Short-short Stories

Various short-shorts

What are short-short stories? A short-short story is a short story that is somewhat less than the usual length. Whereas a short story may be two or three scenes, a short-short is just one scene, sometimes barely a paragraph.

One definition for a short-short is a story of less than 250 words, which is the guiding factor to short-short story night at the OwlHaven Literary Lodge in FurryMUCK.

Here are a few of mine for you to enjoy.

Herrera

Dark eyes peered through the turning leaves, two pools of amber brown, reflecting shadows of acacia trees that rustled in the faint whisper hissing across the dry forest stand. A slow and ponderous lizard shuffled through the feathered undergrowth, rooting for moister delicacies.
Dark eyes met over the slow-moving back. In an instant, five sets of claws and teeth hit together.

The Ancient One

Drip, drip. Drip, drip. Torn watched the two leaves bend and flick the mirrored droplets in perfect time to his thudding heart. Drip, drip. Drip, drip. One to another, passed on down the length of the tree, down to the circle of rocks below the droplets fell, devoured by the thirsty ground. Drip, drip. Drip, drop; drip, drop. Torn closed his eyes, listening to the drops, hearing them slow down, hearing the end coming.
Drip, drop; drip, drop; drip; drip; drip...

Shara D'linque Armaden de Tierra hated her name. It was too long, took forever to explain, and simply would not fit on her checks. That was why she was doing this. Her parents thought she was crazy- her sisters were shocked. They just couldn't understand why, after only two weeks, she was convinced that John Hay was the man she wanted to marry.

A Quiet Moment

The procession drifted slowly down the hazy street, then up the steps into the waiting chapel. Under the open arms and loving face of a Jesus that shone from the window, the casket came to its rest.
The ceremony was brief and quiet; the coffin was lowered into the stone tomb on soft folds of light. As it came to its final rest, the light shifted just a bit to shine warmly on a new rose of stone that bloomed fresh on the ancient pillars.

It started when the sky turned green. No one else noticed, but I thought it rather odd. Not that I thought it impossible- the sky could be whatever it wanted. It wasn't my business to tell it whether or not it could remain blue.
Then the grass became purple.
Seriously. One morning, I stepped out the door and the grass was purple. I was starting to get peeved. I mean, it was enough that the sky decided to become green without letting anyone know ahead of time. I'd think that maybe the world would have a little courtesy before pulling that kind of stunt again.
And then the voices began.
Trust me- I'm not crazy. But I swear, sometimes, that I can hear faint giggling and soft voices just behind my back...

The system administrator worked long into the night, trying to track down the problem that was causing all the lag. After five hours of looking through code and checking files, he came across a .txt file he had never seen before.
He uploaded the file, hoping that this might be the one, then rubbed at his eyes as it appeared on the screen. He was tired, but the text shouldn't have been blurring like that! By the time he recovered enough to react, all that was left of his scream was a string of zeros and ones as the server daemons claimed another victim.

The light grew fast as Tork headed home. It was absolutely essential that he get back before he could get anyone in trouble again for being lost. Tork had to be resting on the shelf in his spot by nine am. The big guy did so much with him and always got upset when Tork Rench wasn't there.

Bedtime Story
Three kids walked through the forest, leaving small goodies for grandma behind them so they wouldn't lose their way as they went to the house where three bears lived. And the big nasty wolf followed the goodies and blew over two of the kids but they all got together with the third kid who chopped down the beanstalk that the giant was coming down and the giant squashed the mean, nasty wolf. The End.

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