nowhere to be seen.        Flashback to four years ago,   2011, while they were in the same graves, around eight in the morning, a day before Halloween, and two days before Undas, a shabby boy of around 11 years old, approached them and made small talk with them. He said he lived inside the cemetery, pointing to a nearby shoddy shanty which was built around an abandoned tomb.        They gave him what they were eating and he stayed and chatted with them. He told them he was happy they  were nice to him. They gave him some money—he wasn’t asking for any—before they left and he ...