Flash Fiction

The Tree

By / December 3, 2021 / Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Surreal
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The tree. It towered over Diane, thick muscular branches reaching high into the sky, gilded by late-afternoon light. She’d been walking through the park on her way home from work. She must have passed it a hundred times before, yet today it had stopped her.

She felt for a moment that it was calling to her, that it was trying to establish a connection. But that was a childish thought.

Grow up, Diane.

The words of her foster mother sprang to mind, and she began to pull away.

“Diane.”

She stopped, looked back. Had the tree just called her name?

Grow up, Diane. It’s just a tree. Trees don’t talk.

She turned away once more.

“Diane, come back.”

The voice wasn’t one of sound but of feeling, a silent mournful breeze that seemed to blow from someplace far away. Diane shook it off.

She was tired. She was on her way home from work after ten hours without lunch, and her imagination was getting the best of her. Once more, the words of her foster mother came to mind.

Grow up, Diane.

She peeled her eyes away, forced herself to move in the direction of her apartment.

“Diane, please.”

And the voice of the tree intensified. It penetrated her strongest defenses, reaching her heart, setting it on fire. In an instant that transcended time, visions of an alien cosmos flowed through her, a broad sweeping narrative, first of pain, loss and defeat, then of victory, triumph and love. The tree. It loved her, and it wanted to sweep her away.

Diane came back to herself, caught herself mid-stride. She was shocked to find that she’d been headed toward the massive trunk with arms outstretched. She felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

The voice in her head was gone now, but not the supernal mystery that lingered long after the strange encounter. It had set her off balance, sent her reeling headfirst into a universe she knew nothing about.

Diane stood a moment longer, unable to move. Then she stumbled back. She gazed up at the tree one last time, now just an ordinary tree, then turned and bolted the rest of the way home.

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©2017 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.

Planter of Worlds

By / February 4, 2017 / Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Surreal
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Andi reaches into a faded leather pouch and produces a handful of seeds. She scatters them about the ground. Waters them. Moves on.

She waits for them to grow.

She is a Sower, a planter of worlds. She wanders the cosmos, the last of her kind, spreading her celestial seed. Wherever she goes, worlds spring up in her wake, quivering with wild, newborn magic.

Long ago, her people filled the fertile fields of the universe, sowing and nurturing celestial objects of every kind. Stars burst to life in the darkness of empty space and bore an abundance of planetary fruit. It was their greatest work, their crowning glory.

But when they were finished they moved on. The canvas had been filled, they said, and they were ready to plant bigger better gardens. But Andi couldn’t let it go. She saw that it was beautiful, but also imperfect, and she knew that with time she could make it better.

So Andi picked up her seed pouch and got to work, planting a world here, a star there. Each sowing brought the cosmos that much closer to perfection.

Andi knows her work will never be complete, that perfection is an eternal struggle, something to be aimed for but never reached. She understands something the rest of her kind did not, that a labor of love is never finished, that it must be tended to assiduously.

She hopes that one day they’ll return. Perhaps if they lay eyes upon her work, they’ll stay to help.

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©2017 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.