If you’re not familiar with what Flash! Friday is, here’s the explainer. But in short, it’s a fun weekly contest of flash fiction writers, where each week a new picture prompt, “element” prompt (based on fire and ice), and a limited word count is given, and writers have 24 hours to submit their story. By Monday, the judges pick a winner.
The Nov. 13 prompt was this picture:
The additional prompt was to either include a statistician (fire element) or include an optimist (ice element). The word count was 103 exactly.
You can read the full results here.
My entry had a word count of 103 words, and used the ice element. Here is my entry:
Matias waited until the desert astronauts left for the night.
It was Benji who dared him to go look into the pit, to see if Alonso de Ercilla was right that no bird, beast, nor tree or any vegetation existed there.
His sandals crunched on the dry soil to nobody in particular.
At the pit, he saw footprints from the astronauts, his own small within their frame. Dry or not, he slipped with a scream only the lichen, fungi and bacteria at the bottom heard.
One way of looking at it, is that it was their first moist snack in a long time.
Milam's Musings 