“Nightmares and Dreams” – Flash Fiction for Friday Fictioneers

/ Emily Livingstone

This story was written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’s weekly flash fiction prompt, Friday Fictioneers.  She provides us with a photo prompt as inspiration, and we get 100 words to tell a story.  This week’s photo comes from  Jan Marler Morrill.  Click on the blue frog below to read other stories or to add your own!  Also, be sure to check out Rochelle’s blog, Addicted to Purple, and her published works, including Please Say Kaddish for Me!

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Image Copyright Jan Marler Morrill

Nightmares & Dreams

(99 words)

“There is a street in Greece where your eyes barely see the cobblestones, though your feet feel them, and there, a blue door, obscured by vines—”

“Not again with the ‘blue door covered in vines,’ Pop,” Mom said.

“Oscured by vines,” five-year-old Elsa corrected.

Grandpa continued: “I opened that door.”

“What’d you see?” I asked.

“Things more wonderful than I’d imagined.  Things more terrible than I’d feared.”

Elsa’s eyes widened.

“Pop,” Mom said.  “Right before bed?”

“Tell us,” I urged.

“I can’t tell all of it.  But I can tell of one creature, wonderful and terrible: the Garsnatch.”

23 thoughts on ““Nightmares and Dreams” – Flash Fiction for Friday Fictioneers”

    • Definitely. I don’t think the Grandfather will be the one to deal with them. But, maybe the nightmares are worth it, if they get to imagine something truly interesting? Maybe not. Maybe it’s best to at least hear the most horrible things in the safer light of day.

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    • Thanks! I do feel that I’ve cheated a little this week, and that this is more of a beginning than a complete story. I was hearing the Jabberwocky poem in my head a bit as I was thinking about this. I don’t think the Garsnatch is a good thing…but it comes from a world that has good and bad things in it. I will try to come back to this one!

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    • I think I have left the reader a bit in the lurch this week! The Garsnatch is a terrible monster, though really amazing to look at–impressive in its monstrosity…I’m not exactly sure. Something with iridescent green scales that comes out of swamps, lifts itself up on its hind legs, and snatches people (thus, the name), taking them back to its lair to eat.

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  8. Dear Emily,

    Delightful slice of life. It also could be the intro to the wonderful story of the Garsnatch. Good stuff. 😀 Thank you for the nod to Please Say Kaddish for Me. The third in Havah’s trilogy is close to submission.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

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  11. “Things more wonderful than I’d imagined. Things more terrible than I’d feared.” Good line. The extremes of a spectrum don’t always seem very different from each other, do they?

    I liked this story.

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