Flash Fiction Friday! April 6th.

It’s Friday morning, the sun is pouring through the windows into my little kitchen workspace, and it’s definitely time for another Flash Fiction Friday. Just a little bit of a photo prompt to get the brain working and the inspiration pumping to see what you might come up with. Or what I may come up with. Flash fiction is great because sometimes, you have the opportunity to create something really profound in the space of a few words. Or (as is more often the case with the novelist me) what might start out as a little blurb to meet the prompt ends up building into something else, bigger and better. I never have any lack of ideas for what to write about, but I definitely get a lot of new ideas from prompts and that’s what I love about them.

Sometimes, some prompts are harder than others, but that only makes it more interesting when you really have to challenge yourself to come up with something even though you’re not feeling entirely inspired. My brain’s not really in a flash fiction mindset, but that’s all the more reason to push through and see what comes out.

So, here was are, a picture from PhotoBotos to jog the inspiration! Go ahead and use the prompt for yourself if you’d like, share it here or on your own blog or however, and see what you can come up with! Below is my own contribution. Enjoy! And happy writing!

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(“Rainbows and Dust” by Marc Hermann courtesy of PhotoBotos)

Kanoa let out a shrill shriek, a scream of surprise as her sister let up on the pedals and allowed the bicycle to coast down the slope of the path. The shout soon shifted into a giggle, bubbling out of her at the pure joy of the free-falling feeling, the wind in her hair, but the comforting strength of her sister behind her. She closed her eyes and held onto the moment. Before she knew it, it would be over, the world around her would resume, but in these fleeting seconds, it was just her, the wind, and her sister, wrapping around her like a protective blanket. They were flying, the sun dappled on their skin and the rustle of the trees above them, and they were free.

Eventually, though, the bike started to lose its momentum, and Manaka had to put her feet down again to start pedaling, the work and effort radiating off of her in her shifting body to jostle Kanoa, making her slightly uncomfortable where she sat. She sighed, opening her eyes and seeing the ramshackle buildings of the village waiting for them at the bottom of the gentle slope, heard the sounds of spitting automobiles and clanging tools, started to feel the sweat and the heat of so many bodies in so much sun. Manaka turned the corner sharply, calling out to people who shouted greetings at them, and Kanoa closed her eyes again. She wished she could keep them closed until tomorrow, when she and her sister would ride up the hill again to gather the herbs and the branches and, for a brief moment in time, they would ride back down the hill and she could fly again.

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I had a feeling this might tie into a story I wrote for Morgan Dragonwillow’s contest a little while back! Kanoa and her sister Manaka showed up in a story that I felt would be surfacing a lot more; it’ll be interesting to see if these girls show up elsewhere and build themselves into something more!

So, what have you got for the prompt? Let’s see it!

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