Flash Fiction Exercise -- Uncle Albert's Desk

For good or for ill, I've discovered a new flash fiction meme - or at least an exercise, since this might be a one-off.   Following Lillie's FSF links, I visited Laura McHale Holland, and found her flash fiction challenge.  She writes an opening sentence, and this is the prompt for a fiction element of 500 words or less.  My initial reaction to the prompt was that there wasn't much I could do with it, but then something creative kicked in and I'm very pleased with the result -- most especially so, since it illuminates a bit of Marci's back-story that I was totally unaware of.  I love it when things like that happen.  In this vignette, Marci is a recent college graduate, ready to set the course for her life.

Here it is in 347 words.

UNCLE ALBERT'S DESK

She knew right away the stamps were no good — no good for mailing anyway.  They were, if anything, Marci thought, even stranger than the other weird artifacts in the oversized roll-top desk that crazy old great-uncle Albert had bequeathed to her.  He had disposed of most of the detritus of his picaresque life before his final illness laid him low.  But either he never got around to the contents of this desk, or they were things he simply couldn’t bear to part with. 

There was the quill he used as a writing pen, that he claimed was a hippogriff feather, and a vicious-looking, foot-long bony spike he said was a manticore's sting.  Marci unrolled the tattered scrap of what looked like starched silk, but felt like a rubbery membrane.  Uncle Albert claimed it was a torn remnant of a fairie's wing. The only time Marci had ever seen him break down in tears was when he told her that story.

With a sigh, she rerolled what was left of the wing and returned to the strip of stamps.  Each was the size of a playing card, and as she touched each one, its picture seemed to come to life for a brief instant.  The sad-eyed fairy fluttered her wings and hid her face in her hands.  The threatening-looking unicorn aggressively stomped a fore-hoof.  The lascivious faun satyr, strutting in full tumescence, winked and thrust himself at her.

Suddenly aroused, Marci shuddered and, blushing, put the stamps away and closed the desk.  Here in uncle Albert's study was not the place to explore those kinds of ideas.  Before Rob moved off to Lansing, she'd have him and his friends move the desk to her apartment.

There she could explore the many oddities of this old desk, and ponder the things she found there at her leisure.  Most specially those stamps.  Maybe that shy fairy had a sad tale to share.  Maybe the faun satyr could teach her about pleasure in ways she hadn't yet imagined.  And maybe that unicorn could transport her to adventures in a strange new world.

 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Reduced to a haiku

Desk full of relics:

Dust of a life, portal to

Some strange adventure

Marci's thread