I return my story to Customer Service, and they send me to the Muse Department where employees are busy stocking shelves. Everyone’s wearing nametags like Dénouement, Verisimilitude, and Narrative Mechanics, MFA. I have an M.A. but I’m missing the F, and I imagine this may hold the key. Feeling un-generative in the aisle of similes and soliloquies, I approach Objective Correlative who says the muse is out to lunch. Over tortoise shell readers, Slush Pile asks if I brought my receipt, which puzzles me because I’m not sure I asked for one. Long Listed peers over a shoulder and wants to know what’s wrong with my story anyway? I hand it over and explain how Genre Enforcement told me it’s not really a story, but they let me off with a warning and suggested I try again in six months. That’s when the lights go out. Omniscient Narrator announces a metaphor outage in aisle 9, something about a new tariff in town. Long Listed wants to know who let the pun in. Needs-To-Know-More echoes the demand. None of us can see anything except a distant crack of light. I inch towards it by feel, stepping on toes, dodging carts of raw backstory, the reason I’m here now all but forgotten. A red sign over the door of cracked light becomes a beacon. The End it says as I draw closer. I hop through the opening and stick the landing in broad daylight brushing shoulders with Elements of Style from Parts & Repairs who hands me my now tiny six-word story and says, Amuse broche. Delighted by the unexpected, I savor this two-bite feast that must be, wants to be, and is. Just enough.
Guy Biederman wrote Translated From The Original: one-inch punch fiction (Black Lawrence Press). Five other books of short work. Best Micro Fiction 2024. 2025. Gardener, teacher, peace corps. Caretaker, two outdoor cats. Sausalito, El Paso, Ruidoso. Roads in between. With navigational wife. Rented SUV's, hybrid, A/C blasting. Coffee all day. Yields to big rigs & abandoned dreams in the wabi desert. Click click.