Flash

This needs a bit of a preamble.  For those who don’t know, Flash Fiction is very short fiction.  The idea is to write a story – a complete story, not an excerpt – with a limited number of words.  I am a member of an online writing group, and the group founder hosts a daily flash contest.  He provides a prompt, such as a setting or a line, and we all try to write a story based on that prompt.  There is a 300 word limit.  The first line of the story below was today’s prompt (I added the capitalization).  My wife thought it was cute, and suggested I post it here.  I wrote it in 15 minutes to get it in by the deadline.  You know how it is with the boy whizzing all over the place, and the other 3 yelling “Daddy” every 2.7 seconds, it’s hard to start these projects early.

Enjoy!
Legends

Dark Clouds rolled over the horizon; Lightning flashed and Thunder clapped in the distance.  

The gods were drinking again.  

Dark Clouds, the god of rain and snow and anything precipitous, thought he could hold his sauce.  Being a god of fluids, he always felt he was best at absorbing and then shedding any liquid – and those that made a “lesser god” somewhat unsteady were the ones that Dark Clouds liked best to imbibe.  A bit of a show off was Dark Clouds.

Of course, as it is with drunks, their egos are often bigger than their ability to tolerate mind altering substances, and tonight he’d overdone it.  His large, billowy, cumulo-form manifestation in this dimension rolled, unsteadily, over the horizon and on into tomorrow.

This display of inebriation, so inappropriate for a god, made the equally stupefied Thunder (god of all things loud) clap and cheer and yes, believe it or not, giggle like a fatuous child watching the circus clowns caper and cavort.

Lightning, who fancied himself the most spectacular of the gods (but was rather more of a spectacle when he was drinking) because of his brilliance – in terms of light waves not brain waves – tended to make the biggest scene.  He had thrown on an old trench coat, covering a naked body, and frolicked about exposing himself at intervals.  Unfortunately, this type of “flash” was what he had gained more renown for than for the electric streaks of white light.

If you wonder why the Earth has become such a mess, look no further than these three idiots – or so say the old Native American legends.

Thomas the (Toilet) Tank Engine

Let me tell you how Thomas, that “very useful engine,” has helped the boy learn to make his wee-wees in something other than a diaper.  What do you mean “other than a diaper”? Don’t you mean on the potty?  Oh, yes, on the potty – and on the floor, the wall, his leg, my leg, Mom’s shoulder (don’t ask; I don’t know), his pants, my pants, and, occasionally in the potty.  We’ve potty trained 3 girls without much difficulty, but girls, you see, don’t have a spigot. And aiming that thing can be a challenge for the inexperienced.

But to be fair, he went from diapers to “big boy underpants” (they are, of course, Thomas the Tank Engine underpants – after all, he is a “cheeky” little engine) in essentially one day.  He won’t wear a diaper anymore, and he sleeps through the night without wetting the bed.  All because of that little blue engine.

You see, we made a potty sticker chart, and should the boy complete a row of stickers, he earns a new Thomas the Tank Engine train accessory.  We underestimated the joy these little die-cast trains bring.  He earned his first train the second day of potty training.  He’s gotten four more trains, and some new tracks in the past week.  We can’t afford for him to be a big boy.  Diapers were cheaper.  That kid sits and squeezes at every opportunity.  And when he gets a new train, inside the packaging is a fold-out, full-color brochure showing all the trains he doesn’t have – yet.  And I swear to you, he studies it.  He makes little mental notes about how many pee pees it would take to get the whole set.  I’d like to personally thank the toy manufacturer for that little scam.

However, the good news is, I think we have single-handedly brought the Island of Sodor out of a recession.  Everyone from Tidmouth Sheds to Farquhar Quarry is rejoicing.  Just yesterday there was a message on the answering machine from Sir Topham Hatt - thanking us.

Now, if we could only do something about the poop.