Dark Tales and Flash Fun
By Ken Magee
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About this ebook
In this anthology of wonderfully imagined tales we encounter captivating twists and turns, laugh out loud moments and intriguing entertainment from start to finish. The subject matter includes demons and vampires, Hollywood and electric chairs… there's even a seasick seagull.
Dark Tales and Flash Fun brings together the author's extensive collection of drabbles (100 word stories) with a selection of his fascinating and rather disturbing short stories.
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Book preview
Dark Tales and Flash Fun - Ken Magee
Introduction
Section 1 – Drabbles
The Show
50 Shades of Denial
The Big Gates
Newspaper Headlines
Serendipity
Not Taking the Fifth (first draft – 163 words)
Not Taking the Fifth (the drabble)
Why We Must Leave the EU
Holiday Calm
Sisters, Sisters
Genius
Comfortable Silences
Taking the Lead
The Carny Code
Gym Ninja
The Recording
School Leavers
A Bit of Nonsense for Michael Brookes
The Science of Weather Forecasting
Lounger Lizards
Lightning Strike
Priceless
This’ll be the Day When I Die
Cheaters Never Win
The Final Showdown
The Day the Lawnmower Turned
Tokyo Times
Trapped in a Vicious Cycle
The Seasick Seagull
The Big Lie
The Hangover Part 1
The Hangover Part 2
Hollywoodland
The Chinese Violinist
The Infinite Monkey Theorem
Starfish
What Would a Dog Do?
The Rhinoceros
Dealing with Apartheid
The Dancer
Cruel Words
Do Not Resuscitate (DNR)
The Naughty Seat
Peace on Earth, Good Will to All Trees
Puppies are Not Just for Christmas
Boxing Day
Universal Chicken Farm
Paris Execution
Money from Nigeria
Just One Question
The Universe – a short series of drabbles.
The Universe Part 1 – Super Being
The Universe Part 2 - Mother Nature
The Universe Part 3 – Dating
The Universe Part 4 - The First Marriage
The Universe Part 5 - The Second Marriage
Faces in the Dark
When Authors Kill
The Perfect Drabble
First Flight
The Leprechaun
Section 2 – Six Word Stories
Section 3 - Short Stories
CCTV Nightmare
The Curse of Pestilence
What Goes Around, Comes Around
The Little Black Book
Party Animals
About the Author
Contact Information
Introduction
Over the years, I’ve written a lot of words. Most of my efforts were focussed on novels but between the books, or at times when ideas were maturing, I penned a number of short stories and quite a few drabbles (stories which are exactly 100 words long). Dark Tales and Flash Fun is a collection of these bits and pieces. There’s no connecting theme other than each work is designed to be entertaining, frightening or intriguing.
Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.
Lloyd Alexander
Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.
Neil Gaiman
Section 1 – Drabbles
A drabble is a story which is exactly 100 words long. I think drabbles are great fun but they actually take a bit more work than you might imagine. Certainly, I take the task very seriously and do my best to make every drabble thought-provoking. Hopefully each story will surprise you, or make you think, or bring a smile to your face... some may do all three.
Where appropriate I’ve added an ‘author’s note’ to give an indication about what inspired the drabble or to add a fun fact about the piece of writing.
The Show
Today, Beth and Steve join us on the show,
announced the host, a cheesy grin spread like Dairylea across his face.
Applause
Steve’s here to find out the results of the DNA test to tell if he’s the father of little Jamie. Beth says he is, but Steve says she’s been sleeping around, so God only knows who the father is.
Boos
So here are the results...
He opened the gold envelope.
Steve,
pause for effect, you are the father!
Applause
And hold on, this is unusual,
longer pause for bigger effect, Beth, you are not the mother.
Rapturous cheers.
Author’s Note. It never ceases to amaze me how willing some people are to air their dirty laundry on national TV.
50 Shades of Denial
Her best friend saw me out with a blonde.
And that’s when the row started?
No. ‘Just business,’ I said. Then she saw the love note.
OK. The note sparked the row?
No. ‘It’s obviously a joke,’ I said, but then she smelt the perfume.
OK. The smell brought the hell?
No. ‘Got squirted in a department store,’ I said. That’s when she found the panties.
Right! That’ll be the row now, then?
No. I told her they were a present. ‘For me?’ she asked. ‘Nope,’ I said, ‘sure you’d never fit into those’... and that’s when the row started.
Author’s Note. As one (female) reader pointed out, all he had to do was say the present was in fact for his wife... no woman would ever say that he'd bought the wrong size, particularly not a size too small! So, there's the proof, if proof were needed, that women are much smarter than men.
The Big Gates
It was my first day. I held my mummy’s hand tightly as we walked towards the big gates. Mummy was crying and I wasn’t really sure why. There were loads of other mothers in the same situation, but that wasn’t my problem.
You have to be good and work hard,
she said. Pay attention to the sign.
I looked up and read the writing above the gate... black, wrought-iron letters, stark against the sky.
Look Mummy, the ‘B’ is upside down. I can write better than that.
Her crying became inconsolable.
‘Arbeit Macht Frei,’ it pronounced. ‘Work sets you free.’
Author’s Note. I visited Auschwitz in 2012. It was a moving and harrowing experience. One of the stories told by the guides explained how the prisoners were forced to make the sign which spanned the entrance gate and, as a tiny act of rebellion and defiance, they inverted the letter ‘B’. The colour photo is from my visit. The black and white photo is a much older picture which shows the sign more clearly.
Newspaper Headlines
The first headline to catch my eye stated ‘UK is Slipping Down Global League Tables in Reading and Geography’. Apparently, we’re languishing twenty places behind Estonia. It appears that few of our children would understand ‘languishing’ nor could they pinpoint Estonia on a map.
The next headline read ‘Overuse of Antibiotics is a Ticking Time Bomb’. Bacteria are cleverly adapting and becoming resistant to the drugs. The growing resistance poses a bigger danger to the nation than terrorism.
Depressed, I stopped reading, it seems our kids are getting dumber, bacteria are getting smarter... this is not going to end well.
Serendipity
They hadn’t been in my restaurant before.
What would you like?
I said handing them menus.
Actually, we’ve already decided.
They pointed at the seafood special poster.
No problem.
It was synchronicity... or serendipity. My new recipe trialled by new people.
Delicious,
they said as they left. We’ll be back.
No one else ordered the seafood special and I never saw my Guinea pigs again. I binned the seafood recipe and replaced it with vegetarian lasagne.
‘Couple Die of Food Poisoning’ proclaimed the newspaper headline a