Friday, July 27, 2012

A Brief Piece on an Epic Event



Hello everyone!  Today I bring you a flash piece that comes in at exactly 150 words.  Brevity isn't my thing, so this is a new record for me.

Why so short?

Thanks to Laura from My Baffling Brain, I learned of a new flash fiction blog called Flash Fiction Flourish.  


And it's literally brand new, so most of you probably haven't heard of it. The basic idea is this: a photo prompt is given, and you write a flash piece between 100-150 words based on that prompt.  The photo prompt depicts a boat on the water.

As usual, I must take it in a science fiction direction.  It's who I am.

This is also my piece for Friday Flash Dot Org.  Is that cheating?  Maybe.

Oh well.

More Than a Movie

The passengers on the cloaked timeship take their seats.  The staggered seating guarantees that everyone has unobstructed access to the wide viewscreen.

Fifty feet below, the cold water of the North Atlantic turns to white froth as the behemoth of a ship cuts through.  The oblivious passengers mill about the deck as the sunset paints them in shades of orange and gold.

Attendants are passing bags of buttered popcorn, assorted candies, and beverages (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) out to the audience.

The images of Titanic are interspersed with interviews explain what to expect from the sinking. 

The CEO of Temporal Cruises soon fills the screen.  “Many films have been made about Titanic,” he explains, “but they don’t have the same impact as the real event lived out before your eyes.  People want to see that life and death struggle, and we provide that.”

Unseen, the iceberg looms in the distance.

10 comments:

  1. Oh yes... Very clever.. Thanks for taking part..xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. "The passengers on the cloaked timeship take their seats."

    Wow, I loved that first sentence. I was totally hooked, and just HAD to read the rest. It was fascinating, in a macabre sort of way!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can easily see these reality experiences becoming popular!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Interesting writing concept, thanks for sharing.

    This is a very well done piece. It occurs to me that we're not far off this in real life, with the breaking news of disaster and horror from everywhere. The only difference is this is the past.

    I wonder how you could justify watching and not doing anything (unless you couldn't, of course). (I didn't watch the MOVIE because I didn't want to watch people die... *shrug*)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love it! The piece works as a flash but I could also see it becoming a longer piece if you wanted to.

    Reading the very beginning freaked me out a little because it was so similar to a dream I once had!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ooh, a Titanic ride at Disney? Sounds like fun :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. clever idea, loved the moby dick resonance of the ship as 'behemoth'

    marc nash

    ReplyDelete
  8. I like how you took it in the science fiction direction and made an otherwise normal photo into an epic simulation of sorts. Cheers

    ReplyDelete