Microfiction Entry Day 14:

He thought the ring was cursed. Actually, he just had terrible luck with brides.

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I wrote this one just for Valentine’s Day. Sweet, huh? I’ve always been interested in how people seek out patterns, and how they warp evidence to fit a theory...just as our bridegroom does here. He doesn’t want to believe that he’s just made wrong/bad/unfortunate choices, so he decides it’s all the fault of the

Microfiction Entry Day 13:

Rapunzel regarded the body below. Snarking about an elevator had been his mistake.

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Microfiction makes characters less patient, I’ve decided. Traditional Rapunzel would have just tricked him into leaving the tower on some pretext, and then never let down her hair to him again. Microfiction Rapunzel has no time to put up with other people’s shite. She has a conclusion to reach. I kinda like her. I wonder what she’ll do when she

Microfiction Entry Day 12:

“Heads or tails?” asked the blind man. “It’s tails,” said the liar.

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Shades of Bob Dylan here. “Online research” (aka the Wikipedia rabbit hole) led me to the “All Along the Watchtower” lyrics a while back. Anyhoo, the joker/thief pairing lurked in my brain for a long time, and is probably at the root of this wee story. And I think this is a story. There’s two characters, interacting, there’s a conclusion

Microfiction Entry Day 11:

Death tossed the horseshoe, telling the knight, “Most people pick chess.”

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Holy shite, this is so New Yorker cartoon, no? I’m getting worried, guys. I’m actually finding some of the New Yorker cartoons funny. Which means I’m either getting old or East Coastal or both. I think I might immolate myself somewhere in San Francisco Bay if this keeps up.

Anyway, this story is a good example of using a well-known, iconic scene

Microfiction Entry Day 10:

Cassandra’s advice was ignored. Typical, she thought, snake in hand.

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Just like the Devil, Cassandra is a dog-whistle name, hinting at a larger story than the one shown here. In this case, Cassandra is a legendary character, a tragic Greek figure cursed by Apollo to always give truthful, great advice that would nevertheless always be ignored. Which is a nasty curse. Apollo was a jerk, no? Poor Cass was the one to tell the Trojans

Microfiction Entry Day 9:

Repentant, he turned the key of his own cell.

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Adjectives can work for you, or against you. Repentant is a weasel word here. He’s repentant, sure, but does that mean he’s entering the cell or leaving it? The “turning” of the key doesn’t really give any clue. Nor is it meant to. This would be the bit where I the Author am being non-obvious, and trusting you the Reader to get a little