Tag Archives: Flash Fiction

Christmas Piano

TBM 1712.22 DDOP-Advent-06: I Pray on Christmas

by

Christmas Piano

Description:

#Audio. A mother finds solace in music during a delay at the airport.

Excerpt:

Kathleen stared up at the status board, and couldn’t help letting out a frustrated groan. Her flight had been delayed. Again. She liked her life as a road warrior, for the most part. She got to stay in lovely hotels, spend time in all the great cities of the world, and, she would probably never run out of frequent flier miles and first class upgrades. Flight delays, however, were something she would never enjoy.

Still, there were times when she longed to walk through the door to her own home to a sloppy, drooly greeting from her dog, a nearly ancient flat-coated retriever named Parker. (He was named after her childhood crush, Parker Stevenson, whom she used to watch every week on The Hardy Boys. No one, she thought, had ever made a better Frank.)

Links and References

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Copyright: viperagp / 123RF Stock Photo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:43 — 10.0MB)

Menorah

TBM 1712.09 DDOP-Advent-05: In Every Age

by

Menorah

Description:

#Audio. Happy Hanukkah! It’s the second night of Hanukkah, so this is a Hanukkah story.

Excerpt:

She played the chord again, and saw the children gathered around her focus their attention. And why not? They’d grown up with digital instruments: violins and cellos that relied on computer chips for their tone, guitars that made their sound through a wireless amplifier, and pianos that could be rolled into a cylinder the size of a zip-top sandwich bag. Her guitar didn’t have any chips, and it couldn’t be made smaller. It was wire and wood and care and love and history, and its lines were the only ones Sylvia had caressed since her beloved Harry had passed on five years before.

“I’m going to sing you an old song now,” she told them. “And you’re going to sing it with me. It’s in Hebrew. So, listen once, and then repeat.”

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Copyright: karaidel / 123RF Stock Photo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:51 — 9.9MB)

Poinsettias

TBM 1712.07 DDOP-Advent-07: Poinsettias

by

Poinsettias

Description:

Flash-fiction written for 2016 Holidailies: A young woman and her grandmother add Holiday Magic to some seasonal plants.

Excerpt:

The inside of the greenhouse is a technological marvel, with heat lamps and misters and every kind of measuring implement ever invented to track growth rates and division patterns, to determine optimal climate zones and confirm hardiness. Even the ceiling was programmable on a section-by-section basis so that day-lilies could thrive next to night-blooming cactus if the Gardeners so desired.

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:11 — 8.0MB)

Album Cover: Earha Kitt Santa Baby

TBM 1712.05 DDOP-Advent-02: Only If It’s Eartha Kitt

by

Album Cover: Earha Kitt Santa Baby

Description:

Flash-fiction: an aunt and niece discuss the holidays and Eartha Kitt.

Excerpt:

The older woman’s dithering lit a fire in her niece. “Aunt Lena you have been playing hermit at Christmas since I was sixteen years old. I’m twenty-six now, and Brian is probably going to propose on Christmas Eve, and I want my only aunt to be there.” She took a beat. “Besides, who else will I be able to mock all the cheesy Christmas music with?”

Links & References:

Only If It’s Eartha Kitt, at MissMeliss.com

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:54 — 4.9MB)

Forget Ophelia via Flash Prompt

TBM 1710.26 – Forget Ophelia (and other stories)

by

Forget Ophelia via Flash Prompt

Description:

Three pieces of spooky short fiction, read by the Bathtub Mermaid and Friends.

Excerpt:

I, on the other hand, died in the prettiest way possible. No, not alcohol. Not pills either.

Consumption.

Oh, you call it tuberculosis these days, but when I was living, it was consumption.

Links & References:

It’s Raining Men

Accidental

Forget Ophelia

 

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:19 — 12.7MB)

Bloody Rose

TBM 1708.31 DDOP-31: Bloody Roses

by

Bloody Rose

Description:

Flash prompt. Days after the fact. Kind of grim.

Excerpt:

It wasn’t usual anymore, the burying of bodies, but I had insisted. “I want to bring him home. I want to bury him next to his grandfather.”

And so, even though we live in an age when the dead are cremated and the ashes mixed into the gardens, or, if you had the resources, consigned to the heart of a star, we put the body of our stillborn son in stasis and carted him half way across the quadrant for an old-fashioned funeral.

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-prompt Facebook Group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:57 — 6.1MB)

Murder of Crows

TBM 1708.28 DDOP-28: A Murder of Crows

by

Murder of Crows

Description:

Flash-fiction. Ravens and Crows aren’t quite the same bird.

Excerpt:

“I’ve grounded and centered and counted to ten – to fifty, even. I’ve done the incantation. I’ve drunk the calming tea, and no matter what I do, I cannot banish the thoughts of Unkindness for longer than a couple of minutes.”

“Unkindness? Unkindness?” The women tilted her head one way then another, peering at him from one bright eye at a time. “But, you’re not a Raven. You’re a Crow.”

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo Source: Flash-Prompt Facebook group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:04 — 4.9MB)

Sunbeam

TBM 1708.26 – DDOP-26: Vampire Fashion Tricks

by

Sunbeam

Description:

Thomas Jancis reads “Vampire Fashion Tricks”

Excerpt:

“Results were inconclusive.”

“How so?”

“Well. Vlad didn’t combust or anything.”

“That seems conclusive to me.”

 

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo source: Facebook Flash-Prompt Group

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:33 — 3.4MB)

allef-vinicius-110498

TBM 1708.25 – DDOP-25: Truth and Power

by

allef-vinicius-110498

Description:

“Truth” and “Power”  – two pieces of micro-fiction.

Excerpt:

“Sometimes,” I answered. “But sometimes Truth hides in darkness because it’s too real, or too painful, or because we aren’t yet ready to see it.” 

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash

     

 

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:48 — 3.4MB)

Age of Plastics Fish

TBM 1708.24 DDOP-24: The New Age of Plastics

by

Age of Plastics Fish

Description:

Flash-fic, read by Selena Taylor. Life finds a way.

Excerpt:

She scooped the transparent fish out of the water, expecting it to gasp in desperation, but it seemed completely tranquil, suspended between her hands as content as it had seemed in the tide pool where she’d found it.  

Links & References:

Credits:

  • The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub is written and produced by Melissa A. Bartell, and is recorded and produced using the BossJock iPad app and Audacity.
  • Bathtub Mermaid album art was created by Rebecca Moran of Moran Media
  • Music used for the opening and closing is David Popper’s “Village Song” as performed by Cello Journey. This music came from the podsafe music archive at Mevio’s Music Alley, which site is now defunct.
  • Photo source: Facebook Flash-Prompt group

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:31 — 3.1MB)