'Heat Island' by Melissa Flores Anderson

The backyard thermometer creeps up past a hundred. The weather app said it would be 95 today, but it’s always 10 to 15 degrees off. Not a margin of error, but something more sinister. This spot used to be hilly grasslands, used for cattle grazing, covered in native oak trees. The trees were razed, the hills flattened, clusters of houses built two stories high. Native plants went into the front yards, drought tolerant for the warming California weather. The replacement trees haven’t grown into a leafy canopy yet and no shade is cast in our neighborhood.

We tried to fill the backyard with green, climbing clematis and tomato vines, jasmine, tomato plants and basil. But the neighbors put in hardscape, hot cement that super charges the summers.

The mercury bobs up again, the needle creeping to 120. I text a picture to a coworker who sends back an emoji expressing shock. He texts back: 134 is the highest temperature ever recorded, how can it be so hot?

We live in a heat island, I text back. I miss the coast, 35 miles away, where the weather is foggy and moist, and 45 degrees cooler.

'All the Things That Didn’t Happen on the Day of Our First Date' by Debbi Voisey

You didn’t wear the suit I imagined. I’d spotted you buying it a few days ago, and I remember thinking: ”I bet that’s for our date.”

You didn’t bring me flowers, which isn’t a bad thing because I would feel irritated by that. I don’t want to carry a bunch of flowers around with me to a pub and a restaurant when I don’t have a vase. And then when I get home I have to find a vase, but the only vessels I have are wine and vodka bottles.

You didn’t compliment me on my dress, which I took ages to pick out. It didn’t help that my best friend Marie was with me when I tried it on, and she’d look good in a sack whereas I always look like I’m wearing a sack, which is different.

You didn’t open doors for me or pull out my chair. My mum always says that’s the measure of a man, and I should never put up with less than I deserve. You didn’t order my food for me, which is good, because I’d hate that.

 

You didn’t order the cheapest wine, or the most expensive. You didn’t even order one in between. Wine is tricky.

I’d like a wine right now, but I don’t have any left.

You didn’t tell me all about your life or ask about mine. I probably wouldn’t tell you the truth anyway.

You didn’t walk me home and kiss me on my doorstep, where my dad wouldn’t be twitching the curtains or giving you threatening stares and telling you to ‘make sure you don’t hurt my daughter’. 

On the day of our first date, you didn’t turn up, and I suppose it was for the best, because everything about my life is best avoided.

'We will always have to eat things with hearts' by Christina Tudor

The sun should have set already but at midnight it hung in a blood-red sky like a harvest moon. All down the East Coast, people emerged from their homes, paused their everyday lives, and looked up like the horizon line might offer up answers. Are you seeing this? By the fifth day without darkness, people stopped looking up, installed thicker blinds, collectively shrugged their shoulders. 

In California, under a golden-gray sky, another fire trailed after cars on the highway who press the gas like they are trying to outrun the flames, the clouds of smoke—but really the drivers just want to beat the typical five o’clock traffic on their commute, used to the smell of ash lingering on their clothes, in the back of their throat. 

A team of scientists turned spinach leaves into beating human heart cells with pulsing red veins. What will the vegans eat? Podcasters joked when reporting on the phenomenon in a recording studio in New York while wearing matching dark shades. Listeners played the show while on their morning commutes under the perennial sun, resigned to the fact that, in this world, we will always have to eat things with hearts.

Sunrose by Donna M Day

 The first day the sun rose in the west, no-one noticed.

The second day the sun rose in the west, the children said something was wrong.

The third day the sun rose in the west, photos appeared on Instagram.

The fourth day the sun rose in the west, it was on the news.

The fifth day the sun rose in the west, they said they would look into it.

The sixth day the sun rose in the west, no-one cared any more.

The seventh day the sun rose in the west, was the last time it rose at all.

'Acclimatisation' by Liv Norman

The frogs came down slowly at first, so you could see the surprise on each green-grey face as they crouch landed, before launching themselves towards whatever cover they could find. I watched a tiny one curled on our patio, seemingly frozen with fear. My mother, moving between fridge and hob, paused at the window.

‘It’s dead, I think.’

I ran for the back door, forgetting my shoes, forgetting myself; quickened by the sudden need to do something. Then the heavens opened. Soft thuds everywhere, the surprising dryness of them, a breath of warmth on right-angled limbs. I began to cry, while all around me the chorus of croaking bloomed like a long roll of thunder. 

My mother appeared, sheltering me under Dad’s old golfing umbrella. She snuggled me close and told me how these storms came every few years, that I’d been too young the last time round to remember, but if I remembered anything from that year, it would probably be the day Dad was taken. 

‘You’ll get used to it,’ she said, and we stood there for a minute, in the falling frogs, while I wondered where they came from and whether they would ever find their way back there.

'The Prize' by Liz Gwinnell

Should he? Should he risk everything? So far he’d won a food mixer, a week in Malibu, a thousand dollars, matching his and her silk dressing gowns........

“So,” the gameshow host pressed him. “What will it be Anderson? Are you going for the top prize?  We don’t know what it is but we guarantee it’s gonna change your life. And if you don’t land on that magic blue square, you lose everything you’ve won so far.”

The audience called out.

“Go on Anderson! Go on my son!”

Anderson swallowed.

“Ok,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

The host slapped him hard on the back.

“Way to go! Way to go! Let’s spin that wheel!”

The lights dimmed. Dramatic music filled the auditorium. Anderson closed his eyes.

“So,” the host said. “Will our brave contestant win the mystery prize? No one, ladies and gentlemen, no one, has ever won the top prize before. If the blue square lights up, it's his. If it doesn’t, he loses everything he’s won so far, the weekend in Malibu...the his and her dressing gowns...the SUV.....”

Anderson knew he’d won when the audience erupted into wild frenzy and the host slapped him so hard on the back he nearly fell over. 

“Oh boy!” he kept saying. “Oh my! Oh boy!”

The screen flashed for three seconds and then revealed the prize.  

HURRICANE flashed up in big red letters. 

“Wait a minute,” the host said, looking up at the word as thunder started to rumble in the distance. “Wait a minute. A hurricane? You’ve won a hurricane?”

A bolt of lightning lit up the auditorium and heavy rain started to fall. A wild wind ripped across the stage, knocking over the host.

At first, the audience laughed, thinking it was a joke. And then they started to run.

'Tidal' by Allison Renner

We all gathered at the shore, waves lapping our toes. The sky was brighter by the second and soon it seemed like we’d be able to stretch our arms and touch the cratered surface. Some of us tried, pulled toward the light like the tides that washed the rest of us away.

'It happened the day it rained fish' by Lucy Brighton

It happened the day it rained fish. I’m glad because that gave it a sense of occasion, otherwise it

would just be the day you left. I could have pretended you were going out to get milk - only you

had your suitcase and a face full of disappointment.

I wonder if you drove through the fish rain? We would have argued about it. You’d have said it

was the wrath of the Almighty. That he’d scooped up the fish and thrown them at us in temper.

I’d have said it was a tornado, a clash of weather pressure. And who exactly do you think

creates the weather? You’d have asked, the jut of your chin indignant.

I wanted to ask if you’d prayed for this, for some punishment to befall me? You’d have told me

that not everything was about me. I could have called. But I knew you wouldn’t answer. Or did I?

Or was I scared that over the phone there would only be words left. And the word you needed

was sorry. But I didn’t have it to give.

So I watched the news and grumbled to no one at all about the fish rain.

NFFD 2024 Prompt #9: Great Balls of Fire

 

Prompt #9: Great Balls of Fire
FIRE prompt B

Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2024 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of The Classical Elements - Air, Earth, Water and Fire. Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one time-related prompt on the hour every hour from 00:00 until midnight (BST), for a total of 25 prompts in all.  You have until midnight on Sunday (BST) to submit your responses for possible publication here at the Write-In.  We'll start posting responses on Sunday, 16 June 2024....

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Write a flash about a rare weather or meteorological phenomenon.

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 9: Great Balls of Fire.

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 16 June 2024 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.

You can claim the badge for this prompt by visiting the badgifier here (hosted by the NFFD website).

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Photo by Luca Rossato via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)