My longest piece of flash fiction yet, this one continues my happy theme of recent days. I’m not sure about the ending. I kept feeling like I should write another paragraph, but at the same time, the current spot is where I wanted to end it. I’m not sure which idea is better, but this post is without any extra material on the end. Let me know what you think.<\/p>\n
A single drop of rain fell that day. It left a large dark spot on the broken earth, and the greedy land sucked it away in an instant, and soon it was if the drop had never fallen. The land got back to its primary business of drying, cracking, and breaking apart, and the farmers got back to theirs, of bemoaning the weather. There would be no crops, not this year, and should the earth remain barren for a few more months, there would be no city, either. Men, women, and children fled after rumours, chasing down the notion of crops, of food. They hung their lives on the words of charlatans, and many starved. But soon, even the charlatans began to starve, for words may feed the mind, but they do not nourish the body.<\/p>\n
\tIn the desperation, citizens disappeared, only to be found gnawed upon. As food vanished entirely, this became open, and groups of the strong would rove the city, hunting down others as their dinner. Friend ate friend and family ate family, and even rats and cockroaches died away, for they had become delicacies for the collapsing society. Outside the city walls, a few farmers remained, old men who had nowhere to go, and no family to protect. They still met each day in the village tavern, talking through the old stories one more time. The bartender had long fled, and there was nothing to drink, and yet the old habits refused to die, for these farmers had seen many a bad year, and they were determined to ride this one out, just as they had all the others.<\/p>\n
\tAs days went by and easy pickings in the city became scarce, gangs began hunting food outside the city walls, questing after farmers, but the old men knew the lay of the land far better than the cityfolk who chased them, escaping with ease from the angry starving packs. This pushed the populace of the city over the edge into true desperation, and in a night of orgy and bloodshed, all but a few were killed, and those remaining gorged themselves on the flesh of the fallen.<\/p>\n
\tThe farmers shook their head at this ill considered behaviour. They had devised their own method of making it through the long famine \u2013 whenever the farmers became truly starved and nearly stumbling with hunger, they slew the oldest among them. Before his death, the chosen one could bequeath his belongings, and in this way ancient steadings were absorbed into one another, until only two were left.<\/p>\n
\tThese two men were young men, barely starting out in the farming trade, and had known one another from near the day of their birth, and so when the time came, the elder of the two shook his head and handed his farms over to his friend, and was then slain and eaten. Summer had long since passed, and autumn was even now beginning the gradual decent into winter, and the last farmer had no more source of food. He sat in the bar of the village tavern, and told stories to himself, making them up as he went along. Hunger stole away his strength for speech, and so he sat there, waiting for his death.<\/p>\n
\tOne day, the sun darkened, and a strange pat pat pat noise came through the open door of the tavern. Nothing more than a skeleton now, the young farmer crawled his way from the bar to the door, and looked outwards. It took him a long while to discern the source of the sound, but then he remembered: rain! Rain had come again to bless the land and the crops, and the earth drank and drank, its thirst unquenchable after many, many months of desiccation. The farmer cracked his parched lips and cried out in thanks, that he had lived until the rains came again. The prayer consumed the very last of his energy, and his form slumped there against the frame of the door, deceased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My longest piece of flash fiction yet, this one continues my happy theme of recent days. I’m not sure about the ending. I kept feeling like I should write another paragraph, but at the same time, the current spot is where I wanted to end it. I’m not sure which idea is better, but this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[36,4],"tags":[21,22],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-1D","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":372,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=372","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":0},"title":"Born of a Broken Land","date":"November 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Had a sudden burst of flash fiction inspiration. Yes, I should have been writing NaNo (I didn't today), but I'll cope. Hope you like it. The earth split apart, and the seas rushed in, and where once there had stood fertile land, now no sounds could be heard but the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":389,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=389","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":1},"title":"Today Is A Good Day","date":"November 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I have finished National Novel Writing Month as a winner, at 50700 words done for the month after the validation tool made me write another 700 to complete. That means I have done 86,000 words in two months, which is where Laeccan Waters sits today. I'm going to take a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":415,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=415","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":2},"title":"The Village","date":"January 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The second of three stories I wrote last night in my return to flash fiction after a month or two off. The bell rang, a single peal loud and long across the valley. A low sound, a mournful sound, it sent the birds scattering from their perches, and the womenfolk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":392,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=392","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":3},"title":"The Married Orc","date":"December 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I was there when the elves left their trees, and dug mines in the earth. I was there when the dwarves built ships, and sailed away upon the breath of the air. I was there when orcs and goblins laid down their weapons, and built bright kingdoms of crystal and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":126,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=126","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":4},"title":"In The Fields","date":"April 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A short piece written this morning for Friday Flash. The old man and his wife sat around the dinner table, talking quietly. It was a scene they had repeated day after day, month after month, year after year. They had lived in this house for almost their entire lives, farming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=381","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":5},"title":"100 Posts of Solitude","date":"November 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"And I'm still here and still writing away happily. It's been over a year since the blog was started, and in that time I've managed 100 posts (this is actually the 101st). The time in between has been quite a journey for me as a writer, doing multiple edits on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}