Flash Fiction – Page 57 – Jeff Coleman Writes

I Saw Her Again

By Jeff Coleman / March 28, 2018 March 28, 2018 / Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Horror, Surreal

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The line we draw between reality and fantasy is a fragile thing, a brittle house of glass that requires only one small pebble, one hairline crack, to fall shattering to the ground.

I saw her again.

I saw her again, and my psyche, like our metaphorical house of glass, burst into a million sparkling pieces.

I was seven when I watched her die, and I was thirty when I spied her outside in the pouring rain, holding an umbrella in her right hand, along with a smoldering cigarette in her left.

I can already hear what you’re going to say next. How do I know she was the same person? People look like other people all the time. And if not for what happened next, I’d say you were right.

The world, dreary and gray, took on a hollow, distant cast. I thought, surely, I must be dreaming. I wanted to move on, wanted to shy away from the uncanny encounter before I could be undone. But in such mad and dreamlike moments, we do odd things—dangerous things we wouldn’t dare attempt by the ordinary light of day.

I pulled up beside her, not minding the cold and the damp and the pelting rain, and I said, “Excuse me, don’t I know you from someplace?”

In the instant before she turned, I thought, This is all a misunderstanding. The crawling goosebumps will pass, and when I see for myself that she isn’t the same person, that it was only a bit of déjà vu, I’ll wander on, shaking my head and wondering how I could have been such a fool.

But then she looked at me, and she was the same person, and I stood there in a hapless stupor as her lips curled into a malicious sneer.

“Hello, Joseph. How good to see you again.”

That from the woman I watched die.

That from the woman I helped my father kill.

“Say hello to your father for me.”

Then she turned away, just another stranger in the pouring rain. First I was walking. Then jogging. Then running. I careened down the puddle-laden street, convinced she was right behind me, ready to mete out cold, hard justice at last.

Murderer, whispered a part of myself I’d locked away for twenty-three years.

Impossible, shrieked another.

And inside, in the manic chambers of a shattered mind, a million shards of my broken soul clambered and shouted at once.

Now I am broken, and like Humpty Dumpty, all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put me together again.

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©2018 Jeff Coleman. All rights reserved. For reproduction rights, please contact the author (who happens to be a kind and eminently reasonable man.) Unless otherwise stated, images are copyrighted by various artists and licensed by Shutterstock.

The Old Man’s Candy

By Jeff Coleman / March 21, 2018 March 20, 2018 / Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Horror

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I never should have taken the old man’s candy.

“But Joseph,” he said, “it’s so juicy and sweet.”

He popped one in his mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. Well, my eight-year-old brain reasoned, if he could eat it, so could I.

I took one from his outstretched hand, examined the brown paper wrapper with interest, and asked, “What is it? I’ve never seen this brand before.”

His lips curled into a toadstool smile.

“Ah, Joseph, the candy you hold in your hand is one of a kind. I make it myself for special boys and girls like you. Go on, try it.”

I did. It was delicious.

An exotic rainbow of fruity flavors burst across the surface of my tongue—the invigorating tang of lemons and oranges, the elysian sweetness of strawberries and blueberries, all accented by flavors I’d never encountered before and haven’t encountered elsewhere since.

Yes, it was delicious, and from that day forward, I was hooked.

It seemed I couldn’t go for more than a few hours before my craving reached an agonizing climax. My body would ache and burn with need, as if someone had thrown me into a fire, and I would have no choice but to return to the old man’s house for more.

“Of course, Joseph. I’d love to give you more.” He flashed me his signature toadstool smile, an expression I would come to loathe. “But if I do something for you, you have to promise to do something for me.”

“Anything,” I breathed, and when he pulled three more candies from his pocket, I lunged.

“These are for tomorrow. There’s one for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for after dinner.”

He gave me a fourth to take the edge off, and all at once the longing vanished.

“Come back tomorrow, and I’ll give you your first assignment.”

That was how my life in the underground started.

At first, I was given simple jobs, like delivering packages or relaying messages. Easy enough to accomplish behind my parents’s backs, and I was always rewarded with more candy. Then I grew older, more capable, and the nature of my assignments changed. Sometimes I would steal, sometimes I would spy. I was exposed to a whole other world, to the dark and seedy underbelly of humanity. They were people who’d slipped through the cracks. Desperate people. Powerful people. Dangerous people.

By the age of twelve, I’d had enough.

“I can’t do it anymore,” I told the old man.

He just smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and said he understood.

“If you want more candy,” he said, closing the door behind me, “you know where to find me.”

I was on his doorstep the following day.

It’s been thirty years, and I’ve done a lot more for the old man than steal or spy. At first I found it odd that he could survive so long. Then I thought about it some more, and I decided it wasn’t odd at all. I lay awake at night, watching the moon-limned shadows dance across the ceiling, and I ponder with manic obsession what I’ll do when he’s gone and the candy finally runs out.

“You’re mine, Joseph,” he said to me once, and he was right.

I am his, now and forever.

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