Flash Fictions: Dragons Gone, But Not Forgotten

Fireside Tale

“They left you tied in the cave, Mama?”

She nods to her little daughter.

“But Papa saved you?”

“This was before I met Papa. I had to rescue myself from the heat of a dragon’s breath.”

“How?” She passes a sapphire claw now made a dagger. “By tooth and nail.”

Five Drops of Forgetfulness

She awakened on the floor beside a man she didn’t know. Between them was a note in her handwriting she didn’t remember.

“Five drops of forgetfulness removed me from his memory. Five more in my cup will erase my pain. I drink and pray we fall in love again.”

Pangolin with a Mandolin

I once met a pangolin

Playing a mandolin

Plucking a healthy tune

I said, “Hey, what is up?”

He said, “Oh, just my luck.

This curse made me a buffoon!”

But then she came with a stride

With her pangolin eyes

She stopped before she swooned

Pulled out an instrument

Then joined, quite intimate

Playing on her brass bassoon

Of Verve and Venom

“Tell me of the days before. Of the verve, and of the venom!”

“I will not.”

“Storyteller, regale me of the age of madness and its monsters!”

“No.”

“Then whose story will you speak?”

“I will sing of the humble and the kind. For they did keep the light alive.”

Welcome to the Farm

With squeals of anger, the pig pawed the iPhone dropped in the mud.

“No fingers, no tweeting,” the scientist scolded.

The boar wailed louder at him.

“You paid me to create a new, secret life to escape your crimes. I delivered. Welcome to the Farm.”