This flash fiction (aka microfiction) started out as a journal entry inspired by Jack Grapes’s book on ‘Method Writing’.
I cut most of the journal entry before the point where a “transformation line” massage suggested a possible story.
The title came at the end and from an unexpected source. I’d been having some trouble with Breakout Rooms in Google Meet when, hey presto!, this wee flash fiction demanded I snag that title pretty darn quick.
Here's the story.
I suppose it was time for a change. Two lives here; three there. A body gets tired of all that war, all that suffering, all that death.
I took a swig of the strong stuff, as my old man used to say. The bottle was chipped around the rim and smeared with dirt, but I was beyond caring. I felt just like he probably did when those killer drones had rumbled his hiding place. I looked up and swore at strips of blue winter sky visible through the smashed up roof rafters. “Stick that where the sun don’t shine!” My voice boomed much louder than I intended.
I managed two or three more gulps before I heard a distant hum getting closer. Won’t be long now.
“Come out now. The war’s over for you, Tomi.”
I never got used to their cloned voices. They were faker than a president’s promises. I touched the thermite grenade in my inside pocket and tapped a countdown code I’d memorized by heart in boot camp. A ray of weak sunshine sneaked through where the chimney breast used to stand and made me smile at the terrible beauty of it all.
“Number six coming right up, buddy.”
(Note: No generative artificial intelligence (sic) was used in this post or in writing the flash fiction. It was created by a fallible human writer - me, Mark McClure.)
This microfiction was first published as The Breakout Room on markmccluretoday.com
