What is 5MinuteFiction, you say? It’s an adrenaline-fueled, instant-gratification sort of writing contest. Sound fun? Great! Get in there and get dirty!
The Rules
* You get five minutes to write a piece of prose or poetry in any style or genre
* You must directly reference today’s prompt: greed
(Note: The prompt is the word. The picture is for decoration/inspiration.)
* Post your entry as a comment to this post.
I’ll close the contest at 1:45. That gives you 5 minutes to write and ten to accommodate the vagaries of relative time, technology, and the fickle internets. If you are confused or just want to whine, feel free to email me.
At the close of the contest, this week’s guest judge, Al Boudreau, @threecifer, author of In Memory of Greed, will nominate five finalists. I’ll put the nominees in the poll on the side of the page, and at 9:00 EDT tomorrow I’ll close the poll and declare the winner.
For updates, you can subscribe to my RSS Feed, “like” my Facebook Page, or follow me on twitter.
What’s the prize? Well, nothing, obviously. But we’ll all agree to tweet and/or blog about the winner of today’s contest so their fame and fortune will be assured.
A Few Notes:
* In the interest of time and formatting, it’s best to type straight into the comment box. It’s also smart to do a quick highlight and copy before you hit “post” just in case the internets decide to eat your entry. If your entry doesn’t appear right away, email me sometimes comments go into the suspected spam folder and I have to dig them out.
* I reserve the right to remove hate speech or similar but I’m not too picky about the other stuff.
* This is all for fun and self-promotion. So be sure to put your twitter handle at the end of your post and a link to your blog if you have one.
He looked at her; she at him. The light was dim, only the hallway light through the cracked bedroom door.
She’d said it a dozen times. More, even. Two dozen. He knew it as well as he could know a thing. He had to. He couldn’t be that ignorant. She loved him, oh God, did she love him.
* * *
He shifted under the quilt her mother made. She turned a little away from him and reached for a glass of water on the night stand. They could wait, sure they could. But he wanted her, oh God, did he want her.
He knew it was greed. Knew it. But, he told himself, this is the way I’m made. This is the way we’re ALL made. Surely she can understand. Surely, she can see it.
He leaned in to kiss her. She recoiled, but just ever-so gingerly. He pressed his body at hers. And that was it.
He needed it, he told himself. Oh God did he.
@JasonCMcIntyre
Jason McIntyre recently posted..Behind The Words – The Night Walk Men – Alternate Ending
Greedy bastard.
He licked his fingertips, one long, slow pull of finger across tongue and the muted pop as it slid free.
Greedy bastard.
He picked up my hand and put my pinky in his mouth and I felt the long glide of the raspy-smooth velvet of his tongue. Then the ring finger. Middle. Pointer. Before he took my thumb he looked up at me and grinned.
Greedy bastard.
“All gone?” he said, as he licked clean the last of the chocolate sauce from my hands.
“No.”
“There’s more?”
“Oh yes.”
“Show me.”
I unbuttoned my pants.
@adenpenn
His walls weren’t made of gold, and he didn’t have plush carpets on his floor, but I could feel the greed roll off him in sicknening waves. What he was greedy for went far beyond the realm of a deadly sin. And what made me angry is how he got away with it, until now. He could keep his greed hidden, at least to most normal people. Thankfully I wasn’t the least bit normal, and I could see the consequence of his greed floating around him. An aura of shadow, that moved like wisps of black smoke. They roiled around his head, wrapped around his arms and legs like cuddly creatures. That kind of thing only happened when you dabbled in things dark and dangerous. This guy was a poster child for it, but his reign of fame was over.
I leveled my crossbow over his chest, I had a great vantage point in the large tree over looking the back of his house. I just needed to wait for the right moment, I held my breath with my finger on the trigger. Finally he moved in just the right way and I took my shot. With a satisfying sound I watched the arrow break the glass of his window and hit his chest. I sat back in the tree and waited for the effect to start, it wasn’t a normal arrow mind you. It had been dipped in hellfire, and in just a moment the fat man with the taste for souls was going to be a pile of ash on his bedroom floor.
Aden recently posted..Friday Flash- a little Shadowrun fun
And there he sat.
It was his way, his families way, hoarding and stealing. He was a dragon after all and that was what dragons did. “Greddy little buggers”, so all of the old folks said. “rather steal your watch than eat your baby.”
He didn’t want to be like that. It wasn’t like he could use his gold to buy a Bently. Couldn’t even fit into the damn thing, besides everytime he got pissed off in traffic he’d melt the bloody thing.
So there he sat.
Rich with nothing to buy. Perhaps a house. Could you imagine, a bright Red Dragon out mowing his lawn on a Saturday morning.
“Hello Fred.” He’d say to his neighbour.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Would scream his neighbour running for cover.
Right….
So there he sat. He reached over and took a nibble of goat he had grabbed earlier and let out a flaming fart melting the loot below him into a dragon butt shaped gold chair.
All of a sudden he was inspired. I will become a sculpter.
D. Ryan Leask
@DRyanLeask
D. Ryan Leask recently posted..What to Do- What to Do- What to Do My now WEEKLY blog
He put his hand into the cookie jar.
It didn’t fit.
Had the jar shrunk?
He regarded his hand, meaty and large, even for a big man.
When he was younger, he would stick his hand into that same jar, but not be able to remove it with a half dozen cookies clenched in his childish fist.
Now, he could not even get his hand in.
He looked at his hand.
He looked at the jar.
He turned the jar upside down.
“Winning!” he declared, and shuffled back to the recliner with treasure in hand.
I remember a dusty man in a bar explaining to me that patterns in nature tend to repeat themselves. Circles, concentric and oval, appear everywhere. The gentle undulation of a wave, which grows in strength and power until it rises from the water, only to turn back in on itself. That was my pattern, a spiral, and it always seemed to go downwards.
Everything happens for a reason, and generally it is your own actions that dictate the cause. I can’t say that I accept full responsiblity for my present set of circumstances, people like me never do. The darkness that currently envelops me is warm and nurturing and I never want to leave it.
But I am greedy, and want too much life. No, I want to live too much, but never really enjoy those moments you are given. I just want more of it and never really know what to do with it.
I used to say that if I were given three wishes, they would all be the same. To keep on living. I never understood the burden I was laying upon myself with those words.
But I don’t have any more time to enjoy my existential crisis. The light appears ahead, my body begins to move, and I exit another womb towards a life I’ll just ruin again.
@robertstories
“He Slept On”
She dragged her fingers across the rough stubble of his cheek, greedy for the prickle against the grains of her fingerprints. She imagined the tiny, bending hairs were the tines of a kitchen scrub brush, souring out the crevasses between who she was, and who she wanted to be. She wanted his beard to make her vanish.
He slept on.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to wake, to grab her wrist and demand to know what she thought she was doing, to turn her over on the mattress and press his wet, angry mouth against hers. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to sleep on, to be completely unaware, to be surprised when he woke in the morning to the empty sheets and the open window.
He slept on.
The breeze through the cracks in the frame called to her, enticing and fresh and free. Scented faintly with bread and streams and green. The ghosts of somewhere else. Where she could be someone else.
Teasing. Tempting.
Cruel.
He slept on.
She looked at the tips of her fingers and yearned. The fingerprints were still there.
She was still who she was.
She lay back down and ignored the breeze, the promise, the cruelty. She ached for something new with every dead cell that sat on the surface of her skin, itching and white and cold.
Instead she closed her eyes and dreamt greedily of a better tomorrow.
He slept on.
*
@scifrey
http://www.jmfrey.net
JM Frey recently posted..Make Triptych 1 on Amazon Day was a success! Almost!
I close my eyes to the world,
Ignoring your pain and hunger.
I’ve worked hard for what I have,
Why should I share with you,
Who live half a world away,
Or next door,
But still a world away from me.
It’s not that I think I’m better than,
Or more worthy.
The greed won’t let me care.
I don’t want to be like you,
So I take more,
I take yours.
Abercrombie looked down on the factory floor with bitter disgust in his mouth. Where would these people be if not for him? Crawling through the street in their own filth? Mired in one of hundreds of different vices from simple alcoholism to the foul drugs they used to poison themselves and their children? They would have nothing without him. They were nothing without him. And now they had the unmitigated gall to think that he would tolerate bargaining with them? As a group?
“I was born too late, Smythe,” he said to his aging toady who had just entered having spoken to the employee’s representatives. “My Father, God rest his soul, would have simply hired goons and cutthroats to deal with the ungrateful lot of them. So much for uncivilized times, eh?”
“Quite,” was Smythe’s succint reply. “However, sir, we have a problem.”
“What? I’ll shut it all down before we bargain. You know that.”
“It’s just that they’re not here to collectively bargain sir. They pooled their money and bought the outstanding shares.
“They’re now the majority owner.”
@D_PaulAngel
“I had plans for you,” he said with tears streaming down his clenched face as if in pain, “I had it all planned out for you. You would have had it made.”
Paltry snowflakes, almost imperceptible, fell lightly to the ground and vanished before they even settled in an unusual late spring snowfall. Nathan felt like one of those snowflakes; invisible for a short while only to vanish the next moment without a word, without anyone ever knowing. He sighed at his father nearly weeping before him. Nathan felt cold like the snow as well. His father would not guilt trip him anymore.
“Did you ever consider that I might have plans for myself?” Nathan said trying to keep his voice from faltering. His voice sounded to him like an autotuned pop song with unnecessary and pretentious changes in inflection.
“I thought it was best for you—” his father began.
“Best for me? Best for me!?” Nathan could not help but scream. “It was never about me. It was always about you, your insatiable greed. Your only plan was how you could exploit me!”
“It’s not like that—”
“It’s over, dad. You’re fired.” The words hung in the air with the mist of his breath. “I have to go follow MY plans. Security will show you out.”
Nathan’s father stood there weeping in the April snow.
@briefconceits
“I know it’s not mine but I want it anyway,” she said.
“Janet, you need to learn that you can’t have everything you want, dear,” her mother replied.
“But why?” Janet asked, “why must I learn that?”
“it’s called ‘manners’ young lady.” Merriam replied. “ Just like when you say, ‘Yes Ma’am’ and ‘No Ma’am’ to someone who is older than you.”
Janet scowled and glanced at her mother. She is weak, she thought. “I think that is stupid.”
“Listen here,” her mother said in a voice that was louder than she intended. She quickly glanced around the park to see if anyone had overheard. “You will not use that word. It is rude and crude and a not the sort of word a young girl who is only eight years old should be saying.”
Merriam glanced around with a scowl on her face. “You stay right here and don’t move. I’m just going to see if that news stand still has a copy of today’s paper.” She stood up and walked over to the news stand.
Janet looked to make sure her mother was not watching. She then dashed over to the young girl playing happily with her doll. Janet looked the little girl in the face and said, “If you’re smart, you’ll give that doll to me, right now.”
Her voice had a chilling effect on the little girl. She simply sat there unmoving, afraid. Janet reached out and snatched the doll from the little girl and turned to walk back to where she had been sitting. Then she paused, just for a second, and, looking over her shoulder, she said, “Thank you.”
@redshirt6
Sunday morning after gassing up my car, a man with an eye patch and no thumbs leveled a gun at my head. I suppose I should have been more afraid, but I couldn’t figure out how he planned to pull the trigger.
He eventually did, though, and seconds later my body thumped off the gray concrete. I didn’t feel a thing except pissed off. It was a shitty thing to do to someone on their way to yoga.
I climbed up off the ground. Well, no me, really. I still lay on the ground, blood pouring out of the back of my head like a gross, red faucet. A few chunks scattered here and there, and the fake me – the spirit me? – felt like throwing up. An undignified way to die, for sure. I hoped my mother would just cremated me because that hole in my forehead wouldn’t exactly be the easiest thing in the world to plug up.
The guy with the gun stared at me – the one splayed across the concrete – and then stared at his hands and then back at my body. No thumbs, man. How did he do it? And where the hell was I? This was the afterlife? Yeah, I didn’t exactly expect to die with gas fumes soaking into my clothes, but I’d expected instant white robes and angel wings. This sucked.
He flipped up his eye patch to reveal a perfectly good eye. The thumbs, though, there was nothing he could do about that.
“Now, where’s your wallet?”
“What do you mean, where’s my wallet?” I shouted at him, although he didn’t notice. “You shot my ass up for money? You could have just asked, you asshole. And why aren’t you running?”
I ranted while he rooted around in my pants, the gun forgotten near my shoulder. I kicked him in the shins when he got a little friendly, which didn’t do a damn thing.
“Ah! There it is!”
And that’s when he held it up – the shiny coin I’d won last week playing skeeball.
A squad car pulled into the lot, and two cops popped out, guns drawn.
“Shoot him in the ass!” I yelled, flailing my dead arms.
The man stood, the coin clutched in his hand and a wide grin on his face.
“Sir, put your hands up and back away,” one officer called.
Instead of doing what the cop had demanded, the man laughed and shouted something, some word I couldn’t understand. Before I could take a breath – I clearly didn’t need it – he disappeared, leaving me and the cops staring in disbelief.
“Son of a bitch,” I shrieked as the world around me faded from view.
Forgot the requisite twitter account: @D_PaulAngel
Interesting prompt this week, too, look forward to reading what folks did 🙂
D. Paul Angel recently posted..FridayFlash Mea Culpa
There was not enough. Never enough.
An extra box of Pop Tarts became an extra case. A second pair of shoes at the same price became a stockroom in her closet. A second hammer, another set of spare tires, a set of guest towels became, over time, a mountain of stuff, rotting in piles across her lawn. Her home became a prison, so encumbered with THINGS that she could find no more room for herself. Or for Frank, who finally left when his pillow, his one sacrosanct spot of his own, disappeared beneath a down comforter, forever entombed in plastic wrap, a bargain so good she couldn’t pass it up.
She stood in front of the stove, boxes pushing at her from all sides, forgotten dusty bouquets of plastic flowers threatening to topple onto her at any moment.
She wrinkled her nose at the smell of the gas. She thought of last Sunday’s sermon, about greed, about the useless accumulation of things, about the better life that waited for her somewhere else.
She selected a matchbook from the overflowing ceramic bowl on what used to be her kitchen counter. “Antonio’s Pizza” read the matchbook cover. Frank took her there the night after he won a bowling trophy, a trophy that was now irretrievably buried in the detritus of her existence, in the neverending pile of goods she’d surrounded herself with.
Give away all you have. Give it away to the poor. She knew that’s what Jesus would want.
But that would be too hard.
She struck the match.
@thatneilguy
That Neil Guy recently posted..Palimpsest
Five-thirty in the evening was the best time of day for me. After a long afternoon riding my bike or playing Barbies then getting in all my important shows like Gilligan’s Island, The Munsters, and Scooby Doo , nothing topped off the day like the treasure that awaited unveiling at roughly five-thirty every week day.
Dad would pull into the garage, plop his keys on the counter, and brace for the onslaught of kids on a candy ferreting mission.
He liked to surprise us every day, so there was no such thing as making a special request. You just got what you got. And back then you were thrilled with things like a Babe-Ruth or a Zero, or especially a Snickers!
My baby brother’s treat from the vending machine in the break room at my dad’s factory job was always baby friendly. Usually M&M’s or a Hershey Bar. Today was something new for me: Milk Duds!
Of course, at five thirty, just moments from dinner, we could only preview our sugary prizes. The eating of them was contingent upon the cleaning of one’s dinner plate. And as bad would have it, this night my mom chose to serve and insist that I eat a slice of raw tomato! Gag! It was like poison or something! I sat in the dining room for an extra half hour just staring at it. Trying to decide if the torture was worth the Milk Dud reward. But my baby brother made the decision for me, and thankfully before any gross raw tomato was consumed.
Toddling around the corner into the dining room, he looked very worried and there was a whimpering sound coming from him too. Then I realized that there was something brown and sliming and HUGE sticking out of his mouth and the box of Milk Duds was in his hands! In a moment of baby greed, he put every last Milk Dud in his mouth, then had the nerve to come to me instead of my mom or dad for help!
Mom pulled the sticky gooey mass out of his mouth and cheerfully proclaimed, “Let me just rinse this off for you. It’ll be fine. You’ll see. But eat that tomato first.”
As if.
“Want to know what’s good?” Jill asked, sliding closer to me.
I sat my drink on the bar, paused for a beat, and said, “What?”
“More.” She turned to face me.
I faked a laugh and looked her in the eye. “You’re never satisfied are you?”
“Why be satisfied?” She waved two fingers and called over the guy behind the bar. She needed a refill.
“Because this is stupid.” I was watching the door in the reflection from the mirror behind the bar. I was expecting muscled-up company. We were sloppy. Working too fast. Doing this too often. Leaving too much behind. Creating a trail. The bell above the door rang as a pair of college girls giggled their way through.
She took a sip of her new drink and started talking again. “It’s not stupid. It’s profitable.” She tapped the front of my jacket and I felt the jewels in the inside pocket shift.
“Careful,” I said.
“Awww, you and careful.” She dropped from her stool and turned to face the door. “You need to loosen up, Thomas. You’ll have much more fun.”
“I’m not in this for fun. This is a job.”
“Not a legitimate one,” she said.
“Not in traditional terms,” I said. “But it’s not a game either.”
I kept and eye on the mirror and the front. Waiting. She was having fun and we were getting sloppy. It wouldn’t be long before the bell rang for us.
@JarrettRush
Jarret Rush recently posted..Dabbling in flash Again
I sat down and sighed heavily while pulling out a journal. Today seemed a good a day as any to write. Before I could write anything, someone sat beside me.
“Hey, Ashley.”
I sighed. “Hey, John.”
John then frowned. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Dave. He’s…we had a fight.”
John frowned deeper. “Fight? About what? You guys have been fighting a lot lately.”
I looked down at my journal, not able to look at John.
He removed the journal from my hands so he could hold them. “What happened.”
“He’s just…John, he really doesn’t like you.”
Surprisingly, John didn’t looked shocked.
“Really. He doesn’t, John.”
“I know that,” John sighed. “What did you guys fight?”
“About…well…”
“C’mon. Tell me.”
“He thinks there’s more going on between us.”
At this, John’s eyes opened slightly wider.
“John he thinks that us being so close, well…he thinks you feel more for me than just a friendship.”
John smiled slightly. “And, what do you think about that?”
I shrugged. “Well, we’re just friends. Always have been.”
“Yeah, we have, haven’t we?”
“And we’ll always be close.”
“That we will.”
“And, Dave just is seeing more than there really is. I mean, we’ll never-”
John leaned in quickly, and locked his lips to mine. He seemed to mold every inch of his body to mine, kissing me with more passion than I ever known from him. He seemed greedy, pulling me closer, not allowing me to push away.
Though, honestly, I was too shocked to do much of anything but…kiss him back.
When he finally pushed away, he said against my ear, “I’m absolutely crazy about you, Ash. Have never cared for any woman more. And, it’s killing me just being your friend. Killing me.”
“John,” my senses coming back, I tried to pull away.
“Ashley, please listen,” he tightened his hold. “Dave could never love you more. Could never appreciate you like I do. I’d give anything for just a chance to prove it to you.”
“John, we can’t.”
He huffed. “We can!” He grabbed my shoulders and shook me gently. “We can! Why aren’t we?”
“Because, I’m not free!”
“Then, free yourself.”
“No!”
John looked down, anger vibrating through his body before his startling green eyes looked back at me. “What does Dave have that I don’t?”
I finally stood, since he wasn’t holding me anymore. “At the moment? Me.”
I left a shocked John to think of what I said, and to get a better grip on my own feelings.
“Greed,” the philosopher said to the students, “is the cause of so much pain and misery these days.”
After about 15 minutes of holding her tongue Sarah finally took a stand. Literally. “Dr. Harrison I think I have heard quite enough. What kind of vapid sense of self do you have to harangue us on a topic you know very little about. You advocate the opposite of greed, altruism, in love, in economics, in politics, but I must say that you’re only marginally correct on the latter.”
“Ms. Noble please be seated, this is my lecture not your.”
“Exactly!” she paused, “Your lecture! You at least have to summon up a bit of self-interest to declare it to be your own! But I tell you, you cannot even love someone without greedily loving them. Love them for what they are, their ability to conjure up desire in your soul, all that is good about them. But.. if you love them as a sacrifice you do not love them at all! You hate them… or stand in their presence only at great pain to yourself! So here I am.. if you hate this and tell me to stop you’re a hypocrite. If you claim this lecture as your own you are inconsistent.”
The professor stared, speechless. A slow clap spread around the lecture hall. To be sure, some faces were composed with utter disgust but she had won the day.
@WritingDystopia
George Edwards recently posted..The Unincorporated War Book Review
That’s time, folks! Have fun? Now for Al to pull his hair out and narrow it down to five finalists. Come back at 3:00 to vote!
Forgot the twitter addy! So cranked up to just be participating! @redshirt6
Here’s my Twitter info. Sorry. Forgot to include it. Was worried about making it in time.
@JarrettRush
Jarret Rush recently posted..Dabbling in flash Again
I think I started the contest a bit late. My twitter is “WritingDystopia.”
George Edwards recently posted..The Unincorporated War Book Review
When 5MinFic went on tour (thus not on my blog) I forgot my twitter handle ever. single. time.
It was very embarrassing.
I added them to your posts where I could. It’s so great to see so many new faces. Kinda a rush, huh?
Forgot my twitter too, although it’s pretty easy
@DRyanLeask
D. Ryan Leask recently posted..What to Do- What to Do- What to Do My now WEEKLY blog
Absolutely a rush! I think I didn’t reference the prompt directly though, as in using the word or a form of the word, so that will kinda’ disqualify my entry. But no regrets! It really was a bit of rush. 😀
@reggieridgway
Just testing the 5 minute task to get ready for next week. I know this doesnt cout.
Ashley licked at the ice cream geedily. The coolness felt good on her lips and tongue and she watched as her daughter waved from the slide in the kids play area. She remembered las night and she blushed in spite of the 100 degree heat. Had he really said I love you as he passed out next to her in his bed. She had stealthily crept from his loft. The walk of shame.
reggie ridgway recently posted..The Texan and the Penny
Very fun! My post is obviously very Randian though I am not an Objectivist. She has an interesting view on greed that I have read a lot about and tried to replicate here.
George Edwards recently posted..The Unincorporated War Book Review
Looks like Leah took her admonition to “get dirty” seriously.
Nice bunch of entries. Good (and fast) work.
timqueeney recently posted..Selling fast food abroad comes with pitfalls- experts say