The Iron Writer Challenge #62

I have never been fond of writing flash fiction. Maybe it started back in the fourth and fifth grades when my teacher used to tell us to write essays or stories under a specific word limit. I always, always jumped that limit. I guess I always hated writing within any sort of specific barriers.

Still do.

So, probably the last thing you would think of me doing would be to join a writer’s group based around weekly and even daily flash fiction challenges.

Ask me about it a month ago and I would have been “Puh-leeze, no,”

But when Brian Rogers himself, the man behind the Iron Writer Challenge, ask you to join… you would be crazy not to.

And so join I did, and in doing so, chalked up one more thing right that I’ve done as your friendly neighborhood anonymous Mathew.

The basic structure of the Iron Writer challenge; four authors are given four days to come up with a five hundred word piece of any genre that contains four given elements. And Brian never lets his people have it easy, no. He just thinks up the most incompatible, mismatched, unusable objects and then meshes them together for each week’s challenge.

For example… challenge #4, where the elements were a giraffe, an elevator, a kumquat and a microwave; challenge #9, which had a pregnant camel, a roller coaster, a sunken ship and a loom; challenge #61, where there was a nighttime fire breather, a lace shawl, duct tape, and a revolving door. See what I mean?

 And then there was my one.  The elements we were lucky enough to get this week were a Bunsen burner, a ski lodge, a cactus… and a bikini.

The cactus and the bikini might have gone together, but then came the ski lodge, and Brian simply had to throw in the Bunsen burner, probably because he just couldn’t resist. Thank you, Brian.

It took me a couple of days, and this is what I managed to final come up with.

And The World Spins Round And Round

The gravel crunched audibly as I pulled into the parking space. Max leaned forward to peer at the rickety, imposing structure just ahead.

“Is this the place?”

“The Pine and Cactus Ski Lodge,” I read aloud, “This is it.”

I stepped out onto soft, silky sand, and for a second, I was confused.

“Whooo-eeey,” my partner stretched, “Look at those dunes!  No wonder this place gets skiers from the top class every spring.”

“Uh, I guess,” I said, “We… we have a job to do.”

The doors to the ski lodge were wide open, and a tall, bald man was right at the doorstep, staring down at us. He was, without a doubt, a butler.

He raised his nose at us as we entered.

“Uh…” I began, but a short, round woman in overalls waddled up to us, smiling widely.

“Thank you for coming over, Officers,” she said, “Terrible business this, terrible. We just found her like that last night.”

“Good evening, Ma’am,” Max said, smoothly, “I’m Officer Maxwell and this is my partner Matt. Tell us what you know.”

“I’m Lucy, the manager,” she said, ushering us into the spacious hallway, “We found her on the bar this morning.”

“Didn’t you say last night?” I asked, “And ‘on’ the bar?”

She ignored me, and turned to the butler, “Lucius?”

He nodded, and started to follow us silently. I glanced at him, and he returned my gaze unblinkingly, sending a shudder down my spine.

All along the walls down the long corridor, colorful items were on display, each one on an individual shelf. I saw a trumpet, a brass monkey, a Bunsen burner, and a pair of designer flip-flops.

“Interesting décor,” I commented.

“They add to the feel of the place,” Lucy called back.

“Who else was staying here at the time of the incident?” I asked, pulling out my phone.

“Well, Lucius was here. And so was I. And the maids, Lucy and Lucy. And Lucille, the cook, and Lucia the telephone operator.”

“Wait… did you say tele…”

She turned the corner, and we were at the liquor counter. And on the bar lay the victim, clad in nothing but a blue and red bikini, face blue and blood down her torso. Max whistled.

“Two to the chest, slash on the throat and she was definitely drowned,” he assessed.

I shot him a look, and he shrugged, “I watch Sherlock.”

I tapped at my phone, “And her name was…?”

“Lucy,” the owner replied.

“Of course,” I threw Max another look, but he didn’t bat an eyelid.

“Who would have had motive?” I asked.

“Well, there was Lucillain, her ex-boyfriend,” Lucy mused, “And the cat, Lucifer, always hissed when she passed by…”

“We’d like to talk to that cat,” Max said.

I was getting one heck of a headache. Something was seriously off here. Something…

My partner nudged me, “Relax, champ, we solved this one.”

“Wha… how?”

“Wake up, Matt,” he said, “It’s a Lucy Nation,”

And so it was.

There’s meant to be a punch line in there, if you (most probably) didn’t notice. The other contributions were a lot better, I definitely agree; but on the bright side, I did come up with something. Flash fiction was never my thing, but maybe in time, The Iron Writers will groom me into it.

Go ahead and visit The Iron Writer page, and vote on whichever story you like. Help us writers out. I voted on “The Stranger,” and I urge you to vote on whichever contribution you feel is best.

And here’s to my next traumatic Iron Writer Challenge. May there be more to come.