Flash Fiction

I studied flash fiction online a few years ago. It is a form of very short story anywhere from a few words to 50, 100, 200, 1,000, or 2,000 words, depending on which authority you believe. The shorter the better, in my opinion. Object, symbols, and allusions play large roles in flash fiction.

The following story is around 600 words long and is based on true events. I call it . . .

FIRST DANCE, LAST DANCE

I met him at a dance. Wow, he was the cutest guy I ever saw. Curly blond hair and a tiny beauty mark just above his upper lip. His name was Chuck. I didn't know how to dance, but when he came to me and held out his hand in invitation to dance with him, I stepped right up and let him teach me. A girl doesn't let a rare fellow like that just walk away. It was a little country affair, this dance, held every other Friday night in a neighborhood one-room school house. Roy Joe, a lively young bachelor, called square dances and other party games. He must have known every party game there ever was. Children and adults all played together as if no size or age barriers existed. I felt, for the first time in many months, brilliant and alive.

I wore my new black patent leather shoes and a frilly dress that I had gotten on our first shopping trip since my mother and little brother were killed in an automobile accident a year before. My sister Mae and I, hurting too much to concern ourselves with fashion or appearances, had lived in blue jeans and tee shirts since their deaths. The shopping spree, as Daddy intended, lifted our spirits and added some "girl" clothes to our closets. My frilly new dress hugged me, I felt certain, with joy, and whispered, "we should never stop dancing." Blue jeans and tee shirts were forgotten. And the gas lights, burning with their own party brilliance, twinkled on my patent leather shoes, blinding me with happiness. Roy Joe, with wondrous timing, sang that little dance tune, "See my new shoes, see my new shoes. . . ." I willed the next two weeks to melt away and leave me here, dancing with Chuck.

More weeks, more party dances passed and I danced with Chuck, happy and liberated from grief. I must have thought it would last forever. . . .

But then one night when we arrived at the party and my eyes searched the room for Chuck, he was nowhere in sight. His parents were there, and his sister, so he must have been outside, I decided, talking with his friends. I found a chair and sat down to wait; surely he would come inside soon and we would dance. I watched other people dancing the schottische, the waltz, the two-step. Daddy was dancing with a widow lady and they were smiling, finding happiness again. Mae danced with a tall, awkward boy wearing a cowboy shirt. She had confessed to me that she liked to dance with him best because he let her lead. (She loved to be the boss.)

At last Chuck walked through the door. My impatient feet started to tap; tiny explosions filled my chest. He went to his mother, who was sitting near me. "Beth is sitting right there, Chuck,” she said. “Why don't you ask her to dance?" "Nah," he said. "I'd rather hang out with the guys." He didn't even look at me─just turned and walked away, leaving me sitting there embarrassed, humiliated. Roy Joe was singing “See my new shoes, see my new shoes,” but mine had stopped tapping, stopped twinkling, stopped dancing .

A more mature girl probably would have seen this for what it was--a rude boy just being himself--but I was nine years old; I took it personally. Rejection is a hard lesson to learn.