100 Words - Conspiracy

Beware the flash fiction product placement conspiracy. They're trying to win the hearts and minds of the short attention-spanned. We must stop them. We must not be fooled by brand name non-sequiturs. Budweiser with clam juice may sound like innocent nonsense but it's real. They sell it at Safeway and this week it's on sale. Who knows what horrors lay in the pretentious prose of the famous unknown? Unscrupulous marketeers ramming hands up literary asses. Puppet pens scripting weird texts with hidden agendas read by hipsters who'll never realize why they think it's OK to pay five dollars for coffee.

100 Words - Magic

The Dutch writer learned to write in Africa. You'd know that if you'd read his book. It has the magic in it. The magic that is nothing surprising or amazing. It's just there, part of everything.

In South America they have magic but it's always scary and special, out of the ordinary. Something to be avoided unless you yourself are scary and special.

In America we will not acknowledge the magic. It lurks in the dark corners. America is not a young land. We fled the old magic and tried to kill the magic we found here, but it lives.

100 Words - Training

The man in the tie was watching me. The sun was setting over the polo fields. I rode round and round the bike track training for the 10K. I didn't notice him the first few laps. I was too busy getting my cadence right, checking my speed, counting heartbeats. Then I realized that he was there, had been there when all along, watching me. I had the track to myself. There was no one else in the stands. The next lap he was gone. Maybe he got bored watching me go in circles. I did the last three laps alone.