Flash Fiction Anthology-2024

By Hank Quense

Submissions for this anthology had to be written to one of a dozen prompts.  These prompts form the chapters in this book, and accepted stories written to that prompt are stashed under that heading. Only eleven prompts were used.

 

There are 20 flash fiction stories in this anthology.  In total they reflect the diverse interest of the writers in the group.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hank Quense
• Release date: Jun 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227762269

Hank Quense

Hank Quense writes humorous and satiric sci-fi and fantasy stories. He also writes and lectures about fiction writing and self-publishing.  He and his wife Pat usually vacation in another galaxy or parallel universe. They also time travel occasionally when Hank is searching for new story ideas. Other books by Hank Quense Fiction: Gundarland Stories Tales From Gundarland Falstaff’s Big Gamble Wotan’s Dilemma The King Who Disappeared Princess Moxie Series Moxie’s Problem Moxie’s Decision Queen Moxie Zaftan Troubles Series Contact Confusion Combat Convolution Sam Klatze Gongeblazn Non-fiction: The Author Blueprint Series of books is written to assist writers and authors in getting the job done. Creating Stories: Book 1 How to Self-publish and Market a Book: Book 2 Book Marketing Fundamentals: Book 3 Business Basics for Authors: Book 4 Fiction Writing Workshops for Kids: Book 5 Writing Stories: Book 7 Publication date to be announced Links? You want links? Here you go: Hank’s website: http://hankquense.org Hank's Facebook fiction page: https://www.facebook.com/StrangeWorldsOnline?ref=hl Twitter: https://twitter.com/hanque99 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanque/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hankquense/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3002079.Hank_Quense Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/hank-quense

Book preview

Montclair Write Group Flash Fiction Anthology 2024

Edited by Hank Quense and members of the Montclair Write Group

Published by Strange Worlds Publishing

Copyright 2024 Hank Quense

All Rights Reserved.

Thank you for downloading this free book.  You are welcome to share it with others.  This book may be reproduced and distributed for non-commercial purposes provided the book remains in its complete original form.  Thank you for your support.

Published by Strange Worlds Publishing at Draft2Digital 2024

First Publication 2024

Acknowledgements

This anthology is the end result of work by a number of people. 

First there were the readers.  Their job was to read the stories as they came in and then rate them. 

There were five readers:

Jackie Sterns

Ted Delgrasso

Lewis Smiler

Keith Biesiada

Joyce Grace

The project also had a pre-submission consultant: Rose Blessing

And after the project was almost finished, Bonnie Smiler, the Editor of Last Resort, took over and fixed all my mistakes, a long and tedious process.

Table of Contents

At the post office

An oak tree

Driving on the turnpike

Colliding with the past

Overdue at the library

Lost in the shuffle

No better moment

Vital signs

Tomorrow’s another day

Parallel universe

Start without me

To conclude

Forward

Submissions for this anthology had to be written to one of a dozen prompts.  These prompts form the chapters in this book, and accepted stories written to that prompt are stashed under that heading. Only eleven prompts were used.

There are 20 flash fiction stories in this anthology.  In total they reflect the diverse interest of the writers in the group.

Prompt: At the post office

Down at the Post Office

Ted Delgrosso

My cell phone rang. It was two thirty-nine in the morning. This better be good, I thought as I sat up, clicked the phone on, and said, Hello. Gene here. What’s up?

Hey, Gene, this is Dominick. He sounded excited. We have a big delivery down at the post office; thought you might want to know.

After all this time, our NASA-dictated code-language seemed ridiculous, but I had sworn to play the game. The message really meant that there had been a breakthrough in our experiment at the lab, and I should get my butt down there as soon as possible. Of course, I had to acknowledge in code-language myself.

Why are you bothering me with this crap? I’ll tell Devons to stop by in the morning, thus telling Dominick that I was on my way and asking him to bring Sal, code-named Devons, in as well.

An hour later, after passing through the decontamination scrubbers, I entered the lab. Sal and Dom were already standing by the inner chamber door awaiting my arrival. We then entered the inner chamber observation room together.

Subject H, as I pretended to know him, was seated comfortably at a desk in a setting you would expect to see in a bedroom in a typical American home. He was leaning back in a chair reading a book and seemed quite relaxed. His attendant, Barbara, who had been with H throughout the entire experiment, came up to us when she noticed the astonished looks on our faces.

I know this is not what you expected, but the Director didn’t want you fellows brought in until we were sure. She put her arm around Sal’s shoulder and, in doing so, guided us away from the one-way observation window.

What’s going on here? I said in a voice reflecting my confusion and agitation. The others were also upset, but not as much as I was. For me, it was personal.

Well, I know you expected to see him still hooked up, but the truth is a little more complicated. Our subject was in suspended animation for only twelve months, then brought out of it a month ago, Barbara announced.

A month ago? I thought the program was going to have him under for thirteen months. What is this? I said, quite upset at being left out of the loop.

Yeah, that’s what most of you guys on the medical team were told. Barbara looked at each of us before continuing. Hibernation technology is much more than the physical and medical aspects. We just now completed the recovery phase of the experiment.

What do you mean, recovery phase? asked Dominick. By now, we were all angry at having been left out, and Dominick’s voice reflected it.

Well, think about it, our guide said. What’s the use of putting someone in suspended animation if, when they come out of it, they can’t function? Any degradation of function would be bad, but we had to determine if any loss, permanent or even temporary, was a side effect of the hibernation. And so, H has been undergoing all kinds of tests, physical, mental, emotional … hell, the whole spectrum, to see if his recovery was at or near one hundred percent. Barbara seemed happy as she told us these things. "And the results were finalized only two hours ago. So, I really did call you as soon as I could. The news is very good. The results show that H, in the immediate time of revival, only took a few minutes to become aware of what was happening. He recognized who he was and the situation he was in. Of course, there was some difficulty in physical coordination, but that cleared up within the first hour. The nourishment medications seemed to have worked perfectly.

"But, of course, the Director was not finished. Since he keeps all of us on a strict need-to-know basis, he only then informed me I was to link