When I decided to offer up serialized or full length short stories on Fridays, I decided to go looking through my archives. I have the rights to all the stories published in my debut collection, Leaving Arizona, and you’ll surely see some stuff from there. But I wanted to go back and find writing that hadn’t made it into the book, writing that hadn’t been published.
As I was looking back through my writing, I realized how incredible it was the amount of fiction I’ve been able to produce over the years. So much of it never seeing the light of day. A lot of it will remain that way. But today, I’m pulling something out of the dark, dusty drawer. This is a flash fiction crime story I wrote a few years ago. Flash fiction is fun because it’s the closest prose writers can get to poetry. You have such limited space to tell your story. To evoke emotion. To leave a mark. Hope this one leaves a mark on you.
Ride
The first time, I’d been too short to reach the pedals. With the sun cut in half by the ridgeline in the distance, half-light slicing across my pupils, I’d slid my butt all the way to the end of the seat, toes just touching the gas, and lurched out of the carport and down the dirt road leading south.
The second time was freshman year. Two hours after Amé broke up with me, an hour after I’d smoked my father’s last Black and Mild. By that time, I could reach the pedals just fine. Same truck, same seat. But I could fly then. Flew all the way past the Boneyard—the old skeletons of planes cackling across the dust.
The third time shouldn’t have happened. A game of basketball in the packed dirt out behind the house. My father calling me for traveling. Me calling him a fucking liar. The words dropped from both our lips until he was back inside, until he wasn’t on my side. Until I found his keys and was halfway to my best friend’s house, shoulders shaking from the tears and the guilt and the stupidity.
Nice little story. The connection of the truck and family. The deliberate severing. Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.