flash fiction – Page 3 – DAVID V. MATTHEWS

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #100: All That Mandibular Effort or, Thermonuclear Soupçon or, The Quotidian Shading Right into the Hopelessly Banal

Haircut One Hundred during the height of sartorial excellence, the Eighties (though every decade in retrospect is the height of sartorial excellence)

1982, art school: Sandra scored two tickets to the sold-out Haircut One Hundred concert, nonchalantly telling her best friend Fern “I blew someone who knew someone.” Seriously? All that mandibular effort for that group? “Practice makes perfect,” Sandra remarked with more nonchalance.

They attended the concert, having what they would later call, with a thermonuclear soupçon of sarcasm, “a rather pleasant time, yes indeed.”

Sandra would end up working as a sales manager at a high-end furniture store. She’d weep on 9/11 upon finding out Fern (a residential property field appraiser) had died that morning (from pancreatic cancer in Tallahassee).

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Yo, DVM here. Thank you for tolerating the almost ten-thousand words of flash fiction I’ve written so far. Starting next time, the Flasher format will change. Tell your family and friends and total strangers and random opened energy-drink bottles and random unopened energy-drink bottles. (These four sentences don’t count as part of the above story.)

Flash Fiction #99 (a Hundred Words Exactly): Paul Lynde Dead (January 10, 1982)

For the previous chapters of the Lynde Saga, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and (drumroll please) here. (These two sentences don’t count toward the hundred-word total.)

The day Paul Lynde died, my stepfather Curt and my Aunt Inez ran off together. I wasn’t surprised; she had always shown so much (unusual) affection toward Curt that I’d joked about her “schoolgirl crush” with the guys in my latest band, Nipple Clamp.

Anyway, Mom had turned into a blubbering wreck after her first marriage had collapsed, but now she led me in twirling, Fred-and-Ginger-style dance moves in our kitchen. I wouldn’t find out about Lynde’s death until twenty years later, by which time I’d started genuinely liking movie musicals, even the Auto-Tuned ones, though Mom still hates those.

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #98: Mrs. Jenna Lachey

What can I say? I indulge in contrarianism.

Age 13, year 2000, my sister Jenna loved that boy band 98°. She imagined she’d marry the lead singer, Nick Lachey, even filling up whole pages of her junior-high social studies notebook with “Mrs. Jenna Lachey” written over and over in red marker in her bubbly handwriting, complete with hearts filled with smiley faces. 9 years later, long after she’d lost interest in that band, she did get married, to her lacrosse-player college boyfriend Curtis. They divorced after less than a year. Today, Curtis has a husband, Jenna has several guypals, and I have 6 cats and a not-bad 401(k).

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #97: Camus Estates

Sumac spelled backwards is…an author who hasn’t sold even one percent of the books that Happy Hank Dugan, author of the children’s book series The Adventures of Captain Stinky, has (though from what I’ve read somewhere on that site everyone reads, Camus, unlike, Happy Hank, never to anyone’s knowledge snorted a ton of primo blow, then sang “Some Enchanted Evening,” nude, before the Colonel Augustus G. Bingleman statue in Wert Park, Wyoming, the night of the infamous microwaved Lego incident at Mayor Fusfield’s timeshare).

When I drive past those townhomes called Caymus Estates, I think they’re Camus Estates. Then I think about the only Camus book I’ve read, one I read in college, The Stranger, about this white guy who kills an Arab in French Algiers for no reason, gets arrested and shows no remorse, and goes to the guillotine. Okay, first, the killer would’ve actually received a medal, everyone was so racist back then. And second, I received a D for the book report I wrote, souring me on litrachur. Eh, the book types bug me anyway—too aware. Only the clueless survive.

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #96: You’re Gonna Buy 96 Beers, Hee Hee Hee

You know that 1966 song “96 Tears” by Question Mark and the Mysterians? Its writer, Question Mark himself, changed it from “69 Tears” because no radio station would play it otherwise. When I first heard that story as a college freshman in 1998, I laughed, since one of that year’s most popular songs, “Too Close” by Next, dealt in its entirety with some guy getting a boner while dancing close to his girl. Both hits from one-hit wonders who didn’t know about my virginity, now my forever virginity. Not that I expected them to, I guess. You can’t know everything.

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #95: I Really Hate Windows 95

I hated Windows 95 ’cause every time it crashed at work, that meant the computer guy would visit. “I have no problems with Windows,” he’d tell us haughtily. Then he’d stare at my breasts. Finally, one time, he did more than stare; he “tripped,” fell toward me, and grabbed a handful. “Oops,” he said.

I kicked him in the crotch. “Oops,” I said. The boss—an overgrown fratboy who’d stare at my ass—fired me. It took me forever to lose the lawsuit I filed. Now, twenty-five years later, I really hate Windows 95 ’cause it’s gained nostalgic hipster cachet.

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #94: Artisanal Cruller

Due to some nasty tweets from right-wing Christians, my employer, WebFresh International, briefly considered scrapping its young-adult e-comics series, Radical T, featuring retro-Eighties, teenage trans superheroes who wear headbands. So during one (socially-distanced) breakroom break, noshing on my artisanal cruller, I said “I hope when those Bible-thumpers die and end up sucking cock in heaven, they don’t forget to lick the scrote.” My coworkers laughed. Finally I’d paraphrased that classic movie, The Exorcist. But someone ratted me out to HR, and now I have to waste a couple hours this Saturday in virtual sensitivity training. Moral: Disney movies suck nothing.

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #93: Don’t Block the Screen

Okay, okay, I heard you the first time. I’ll buy it after the game ends….No, they’ll still be open….Of course I’m sure. They have extended hours on Fridays, everyone wanting to stock up for the weekend. You of all people should know that….Yes, I have to watch this. Do you have to watch your fucking shows?…Well, too bad. Maybe you shouldn’t be a pothead then…Yeah, yeah, I’m a boozer….Okay, fine, I’ll go. But you gotta give me a blowjob first. Just don’t block the screen….Well, fuck you too….Bye, pothead……..When’ll they have real audiences at these games again? Fucking COVID.

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #92: Keratinous Crescents

The one argument too many, the death knell for all marriages regardless of the spouses or the American presidential administration, has arrived, caused by his, for the umpteenth time, having clipped his toenails several feet away from the wastebasket, keratinous crescents lying on the bedroom carpet, her usual annoyance over his thoughtlessness exacerbated by his refusal to apologize; instead, sitting in the living-room recliner, watching Eighties rockabilly videos on his phone, he chuckles deprecatingly at her, welcoming what follows as validation for his having mentally (and secretly) divorced her ass months earlier. Plus, bonus points, she can’t fucking stand rockabilly.

Flash Fiction (a Hundred Words Exactly) #91: White Bread

Another morning, another commute. Sitting in his car, stuck in traffic, he wonders if he should move to the city so he could live closer to the office, partake of high culture, and have his pick of fine ladies. But he realizes that even if he could afford moving, preferably to a gentrified area—low crime, unthreatening minorities—well, not minorities, you call them POCs, persons of color, now—well, eventually, the economy would contract, and that gentrified area would go to hell. Everything in the city goes to hell eventually. But suburbia endures. White bread’s packed with preservatives. Yum.