Flash Fiction February 16: Mountain

Everyone has their mountain. You don’t find it. It’s not there to begin with. You have to build it. Some people like their mountains small, easy to build, easy to climb. They top it off in some short time and feel satisfied with themselves. But, as they say, it’s the darers and the dreamers who look at the blueprints for all the tiny mountains and then look away. They dig and scramble and find the parts and the scraps. They design their own mountain. They build it from trash, from non-existence, and from hope. They make it tower over the others and change the skyline. When other people see that mountain rise up on the landscape, they ooh and ahh. Some cheer, some deride. But they are all intrigued. Will this one succeed? Is this one even climbable? Who is that person that built this mountain? How will the climb be? Who will they be if and when they reach the top? Who will we all be? Not all of them reach the top. Usually just a scant few do. But, when they do, they change everything.


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Flash Fiction February 15: Desert

I grew up in a desert. I lived in a desert all my life. Sometimes people came to my desert, mostly to throw sand at me, or show me how cool trees are and that I couldn’t have any. I tried to stay inside my desert, keep away from the edges. A desert isn’t the most comfortable place. I know that. But it’s what I’m familiar with. The outside is more scary. A desert is vast. It’s very hard to see outside of it, when you’re standing in the middle. The sand gets everywhere. It makes everything heavy and coarse and annoying. But if you live in the desert, you stay in the desert. Even though it’s hard, it can be harder to get out. In 2020, a lot more people found their way into their own private desert. I didn’t choose my desert. It found me. But now I’m working my way out. And it’s ok to ask for help.


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Flash Fiction February 14: City

Cities are not concrete and steel. Cities are not stone and wood. Describing a city like that is like describing juice with the design of the bottle that contains it. Planes can fall on it. Busses could explode in it. Buildings could be razed and neighbourhood could be displaced. But the city remains if the people do. It’s when the populous turns on each other, devalues each other, and demonizes each other, that the city falls. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the same can be said of any sub-part of civilisation.


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