Once upon a time on SM,
we had a fun weekly tradition
called “55Friday”.


Everyone wrote flash fiction,
or tiny stories
which contained exactly 55 words
(no more, no less).
That was the beauty—
and the challenge—
of doing it.


I miss reading
that voodoo
you readers do.
So, let’s start again. :)

(Even this post is 55 words.)

Facebook status messages are amusing, but when they borrow from long-forgotten Camp Lo lyrics, they are empyreal for their ability to summon Mnemosyne, who then sets up her projector for an impromptu mental picture show entitled “nostalgia”.

Seeing SM commenter Yeti’s “Yeti thinks this is it, what” took me back to 1997 at Formula One speeds, when “Luchini” lived in my car stereo (and my driving of a non-McLaren Mercedes was about as sloppy as Schumacher’s at Jerez). Luchini was a prominent part of my soundtrack in the late 90s; the tape it was on (ha!) flipped constantly via auto-reverse as I roamed from the legendary-but-now-defunct Green Planet in Davis to Newpark Mall’s then-revolutionary Forever 21, for hoochie ‘fits to wear to San Francisco’s Sol y Luna (and inevitably and regrettably, Steps of Rome* immediately after that) in North Beach. 1997. Sunroof always open, speeding down 880, being 22…that was it, what.

Obviously, since this song has been on auto-reverse in my head for the last 24 hours, you know what’s coming next: it’s our Flash Fiction 55Friday theme! This week, as you ponder participation pensively, get inspired by Sonny Cheeba’s** Dadaist lyrics and blaxploitation fetish. Alternately, you could choose your own “damn, it’s been years since I heard that”-joint for a starting point or write about something unrelated to excellent hip-hop entirely.

If you’re newer to the Mutiny or you have already forgotten what we did with Radiohead two weeks ago, allow me to refresh your drink.

Flash fiction, also called sudden fiction, micro fiction, postcard fiction or short-short fiction, is a class of short story of limited word length. Definitions differ but is generally accepted that flash fiction stories are at most 200 to 1000 words in length. Ernest Hemingway wrote a six-word flash: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Traditional short stories are 2,000 to 10,000 words in length.[wiki]

One type of flash fiction is the short story with an exact word count. An example is 55 Fiction or Nanofiction. These are complete stories, with at least one character and a discernible plot, exactly 55 words long.[wiki]

So, craft a story with exactly 55-words (no more, no less) about anything even remotely related to our theme and leave it in the comments below. If you’re still not convinced that this is a worthwhile timesuck OR you can’t wrap your head around how a story so tiny would even work, peep this, my favorite 55 from our previous, election-themed edition:

I crawled from the wreckage of the cab, dazed. I couldn’t feel my left side.
“You okay?” a man asked.
I lurched toward the crowd of onlookers, my leg dragging.
“I… vote…Obama!” I gasped.
His face registered alarm. “Buddy, you gotta get to a hospital!” he said.
I shoved him aside.
“Fuck… you… Clintonite!” [srsly]

Excellent 55, Saurabh. Your submission made me laugh out loud. :)

Once upon a time, every Friday at the Mutiny, we would have quite an orgy of a writing party, as we composed scintillating stories which had a maximum of 55 words.

Flash Fiction Friday (or the Friday55) has been on hiatus for a few months, but it seems like the time is right to commence creating again. :) It’s a new year, it is time to discover new writers.

When we did this in the past, we’d have anywhere from a dozen to almost a hundred story submissions left in our comments section. How is such a thing possible? Well, as I mentioned above, at a wee 55 words, these were rather abridged stories.

I know I’m not the only one who is looking forward to reading the brilliant gems you mutineers tend to come up with. If it’s all still a bit unclear, I’ve got an example of nanoficiton for you to consider; I used to post tiny stories regularly on my personal blog, HERstory. Here is one of those short-short stories, to give you a sense of what they are like, and how zimble they can be, if you are not yet acquainted…

She nervously adjusted her sari, hoping no one noticed. So far, the night had gone flawlessly; she had made a good impression on everyone, she could just tell.

The older woman at the table noted how silk was tugged upwards. Taking a delicate sip of tea, she thought, “She’s not good enough for our family.”

And now, for some background on the genre:

Flash fiction, also called sudden fiction, micro fiction, postcard fiction or short-short fiction, is a class of short story of limited word length. Definitions differ but is generally accepted that flash fiction stories are at most 200 to 1000 words in length. Ernest Hemingway wrote a six-word flash: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Traditional short stories are 2,000 to 10,000 words in length.[wiki]

One type of flash fiction is the short story with an exact word count. An example is 55 Fiction or Nanofiction. These are complete stories, with at least one character and a discernible plot, exactly 55 words long.[wiki]

I used to help organize a writing workshop in DC for would-be Lahiris and the one thing which was consistent was an inability to get started. If you looked around at the beginning of any warm-up or writing exercise, you’d observe a morose sort of gaze focused on one’s notebook, writing instruments quivering, and nothing marring those smooth sheets of paper or glare-ridden laptop screens.

To get around this for our Flash Fiction fiestas, I used to choose a song for our “theme”. It was always drawn from my music collection and usually, it was the sort of song one would have seen featured on the now-defunct, but ever-legendary 120 Minutes. This week, I’m going to veer from that formula in two ways. Our theme is the name of an album and a recent one, at that. In light of current events and primary colors, let’s ring around the rosy “Hail to the Thief (The Gloaming)”. More about that, after the jump.

This Friday, after reading a few of your comments on my last post about Sir Ben, I was struck by how many of you fervently appreciated his work in The House of Sand and Fog. In fact, I was so affected by your opinions, I was inspired to put up (finally) a new edition of the 55Friday.

I love creating an open space for all mutineers to get creative and if you care to grace our thread with a perfect little gem of nanofiction, which spans just 55 words, I eagerly await reading what you’ve imagined.

If, however, you feel like doing something different, perhaps we can do a little “writing exercise” to clear away the cobwebs, since it’s been a wee while since we 55ed. Sometimes, when my English teacher wanted to stir things up, she’d write a sentence on the board and then one-by-one, we’d have a few minutes to add to whatever came before us. At the end of this process (there were only 12 students), she’d read our ad hoc story.

So, I found a sentence from The House of Sand and Fog, and if you’d like to, you may write one to come after. And then someone can follow you, and so on. Normally, I’d say “leave an ‘I got next’ comment” if you want the subsequent turn, so we don’t have two writers scribbling simultaneously, but I get the feeling that won’t be necessary. ;) If by some miracle you all like this, then you might want to start doing that, with the caveat that if it’s been more than 10 minutes, you lose your turn.

Alternatively, if reading all that exhausted you, you can use our THoSaF sentence as fodder for your 55-word flash fiction. Just let your mind meander so you can exercise your atrophied creativity, and write something. That’s the entire point. :)

Here’s your prompt:

My daughter, Soraya, was married on Saturday and I feel already there is a hole in my chest with her gone.

Ready, Betty?

I hadn’t logged in to my del.icio.us for a while; when I did so today, one of the “popular” links on the main page caught my eye.

One Sentence - True stories, told in one sentence. [link]

Since I’m the resident doyenne of fast fiction (ironic, innit?), I was predictably and immediately interested.

As soon as I thought, “This might be fun for 55Friday,” your torment was assured. Last week, we had as many haikus as we did examples of nanofiction, so I know you like to change things up a bit. Oh, and to those who wondered out loud why we do this writing-thing/expressed how you’d like to see less of these posts on SM, I have three things to type:

1) Others actually love what you dislike.

2) It’s a tradition! We’re desi, we love rituals and routines!

3) As one of you put it in a very kind email:

I noticed that you haven’t posted a 55Friday topic in a while. I hope you didn’t discontinue it. I love 55Friday because it’s the only time during the week when I’m creative. One day a week, I get to feel like I’m living up to that ever-present new year’s resolution to “write more”, so please bring it back if you can.

So, please ignore this if it doesn’t have any effect on your knickers and move on to something which will— and that’s solid advice for every post you wrinkle your cute little nose at, not just 55Fridays.

Okay, back to one-sentence wonders. The most significant difference between this and our typical 55s? These are supposed to be true, real, non-fiction. I chose a few from the site, to inspire you and help demonstrate what to do. Most of these were plucked from the “Best of” section.

I don’t wish that I had Jesse’s girl…why did he find a woman like this:

Jesse

She’s ruined half of my music library for me.

Since these are true stories, this one made my heart crack:

zot

I am heart-sick because, like many parents of children with profound disabilities, my most secret and unspoken prayer is “Dear God, please let me outlive my child.”

This (since they’re supposed to be true!) is just wrong :)

Adam

The pedestrian looked concerned, as he bounced off the bonnet of my car.

When we 55 each week, it’s usually because I have looked to my iPod for inspiration; I try and choose a meaningful song with which to name our Flash Fiction orgies and yes, it’s almost guaranteed that whatever I select once aired on 120 Minutes.

However, on this freaky Friday, like most of you, I’ve got a screaming/crying blonde on the brain. It seems apposite to use one of her shitty songs, in honor of all this justice she got served. Welcome to “Screwed”, from her eponymously named album which is chock full o’ Scott Storch-tainted crap. Perhaps they should make Miss Hilton listen to it in prison, 24/7, as part of her rehabilitation…I know after 30 seconds of each song, I was clawing off my headphones while vowing to never misbehave again. It’s THAT painful.

The lyrics to “Screwed” (heh) are below the jump. Don’t expect much from them. Wait, what am I saying, you are all too bright for that…though if you’re anything like me, you’ll giggle at the thought that the words “I’m screwed” are repeated eight times (ah, there’s the reason for our title). Perhaps she was humming them to herself in the police car?

No matter, on this Fast Fiction Friday, write 55 words about heiresses, anything Paris’s or what’s fairest. Ignore our topic and write about other stuff, too, as long as you do so with exactly 55 words, since that’s what nanofiction is all about. Not sure how to play? Lookie here:

A literary work will be considered 55 Fiction if it has:

1. Fifty-five words exactly(A non-negotiable rule)
2. A setting,
3. One or more characters,
4. Some conflict, and
5. A resolution. (Not limited to moral of the story)

Many new versions of the 55 Fiction have started to modify on the rules by either ignoring to include conflict, or basing it on a true incident and dramatising it. [wiki]

Having copied and pasted all that, in celebration of today’s delicious victory for right over pink-clad evil, you haiku-freaks can get down, too. Same rules for you, just fit your genius in three lines of carefully-counted syllables.

Finally, if you’re wondering what’s up with our visual aid— it’s from an episode of South Park which aired in December of 2004. “Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset” was hilarious (and it really was the name of the show, so you can’t yell at me for the caption…that’s what I meant by the asterisk, not that you had any way of guessing that):

What was I supposed to say at that sorrow-saturated moment, when you stood behind security’s velvet rope, reaching out for me one last time? I couldn’t follow you to your gate, I can’t follow you in to hell, I must follow this war even more closely, because you have been deployed, though you weren’t supposed to be.

If we could all go back in time, would some of us have voted the way we did, if we knew this is where we would be in May of 2007? I didn’t vote for him and I certainly didn’t vote for this nightmarish occupation which causes nothing but anguish, for innocents cowering in their own homes, for the young, so very young men and women in uniform who witness that and for the relatives of those witnesses, who walk about in a depressed haze, worrying if the last time…was that the last good-bye?

Dazed, I now sleepwalk similarly through my days, wondering where you are, if you’ve had proper food (vegan? In the military??) and if you are okay. I can’t focus, I can’t sleep and I’m grateful to be an allergy sufferer, because it gives my tears and the perma-red eyes they descend from acceptable reasons to exist.

I miss you already, little sister and only sibling of mine. You will always be three to me, knobby knees and ankle socks, super-short hair and moody sweetness. I miss everything about you and I wish you could come home.

What kind of a war are we waging if we send people who just survived cancer scares over, I asked a mutineer. “We’re sending people with spinal cord injuries, what do you think?” was their reply. I think we should support our troops, by bringing them home NOW. And I felt that way before I knew they would take you, too.

That soul-crushing moment when I had to let you go, when I couldn’t stop hearing Jeff Buckley’s voice in my head crooning “Last Goodbye”, I lost every word in my expanded-thanks-to-Scripps-Howard vocabulary. I stumbled with my leaden tongue instead of my wobbly feet, awkwardly letting “bye”, “be well” and “take care of yourself” get muddled in to some nasty cliché cocktail. What I really wanted to tell you, was “I love you, so very much. You are precious to me and I will count the hours until you return.” But that truth never came out of my lips. At least I didn’t cry, not while you were looking. Only when the tram took you away from me did my tear ducts release pain and fear. And Buckley was there again:

There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah [Cohen]

I did my best, Kalyani. It wasn’t much.

It’s Friday, which means another work week is over and it is time for some flash fiction-fabricating.

Between the last post I wrote, the edifying discussion on hair which spontaneously occurred when we failed to identify a brown model, AGAIN (Sorry, Sree) and the most precious Gmail I’ve received in weeks (which contained this query-via-wideo from a four-year-old) well, The Papaya, he is playing on my mind. One of you messaged me regarding your surprise that I hadn’t voted for Sanjaya, a secret I revealed here, but American Idol has nothing to do with my passion for papaya. I sweat him because he’s so kind and ingenuous, because of his sweet nature.

I’m thinking in particular about Papaya’s last performance (available in the video above), which took him from tears to a tiny bit of triumph when he customized the chorus of Bonnie Raitt’s “Something to Talk About” to “other than haaaaaaaair”. That was the moment when my affection for him became solid, when I realized that it wasn’t just idle amusement; he had put up with so much and he was still smiling in his typical, good-natured way. I was amazed, mostly because I’ve never been a fan of this song, but also because he seemed so poised for a teenager. “My hero,” I thought. All those detractors piling on him in addition to the biggest hater of them all—Simon—plus the blatantly racist slant to much of the criticism he received (uh…where were the anti-Italian comments?) equaled humility and niceness, not bitterness or resentment. When I grow up, I want to be a papaya.

::

This week, write about gossip, the blues, papaya, fanjayas or continue the week’s trend and 55 away about hair, ‘pooed, oiled or otherwise. If none of this tickles your knickers, pick your own plot to flash some fiction with, but please play along anyway. I’m sure you have something to talk about, how about packaging it in a mere fifty-five words?

I am glad that this song is now so old, I can cop to liking it without wincing from the “trendiness” of it all. You see little minnows, in 1988— which is when ancient me commenced high school —if someone random noticed a Smiths bumper sticker on a Spanish text book (ahem), it wasn’t surprising if they exclaimed, “OMG, I LOVE that ‘sun and air’ song, you know?” Mmm, yeah. I know.

Like all bands, The Smiths had one song which everybody knew; I always gnashed my teeth at the fact that it had to be this one. After all, I needed this one, damnit. But when you’re 13 and a painfully shy freshman in high school, all you’ve got is your indie/goth cred. So I’d just nod and be all like, “Yeah.” Then they’d leave me alone, lest they be seen with the weird kid and have their ranking on our school’s popularity index decline dramatically.

It always makes top-whatever lists (lyrics, songs, guitar tracks) but I think the real significance of How Soon is Now lies in its status as an anthem for the alienated. Beyond that, HSiN has the greatest intro ever, as far as I’m concerned. Goddess bless Johnny Marr, for his oscillating wildly. But I digress. Then again, that’s just what I do, innit?

Today is Friday and last week, we didn’t have a nanofiction orgy. I wanted to make sure that we got right back on that uber-short story riding horse, lest we all forget how delightful it is to zip up an entire tale in a mere 55 words. Our theme is “shyness”, but as always, you are free to digress…it’s only fair, if I get to do it…

I know I’ve built this flash fiction tradition around the songs that saved my life, but this one is extraordinarily special; it’s akin to breaking out the big guns, to battle the forces of evil. I woke up to some awful news in the wee hours of this morning, so I think it’s okay to dust off the greatest cannon in my canon. Leave your brilliance in the comments below; it’ll get my mind off of casualties, senseless violence and collateral damage, thanks.

I wore burnt orange and maroon today, did you? I almost feel guilty hosting a flash fiction fete on a day which is dominated by vigils and remembrance. But maybe this is exactly what we need, maybe this will be an outlet or a distraction or a comforting little bit of familiar. There is no theme this week; the title song is there for an entirely different reason than “usual”. It is one of my favorite songs of all time and it means quite a bit to me. It conjures youth, loss, sadness, faith and eternity the moment I hear its first few notes. It is what I listened to when I wrote a letter to Minal Panchal on Tuesday. It’s a song which moves me, which breaks my heart a little whenever I hear it and that is why I can’t get it out of my head.

::

Write 55 words about whatever moves you and post it below. If you can’t do that, but you can write a poem, a haiku or a slightly shorter or longer piece of flash fiction, feel free. While I usually try and insist on adhering to the 55-word shape, this is a week for inclusion, sharing and acceptance, so whatever you want to leave is welcome.

Don’t cry, little one.

We heart you, dear Sanjaya.

May your haters rot.

::

Have you a haiku for Sanjaya, too?

I am drained.

It is not because I’ve fought a cold all week, nor is it due to what had to have been one of the busiest Fridays I’ve spent at any job. No, it is this. This site. This ever-growing, always challenging, far-too-smart-to-be-left-alone (much like my German Shepherds, when they were puppies) community/blog/baby/project which I cannot abandon, no matter how many times it makes me cry, rant or mope. I did all of the above, btw. I cried when I re-read a certain infamously raw post about my past, because it is a trigger. I ranted right here, just a few posts below where you are now. And I moped, ohhhh did I mope.

I felt despair. I had been warned that at some point, this blog would grow so big that we would not be able to contain it, control it, corral it…keep it. The writing may have been on the wall, but it was not in our comment threads; some of our oldest readers, loyalists who had been with us forever, people we met online and then later IRL via meetups, whom we cherished…they no longer comment or visit us. They don’t want to be here and it breaks my heart; “that’s the price of success,” one of you told me. No, not that. I want it to always be like this, exactly as rare and wonderful and mutinous as this…

But for a good chunk of the afternoon, exhausted from moderating and well, caring, I gave up. I started to drink the rotten kool-aid and it upset my stomach and more important things, like that squishy mushy, weak, red thing in my chest. What was the point? The mean people who suck would win. And I for one would not welcome our new troll overlords.

I couldn’t take being 16 when I was 16, so feeling that morose, melancholy, weepy bleh-ness was extra untenable as a 32-year old. What did I do when I was that age and this miserable? Ah yes, THE SMITHS. Because as perverse as it reads, they cheer me, yes they do. Within seconds, Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now wafted through noise-cancelling phones and by the second line, I was smiling for the first time all day. I smiled wider when I realized that I had “my song” and thus, my theme for Friday’s nanofiction orgy.

Write exactly 55 words about what makes you miserable, what feels like heaven, Caligula (my favorite despot!), How Soon is Now or anything else that the lyrics which are pasted below evoke. Hell, write about whatever you feel like burying or praising, just make sure you do and that you post your mistresspiece below, yes?

Yes.

Now that I am impossibly chipper (just listened to Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me!), I’m ready to go home. I hope I have yummy 55s to read when I get there.

When I’m not listening to Accuradio at work, the wee leetle iPod, it is on the shuffle. Like all other gadget-addicted fruit-lovers, I marvel at how the seemingly random is the utterly awesome, since I like every tune that gets served up, every time.

This, despite the fact that I am the one who chose to load all my favorite songs on to Suitable iPod in the first place, thus making me an ingrate for feeling so much wonder at what I, not shuffle, hath wrought. Maybe it’s the timing of it all, i.e. how the perfect song always seems to play at the exact moment it should? How else to explain why Depeche Mode’s “Master and Servant” blares when I’m reading about Dick Cheney and Dubya… ;)

Anyway, I’ve heard the song which inspires this week’s nanofiction orgy 2-3 times a day, every day this week thanks to shuffling. It’s one of my favorite joints of all time, in part because I sweat Natalie Merchant’s voice so so very much. So, since I already had mancandy on the brain and there is ALWAYS candy in my tummy, this week is dedicated to sweet stuff, which seems especially apposite when baskets everywhere are being filled with goodies which will make dentists rich in a few months.

Write about sugar, peeps, sour patch kids or that totem of my childhood which is pictured to the left, Cadbury fruit and nut. I’ve had everything from Hershey’s to handmade, exorbitantly-priced truffles and no chocolate is more delicious or makes me feel more loved; if it’s from England (where it tastes better!) I feel positively adored.

Write 55 words (exactly 55 words, no need to be Hemingway) inspired by the lyrics to “Candy Everybody Wants” or about your own sugar-fix in the comments below. If you are in a salty mood, disregard the weekly theme. We just want to read, so get typing.

Set adrift on memory bliss…

My screen says, “Please replace this generic password.”

Either my kappipaal hasn’t kicked in yet or I’ve got a severe case of Spring fever (perhaps cowbell could cure it?). I can’t focus, let alone devise a password with 12 letters, one symbol, two numbers and an exclamation point. One of my favorite co-workers stops by my desk, with an eyebrow raised.

“You look lost.”

“Can you like, pick a password for me? Like, passwords are hard.”

“Like math?”

This is our favorite inside joke, this reference to Barbie’s great fustercluck of ‘92. Still, despite legendary vacuous utterances, Barbie is beloved not just by me but also his six-year old daughter, because as we three agree, them Bratz dollz are slatterns.

“Sure I’ll pick something for you.” He seems serious.

“You like music. Use a song lyric.”, he instructs, before striding in to his office, which is next door to my desk. Then he pops his head back out…

“I used to use ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine’ as mine.”

“R.E.M. fan, eh?”

He smiles at me in response. We’re nearly the same age; we were both dorky loners who probably spent all our free time between classes with our headphones on, tuning out the world. We both remember how the release of “Green” in 1988, during the fall quarters of our Freshman/Junior year in high school defined a moment, a mood.

Listen, my children to your Akka so old,
For she has a story, which today should be told.

Once upon a time, well over a decade ago
Akka received a call from a voice whispering low…

“Help. Oh my God…I don’t know what to do…”
“Wait—Gigi? What’s happening to you?”

“Anneka, I can’t take it anymore; I just want to die…”
“Shhh, stop…you’re a devout Catholic, I know that’s a lie.”

“What…no smile? That’s hilarious, G. Laugh.”

But my own laugh faltered and fell back in my chest,
This was no cry for help, this didn’t feel like a test.

“Anneka, I love you, please always remember that,”

“You stupid bitch Geee, stop, take that back!”

“I won’t let you say Good-bye, this isn’t the end,
I refuse to let you take away my best friend.

I know you feel like you are already dead,
I know about the demons in your heart and your head.

But please, don’t do this, it’s a permanent answer
To a temporary—-

She sobbed, “This is worse than cancer,”

“At least then people would feel sorry for—”
“Screw them, and if they judge you…well, fuck them more.
I know; they and your past are impossible to ignore…

But I also know that I’ve never met anyone with a purer heart,
That you are spun from light and goodness, unlike this tart.

Gigi, where are you, I’m already in my car
Damnit, this is Davis, you can’t be that far…”

“No, please, don’t. I’ve been enough of a burden to you—”

“Gee, I swear to God, I’m going to find you and slap you.”

“Anneka, please don’t hate me for what I’m about to do,
Promise me you’ll forgive me, I’m so sorry…I love you.”

Click.

“GIGI!” I screamed in to an ominously silent phone,
yanking the german car she loved over to the shoulder, alone.

Redial, redial, redial, at least twenty times
Tachycardiac beats and my breath form rhymes.

The ping came from the right-most tab of my browser; soon, the unavoidable flashing would commence, alerting me to someone’s attempt to chat from within GMail. I avoid AIM like it’s meat, I don’t even have Yahoo or MSN screen names, but Google…ah, you still own a little bit of my heart. Just who was interrupting my intense reverie? It was one of you.

“Shawty… today is Friday.”

”?”

“55s”

“ah…watching Ronin. maybe it will inspire me…”

“Ronin!”

I hope it’s not a side effect of turning 32 (as my relatives in Kerala loved to point out— an unmarried woman in her 30s is a CRAZY woman), but I have had blogger’s block sum’n fierce for the past week, which is why I’ve been all Mathangi on your kundis. Unfortunately, Ronin didn’t provoke anything besides salivation over the prowess displayed by a certain M-propelled E34.

But, I miss you and I miss this exactly-55-words-thing we do, so I left “Freude am Fahren” behind and turned to what I should have in the first place for some inspiration— music. I grabbed my ancient shuffle and resolved to use whatever song played first as motivation. Et voila, Goldfrapp. It is an apposite choice and not just a random one; this is the first nanofiction orgy of 2007 and I concur with Alison when she sings, “You’re my favourite moment, you’re my Saturday”. I already told you that you were.

This Friday, collect 55 words and arrange them in to the shortest of stories; create nanofiction about your “firsts”, about digits, about whatever your number one might be. Leave your first-rate short-short in the comments below (or let us know where we should go, in order to find it). Happy new year, mutineers…here’s to much fiction and fun with my number ones in ‘07.

I believe in Sliding Doors.

I believe in Serendipity (though I never ventured there myself).

And yes, I believe that at least one angel watches over me. There’s no other explanation for my stupidly good luck or the consistent little miracles which always make my heart lift a little bit in my chest as my hands fly to cover my face from either shock, delight or both. I’m a girly-girl and a Christian one at that, so for me, this is a season for miracles. True to my Orthodox roots (and like a certain Uncle and Auntie in Florida who used to wear buttons pointedly declaring this fact), I believe that Jesus is the reason for the season. If I do THAT, then I have to suspend cynicism, don’t I?

:+:

7:15. Metro. Red line to Glenmont. I hear the infamous, “Doors closing!” as I’m rushing down the escalator at Tenleytown, just as fast as my Connolly-colored mukluks could take me.

I skip the last three steps but it’s too late. Six minutes to the next train. That’s not so bad— it seems better than the Orange line, anyway. Six minutes pass, I board and after Cleveland Park, we pause for no apparent reason as the operator announces “Stand by.” I roll my eyes. I just want to get home.

It is time for further explorations of today’s “You asked for it…” theme, via flash fiction on a Friday:

Jai: As someone recently mentioned on the News tab, this blog is screaming for a Bad Sex in Fiction-themed 55Friday, like a man and woman simultaneously exploding in a 2000-gigaton thermonuclear detonation of desire and mutually-assured destruction, the mushroom cloud of their passion suffusing the bedroom like acid rain in a post-apocalyptic nuclear winter.

Pooja: A N N A did respond to my suggestion with a “Hell, yes!”
We’re waiting… ;).[linky]

For those of you who are utterly confused as to what we three book-lovin’ pervs are going on about, Ennis wrote a post entitled “Good Writers Finish Last” about a dubious competition—the Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award— which inspired the comments you see quoted above.

Now in its 14th year, the award is given to the passage considered to be the most redundant in an otherwise excellent novel…

The judges said the award’s mandate is “to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it”. [linkypoo]

Hopefully you still have enough stamina to mount an attempt at some 55age, though I know some of you must be exhausted from all of that passion expended over on the “size matters” thread. You may write total fiction, obscure some, ahem, non-fiction or use Mutineers or anyone else you please in your nanofiction. Come now, it can’t take you all that long to recover. ;) After all a 55-word story is nothing but a quickie. You’ll be done (and so very satisfied) before you know it.

What, like you expected somthing else, after all this? :)

Due to one memorable mindfulness class I took in 2003, I have spent the last few years growing more conscious of how we are surrounded by opportunities to be grateful. It’s been such an eye-opening experience, to the point where I feel horrible about the past, because I know I was oblivious to so much goodness which I didn’t acknowledge. I can’t do anything about that, but I’ve tried to incorporate gratitude in my daily life, because the truth is, the act of appreciating something or someone can be transformative and beyond that, it’s just the right thing to do.

Around this time of year, it’s even easier to say “Thank you”. :) After all, you get time off from work to do it! I’m not sure if some of you partook in that ritual last night where you go around the table and state whatever you’re thankful for, but if you did, I’d love to hear what bullet points you offered to your family and the turkey carcass. Perhaps you can contain what thrills you in exactly 55 words, but because it’s a holiday, I’ll be just as appreciative if you haiku it. I’m just grateful that you kids play along with my inconsistent flashes of silliness and I’m delighted that a few of you mentioned how you are thankful for “55s” in the comment thread of my last post. It’s nice to know you care. :)

This week, our theme song is extra flexible, because I can’t decide if I’m referring to the Dido version of “Thank You” or Alanis Morissette’s much-mocked take on the phrase. I know, the fact that the latter contains the phrase, “Thank you, India” might militate in favor of choosing THAT as our tune du jour, but then, if we invoked the Manish-Vij-anti-exotification clause… ;)

So, write about flavor-free poultry, family, cranberry sauce, gratitude, popular female singers (one of whom was naked!) or whatever else you are loving right now. While you do that, I have to go remind my Mom to make her famous cranberry pickle while the berries are still available, because that exquisite hotness is ridiculously yummy. Unlike the rest of you foodies, I didn’t stuff my strict-vegetarian face yesterday so I’m still hungry. I could totally go for some chor, mor and pickle right now and you’d best believe I’d be thankful for how good rice, yogurt and an extra-spicy condiment always taste. :D

“Let’s motor”, a certain red Mini whispered my way late last night, so I happily complied. Careening down Rock Creek Parkway, I thought I was already as blissed as I could possibly be, since I had a sticky car on a curvy road obeying my right hand’s every whim. Then I realized that XM’s Fred was sending me some David Bowie-flavored sweetness; I hadn’t heard “Blue Jean” in at least a year, which is unfortunate, because it’s one of my top three Bowie songs of all time. Laughing out loud, I made the volume dial spin clockwise as I threw caution out the sunroof. My wrist chose sixth and my night was sublime.

I tend to name our nanofiction orgies after songs which helped me survive high school and “Blue Jean” can definitely take some credit for that feat. No, seriously…I don’t have any other reason for choosing it. It’s not like I’m trying to indicate a subtle preference when it comes to college sports or anything. CoughGOBLUEcough.

:+:

Today, we’re going to do something a little different with our flash fiction festivities. Yes, you have a theme, which you can mutilate as you see fit (blue, jeans, space oddities…it’s a very special Abhi-edition of the 55). You may also ignore it, if you have words within you that have nothing to do with the song which is still stuck in my head. However, if you are not inclined to write an amuse-bouche of a tale which is composed of exactly 55 words, I have another option for you.

I know. Normally, there is a song title plucked fresh from my iTunes to grace that prominent, headlining area, but today, by very special request, your girl Friday is going to acknowledge one adorable-assed comment from a few weeks ago and sample it for this post. This is the remix, etc etc…

So I see a word I don’t recognise. I go to dictionary.com to look it up. I find out this word means:

having well-shaped buttocks

Having beautifully proportioned buttocks

I suddenly discover a whole new meaning to my life, to insert this word into conversations whenever I can, because it is as curvacious a word as the thing it describes. I think this has taken over as my favorite word in the English language, which used to be ‘Serendipity’, followed closely by ‘luminous’ and in third place ‘lepidoptery’.

But now I know what callipygian means, I am in love with that word. Please write a post featuring this word in the headline.[link]

And you thought I wouldn’t remember…silly sepiates. I’m all about the love, especially when that’s MY word you’re crushing on (well, it’s mine along with “apposite“…can’t overlook that one). Red Snapper’s kind command has been playing on my mind for these past two weeks, as I considered what post would be…um…apposite for such curvaceous titling. Finally, I have decided to take the easy way out. ;)

This Friday, take a crack at writing a flash of a story, with just 55-words to flesh it out. Take your inspiration from Sir Mix-a-lot, Wreckx- n-Effect or anyone else who’s got love for the booty (HELL, YES!). Write nanofiction about Wessside interpretations of Miami Bass, extra-memorable Seinfeld episodes, Boricua starlets who destroy innocent Beatnuts songs or how “kundi” is going to be Sepia Mutiny’s big contribution to the emerging 2nd gen cross-cultural lexicon (HA! Take THAT Northies!). Or, write about something else which fits in exactly 55 words. Just write something. And then post your astounding ass-terpiece in the comments below, so we can ogle it shamelessly, okay? Get crackin’, you mutinous poo-flingers.

Sepia Mutiny does not waste your time. [link]

It does on Fridays, mang. ;)

One of my best friends sent me a virtual pep talk at 5:15 pm; he had no possible way of knowing that the words he borrowed from Winston Churchill to make his point were already on my mind. Reading his GMissive on my august, semi-blinged phone’s meager screen while parked in traffic at M St + Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown reaffirmed my belief that nothing is accidental and that especially in my life, continental, oceanic and ironic plates clash together to create quaking moments which belong on celluloid. What are the odds? I get that email when I’m already pondering the British Bulldog, while “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin blares through every straining speaker of this zippy red morsel of German perfection, which is mine for the evening? G-d is one hell of a director; I dig all the synchronicity.

Currently, I’m being haunted by the spectre of a black dog myself, as I reboot my entire life and go it alone, in every possible sense of the word. I desperately wish that I had just one pair of my venerable Docs with me in this cocoa city, to stomp through all the omnipresent ick with…alas, every set of bouncing soles lives with Moms, 3000 miles to the left. Incidentally, that picture you see above was taken the day I met Sepia Wizard Paul for the very first time, in North Beach, for a day of molesting Harry Potter (that was me), being confused by elderly Asian people (both of us) and mais oui, espresso at Greco (that SHOULD be everyone). I’m always a sentimental old bat, but I think tumult like this makes it even easier to conjure the past, as if to remind myself that this, too, shall pass, just like everything else has.

We haven’t held a festival for 55-word nanofiction in several weeks, so this Sunday, write about your black dogs, your love of fog, your fear of being a cog. Whatever floats your clove-smoking, black wet-n-wild nail polish-wearing, Gothic boat. If you’re not too black and blue to do so, that is…

Today is Friday and on most Fridays at the Mutiny, we write flash fiction. Co-ink-i-dinkily, today is also August 18th and thus, a very special holiday. It’s Bad Poetry Day!

Bad Poetry Day is a day to create some really bad verse. But, why you ask? Perhaps, the answer is simply “because you can”. Maybe, it exists to allow us to better appreciate good poetry. Or, perhaps it is to be written to irritate someone…the intention is to gather a group of old high school friends, and write some really bad poetry. Then, send the poetry to your old high school teacher. Wow!, That sounds like a lot of fun…[linkage]

Indeed, it does, especially if you ignore that part about sending it off to a teacher— I mean really, who has the time?

The last time the Mutiny did anything collaborative with poetry, it was Valentine’s day and we invited you to submit haikus; since you enjoyed that so much, I thought I should encourage you to write more of those spare, elegant poems, especially if it means that people who normally don’t 55 can participate in our creative corner of Sepiadom.

Many of you ask me either in person or via email, “but how do you write one of those 55 things?” To which I generally and unhelpfully respond, “You just…do. MS Word. Wordcount. Before you know it, you’ve got 65 words and then you find yourself doing some careful pruning.” The reaction to this incoherent response is almost always further confusion or frustration. Well, it may seem daunting to tell an entire tale using less than five dozen words, but what about a three-line work of art? You could manage that, right? It’s a mere 17 syllables (arranged thusly: 5-7-5), you can so do it.

Annnnnd, I think I’m done here. I have one of the most addictive college rock hits EVER happily lodged in my head, you have TWO options to get busy in a thoughtful, literary way and we all have fantastic reading material to look forward to…right, Kobayashi-san? Any mentions of

• snakes
• the Confederate flag
• planes
• macacas
• noose-lovin’ Senators
• Tunisia
• hairstyles which are all "business in front, party in the back"
• fake-ass-cowboys
• Palos Verdes
• the power of the interweb (in both of those situations!)
• Samuel L. Jackson

I think this is the second time I’ve had to reach beyond my treasured, “120 Minutes”-era musical fetish to find a tune which fits a Flash Fiction Friday. I blame Siddhartha, for the Parisian prose in his post, since it reopened that festering debate about how cringe-inducing cliches which brown writers seem to sweat (henna, silk, spices, MANGOES) make us all want to vomit…curry. Or something. I’m not too broken up about this, though; if I had to use something other than excellent alternative music for our theme song, ain’t no shame in my Nina Simone-soundtracked game.

It’s the second time for something else, as well. Today, I invite you to create 55-word stories which sound like they were taken from “The Arranged Marriage of Crazy Curry-lovers in Marin” or whatever disposable lit you care to mock mercilessly. The December 16th, 2005 “Why Can’t I Be You?”-edition of 55Friday nominally used a similar theme, though what I really asked for then was for you to borrow the voice of someone famous for us to later guess…Sajit made a special request for some tamarind-flavored 55age and you came through like champions. My favorite two from that edition are below.

The Ill Hindu himself contributed this miniature masterpiece, before he was a Mutineer:

His tigress.
Desire crowded his mind like pilgrims at Benares. Her silken lips, cinnamon eyes, lashes like Assam tea. Her breasts, twin Taj Mahals at sunset.
How exquisitely she played his shehnai. The taste of her mango lassi.
A monsoon of sadness flooded him.
“It’s been fun,” she’d said. “But I’m having an arranged marriage.”

GENIUS. After that, Badmash dropped the J-bomb (sorry, Saheli):

The elephant in the newsroom was her use of cheap metaphors in foreign assignment pieces from exotic locations. The juggernaut of letters to the editor from offended Sepia readers concerned him enough to call her in for a meeting. How would he ask her to tone down the spice without invoking the wrath of Kali

Weren’t those fab? I expect no less from all you ardent members of the Anti-Mango Brigade. I know that Red Snapper may not forgive me for exhorting you to do this, but cliche away!

Yesterday, I wrote the first of two posts about the anomalous attention paid to (in that case) two brown actresses by the popular “Go Fug Yourself” blog. Fluffy as that post might have seemed, the discussion it prompted was by no means insignificant. My delayed epiphany about Mindy and Parminder was inpsired by their skin, specifically, how it didn’t conform to what much of the diaspora considers beautiful. It was the color of their skin and I know fellow older alt-music fans, it wasn’t black metallic.

This Friday, my thoughts move aimlessly, passing so many things: beauty, skin, pigmentation, fireworks, torture, St. Catherine of Alexandria. Perhaps your mind is similarly adrift— if so, write. Write about any and all of the above, or none of it if it doesn’t move you. The important thing is that you write a very short story, a tale so brief, it is composed of exactly 55 words. Ah, this Friday wanes, my energy with it…think of me when I’m sleeping. Of all the secrets that I’m keeping, some of which, I promise, will surface below…but only after you spill yours, my dears.

This marks the second time that fellow Mutiny-organizer Amardeep has inspired the theme for our Friday 55 Flash Fiction orgy; what might be even more amusing is that as with last time, today’s post is about…relationships. Hmm. I think I’ll start calling him Dr. Drew instead of Dr. Deep. ;)

Seven hours and over 100 comments later, the discussion roars on about Blacks dating Asians, Asians dating Whites, Whites dating Blacks…yet curiously enough, no one seems to be dating Latinos. :D Silly rabbits, don’t you know your roots are in the sand?

I keed. What I am consummately serious about, however, is nanofiction. Tiny little stories with exactly 55 words— what could be better? Ah yes…one from YOU. As always, you are welcome to write about topics of all colors, shapes and sizes, but for those of you who like the bondage of instructions, you’ve got ‘em. Please leave your mini-masterpiece in the comments below; meanwhile, I’m going to try and get one catchy INXS tune out of my head.

When I was very young, I used to say that I wanted to grow up to be a Congresswoman from California, so that I could live and work on both coasts; to my very simple mind, it was the only way to do such an impressive and unique thing.

I fell in love with the east coast after a childhood trip to both New York and Washington, D.C. and the right side of the lower 48 has never loosened its adamantine grip on my heart. But, unlike some of my loved ones who have swtched sides, I am not happiest when I’m across from where I’m from. I wish that were the case, but as giddy as I am to live somewhere where the Smithsonian is mine for the wandering and New York is but a cab ride and Amtrak trip away, I’m haunted by homesickness far more often than I prefer to admit. If anything, I’ve made my uneasy choice because when I’m here, I miss Northern California slightly less than when that situation is reversed— but we’re talking about a 55/45 split, so it’s nowhere near an ideal situation.

Listening to Dinosaur Jr. last night certainly didn’t ameliorate the situation, but making tentative plans for a possible journey home did. I think I’ll take a few days off at the beginning of September to hug my Mother, check on my Godson, THROW AN SF MEETUP, get pedicures from people who know what they’re doing, drink plenty of Peet’s, dodge marriage queries, eat real sourdough, hold office hours, irritate my Mother and otherwise bliss out as I zip about Davis and Snob Hill in my much-missed sick civic.

I know that I’m not unique, that many of you are also far from your ‘hood, where the food is fantastic and pure love flows freely; if you care to follow a 55Friday theme, write about home, the sickness it evokes or just plain missing someone whom you love. As always, you are welcome to flash us with a story (and nothing else!) on any subject under the sun, just be thoughtful enough to leave your nanofiction below. 55 words about distance, where you grew up or the sweet thrill of “goin’ home”. Ready, steady…go.

Every four years, the entire world pauses to watch very hot athletes play a game I find irresistible. We could get all armchair (or, more likely, office chair) psychologist on my kundi and consider that Soccer was the only sport my august father ever played, but it’s also the only sport I ever played.

One glorious summer a few years ago, I decided to sack up and work through all the issues I still had with forever being picked last to do anything in elementary school P.E. I played my heart out four nights a week and I had bruises the size of watermelons on my legs (playing indoors can be brutal) and a permanent ankle injury to show for it. Despite being black, blue and purple in addition to my usual brown, I’ve never been prouder of myself or my resolve to do the impossible: front like I’m actually coordinated.

This Friday, if you are so inclined, write exactly 55 words about: FIFA, footie, Footballers’ Wives (whose most memorable star from this past season was half-desi hotness Laila Rouass, pictured left), soccer camp, Adidas gear…whatever floats your World Cup boat. As always, kindly leave your flash fiction in the comments below or provide a link to where we can find some. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to attend to my mobile; Ennis keeps blowing up my spot with text messages which say “Goooooooooooooaaaaaaaal!” :D

P.S. If you haven’t been watching Footballers’ Wives on BBC America, you’re so missing out. Laila Rouass plays “Amber”, erstwhile Bollywood star and sort-of-estranged wife of a Beckham-ish “Conrad Gates”. I won’t spoil the rest for you since they recently commenced re-running the entire season on Sunday nights at 10pm and 1am (at least that’s how Comcast does it here in D.C…YMMV, obviously). Watch. You won’t be disappointed. ;)

Spring has long sprung and like several of you, I was at a wedding last weekend. ‘Tis the season for bridal registries, trips out-of-town and getting faded on Black at receptions (via trunk bar or open, natch). Even though it has almost been a week since I saw a priest recite ancient exhortations at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, I’m still very marriage-minded on this Friday. You would be too, if you had been at an Orthodox ceremony; I had several hours to ponder tradition, obligation and tying the knot (both literally and figuratively).

Then there’s the Mutiny’s role in keeping the vedding bells ringing in my head; I had read the “Modern Love” essay penned by Sarita James when it came out, but Amardeep’s post from earlier today prompted me to visit it again, since I knew it would be a hot topic (I predict 300+ comments). It’s mildly amusing to me that the one issue which can bring this entire community together/rouse lurkers from their anonymity/stir up so much drama is marriage. Not politics, not Arundhati, not spelling. Marriage. It’s a testament to how much angst and weirdness we all feel about this rite of passage, that whenever we feature a post like this latest, every F5 will bring you a brand new comment.

While we already had a Friday nanofiction orgy which featured a few 55-word biodatas, I think that the time is right to “go there” again. We haven’t 55’d in a while, might as well get reacquainted via a subject which inspires all of us to say something. As always, you may flash us with fiction about whatever you wish, just be kind enough to leave your words (or a link to them) in the comments below. I know, I usually name our 55Fridays after music I listened to in college, but no wedding reception is official until you’ve played Frank (though to be clear, the couple I just celebrated with danced to U2’s highly awesome “With or Without You”.) What are you waiting for? Nanofiction, already.

If you’re reading this, you are reading a poem, and you are worried it will be one of those poems, the kind that is confusing, precious, and obscure. The kind someone makes you read.

If you’re reading this, you’re choosing to do so, probably wondering whether poetry is worth your time and energy, since “normal” writing is much more rewarding, and the weekend is coming up. It is a good question to ask while you’re reading this.

If you’re reading this at work, you are thinking about your boss discovering that you spent the whole afternoon dawdling on the internet. But your timepass is our business, so please keep dawdling. Your boss needs to read this too.

If you’re reading this, and I hope you are, you may be waiting for me to get to the point.

What a week it has been, for printed pages, for brown people, for the Mutiny. Kaavya and Opal, Kaavya and Katie, Kaavya and Megan. The teenager from Harvard turned Mutineers against each other while energizing idiots on Yahoo! to diss desis— there’s nothing like a brown scandal to unleash smug, ignorant racism.

The most important aspect of the whole fustercluck might just be our collective, unexpected education about the process of publishing. For some, this was cause for disillusionment; many of us had indelible visions of a solitary artist, sacrificing themselves to merge imagination and soul in to a pristine, sacred creation. Learning about production companies shocked us in to a deep dismay. Wasn’t it supposed to be about the writing? Has EVERYTHING become a commodity, an image, a focus-group-tested myth? Were books being produced instead of written? Suddenly the idea that words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm is stuck in my head, all to a wistful electronic beat.

Though the vast majority of you were reared better than to admit such things in public, I know that hundreds of you read about “Opal’s” backstory and thought to yourselves, “I could do that. How hard can it be?” Well, why don’t you find out? Leave a concentrated, concise story containing no more than fifty-five words, in the comments below.

Write about whatever you feel like, don’t let my memories of Nick Cave songs force you in to feeling some mercy. If you don’t want to 55 here, leave a link to where we can see your flash fiction elsewhere. You might not get half-a-million dollars, but isn’t the love and appreciation from other Mutineers worth so much more?

Our resident bean left us a comment which reminded me that we wrote haikus to celebrate a rather obvious holiday two months ago. This, of course, made me feel guilty for being tardy with the 55Friday flash fiction free-for-all, so to distract myself from the shame, thoughts of a third writing exercise which employs “resource constraints” came to mind. Behold, a “Fib”:

Blogs spread
gossip
and rumor
But how about a
Rare, geeky form of poetry? [linky-poo]

What is a “Fib”? It’s a six-line poem inpired by the Fibonacci (Cough! Hemachandra Cough!) sequence, which controls how many syllables can be in each line.

The allure of the form is that it is simple, yet restricted. The number of syllables in each line must equal the sum of the syllables in the two previous lines. So, start with 0 and 1, add them together to get your next number, which is also 1, 2 comes next, then add 2 and 1 to get 3, and so on…Fibs…top out at line six, with eight syllables.[linky-poo]

According to the afore-linked NYT article, April just happens to be National Poetry Month AND Mathematics Awareness Month, so the sudden craze for “fibs” seems especially appropriate. Know what else is apposite?

The earliest known reference to Fibonacci numbers is contained in a book on meters called Chhandah-shāstra (500 BC) by an Indian mathematician named Pingala. As documented by Donald Knuth in The Art of Computer Programming, this sequence was described by the Indian mathematicians Gopala and Hemachandra in 1150, who were investigating the possible ways of exactly bin packing items of length 1 and 2. [wiki]

Paging “Everything-is-Yindian”-Uncle!

I know I usually name our nanofiction-orgies after some much-adored song in my catalog of tunes which I cried to in high school and or watched on “120 Minutes”, but I’m so fascinated by this “new haiku” that I’ll refrain from capping this post with an angst-ridden hat. Everything else is the same as it ever was, so leave your bit o’ brilliance (or a link to where we can find it) in the comments below. 55-word gems which tell a story, haikus which reference mezze and poetry which reminds me of that mindless Da Vinci code…come fifty-five, come all.

I kept wanting to make our flash fiction extravaganza relevant to current events, but I couldn’t find songs in my music collection that I loved, which contained any of the following:

• -March
• -Madness
• -Sixteen
• -NO productivity thanks to bracketology and compulsive SM-refreshing

Since I just read Manish’s snide post about hackneyed, caffeinated metaphors, this granddaughter of a coffee-grower suddenly has java on her mind (but sadly, not in her tummy). As a result, unforgettable horns and Peggy Lee’s silken voice waft through my head and there we have it. A title for our weekly 55.

So, write your 55 perfect words about the potent potable I reference above OR its affect on animals (Wheeee!) or the “third place“-establishments which charge you far too much for the privilege of sipping something acrid which apparently came your way via fair trade. Or, ignore me completely and write about whatever strikes your fancy this Friday. As always, leave the next chapter of your oeuvre (or a link to where we might discover it) in the comments below. Thank you and remember, there’s no shame in drinking decaf, I don’t care WHAT anyone says. :D

This morning, I stumbled in to a rather important meeting nearly twitching from twin deficits in sleep and kcals. I furrowed my brow, willed myself to focus…and found myself talking about nanofiction, of all things. The man I was meeting with had googled me and he wanted to know what the deal was with “that 55 thing” he had seen on my blog. As I hastily prepared an answer, I mentally swore at myself that if I used the word “meme” more than once, I’d deny myself food for such lame blogginess. I am pleased to report [burp] that I did not suffer from starvation today.

Buzzwords aside, I was struck by the look on the man’s face when I told him about Hemingway’s famous piece of flash fiction, all six words of it. He was concomitantly fascinated and appreciative, as all good readers are. It was at that very moment that I thought of Jai and nearly drowned in 55-related guilt. ;)

Since we’ve done this and this, I figured that today would be an apposite day for quelque-chose similar. Oui? Oui. We will make others green with envy at all of our brilliant fun. As always, you are welcome to comPLETEly ignore my thematic suggestions and doowutchyalike. Just do it in the comments below, mmmkay? And remember, you might be hungover from too much guiness, but you can still string together 55 words, my out-of-practice leprechauns. ;) Seek sympathy for headaches, nausea, dehydration and lost pots of gold elsewhere— we’ve got fiction to write!

Today I’m feeling like a political desi, indeed. Though I wake up to NPR every morning, for some reason, the trademark background noises which accompany stories sounded more authentic and charming than usual this morning. Listening to Tom DeLay hammer on about port security ignited my thoughts like few issues have recently. C-Span was even more scintillating as I slowly and repeatedly slammed my head in to my steering wheel thanks to the accident on the onramp to 495 which destroyed 66 this morning. Thank goodness for good radio during hellacious traffic. So now you know where I’m at, in terms of mindset this chilly Friday.

When it comes to today’s theme for flash fiction, I’m tempted to have you guys write a “teaser” for a ToI story, since you mutineers are sooo fond of that paper of record and I already know your 55s would be suitably hilarious. ;)

Then again, I also have the urge to play “Being George Bush”; you could string together 55 words from the President’s inner monologue as he goes about his journey to Indiaaaa . Oh, if only there were a way to know what he’s thinking as he curries favor while eating curry in the exotic land of spices and silks…I can just smell the originality now. ;)

I really don’t mind what you nanofiction as long as you just do, and I think I speak for all of my 55-lovin’ comrades when I type that. As always, leave your gem of a story (or a link to it) in the comments below. And yes, later on I will continue this post with a round-up of last week’s finest. For now though, your beloved blank canvas has been handed to you. Resistance is futile— get to typin’.

I passed out after work yesterday, with this very window still open and a pending 55Friday languishing. My bad. I would normally feel a lot worse about this, but such an unintended delay means one thing: I can publicly wish someone whom I adore a very Happy Birthday. If you don’t already read Venial Sin, you are depriving yourself of some of the best blog on the internets. He’s an erstwhile resident of my Chocolate City who currently makes London an even hotter place to be and his blog is genius. (No pressure!) Happy Birthday, gorgeous. :)

Since I’ve slobbered all over him virtually, let’s start my run-down of the best examples of flash fiction from last week with Sin himself. He had no need to self-deprecate before introducing the following:

“No!” the lawyer yelled into the phone. “I don’t care if it WAS Valentine’s Day, “life partner” was not meant to apply to a cellmate. This isn’t the path to true love, no matter how slim your options may seem.”

Pause.

Beat.

Sigh.

“Fine, I’ll bring you candy on the 14th for…”Big Mick” is it?” [link]

The painting was titled “Agape,” and depicted the God of Trite having intercourse with the God of Sexual Starvation, nude. The Valentines Fundamentalists rioted, but the Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews and Atheists finally united in common cause, cancelling out this most cancerous religion. The work sold for $2 billion, and everyone lived happily ever after. [link]

Fellow spelling-stickler Sirc penned a scathing 55:

Good mourning babe :), she texts. Still swimming or Barely stayin afloat in a sea of cheapnfree champagne reveries, He writes back, What’s so Good about Mourning? She writes back that, Every day is the First day of your life ;) Why are Bad Spellers so drawn to unfounded optimism like lice to immigrant public school kids? [link]

Anyone who drops the k-bomb is going to get mad love from me ;), DDiA:

EvEr SiNcE wE stalked each other on Xanga You gave me anon. eprops; filled my Dreams with kaleidoscopic manga, I’ve wanted to buy you dil-shaped balloons. Now you will call me yo babydaddy, yayy! And me you snookums. Hug, kiss, And stop traffic with aww-inspiring PDA. Common bayyybee shake that kundi I’ll be your munda, you my mundi.[link]

This week? Write whatever you please. I toyed with different themes, ranging from “Jeopardy” (where I was going to have you all end your 55s in the form of a question) to “Crime and Punishment” (where you 55 regarding suitable punishments for Salman Khan). In the end, I chose none of the above. As always, leave your masterpiece or a link to it in the comments below. We’ll love it, promise.

A few shame-spiral-filled weeks pass and the prodigal blogger returns. My apologies for not giving you a space and reason to play— an especially regrettable fault, since the last nanofiction orgy inspired some of my favorite 55s ever, as you wrote miniature matrimonials for yourself and others.

One-time SM guest-rockstar Cicatrix was two for two with her dead-on impressions of certain boys we know:

Mysterious pajamahadeen, muscular yet partial to velvet, seeks wheatish girl for soulful rocketblogging sessions. Must be fluent in Unix, C++, Perl, DHTML and more. Lissome, long-haired, and bra must match panties at all times. Jewel-toned clothing preferred. Implanted microchips a plus. Come let your airport meet my wifi, as I bathe you in rosewater…my Padma. [link]

Open-minded parents seek adventurous girl for rocket-scientist son. Must have beauty and wiles of Sita to draw son away from this blogging plogging nonsense. Must be outdoorsy since he likes to hanky panky on campsites, hiking trails, zero-G flight simulators, the moon. Must also be ready for a three-way with Paul Krugman should opportunity arise. [link]

Meanwhile, over in the Ewe Kay, Jai was making me (and countless others) swoon…as if that’s novel:

Roguish-but-charming professional North Indian guy seeks equally saucy girl with a good heart for lots of naughty, borderline-illegal fun and potential marriage. Romantic fool at heart, much more sidha than he pretends to be. Woman must be smart, sexy, kind, and look great from all angles in low-rise skinny-fit jeans. No gold-diggers, social-climbers, or neurotics. [link]

Finally, Desi Dude in Austin got a wee bit of snark in at the end of his 55; I sincerely hope he ends up with someone like me, just to make things interesting. ;)

Well educated Indian Boy, likes to read and cook, needs a bad Indian Girl with a taste for bad movies and good wine. Must be willing to put up with disorder and the occasional wild partying. Also, must be able to act coy before in-laws and ridiculously large extended family. Must like MIA only in moderation. [link]

This week? Since I’m an established quirkyalone, I propose a black take on cupid, a scathing flash of fiction about the needless fetishization of couple hood, a snide dissection of the pink holiday which rapidly approaches. Of course you are welcome to write about anything your precious, candy-filled dil desires; kindly leave it or a link to it in the comments below. We’ll heart the results, promise.

Last week, the Mutiny was anomalously quiet and for that I am very contrite.

I love our weekly nanofiction orgy just as much, if not more than you, our phenomenal contributors do, so please don’t think that our creative fun came to an abrupt and unexplained end. It didn’t. As you can see, we are back on track this week, now that I am up to being the hostess you deserve, after a very difficult week. Forgive me for leaving you without a Friday you’re in love with? Thank you.

:+:

This week’s “theme” is inspired by all of YOU, or more specifically, those of you who commented on my last post about “Which Celebrity Do I Not Look Like?” When one of you discovered that you resembled TMBWITW, you joked about adding such valuable information to your biodata. Which got me thinking about auto/biography as advertisement. (This shit is bananas! B-I-O-D-A-T-A!)

Surely you know where I’m going with this, as I cackle wickedly. :) 55 words. Sell yourself (or the celebrity you look like OR someone whose identity we try and guess OR a Mutineer) in exactly 55 words. Do it well and who knows who might make a bid. ;)

The next time I prattle on about orgies, nanofiction and Fridays, there will be a “six” marking the days of our lives instead of a “five”. :) I didn’t know what would happen the first time I posted about daring to write short-shorts; I certainly had no expectation that fiction-filled Fridays would become a much-loved tradition here at the Mutiny. Now, I can’t imagine an SM without tiny stories, each exactly 55 words in length.

Thank you for writing so regularly, so publicly, so generously. You have become some of my favorite authors, and reading your creations is something I look forward to all week long. For those of you who lurk, doubt or hesitate…make one of your resolutions a promise to yourself that you will write. Almost everyone I know lists “write a novel” when answering one of those silly numbered/question-riddled memes, specifically when asked about “things you’d like to accomplish eventually”. Baby steps. Fifty-five of them. You can do it, we’ll be thrilled to watch you try.

Happy New Year, writers. :)

And you. And you. And definitely YOU. Those of you who’ve viewed 2003’s sublime “Love Actually” will know exactly who I’m imitating, as I inaugurate this week’s nanofiction orgy.

Speaking of imitation, I’m still marinating in the afterglow of last week’s tryst with wit and creativity, when you, ahem, “emulated” other sepiates. One of you made me laugh out loud, the first time a bit of flash fiction has ever accomplished THAT rare result. Which one of you, you wonder? Why, a lady never tells. ;)

I will let you know that it was one of the three outstanding flashes of fiction below:

I have just completed downloading all the Sepia RSS feeds from past Nano-55 orgies into a central database. Upon regressing the frequency of posting comments/nano-fiction against Anna’s time-to-post (measured in hours-past-Friday-00hrs), it can be easily seen that as winter progresses, Anna feels like staying in bed longer, confirming our genetic propensity to hibernate. [DDiA]

Now, I think you’ll find I explained this in my articles on Sulekha HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE. It seems clear to me that poor, working class people should really stop complaining. If they can’t work their way out of poverty, expel them from these compassionate American shores! They should learn from Hindus. [Bongsie]

I was with my girlfriend last night (stop sniggering), and we were chatting about whether certain desi morsels (cut it out) translate effectively to a Western audience. For example, do people like their lassi “sweet” or “salty” (careful now); or, if paan went mainstream, if they would prefer to spit or swallow after they’d finished. [Jai Singh]

Brilliant. :)

This week? Get in the Chrismukkah spirit, whatever that means to you. To me, it means wishing you tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, ohhhhh ti-i-dings of commmmmfort…and joy. Quite predictably, you’ll bring me enormous amounts of joy simply by leaving 55 words of fiction or links to it in the comments below.

Merry everything, y’all, and to y’all a good night. :)

As I sniffle, sneeze and snuffle while unlocking the venue for our weekly nanofiction orgy, I find myself feeling mildly guilty for posting this six hours later than I usually do. I know readers on my home coast (where it is barely 6am) aren’t bothered by such tardiness, but mutineers here…well, sorrrrry.

While I normally choose a theme on my own, this week I had some help from co-blogger/fellow Colonial Sajit and a few of the readers who commented on one of his posts, which expressed how describing any brown art with desi spices was gag-worthy.

I must say, whatever resistance I had to the “write something like you’re a clueless reviewer, thus abusing ‘spices’ in every possible way” concept melted thanks to that Badmash of ours, who can get me to agree to anything, especially when he brings up one of the curries I love most (though my mother makes it with potato and not fish, natch) AND the ingredient they always discovered me sneaking nibbles of in the pantry:

Sajit, I agree. Anna, how ‘bout it - 55s as angry as meen curry and as sharp as imli! :)

Mmmm, imli/puli. Know what else put me in a good mood? You might not, since a good number of you don’t read comments, which is sad when our readers go above and beyond rapid-fire ranting and write something priceless. Bongsie? Here’s lookin’ at YOU, kid:

I have perfected the art of knowing the Sepiauthor by reading the first line and no more. I’m flawless with Abhi, Manish and Anna but I need more work when it comes to Sajit, Vinod and Ennis. This was a CLASSIC Abhism:

“Since I am both an outdoor enthusiast and a lover of outdoor “gear,” I subscribe to the Adventure 16 newsletter.” (quotes mine)

This sums up his role as the MAN of the house and also demonstrates somewhat eccentric reading material - a must for any blogger. Great topics for Abhi to post about: WAR, POLITICS, WAR POLITICS, FIGHTING, MACHINES, SPACE, CAPITAL LETTERS, ROCKS and RAW MEAT.

Manish is more esoteric and loads up the sarcasm.[linky]

The grabbing hands, grab all they can, everything counts in large amounts. Tonight, a certain group plays Washington, DC. I won’t be there, but I have fond memories of seeing them live; they were my first concert as well as my last. I used to carefully write “Music is the only thing that matters.” on all my mix CDs, I’m famous for kicking someone out of my bed (get your minds out of the gutter— I wasn’t in it) because they disrespected the easiest bossanova song to appreciate of all time. Like the scent of Madelines, music conjures past lives powerfully.

Today, if you are in search of a theme, find one in aural pleasure: concerts, music, memories of the first song you ever danced to with a boy (“Bizzare Love Triangle”: in 1989). As always, write freely and ignore such suggestions if you desire; the most important thing is that you leave your sweetest perfection (or a link to it) in the comments below.

In total support of our lone Guest Blogger PG’s apposite timing with regards to World AIDS Day, today’s edition of our weekly nanofiction writing is inspired by December 1, red ribbons and acronyms.

Friend of SM (and my rival for the affections of Goran) Brimful gently dispatched my mild-grade confusion about the need for more AIDS research funding with her edifying post yesterday:

It is easy to dismiss HIV as an area that already gets plenty of research dollars, and that it is overhyped, because of the way it manifests in this country in 2005. In the US, it tends to affect poor minorities, homosexuals, and IV drug users. And even though we need to get that under control, people can live with HIV here, thanks to the availability of life-saving therapies. But we have to figure out how to get these therapies into the hands of the rest of the world. Morevoer, we have to seek out the holy grail- an AIDS vaccine. Though it’s nearly impossible to develop, we have to try. I have heard people remark that HIV infection is preventable. This is true in theory, but when you have the kind of transmission happening in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, it sure doesn’t feel preventable.

In other news, doubts have surfaced about Brimful’s brown heritage, since her post on World AIDS Day actually was published on that day.

For those of you who are just joining us, 55Friday is a weekly event (two months strong!) for aspiring novelists like me who are ADDled commitment-phobes and therefore can’t take on something serious like NaNoWriMo’s 50,000 word requirement. If you’ve been lurking or are new, here is all you have to do: write a very short story with exactly 55 words and post it or a link to it in the comments below. You may write about anything, but for those who prefer, we have a weekly “theme”. Today’s theme is RED, the second time we’ve had a unifying idea that I ripped off from Krzysztof_Kieslowski, for those who are keeping track.

Happy holidays, sweet readers. Today is Black Friday and that’s actually a flawless description of the moment I’m typing in now. I’m feeling rather overwhelmed by the dark…mostly because I’m staying with my little sister and she’s sleeping, so I can’t turn on any lights. ;) I’m also supposed to be vewy, vewy quiet, so she can hunt wabbits in her dweams, but she’ll have to tolerate the clickety-clacketing, since I have pirated wifi and as long as I have the mighty iBook and a connection, the 55 will go on. :)

I spent my day in transit; six hours of flying through three airports (with a two-hour layover) and one misplaced, gate-checked, carry-on bag later, I was back in the state where I once played as a toddler. I arrived in mukluks, the memory of last night/the season’s first gorgeous snow fall in DC dominating my thoughts like a new crush. Still swoony for Frosty, I stopped cold once I left the artificial climate of the airport and saw…a giant cactus. In 70 degree balminess. What an amazing country this is, from one end to the other.

My ultra-vegetarian family never did celebrate Thanksgiving (“such a typically American approach…to be grateful ONCE a year”), so I didn’t mind traveling today, but I looked at my fellow passengers on each PACKED leg of the journey and wondered about them. Surely they were trying to get home to a TurDuckEn or something brined or deep-fried. Maybe it even tasted familiar.

What did you eat? Did you create your own holiday with the family you chose vs the one you were born to, or did you go home? Did anyone gobble an all “brown” feast, with nary a cranberry in sight? Where YOU responsible for all that cooking?

Thanksgiving is for family but it’s usually staged by women. My Uncle in Maryland was a rare gent who cooked with Auntie, side-by-side; she handled the Amreekan fare while he made a most excellent sambar, to go with the Mallu portion of the menu. I remember adoring him for that. Most of my friends, no matter their ethnicity, had just their mothers stressing out over creation.

Women are the keepers of traditions, the path to religion and the source of life itself, which is why the following statistic (Thanks, Kenyandesi) left me queasy:

One in six women worldwide suffers domestic violence — some battered during pregnancy — yet many remain silent about the assaults, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

:+:

Each week I throw out themes because you seem to enjoy them, but I try to emphasize that no one minds what you write your nanofiction about, so long as you just write. So go ahead, write anything, and then leave your contribution (or link) to our beloved weekly project in the comments below.

Since I’m experiencing worrisome technical difficulties AND I’m in transit, I’m going to err on the side of paranoia caution, break with tradition (if we can define seven weeks as such) and post this week’s nanofiction orgy early.

I went back and forth with regards to what I should do about this situation, since I am 99% sure I won’t be near my prrrecious iBook at 3am EST, when I usually come up with some hackneyed way to express my incredulity about how fast the week has gone by…blah yadda blah. I couldn’t bear to be tardy with our 55-fiesta, which is just uproarious because I am never punctual to ANYTHING. Shocking. I guess it’s love.

Since the “only city in the world” (does anyone else remember the Barney’s ad which stated this? I can’t find it on Google) is half the reason for all my fretful feelings, I think I’ve found our theme. New York. Or, your New York. My New York is heaven. There’s no place I’d rather be. Perhaps your New York is London, Bombay, Kampala…you get the idea.

Of course, you are welcome to write exactly 55 words of flash fiction about ANY topic your heart sweats; leave it or a link to where we might find it below, please. Spank you very much.

We all know what today is and rather than prattle on about how I’m flummoxed that yet another week has raced past me and here we are, ready to write nanofiction, I’d rather focus on the significance of this day. In addition to 55Friday, today is Veterans day.

I learn something new every day. Here’s my chewable vitamin for today:

Q. What is the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day?

A. Many people confuse Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Memorial Day is a day for remembering and honoring military personnel who died in the service of their country, particularly those who died in battle or as a result of wounds sustained in battle. While those who died are also remembered on Veterans Day, Veterans Day is the day set aside to thank and honor ALL those who served honorably in the military - in wartime or peacetime. In fact, Veterans Day is largely intended to thank LIVING veterans for their service, to acknowledge that their contributions to our national security are appreciated, and to underscore the fact that all those who served - not only those who died - have sacrificed and done their duty. A complete history of Veterans Day, and why it is observed on November 11, can be found on our Veterans Day History Web page.

Though I tend to cringe whenever I’m exposed to the oeuvre of this holiday’s pneumatic spokesperson (who decides such things?) I am loyal to our military for a million reasons, most of which are inspired by my sole sibling who has spent almost a decade in active duty in the Air Force. Thank you, Veena, for all of your leadership and sacrifice. Thank you for giving yourself to a country that has given us so much. Most of all, thank you for putting a face on an organization which our family never really understood, appreciated or paid attention to until your courageous decision to serve. P.S. Please tell all of your friends, especially those who have been or are in Iraq and Afghanistan that I sweat them, too.

I was somewhat surprised that more of our amazing brown creative writers weren’t doing NaNoWriMo with me; no worries, I read your comments and I understand. Writing a novel in one month, no matter which month you choose is a heady, harrowing thing— cheers to everyone who decided that in full compliance with IST, next month would be their time to shine and opine. May you all have more luck than I did during (after?) NaNoWriMo 2003, when I reached a devastating, untimely end to my participation during “official” November and immediately, earnestly resolved that I would pick up my mighty pen to write a good fight in December. One tiny problem. December is a wee bit hectic for Christians and Jews-by-association. No matter. I’m sure that our sepia/IST delegation of 2005 won’t have those issues though. ;)

Meanwhile, I imagine a few hundred of you took one look at my NaNoWriMo post and muttered, “Hell, no!”. Pas de probleme, mes petits choux— I welcome you back to our favorite space to write WAY shorter examples of prose on a weekly basis. While I didn’t have to dodge worried cafe-proprietors and police to post THIS week’s installment of 55-Fiction Friday, I did not do as well evading certain effects of one powerfully narcotic dose of Phenergan with Codeine. There. That’s my excuse for posting this almost 10 hours after I usually do. ;)

Perhaps I am overwhelmed with stress from moving out of my childhood home or maybe I’m exhausted from rushing all over Northern California to see some of you…either way, I am in one exceptionally sadistic mood. I can discern no other explanation for what I am about to issue, in way of challenge. As always, you are more than welcome to ignore my insignificant suggestions with regards to theme or content, and post or link to your fabulous 55 in our comments section even if you don’t follow a trend…but for a brave soul who is emboldened by a dare…I’m your huckleberry.

Have you noticed anything about this post? Something is not here, a word is amiss…I won’t have used it until I kill your curiousity by throwing down my writing gauntlet. I wonder…can you write a “55” without using that most ubiquitous of words? Can you, nay, will you be willing to introduce your nouns article-free?

55 words, none of which is “the”?

Blasphemy, they say. I say, go.

Oh my. Usually, at this moment, I’m sitting in bed dumbfounded because it’s 3am on what I still consider Thursday (midnight never felt like a commencement, to me). Where were we? Oh yes. I was imagining where I normally type this post from— my bed, in front of Degrassi vintage, with the sound off. I’d be staring off in to space, concomitantly shocked and agog because yes, it’s ALREADY time to write and read nanofiction where does the time go blah blah blah.

But TODAY. Today, I am not doing that. Today, I am in California, in my Mother’s new home, where there is no nimble cable modem. There is no DSL. There isn’t even a local phone line hooked up yet, for me to try…(gag) DIAL-UP. So what could I do? I grimly did what I had to: I went, in search of the interweb.

Kinko’s? Closed. What kind of a Kinko’s CLOSES? Seriously! This blows, because I was quite fond of using “Kinko’s” as a synonym for “24 hours”. Beyond that tiny language tragedy, everywhere else? Um, this is the suburbs, so there IS no everywhere else to try. So get this— I’m borrowing wireless from my fave indie coffee place, because lucky for me (AND YOU) they didn’t switch it off like they usually do when they CLOSE.

I’m in a rainy parking lot, typing like a freak, the iBook’s brightness turning my face a not very divine shade of blue. Why? Because I love you and I love this weekly thing we do. When I commit, I commit. After we had moved the last few boxes to the new house, my mother was aghast when I told her during a dinner we were both to tired to eat, that I’d need to have a nocturnal adventure, in search of the net.

“But internet is coming tomorrow. Noon, I made an appointment with the phone company. Can’t it wait? Your friends will understand?”

“My FRIENDS (read: co-bloggers) will. My readers will be disappointed. Besides, I started this, so I have no excuse. Phone lines or not, the mutiny must go on.”

She nodded somberly at me and told me to try not to get lost. If you were previously unaware, I have the coolest Mother EVER. That doesn’t mean she isn’t strict— if I had said that I felt like going out for a martini, HA. If I had said that I felt like a movie, no dice. But stating that I needed…to…blog? Moms has her priorities straight, yo. ;)

Already?

Please understand, I’m not complaining, I’m just astonished. Very well, then. Today is Friday and that means it is time to write (and read) nanofiction. I’ve become fond of this little ritual of ours, even if it seems to make the week go by far too quickly. ;)

I am elated by the amount of thought, effort and cleverness you are all displaying in our humble comments section. What some of you can fit in a mere 55 words is astounding and delightful— each piece of nanofiction tastes like a well-crafted truffle which leaves me sightless out of joy, as I savor the supple flavors.

Enough with my fawning all over you future-Salmans-and-Jhumpas, let’s get on with it!

Like last week, my title for this post is borrowed from a song—and this is no ordinary song…’twas one of my absolute faves when I was a moody teen—“Blue Monday” by New Order. Am I sad? No, but it’s so kind of you to be concerned. I’m “blue” because I thought I’d add an extra pinch of curry leaves to my weekly lit sabzi.

Today, boys and girls, ladkas and ladkis, adas and edis, we have a theme. Cease with that grumbling at once! This is just a suggestion for you to consider as you contribute your usual morsels of genius. I must say though, “blue” is a rather expansive starting point, if you’re in the mood for a little extra writing-bondage.

After the jump: my top three…

…but I can write it. So can all of you, apparently.

Dear, excessively creative readers writers, since we commenced our sweet Friday festival of nanofiction fun, it feels like someone put a chip and new exhaust system in that vehicle called time. Those around me will attest that I can often be found muttering, “Where do the hours go?” several times a day; thanks to this delightful ritual, I’m even more incredulous. It’s Friday? AGAIN? Didn’t I just write this post? Yowza. It’s like Groundblog’s day.

In any case, indulge me in my disbelief, that it is already time to write an uber-short story and leave it or a link to it in the comments section below.

If you’re just tuning in, you might want to read this and then this, so you learn what I’m going on about, as well as how you can join in the chant. That second link established yet another tradition I’m sticking to— I like the idea of selecting the three short-shorts that made me swoon. Without further blathering, here they be:

When Jai Singh said, “I guess I may as well kick this off….” he wasn’t playing, y’all. The following gem left me daydreaming with a wistful smile on my face, as I concomitantly recalled my fond days in History 196A AND a certain battle scene from LOTR. Suh-wooooooon.

60,000 Rajputs waited in the crisp dawn, armour glinting in the sunlight, horses battle-ready. The track down the mountainside twisted ahead, the green flags of the approaching legion already visible.
With a thundering evocation to the Almighty, they raised their curved swords skywards in unison. The black smoke from the pyres billowed above the fortress.

Jay’s 55 was adroit; it captivated all of us, as we attempted to solve the ingenious riddle he posed:

Ice broke under the ankle. In a hospital room they conspired friendship. Set to work, she fumbled at the remote clumsily. In the boardroom she spat venom as they cornered her – then unbelievably granted reprieve. From the loft she saw the little woman walking towards the cab. She knew that it should have been her.

Once upon a time…well, it was actually just a week ago, a beloved Sepia personality asked:

yay! I love Fast Fiction Fridays at the Mutiny. Can we do it again next week?

Of course we can, darling. “55 Fiction Friday” is a meme I’ve been faithful to for a while; I’m happy to infect the Mutiny with it.

For those of you who missed last week’s brilliance and have no idea what I’m going on about, the idea behind “Fast Fiction” is simple:

Flash fiction, also called sudden fiction, micro fiction, postcard fiction or short-short fiction, is a class of short story of limited word length. Definitions differ but is generally accepted that flash fiction stories are at most 200 to 1000 words in length. Ernest Hemingway wrote a six-word flash: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Traditional short stories are 2,000 to 10,000 words in length…One type of flash fiction is the short story with an exact word count. An example is 55 Fiction or Nanofiction. These are complete stories, with at least one character and a discernible plot, exactly 55 words long.[wiki]

What goodness it was. By the time I closed comments at the end of the weekend (a practice I think I’ll continue), we were in the triple digits.

Transported back to 1951, the thought of making money by betting on cricket matches yet to happen was for some strange reason furthest from my mind, which should give you a sense of just how at home I felt with the whole affair. But then: “I wish she’d married either Kabir or Amit…”

Today is Friday and that means that at some point in the next 21 hours, I’m going to write 55 words which contain an entire story. I’m not that big on memes but this one (“55 Fiction Fridays”) is precious to me, because it reminds me of writing exercises and workshops and english minor-y goodness. Por ejemplo:

She nervously adjusted her sari, hoping no one noticed. So far, the night had gone flawlessly; she had made a good impression on everyone, she could just tell.

The older woman at the table noted how silk was tugged upwards. Taking a delicate sip of tea, she thought, “She’s not good enough for our family.”

I’ve consistently written one of these uber-short shorts for weeks now, but last week was the first time a fellow mutineer noticed. Abhi’s interest in the concept of nanofiction made me ponder the possibility that some of YOU would find it fascinating as well. If I further needed to justify making a mutiny out of it, know this: the good Professor Guest Blogger himself reads my “55” and I am aware of this because he referenced one at the last NYC meetup. Not that I need to defend it or anything… ;)

Flash fiction, also called sudden fiction, micro fiction, postcard fiction or short-short fiction, is a class of short story of limited word length. Definitions differ but is generally accepted that flash fiction stories are at most 200 to 1000 words in length. Ernest Hemingway wrote a six-word flash: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Traditional short stories are 2,000 to 10,000 words in length.[wiki]

That Hemingway example is ridiculously inspiring. One day I want to write a short that short. I don’t even know if there is a name for a short so short. There is, however, a name for the type of writing this meme encourages:

One type of flash fiction is the short story with an exact word count. An example is 55 Fiction or Nanofiction. These are complete stories, with at least one character and a discernible plot, exactly 55 words long.[wiki]

The virus is spreading throughout the brown blogosphere. SM readers Maisnon, Andrea and Chai are the three whom I go out of my way to check on (hee! no pressure, kids!), but if you decide to try it, please leave a link to your work of art in the comments. I’ll be happy if you flash me. :)

Inspired by the stellar reporting of The Times of India. Shine on, you crazy hacks.

Ajai protests Ann

Police enact heckler ban

For the memories

The Smoking Gun has a mugshot of Ajai Raj (thanks, Mili), who was arrested after asking Ann Coulter why it’s okay for her to use her penis to ass-fuck other women.