Prose or Poetry or both? I am playing around with this short fiction piece that discusses celestial bodies which are ultimately consumed by darkness and timelessness: possibly the destiny for all of us.
Sun and Moon
by
Alina Happy Hansen
The Sun battered down on the city below. The inhabitants wake and roll over, groaning or jumping up to live another day. Looking down below, the heart of the moon, forever lost to his lover runs across the sky. Each day as it progresses, the season’s changes, the year’s pass, the inhabitants are born, live, die, born, live die; generation after generation. The Sun does not care about the inhabitants of that blue little world that is quickly turning grey and sickly, quickly looking more and more like it did when it was born. The sun looks on trying to catch the moon who is left spinning around the little black globe, dead and dried up. Spinning away into a void, an abyss until the sun begins to dim and invert itself becoming a black hole finally sucking the sun into its darkness.
Thank you for reading my work! I hope you will return in the future!
Here is a rough version of a Flash Fiction piece I am working on.
approx. word count: 130
When Words Lose Meaning
by
Alina Happy Hansen
His eyes are black, she drones on, picking up her wine glass. Sips and mutters something under her breath. Her beauty blossoms in the candlelight but her words are poison, tarnishing her image. He wonders how such a beautiful woman could be so cruel. After weeks of being with this woman he has found himself growing more and more disgusted by her. Suddenly her freckles become abrasive markings, her lips stained and creased, her teeth yellow and her eyes, a dark abyss that swallows him whole. Her image begins to slip in front of him as she reveal who she really is. In the end he will marry her because everyone admires her beauty but he will no longer value words and live a life of deceptive imagery.
If you are reading this Thank You for taking time out of your day to read my writing!
I will be posting ‘Flash Fiction’ pieces (100 words or less) starting next week. This is my way of practicing while also showing my creative process!
There will be one or two posts a week of my flash fiction next to my regular ‘Free Hand’ poetry posts.
Also, I am still working on building my Summer 2017 Fiction Book List, as well as a list of all the ‘How-to-‘ books on Poetry and Flash Fiction that I have read.
I want to thank all the people that have decided to follow me (106). I was amazed when I finally had a hundred people following my blog (sometime last week) and wanted to say thank you!
I look forward to this summer and cannot wait to correspond with others on wordpress about poetry and flash fiction (when the time comes)!
I thought I would begin posting short reflections on what I am currently reading since I have extra time this summer to focus on my blog. I am thinking that I will do one of these posts once a week, since I have an ever shuffling stack of books that I am always reading.
This week I began reading Haruki Murakami’s ‘After the Quake‘ after a suggestion from my boyfriend who is currently reading multiple Murakami works. After reading a couple of the stories I found myself pulled into Murakami’s world, intrigued by his unique style of writing and the subject matter.
The stories revolve around an earthquake that took place in Kobe, Japan in 1995. Each story has some connection to the Kobe earthquake but is flexible and malleable in the way that it explores the characters personal responses to the earthquake. The stories also emphasize on loneliness and death which strengthen further the connection between the earthquake and people. How do people cope with loss and fear amidst a natural disaster that affects an entire nation? I think a more important question is, How does a writer cope with the loss and fear that surrounds such an event?
I love the way in which Murakami uses detail and emotions to build his stories. The essence that is built up as the stories progress portray the feelings of loneliness, loss, and death in multiple ways.
My favorite stories in the collection:
Landscape with Flatiron
Thailand
Super-Frog Saves Tokyo
Landscape with Flatiron, explores friendship and a connection with nature through bonfires and alcohol. The end result a suicide pact that has unknown results.
Thailand, emphasizes on loneliness and aging while dealing with personal conflicts and moving on with ones life.
Super-Frog saves Tokyo, a hallucination? or a dream? A giant frog implores help from a lonely middle-aged man to help save Tokyo from a possible earthquake caused by an angry subterranean worm.
Overall I enjoyed reading each short story and plan on reading more of Murakami’s work. I would recommend his work highly to readers that enjoy modern short fiction.
If you are reading this Thank You for taking time out of your day to read my writing! I hope you return in the future!
