............................................ ............................................ A blog devoted to the ramblings of a small town, middle aged college professor as he experiences life and all its strange variances.
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Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Small is Better Than None
While the story is only gestational at the moment, here is my Flash Fiction effort this week. Because of time constraints, I could not finish, but I have decided to make a multi-week effort that will continue this story arc up until May 4th.
To me, it is far more valuable for me to get SOMETHING down, rather than just leave my site empty. A bit of progress is better than none.
* * * * *
Oh, Ohio
He had been told crawling would get him nowhere. Yet, he had never understood the sentiment behind those words, until recently. Now he saw the folly in his ways.
Michael had always been a meek sort of fellow. While intelligent, he lacked a certain vibrato, a certain vitality that would make him stand out in a crowd. The potential was there, but he had an innate ability to unknowingly obscure himself and his efforts to blend into the background like a beige index card. This blending in, this fading into nothing, was a result of his horrific and foreboding sense of insecurity. In a nutshell, Michael thought of himself as a “zero” a nothing, a non-entity.
Creative and at times even a bit insightful, Michael, was a researcher and professor at Kent State University. Yes, the University where the tragedy occurred nearly 40 years ago to the day. It was back in May of 1970 that members of the Ohio National Guard showered a hailstorm of ammunition at the protesters on campus, killing four students.
(TO BE CONTINUED... PERHAPS TODAY, PERHAPS IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS, PERHAPS FOR NEXT WEEK'S FLASH FICTION)
PipeTobacco
7 comments:
I appreciate all forms of comments on my writings. I find that I miss the sponteneity of coming to read them here when they were unmoderated. I believe I wrote less due to the moderation. I have decided to adopt limited moderation. Hopefully the prior problems with unfettered comments will not arise again. Please feel free to comment as you wish about the essays I write. I will maintain those comments that offer kind-hearted and gentle opinion... be it positive or negative. The opinions of your comments will, of course, need to have relevance to the post as well.
I like it so far and I don't live far from KSU. I'm looking forward to reading more!
ReplyDelete"A biege index card" - wonderful imagery. Fit perfectly.
ReplyDeleteAs Flannery stated, good start. I look forward to it's continuation.
Good start... I think your story could easily go beyond the flash fiction word count range.
ReplyDeleteYou bet something is better than a blank page.
ReplyDeleteGreat title to the story. And beige card.
Will wait for the next part, whenever that happens.
You definitely caught my attention and now I will very "impatiently" wait for the next installment... Very well composed and great images.
ReplyDeleteFiction, I don't do that being as non fiction is strange enough to me.
ReplyDeleteBut I started a camping blog.
A great start, Pipe, and I'm looking forward to the next installment. Nice job my friend.
ReplyDeleteRegards, David.