Seems like the posts on Thursday—better known as “not quite Friday”—need a break from my more serious writing. To that end, I will share some of the more creative endeavors that fill my computer. This one was a 500-word Flash Fiction story created from a prompt. I wish I remembered what the prompt was! Enjoy!
You Must Go Quickly!
A face above a green hooded cloak surveyed the room. The woman looked furtively at the door and said, “You must be careful; we are the keepers of the secret. The world depends on us.”
I knew the truth of the secret being alluded to, but the proof of it had never been mine to hold so I wasn’t sure what she meant. Then, from under the black cloak, a hand appeared with the ancient secret. With an audible gasp, I accepted the secret and slid it into a bubble-wrapped envelope that suddenly materialized in my hands.
“Go quickly,” the cloaked woman whispered. “Watch your back.”
The room faded behind me as a hallway door opened and seemed to summon me out. One direction was clear; the other was barred by two men disguised as redheads. My choice was clear.
My dash down the hallway was only slowed by glancing back as the redheads bobbed down the hallway after me. Fear gripped the secret in my hands as I dodged in and out of rooms in an endless procession. I felt as if I might drown in the closing presence of the two bobbing redheads. The color red was all I could see.
Why had I been chosen? The world was dissolving into chaos. The lies were being told as truth, while truth slid through the sewer grates to its murky death. The proof of truth was now in my clenched hands, but the cloaked woman surely had mistaken me for some other practiced spy. Far from such a thing, I was an aging teacher, a writer of sorts, who was currently failing as a spy. The redheads were closing in.
Into a room, out the door, down the hall, to another door, in and out, and out and in. I kept running. Actually, running had long left me; I was shuffling.
Entering a room, I was sure the redheads would catch me there. Unlike the previous empty rooms, this room was the domain of a messy creative. Paints, paper, easels, tarps, brushes, and canvases were strewn everywhere. This was a place where the secret could be hidden!
I slid the secret from the envelope and dropped it into the muddle. Then, holding the envelope tightly, I ran toward the door only to hear the Reds laughing behind me as they waved a VHS tape in the air. I had failed.
Ignoring the existential crisis of not saving the world, I continued running without knowing why. Pushing the double doors open at the end of the hallway, I fell headlong into a ballroom with a sea of people staring at screens where the truth was being shown. Stunned, I watched the lies slide through the grates to a murky death.
In the distance, weaving through the aisles, the green-cloaked woman seemed to glide toward me. “Thank you for your service. You never had the secret, but you were certainly convincing. People’s lies are most convincing when they earnestly believe them to be true.”