This dark short story is my entry to the Charlie Finch First Half-a-Grand Flash Fiction Competition. The story prompt was the photo above. I hope you enjoy it.
The night the riots started, I stood in the middle of the stage clutching the winning trophy and wondering what Dr. Richards would do now that she’d seen the scan and knew I’d cheated. It was the cleanest X-ray they had ever seen. No signs of spread, no broken vertebrae. I was cured. Someone had finally won.
I wondered if she would ask me why I did it. If I knew it wouldn’t last.
Why do we tell our kids that everything is gonna be all right when it’s not? Did you look around? The world was euphoric! Even Marcie and Greta, with their tragic scans, with their death nothing but a certainty, even they were drunk with happiness. This was the miracle the world had been waiting for. This was the resurrection! Who cares if I did it by cheating?
In my defense, when I woke up that morning, I didn’t plan to cheat. I’d thought about it. I knew how to do it; my grandma was just so healthy. I just wasn’t sure it was the moral thing to do. But then I saw my baby girl and realized I didn’t even remember what she looked like when she smiled. Whether she had dimples on her cheeks or if her smile was crooked, like her daddy’s. Is it really moral to withhold such joy from millions? To continue in a world so hopeless, so devoid of happiness that little kids have never seen a smile?
So I did it, and I knew exactly what would happen when the world saw the scan.
Kids would giggle and mothers would cry. Young and old would head to the streets, hugging, kissing, laughing, touching their own faces, unfamiliar with the strange sensation on their cheeks. Lovers would love again. They would run hand in hand to the parks and the forests to make love, because is there really any reason left not to bring a baby into the world?
Who cares that it didn’t last more than two hours.
But Dr. Richards didn’t ask. When the ceremony ended, she followed me into the press room as if she knew what would happen next. I sat behind the microphone and felt the moisture building up in my nose. “Have you thought about what you would do with the money? Would you share some with the doctors?” they asked, but I didn’t respond. I tried not to move, as if my stillness could make it evaporate. But the drops of blood rolled down and reached my lips, and then fell into my lap, leaving polka dots on the white tablecloth. There was a gasp and then screams. My eyes rolled back, and everything went dark. And then there was just violence and despair, like yesterday and the day before. But it didn’t matter, because for at least two hours, the world knew nothing but joy.
About Me: I’m a former psychology professor now sailing around the world while writing fiction and reflections on life at sea. My debut novel, Fifteen Years to Hiva Oa, is now available. My second book, The Last Harbour, a dystopian novel, will launch in December 2026.
wow. nice.
The line that got me is her not being able to remember whether her daughter's smile was crooked. That's the whole world in one sentence and it earns everything after it. And then the polka dots on the tablecloth. Bloody good, this.