An experiment in flash fiction
At first, I found this prompt challenging. How can one possibly tell a story in just 6 words? There is no room for explanations, no room for characters, no room for plot lines. The 6 words have to be precise and sharp, they have to strike some sort of chord in the reader, they have to carry meaning despite being so few. Once I had a few of these 6 word memoirs on paper however, they began to come to me more naturally and I spent most of the day thinking in 6 word phrases. Here’s the 10 I initially came up with.
In case you want the plain text versions:
Wanted: someone who reads, between lines.
Be the sun’s first morning ray.
Loneliness is a dead end street.
Use with care, beat the heart.
Still, the buried ember burns bright.
You and I were sublime, once.
Dear dad, you never said goodbye.
Do bad habits know they’re bad?
I told the darkness about you.
We were just elbows and knees.
As I was coming up withy my 6 word memoirs, I realized that a few of them would work well together to create a more extensive poem. Each line is 6 words and could likely stand on it’s own as a 6 word memoir.
Hello new friend, sighed the spider.
Not everybody makes it this far.
I think I’m lost, whimpered fly.
You are right where you belong.
The web trembled, then was still.
Spider patched the hole, feeling alone.
Overall I really enjoyed this experiment and felt that it challenged me to think in a new way. I look forward to playing around with more flash fiction in the future.
Samantha Maas 