Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #88: Doing Something Else

When I was five, my mother decided I should learn piano, so I’d get cultured. This lady named Mrs. Birchak would visit for an hour every week, teaching me pieces such as “Tumbling Puppy” and “Ode to a Dumpling.” I grew to enjoy playing that instrument. But after a month, she told me at the beginning of class, “Well, dear, maybe you consider doing something else.” And she left. I never saw her again. Or played any instrument again. Seventy years later, I’ve started making colored sand bottles at the senior center. That counts as doing something else, I guess.

Copyright © 2021 David V. Matthews (I purposely wrote the above piece to use it as this particular Flasher–eighty-eight keys, get it?)

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Author: David V. Matthews

David V. Matthews is the author of the short-story collections MELTDOWN IN THE CEREAL AISLE (2015), TURHAN BEY FAN CLUB (2022), and THE MAKING OF INDECENT BETRAYAL: TWO VERSIONS (2024). He lives in Pittsburgh.

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