Single Sentence Stories
13 fiction flexes
Bad Design
I should have known I couldn't trust her—the way she chose bare LED bulbs overhead, the brash light blackening her face and burning black spots into my eyes as she sat at the kitchen island, unfolding her list of gripes like a three-fold map.
Exit
I woke up early to take her to the station but backed out at the last minute, pretending to have a headache—the thought of watching her walk into the crowd made my heart shrink, dense and brittle, like a tiny lightbulb crushed in my hand.
The Final Light
Alas, the uttermost lightbulb known to us was crushed beneath Gunter’s boot in the ruckus of last night’s brawl, and we stood frozen—grotesque statues of our former animation—in the darkened tavern.
You stop you die.
She was dancing for her life, so when the light suddenly went out, she continued in the dark, the sound of her bangles and the rattle of the chain at her ankles the only proof she hadn’t stopped.
The Coil
The Eighth Block Apartments were prone to power surges, but when every light in John’s unit blazed on at once, he couldn’t help but cry out—the specter had visited him often, but never in full light, and what he had taken for jewelry coiling around her neck, like the carved snakes on Egyptian friezes, were the bruised indentations of an old-fashioned telephone cord.
Witness
Each snake eye in her tattoos was a point of light—embedded red diodes coiling up her arms—and when she switched off my office lights, only their flicker remained, writhing in the dark as I watched through the window, the glowing eyes winding around my husband’s neck.
7. Heartlight
As I approached the government gates, my gravpod’s hololights spiked, then died, leaving me hovering in sudden darkness—just long enough to glimpse the Heartlight glowing far below, and I knew, with the terrible clarity of inherited premonitory foresight, that war would begin this very day.
To challenge the will of the Supreme Order is to sign one’s own erasure.
He knew he was a little man, a shabby dictator to his handful of loyal fans—his so-called army—but when the glow of the screen lit his face and the final message came through, he felt the fury pulse in his palm like a fragile lightbulb, and as his hand inadvertently flexed, it was as if the brittle glass gave way, and he muttered, “They’ll learn what happens when they mock the throne.”
Come Alone
The reek of BO, fruity detergent, and the banana-scented pine tree dangling from the taxi’s rearview mirror made you want to run the forty blocks—but the image of her waiting beneath that single bulb from the ransomware video made you steel yourself, and you rolled down the window despite the message telling you not to, because there are only so many rules a person can follow in one day.
Receipts
She hits send, and notifications wave through the gym like a swarm of crickets chirping—each phone lighting up a hand, each screen lighting up the truth—every one of them turning now to watch him.
Glow
I was still learning to control the light—my hands going cold, then warm, as it grew inside them and shone through my transparent skin, revealing bone in crimson red and veins in blue—but when I raised them above my head in the crowded theater, the audience fell silent, turning toward me as I began to speak.
The Sky Drape
The wizard raised the glow at the tip of his staff and reminded the people of Malkornia that though the night was long, the ancestors watched still—their bright gazes shining through the peepholes in the sky, from behind that drape of black shielding them from our dark world—the curtain that shall one day part for all of us as well.
The Gathering
When a cold wind blew the snake torches out, Iewini turned her back to the bonfire and gazed into the blue fog, where only the faintest outlines of the trees remained—and for the first time in her life, she glimpsed the slow-moving gray silhouettes of the giants, gathering for their ceremony.
You’re done! You did it. Now’s the time to answer a few questions:
What do you think makes a story work, even when it’s only a sentence long?
What was left unsaid that your mind filled in?
What was your favorite?
Did you hate any of them?
I’ve got another of these one sentence stories posts. Want to see it?
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All were interesting. Why I’m I smelling BO and fruity detergent all of a sudden ?
This was fun and inspired me to follow through with an idea I've been pushing off.
Love your work!