Fifty-Five

Short stories of exactly - exactly - 55 words. Written for my Flash Prose course this semester.

[Saying Goodbye]

Born out of necessity, you were. Concision was your key virtue. It's why I loved you so, treasured you above all my others. You, more than the rest, sprung from my thoughts, the carefully scrubbed, trimmed and polished child of my imagination. But now I'll have to let you go. It's no good. You're fifty-five.

*****

[A Mother's Love]

Her bosom haunted him. Every night, as she heaved beneath him, he could not help but notice its swell. He tried to lose himself in her, to find some sense of the love that, as a child, he had never known.

Her familiar voice greeted him as he entered the bedroom.

"Oedipus, I've been waiting".

*****

[Bachelor]

He was a clerk and she was a nurse. They had been young, and in love; their parents had even given consent. The wedding was set for the next day. Then the bombs started falling and the soldiers swarmed ashore.

He put down the photo with arthritic fingers, blinking away tears in his rheumy eyes.