The Over Achiever

Every now and then I play around with the short-short story. It amuses me to see how much 'story' one can tell with so few words. Here is today's effort.(100 words)

The Over Achiever

©  Hazel Campbell 2015

 

Nobody likes my mother. She is an overachiever and batters everybody with this. "I" is the centre of all her universes. Anything you can do she has done better. Hell! I don’t like her.

   I am a good cook. She has fed presidents.

   I applied for training to go to the moon. She is the moon.

   I killed my husband. She murdered three of hers.

   They allowed me to witness her getting the fatal  needle for her crimes. She was the first woman in my country to be thus executed. 

   I wonder what she will overachieve wherever it is she has gone.

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The Short-short Story

The short-short story or flash fiction intrigues me. How can you tell a story in 150 words, or less? Can such a piece - rather should such a piece be called a story?

Today I read this article by a writer who found that he could produce this short fiction
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/14/how-to-write-flash-fiction

I 've tried my hand at it and have not been happy with  the results.

Last year, I think - ( this year is flying by so fast sometimes I don't know which year I am talking about)- a bookstore in Jamaica had a competition for a 24 word story. It created a buzz in the writing world here and I think they got a lot of entries. Then they started publishing the winning story and a few others. As in any competition, many were unhappy with their choices, and the whole thing seemed to have died quietly. They stopped publishing the entries and nothing more was heard. They did have an evening of readings by the authors which unfortunately I couldn't attend, and never managed to connect with anyone who actually went. I hope they repeat the competition this year

 I entered, largely as a challenge to myself. Could I produce something that made sense in 24 words? These were my entries

ADVENT

It was a different Christmas. Green bananas ran through the streets ringing bells, while oranges marched when the trumpet sounded. Jonkunnu change fi true!

TABLES TURNED
To shackup or not? We’re both over eighty. Harder to decide       than when  we were just twenty. 'At your age?' Our children disapprove.

Here's what I understood after writing. The second 'story' TABLES TURNED would be better for a competition as it deals with a situation with which many can relate.There are shared assumptions to fill in the blanks. Actually I could have left out the third sentence and it would still make some sort of sense.
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The first 'story' deals with a special situation in Jamaica. Late in December 2011, the country had a general election. The situation in this 'story' is very localized  The two main political parties have adopted the color orange for the PNP and green for the JLP. The JLP uses the bell as a symbol and the PNP's traditional song is The trumpet has sounded.  Jonkunnu refers to traditional Christmas celebrations. I thought this 'story' was clever, but,without this background knowledge, ADVENT wouldn't work for the reader.

I am still learning.
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