Hyper-Short Stories

Response 61: Use the words "style" and "market"

2009-05-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

I like to go in style when I go to the market. I put on my blonde wig, red lipstick,

thigh highs, silk panties, blow in the wind skirt, white button down blouse

and high heels. Nobody recognizes me, I don't recognize myself...

-C.C. Long

Response 60: Use the words "style" and "market"

2009-05-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

Near the market off of Via del Mulini, the girl stood waiting as the venditore dug the scoop deep into the tray of gelato, twisting it high on the waffled cone and powdering the top with confectioners’ sugar, in the style her grandmother’s letters had described.

-Paul Massey

Response 59: Use the words "style" and "market"

2009-05-21T05:24:00.000-07:00

Her style was just as unsightly as her prompt. Her caterpillar eyebrow furrowed as she pointed at the clock. The rest poured intoxicating ink on their papers trying to answer the prompt in essay style quickly. I ignored the teachers stare as I answered the prompt in my own style.

-Ariel Culver

Response 58: Use the words "style" and "market"

2009-05-20T14:14:00.001-07:00

Sitting outside another South American market, I look down at my tattered wardrobe and wonder what had happened to my style. Had my trip had replaced my cool, hip clothes with life experience? All I wear are these worn threads and that’s all I need to smile.

-Paul Cox

Response 57: Use the words "style" and "market"

2009-05-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

Discuss ‘style’ and ‘market’ in front of a client again and you’re sacked!” and with that the stilettos click-clacked off, carrying the bony monster away. Sheila couldn’t see her own red rimmed eyes, couldn’t afford more weight, and couldn’t swallow the shame. Got down before the porcelain shrine and prayed.

-Stacy Ann Goetting

Response 56: Use the words "style" and "market"

2009-05-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

She was dressed like Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Black dress, pearl necklace, and incredible style. The people in the market blinked when she smiled at them. I watched her as she walked around the aisles, discretely looking into people’s baskets and taking their items. They didn’t seem notice.

-Mary Desjean

Response 55: Use the words "style" and "market"

2009-05-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

Walking amidst the chattering mass of people in the market, I noticed the odd items for sale: skin, hair, teeth, and the scattered offerings of finger and toenails. I stared with satisfaction at my coconut-sized ball of earwax and looked around for the right buyer. I liked these peoples' style.

-Rexwell Havershatt Nomenclature

Prompt Six: Use the words style and market

2009-05-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

Prompt 6: Use the words style and market

Rules:

Must be no more than 50 words long.
No overly mature content.
Send submissions here.

Response 54: ...and then the rain fell.

2009-05-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

It was hot, and the slow turn of the fan blades was doing little to relieve the heat. She turned over on top of her sheets and found his face in the crack of the ceiling. Her breathing slowed down, and then the rain fell.

-Lindsay Hansen

Response 53: ...and then the rain fell.

2009-05-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

“Then what happened, Daddy?”

“I climbed into the hot air balloon.”

“…Then?”

“…And then the rain fell; all the animals drowned.”

“Where was Mama?”

“She was with me.”

“…Lisa-Marie woulda drowned then.”

“Who’s Lisa-Marie?”

“Mama’s new horse.”

“Where’d she get the money for that?”

“Dave.”

“…He’s got money, eh?”

“Yup”

-Matt Zdancewicz

Response 52: ...and then the rain fell.

2009-05-20T04:27:00.001-07:00

And then the rain fell.. His eyes flew open; lightening flashed;
thunder too close to count. His heart racing in rhythm to the storm.
She was dead; it went smoothly; always did. But the night terrors, why?
Heart slowing, rain slowing; tomorrow is a new
assignment. Eyes closing, rain stopping.

Cheri Miles

Response 51: ...and then the rain fell.

2009-05-19T05:20:00.000-07:00

Night came to Jaipur, and then the rain fell. It torrentially rained all night. We had caught up to this year's retreating monsoon. Due to the rain, Indian Airlines was unable to land in Udaipur the next day, so instead we left for Bombay.

-Connie Cookson

Response 50: ...and then the rain fell.

2009-05-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

“Your canine is desecrating my garden!”

My cantankerous neighbor clutched his chest as Sprinkles continued to poop on his beloved gardenias. I silently prayed for lightening to strike down to end my misery; and then the rain fell. God, unlike my neighbor, seems to have a good sense of humor.

- Jennifer Bachand

Response 49: ...and then the rain fell

2009-05-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

What was wrong? I couldn’t tell. But there was something. I stepped out of my house. It was hot like a desert. Fifty years without precipitation will do that. At the end of the walkway, I paused and looked up. Storm clouds. I smiled, and then the rain fell.

-Rexwell Havershatt Nomenclature

Response 48: ...and then the rain fell

2009-05-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

I craned my head up toward the sky to escape my foulness . . . and then the rain fell.

-Penelope Ingram

Response 47: ...and then the rain fell

2009-05-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

You never call anymore. You hold such grudges, over things that are only made bearable in their abandonment. I gave you everything you asked for and even some things you didn’t. You only saved up your anger, it swelled like a thunderhead over the ocean, and then the rain fell.

-Danielle Pearl

Response 46: ...and then the rain fell

2009-05-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

His eyes glistened, murderously black. Shoving me against the plain façade of the massage parlor, Bao turned and ran. Soon he was lost in the fields of brown faces. And then the rain fell. A tuk-tuk driver's horn blared down the street; a woman's muffled cry from within the parlor. But all I heard were the footsteps of the rain.

- Brian J. Waidelich

Response 45: ...and then the rain fell

2009-05-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

The desire to create overtakes me so I put on my boots and head for a dense dark wooded spot of the world that Thoreau would envy. I search for Frost’s Fork or Whitman’s “Main Thing”. I lean against ancient tree in an Emersonisqe trance and then the rain fell.

-Scott Brewer

Response 44: ...and then the rain fell

2009-05-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

The young man paced back and forth, hands grasping the sides of his head, a sorrowful moan rising inside him, vibrating in the air around him. At his feet, the torn pages of the letter were scattered in the dirt, the severing words severed, and then the rain fell.

- Paul Massey

Response 43: ...and then the rain fell

2009-05-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

It was the first sunny day of spring, 74 degrees the sky translucent blue. We were in Central Park laying on a Batik sheet reading when I noticed that she was tearing up. What's up? I asked. It's over, she said, and then the rain fell...

-C.C. Long

Response 42: ...and then the rain fell

2009-05-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

As a boy he learned to earn. From namesakes learned dry interest in debt and demand. David demanded control of these conditions; found less control within him. Found loopholes and lab coats, skulls and bones. Corrupted earth’s seeds foreclosed her farms; only made back page "and then the rain fell".

-Stacy Ann Goetting

Response 41: When I was a man

2009-05-17T10:13:00.001-07:00

I have few recollections from when I was a man. Memories erratically resurface: flashes of violence and trauma; a sense of heightened anxiety and terror envelop me. That is part of my sentence, to relive the horrors of my sins through my victims’ eyes. My time in hell has begun.

-Jennifer Bachand

Response 40: ...and then the rain fell.

2009-05-15T12:49:00.001-07:00

My teary eyed gaze was fixed on the cloudless sky. Crops are wilting. Where is their nourishment? Don’t they nourish us? Where is the paint that makes our grass the perfect shade of green? Cleanse our souls! A tear fell as I screamed in frustration, and then the rain fell.

-Samira Elmarry

Response 39: ...and then the rain fell.

2009-05-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

We fled the lab as shots from the guards rang out behind us; our feet pounding the barren, cracked, desert floor. Just outside the fence, we rigged the package to the rocket hidden in the bushes. It flew into the dark, motionless clouds, exploded, and only then the rain fell.

-Paul Cox

Response 38: ...and then the rain fell.

2009-05-15T12:46:00.001-07:00

I picked the wrong house tonight. A cop, how did I have such luck? My heart pounded as I raced on. My boots caked with soot from the fire place would lead him straight to me. I never had a chance of escaping and then the rain fell.

-Ariel Culver