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Freeing the Cats
October 14, 2007 in 299 Words, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Mercy, Prison, Violence | by davidbdale | 5 comments
The tiniest fang-like tooth, which, every time it has settled against the stop inside the lock, has kept the bolt from sliding free from the jamb of the big cat cage, had been misaligned from the start and, weakened by thousands of abuses, finally snapped. The gear it snapped from stopped at nothing and rolled a full rotation; the spring did its job in turn and slipped the bolt. Furthermore gravity did not fail and swung the door a few inches open to its lowest point above the path to the petting zone. It might have been engineered otherwise, to lock in the event of failure, but it wasn’t; the door might have been hung to swing closed without the bolt in place. Of course, the cats might have been left at home to eat what big cats hunt and kill for themselves or a young woman with a helpful disposition, seeing the door ajar, might have pushed it shut or alerted the man with the ring of keys or the uniformed someone puttering past in the camouflage utility jeep to park the jeep against the door to secure it until the lock could be fixed. Nothing like that happened. The parents whose children were terrorized and worse raised furious questions about mechanics and made demands for oversight that were different from the questions the young woman asks, different from her demands. Nobody knows what recommendations the cats might have made. The cage stands silently empty. Visitors point at the path pounded deep into the zoovironment, the tree trunk clawed to shreds, the faulty door, and notice certain failures but not the essential flaw, or so it seems to the young woman of rebellious disposition who used to come every day to the petting zone to watch the animals.
Copyright © October 14, 2007
Proof of the World
October 5, 2007 in 299 Words, Confession, Family, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Short stories, Stories, Survivor, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Car, Drinking, Father, Philosophy, Proof, Violence, World, Writing | by davidbdale | 9 comments
In this 300-word paper, I will prove that the world exists, beyond a reasonable doubt, as I was assigned. 277 words to go. First premise: as everybody I know will tell you, I am to blame for everything. My survey techniques are not scientific, but the results are unanimous; beyond a doubt, then, I am to blame. Second premise: if the world doesn’t exist, it can’t affect anything and nothing can afflict it, so evidence that someone had beset the world or that the world had excruciated someone would be evidence of the world. Third premise: every lousy thing I’ve done has beleaguered the world, proving the world exists, or has beleaguered nothing, proving nothing. Oh, and every noble thing, too. Things I had good intentions to do and never got around to belong to the null set, if I understand the null set. Ergo, ergo nothing. 152 hollow words to go. My proofs are as phony as my denials. I say I wasn’t there but I was there if the world exists. I say I wasn’t impaired but I never explain how that could be. I say someone else called Dad to come get me, the cops might have called him, but I know who called. They’d smudged my fingers and mug-shotted me. They’d taken away my car. Dad tossed me the keys to his when we left the station. I knew that meant he’d been heavily drinking. I never got around to telling him what I’d been heavily doing. Ergo. For the second time that night, I took the wheel of something that could clobber the world, then drove us both at breathtaking speed and with evident purpose directly to the scene of a horrible accident only I survived. How about that? I did it in 299.
Copyright © October 05, 2007
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Very Short Novels 
Thank you so much, anhinga, but I wouldn't want to try it without the other 199. —David
Why, thank you, brother. It's wonderful to see you here. :) —David
All you need is 100 words to make an emotional impact. Touching.
Brilliant, brother. Just simply brilliant.
This Very Short Novel has a strong resemblance to Simple Lessons of War from almost 20 years ago, but is…