Depression looks like...
Microfiction.
I wonder what his life was like before depression viciously snatched his soul. Before his mind collapsed and his heart calcified into stone. He wore a long face and I watched how his feet dragged underneath the weight of his body. He sat next to me, and I’m slapped by the stench of malt liquor and musty Newports that lingered from his throat and vented from his pores. Teeth stained a decaying shade of rust and eyes giving no indication of a stable life. He tried to kill the feeling before it evolved into something bigger. His spirit broken like his filthy fingernails. An unsuitable vessel for a healthy soul but a luxury for the damned. He’s existing but longing to live.
The inspiration…
Depression looks different for all of us. It doesn’t always look cursed, lonely and disheveled. It’s hiding behind smiles and warm embrace. It’s fed up with fighting because it’s tired of losing. Depression is quiet and doesn’t want to be a burden or it’s screaming because it’s crying to be heard. A thief, a distraction and a liar.
I like to drink coffee (and tea) while I write + paint. A few dollars towards my coffee addiction + art supplies would be greatly appreciated.
Peace,
Alex B
Poignant 🖤
Why you posting archival material? This is great. This is fantastic! Flash fiction. I don't know why you think you're not ready to write a short story yet. Or why it's a goal for you. I don't know why you think it because I'm not you and you haven't told me. But I understand if you do and I understand if you have your reasons.
But unless you are hiding from us proof that you are are really really bad writer compared to what you post, I would suggest just getting an idea or an idea that you have, if that's not enough in your opinion or in your mind, take more than one idea that you have and smash them together until you have five or six pages and you'll have an amazing short story.
As an author right? This isn't me. Denigrating the form of the short story 's because whole libraries by academics critics and other authors who are much better than I am at most things I aspire to have written a body of work about the form of the short story. This is me saying as an editor from everything that I've read from you, which at this point is enough to have an informed opinion in my opinion. You've been ready to write a short story for a while whether you believe it or not is on you.
But from a technical standpoint often if you can write flash as good as you, and you do write very good flash fiction, top notch. But unless you're a weirdo like some of us, I hate to break it to you but really good. Flash is a lot harder to write than a good short story. Flash fiction has to have a point get to it real quick, it has to cut like a knife and usually it helps if it's real pretty. It requires concision and economy of words that you can't afford in other forms. I know people who can write novels but if you asked them to write flash fiction it would absolutely make no sense. I don't know anyone who can write flash fiction as good as yours who isn't capable of writing anything from a two sentence all the way up to an epic as long as one of those bricks by Dostoyevsky.
So, and I mean this genuinely, maybe take the leap. Your sentences already cut. Your themes are already tight without being explicit. I know what you're trying to say, but you don't have to say the quiet part out loud. So you're already halfway there. And if you're not already halfway there, you're more than halfway there.
And if you do right a short story and you're not sure of it and you want some input or a second set of eyes, I'll be more than happy to read it. (Someday I'm going to address how I don't like the term beta readers because writing fiction is not a software or hardware production cycle. And I hate stealing any tech bro. Silicon valley pitter patter. Which is what that is. You're an artist, not a software developer. Beta testers actively trying and break software or whatever they happen to be beta testing. There's an implication inherent in stealing that terminology I've never liked. Okay, I probably need more meds.)