Flash Fiction Story Bag (Vol. 3)

Several readers submitted fantastic prompts and I’ve written flash fiction-style stories for my favorites.

Prompt: “If a button turned every gun in America into a live tarantula, I’d break my arm slamming it.”

Title: Reruns

We could only watch the monkeys mutilate themselves in so many absurdly grotesque ways before it all became so…tedious.

Proxy wars, civil wars, territorial disputes, terrorist attacks, school shootings, mall shootings, nightclub shootings, movie theater shootings, spa shootings, church shootings, synagogue shootings, mosque shootings, domestic partner shootings, drive-by shootings, homicides by shooting, suicides by shooting — enough already.

We needed to spruce up Our programming. Not for the monkeys’ sakes — they’d always have their thoughts and prayers — but for Ours.

So We asked Ourselves a burning question: could We cure the monkeys of their gun obsession?

Billions of trillions of quadrillions of simulations later We’d done little to dent their enthusiasm. Minor tweaks produced odd, insignificant, and irrelevant phenomena — think weird haircuts and weirder pornography. More aggressive modifications invariably triggered World War and global thermonuclear annihilation. That made for compelling cinema, but the shows rarely lasted more than a few episodes.

We’d exhausted every logic-based permutation and nearly every physics-based parameter when a snippet of errant code salvaged our hypothesis — and struck sitcom gold.

In an instant, Ukrainian and Sudanese battlefields teemed with terrified soldiers. Cops and sicarios and small-town sheriffs cried for their mothers. A Klan rally in Montgomery, Alabama and a Proud Boys parade in Kalamazoo, Michigan went wonderfully awry. Cars wrecked, planes crashed, and trains derailed.

Somehow We’d transformed the monkeys’ violent, heat-packing, militarized planet into a super-sized terrarium crawling with hairy, eight-legged invaders. And somehow We’d maintained The Construct’s psychological integrity.

The monkeys might’ve called such a cataclysmic coding error kismet.

We called it great television.

And We couldn’t get enough.

We ran the simulation trillions of times — savoring each morsel of arachnid-inspired depravity — before the “miracle” began losing its luster. When We tired of tarantulas We transformed the guns into pangolins. Then pandas. Anacondas. Roaches. Orcas. Bull sharks. Crocodiles. Moose. Hyenas. Komodo dragons. Flying foxes.

Watching a domestic terrorist get crushed to death when his AR-15 unexpectedly turned into a three-ton hippopotamus sparked the highest ratings in Our history.

Alas, as with any franchise, recreating the magic of the original proved nigh impossible. Eventually We wiped the slate clean, reverted back to the source material, and let the monkeys’ firearm-free, tarantula-laden future unfold. Humanity for them, entertainment for Us.

The pilot episode started off swimmingly.

The monkeys bonded over their collective global trauma, and concluded an angry God — or Gods, or aliens, or AI overlords (lolz) — had justifiably smote them. Miraculously, they decided the specific cause didn’t matter, and endeavored to learn and grow. They ended global conflict, shared language and culture and wealth and prosperity, and protected and preserved the environment. They humped each other a lot more, too.

We declared Our experiment a resounding success. We finally beat the violence out of them.

As the episodes turned to seasons, and the seasons turned to spinoffs, however, the monkeys rendered Our optimism foolish and premature.

Craven monkeys twisted facts, retconned histories, and otherized their neighbors for political gain.

Crafty monkeys created novel weaponry — repurposed from benign carbon sequestration technology — and ignited an old-school arms race.

Soon, privatization and mass-manufacturing placed all-natural, carbon-neutral, biodegradable “pruners” in the hands of guardians, peacekeepers, medics, philosophers, the lost, the angry, and the disaffected.

We watched in horror when a “school pruner” slaughtered 117 elementary school children.

We watched in shame when all the monkeys could muster were thoughts and prayers.

We watched henceforth knowing a depressing, unequivocal truth: the monkeys would never save themselves.

Submitted by: Dennard Dayle

Amran’s notes: Dennard tossed the above “prompt” into one of his always excellent editions of Extra Evil and I immediately asked to sample it.

To craft a world where guns could physically turn into tarantulas I envisioned some form of “magic” or “virtual reality,” which meant fantasy or science-fiction. Both genres fall far outside my typical wheelhouse — humans are the scariest thing I can imagine — so to be honest writing this piece proved quite challenging. If it sucks, apologies. I tried my best.

Anyway, I opted for a computer simulation because 1) it seemed funnier, 2) I could lean into my knowledge of similar media (e.g., The Matrix), 3) AI is hot bro, and 4) having an off-brand Scarlet Witch or Dr. Strange do “magic” struck me as incredibly lame.

Craft-wise, my key idea was to use the first-person plural point-of-view (e.g., “We” instead of “I”) for the AI hivemind, which I hoped would create some weird, idiosyncratic language. I capitalized all the pronouns for emphasis. Past tense felt natural during the writing process, but one aspect remains unresolved: Who’s the AI telling the story to?

In terms of the narrative takeaway, I leaned into a well-worn idea: humans be trash. When we stop being trash, and start learning from our past mistakes, I’ll get more creative.

Prompt: A “superhero,” suffering from GI issues, plugs his leakage by stuffing something up his butt, and changes — but doesn’t alter — the course of history.

Title: Meet the new boss

Comrade Putin’s second biggest mistake was eating the tainted borscht. His third was wearing a khaki suit. His first, of course, was trusting me.

The Victory Day speech plays a crucial role in our national mythology. Russia, more than any country in the lazy, decadent West, defeated the Nazis. Wepaid the highest price. With Russian blood. And Russian treasure.

The Americans endlessly valorize “D-Day” and mourn their twenty-five hundred fallen comrades and insist they saved the world from Hitler. As if that pitiful sacrifice could possibly compare to the one-point-one million heroes who fought bitterly and died tragically at Stalingrad.

The West has never given Mother Russia her proper credit.

This is why the Russian leader must project strength, and celebrate national pride, and honor our fallen comrades during his all-important Victory Day speech. Why he must address past insults and rectify past wrongs. And why he must show solidarity with our history, while promising to usher in a brighter future.

What the Russian leader most certainly cannot do, however, is collapse and soil himself mid-speech, have paramedics remove his filth-stained pants and reveal he’s wearing Captain America-branded underwear stuffed with an American flag, hysterically rant about a deep-state conspiracy against him, and then order the military to open fire on the revolution-seeking crowd.

Sadly, Comrade Putin did do all those things during his Victory Day speech. They weren’t intentional, of course. He didn’t know I fed him horse laxative for breakfast. And he thought the “Captain America Challenge” was just another harmless TikTok fad, one which apparently “drove the young girls crazy.”

Problem is, what you don’t know can kill you. That’s why bits and pieces of Dear Vladimir now lay scattered around Red Square.

Dasvidaniya, Tovarisch.

All of which brings us to the present moment. Victory Day plus ten. Revolutionaries have been ransacking the streets and plundering government buildings, just like the Bolsheviks did a century ago. To quote the idiotic Americans: it’s déjà vu all over again.

But the people are running out of steam — and food. Anarchy’s a riot until there’s no fresh water to drink. My comrades need leadership. Demandleadership. Which is why I’m standing in the exact spot where Dear Vladimir gave his final speech. And why I’m wearing all black. And why my stomach’s empty. And why I’m surrounded by trustworthy associates from the Wagner Group.

“Comrades,” I say, quieting the restless crowd.

“For those who may not know me, my name is Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin. I’m a proud son of Russia. A patriot. An entrepreneur. And sometimes, a chef.

“It is my great honor and privilege to accept the mantle of leadership. And it will be my great responsibility to purge the poison that’s been injected into our veins by the traitorous Putin and the cynical West.

“Our revolution promises a more prosperous future. A strong and diversified economy. A seat at the global table.

“But our revolution cannot come without sacrifice.

“Comrades, we must first reclaim our former glory. We must again strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. We must take back Ukraine, once and for all.”

Submitted by: Maegan Heil, my long-time friend Phil, Timothy Ralston, and Wil Dalton

Amran’s notes: Okay, I took extensive liberties here and integrated bits and pieces of four prompts into one ridiculous concept. Timothy sent me the vintage superhero idea, Maegan and Wil requested “butt stuff,” and Phil wanted me to cook up something where the future appears changeable but not necessarily alterable.

Blending it all together produced the magic (garbage?) above.

In terms of craft, I chose first-person present, though because the narrator jumps back and forth between what already happened and what’s presently happening the verb tenses ended up all over the place. I typically trust my gut on this stuff and let the narrator’s “voice” emerge naturally.

I also used this prompt as an excuse to write a miniaturized version of “Prigozhin’s War Journal,” which is an idea I’d been flirting with for a while. If you’re not familiar with “Putin’s Chef,” or with the Wagner Group’s private mercenary army, look him up.

As for the point of this story, see above. Seemingly radical changes often further entrench the status quo, especially when villains supplant villains.

As always, I’m amenable to constructive feedback. Feel free to drop any thoughts or ideas in the comments section below.