Thursday, March 1, 2012

Flash Fiction: Setting

Flash Fiction Description: Written quickly, in a single pass, with minimal editing.

 My FAVORITE type of writing.




The king of flames stood high on his throne, threatening punishment. The sky joined him in the tantrum, as if they were twin brothers determined to teach their parents a lesson. The clouds adopted a deep crimson, tainting the air with the color of blood. If you looked up, you could see none of the kind blue sky that had smiled at us just moments before. Even the sea joined, hissing and boiling savagely around a scattered graveyard of defeated stones.

I felt the sea not to be part of this tantrum, but fancied it was just as scared as we were; an innocent bystander yearning to get away. The rocks quivered, cracked and scorched as they were, waiting for furthur punishment from their savage creator. The volcano roared louder, screaming a warning of doom. In the horizon, the sky faded into a soft peach color, and the sea was calm. The clouds and rocks ended at the same point, as if there were a boundary line they could not pass.
The worst of it was around the volcano, which we were still desperately stumbling down. With a shriek to envy a laboring woman, fire and boulders spewed out the top, cutting through the smothering ash and smoke like butter. In the second before gravity sent this chaos hurtling towards us, I knew what the citizens of Pompeii must have felt. If I weren't going to die, this would have been a great setting for my novel.

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