Very Short Story: The Wake

If you’re not familiar, there’s a writing prompt on Twitter for the writing community with the hashtag vss365. The “vss” stands for “very short story,” and the number is self-explanatory. Each month, a new Twitter user is tasked with posting a new word each day to prompt people. With the 280 characters available in a Tweet, a user has to come up with a story of some sort incorporating the posted word-of-the-day, although because you need to include the hashtag, the story itself is typically 273 characters (if you try to be exact, at least).

It also doesn’t necessarily have to be a story. Some play around with the form and structure by doing poetry or a haiku or whatever else.

For Oct. 2, the prompt word is “already.”

Here is my entry:

Hank #already knew he was dead. Each day, more decaying flesh fell from his bones. Flies salivated at what was to come. His funeral march was a silent drumbeat nobody else could hear, as rotting on the inside rendered him invisible. Only at the wake would they see him. #vss365