Storytelling Saturday: Four Seasons of Flash Fiction
8 min read
Micro Stories of Love, Inspiration, Joy, & Sorrow
Spring
He first met her outside one of the block’s newest coffee houses, reading a book that she didn’t yet know he wrote. He was a writer by profession, so he noticed a few things about her off of the first few glances.
She looked a little tired; but not unkempt, hair fastened into a tidy ponytail, probably just about to head to work. Of course, he didn’t approach her, ever. There was no way she would like him back.
Somehow, they kept seeing each other there, never speaking a word, for a few weeks. He figured she wasn’t that fast of a reader, since it took her a while to finish the book, before noticing his picture at the back in the author’s note. Only then she recognized him and tapped him on the shoulder while he sat adjacent.
She said something to him, and from the way her lips moved, he guessed it was an introduction. He didn’t hear her speak, he was so entranced by the way her eyes shimmered knowingly in the mid-morning sun.
Eventually, he stuttered out a nervous “what?” and she only smiled in response, sitting down at his table. He was a little taken aback at first, this woman who he didn’t know, and yet somehow knew him, and her wordless confidence in his presence.
She opened the book he wrote and pointed to his picture.
“This you?” He nodded, swallowing nervously, and smiled.
She chuckled a bit before responding:
“I thought so.”
She gave him a smile that dazzled his world and rendered him speechless once again. They stared at each other for a few moments, exchanging a thousand words through a silent, temporary gaze, grinning the whole time.
She gave him her number when she left, and from there it was set.
They continued to meet; sometimes she would buy his coffee, sometimes he would buy her breakfast. They laughed together at half-funny jokes, or sat comfortably in shared silence, with only the ambiance of the cafe and the city nearby to keep them company. They got along with one another, learned about each other, their personalities, their favorite things, communicating through bit lips, gestures, and longing, blushing looks.
When the chaste gazes lengthened and met in a kiss or two, neither of them objected. She held his hand, rubbing her thumb in small circles on the back of his palm, resting her head on his shoulder.
Eventually, they went on a real date at someplace a tad nicer than a coffeehouse, and that date turned into two, then three, and before they knew it, they were living together, in an adoring arrangement that sparked from something as simple as the last page in a book.
Summer
I folded my laundry with the last of the little energy I could muster before sitting down on my chair and pulling my knees up to my chin. I placed my tired head in my hands.
The worries just piled up, one after another, with no signs of slowing or stopping. I didn’t know how much longer I could go on like this before something snapped.
My roommate entered. Well, she was more like my best friend than a roommate by this point. She closed the door softly behind her as she often did so as not to disturb me. Placing down her things, she turned her gaze toward me but did not say anything at first.
It took a few moments of analyzing my upset state to make her move.
“Are you alright?” she asked, voice concerned, but not overly so.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I responded.
Of course, my first instinct was to never burden others with my problems.
“People who are fine don’t usually sit with their head in their hands, rocking back and forth like that,” my roommate replied before turning towards the partially undone laundry littered all over the floor on my side of the room.
“Do you want help with that?” she asked, already moving towards the piles of clothes.
“No, you don’t have to.” My protest was unfruitful as she soon cut me off.
“I want to. And you need it, sometimes. That’s okay,” she said calmly, beginning her work with a pair of socks.
“Need what?”
“Help.”
I didn’t respond to that at first. I need help. The thought rang foreign and uncomfortable in my mind. I never liked asking for help. Asking was scary. What if they refused? And then, the matter of burdening someone with my problems was another entirely.
Sometimes it felt as though asking for help was forbidden, for some reason. A few minutes of silence passed.
“I’m your friend, right?” she asked suddenly, pausing the folding for a moment.
“Of course!” I was jolted by the question; what was she talking about?
“And you’re mine. Friends help each other when they’re struggling,” she smiled when she said it like it was the easiest thing in the world for her to understand.
“I don’t want you to feel… obligated,” my response came softly after a few moments of silence.
“You’re still not getting it, are you?” She went back to folding, the slight smile still glued to her lips. “I care about you, so I want to help you. It’s not about obligation, not even close.”
I stirred on that for a while. It was all so new to me. She finished up with that last of my clothes, placing them neatly and with care back in their rightful places in our shared closet.
“Plus, you help me all the time. We support one another when we’re having a rough day.” She moved toward me, placing her hand on my shoulder, holding my gaze. Her voice was firm but gentle. I think I finally understood.
“The only thing you have to do is tell me, and I’ll take care of the rest. You’re my best friend, you know?”
I smiled for once, nodded, and took a deep breath before responding one last time.
“Thank you.”
Autumn
He’d always been a little clumsy, but he never thought this would happen to him.
He fell down the stairs. It was the first day of school, and he’d just fallen down the stairs.
And everyone was watching him. Of course, this was the luck he had.
He got up and brushed off his sore shoulders and legs and moved to pick up the papers and books he had dropped so unceremoniously moments before. Unbeknownst to him, someone had recorded a video of his untimely, ungraceful tumble and had posted it to all sorts of major social media.
Within the hour, he heard people chuckling at him, snickering from behind his back. Although, for some reason, he didn’t feel the malice normally associated with behind-the-back laughing and secretive recognition. When he was in math class, a couple of guys came up to him, smiling, and gave him a light punch on the shoulder.
“That was a hell of a fall, man,” one of them said, grinning lightheartedly.
“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess it was,” he laughed nervously along with them.
One of the boys asked him for a picture. He nervously obliged, confused as to their intentions, but they seemed nice enough.
It would appear as though he ended up some kind of school celebrity for something he didn’t even try to do. Over the weeks, people kept approaching him, laughing and wanting to take pictures with him. He knew that the video of him falling had gone sort of viral, but he figured any sort of fame was better than nothing. He took it in stride and ended up slipping, no kidding, on a literally discarded banana peel on the floor of the cafeteria.
His clumsiness only seemed to be getting worse, and his friend circle only grew bigger. After he realized what was happening, he decided something:
If he was going to be the class clown, he was going to be the best class clown of them all.
Winter
She woke up with a start, the bad dream that had swallowed her nightly slumber causing quite the fright in her worn, tired heart.
She slumped out of bed, wandering over to her mirror, and stared at her tear-stricken cheeks.
What was happening?
She knew she and her boyfriend had a good thing going. Or she thought so, at least. Why in the world did things seem to be heading downhill? Eventually, she convinced herself it would all be okay if they could just keep trying, but something deep down inside her knew that that was not going to be the case for very long.
Her boyfriend wasn’t mean; at least she thought he wasn’t. He had to have some sliver of true kindness somewhere in him. But he was always snappy, and dismissive, and made her feel terrible about herself. But then he would remind her how broken he was, that he needed her, and she just couldn’t be the one to abandon him because she knew how that felt.
But at the same time, her own emotions needed to take precedence.
They had a habit of pretending. Their relationship was a sham. They both knew it, but neither of them wanted to say anything. They would pretend and fake and muster up any excuse not to see each other, only to say “I love you” at the end of the day. Eventually, one of them would blow up, they’d have a fight, come to a lazy half-hearted solution, try to be better, fail, and go back to their endless cycle of pretend happiness.
It was time for something to snap, for something to break, and they both knew what it would be. She texted her boyfriend late in the afternoon on the day she woke up from the nightmare. She couldn’t even remember what the scary dream was about, but she knew that it left a scarred, withering hole in her heart that could not be filled or repaired without ending the relationship that had became its own version of hell.
We need to talk.
About Storytelling Saturday
Storytelling Saturday is Intellectual Ink’s weekly space for flash fiction, short stories, and poetry. Each piece gives readers a quick literary escape while spotlighting voices, moods, and moments that linger after the final line.
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