Chuck Wendig has a flash fiction challenge – not to write flash fiction (because that would be too easy) but to create a character, that possibly some of his other readers might want to ‘borrow’ for a future flash fiction contest. (Got all that? Me neither). Anyway, following is my attempt at this challenge:
I don’t know his name but he has the kind of face that you forget the second you turn away. Medium height, medium build – pale skin and eyes (green, maybe blue). Pure vanilla. No danger there. No heat. Totally blendable. In a crowd, he’s a ghost. Nobody sees him. Nobody seeks him out for friendship or advice. Air dressed in a human suit.
And so he’s free to do his work. Free to seek out the downcast and forgotten. The erasibles that society steps over, upon and around. The children whose mothers bond more with their cell phones than them. The husbands who serve only to provide credit cards and hold purses or shopping bags. The pets that nobody wants. The seniors whose families leave them in nursing homes or ‘communities’ and never visit.
While they sleep or cry or sit alone on a bench or stoop, he listens. To the words they dare not utter, the dreams hidden in their hearts, the tears they show no one, the pain that is daily living. And with a breath as soft as a summer breeze he sends all that pain into the ether and exchanges it with hope.
Where it goes from here is anybody’s guess but I hope there are superpowers involved.
Annie
Anita Rodgers Mystery Writer 
Nicely done.
I created a character for the challenge too. I like her enough, I guess I’ll have to actually write what happens next!
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it was an unusual challenge, but then, that’s Chuck, right? It’ll be interesting to see what character ends up in the subsequent challenge. 😀
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Lovely. You’re a bag of talent, Annie – really, every time I read something of yours, it feels even better than the last. Oh, and I hope for superpowers, too! 😛
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Hi Ramona,
Thank you. The challenge was a bit different and it felt a little odd, offering a character to whomever… but that’s the fun of it, I think. 😀
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Chuck’s challenges have led me to more of my talent than work done of my own volition sometimes. It’s good to have others around to spark our imaginations! I also made mine sort of “open” so the next writer can do with it as he/she feels.
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You know, I’m not surprised by that at all. We all have our comfort zones in our writing and when someone from ‘outside’ comes along and says, ‘hey I want you to do this,’ it fires off brain cells that we never could’ve roused. Although I bristled a little about offering up a character, after I got over that, it was an interesting exercise. And yeah, open is the way to go, methinks. 😀
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