The Drabblecast

The shoes were a stinky contraption of leather, rubber and canvas held together by man made threads. The logo design was no longer of any importance any more, as they just hung on the wire. The shoes on the wire told everybody that a bad man lived here and to stay away.

Everyday they were a constant reminder to original owner that he let some punk take his shoes. HIS shoes that his daddy bought for him, just before daddy left and never came back. And how his momma was so mad when she saw him come home bare footed.

Everyday he walks to school and he looks at those shoes and his ass remembers the sting of the belt and his thighs remember the blood rushing to the welts. His momma was so high she beat him until Mama Helen come across the street to stop her.

Then the two of them got into a fight, and his momma forgot about the shoes. Mama Helen made his mother cry when she told her was just a strawberry and had no right raising kids. That day he ran and hid under the stairs of the front porch with the stray cat and her kittens.

His momma yelled that at least her kid was alive and not dead from gang banging. Mama Helen slapped his mother hard and it was the first time Mama Helen did not seem to be happy.

So everyday he thought about those damn shoes. They were just shoes, but they meant so much more, to so many people, and he swore he was going to get out of this place and one day he would come back and buy everybody all the shoes that everybody wanted so that the shoes would not mean anything to anyone.
On this particular day the memories were stronger and he remembered how his eyes stung from the tears and his heart hurt like it did when the women were yelling at each other. His nose stung also but he did not at first know why. He went under the stairs today this had become his place of refuge and the cat and her kittens had become permanent residents in his fortress of solitude.

He thought he needed to get away from this place. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter and marijuana cigarette. He put the wrinkled bent roll of paper to his lips and brought the lighter up to his face…
The worker did not speak English, but he knew that he needed to make money for his family that the baby was getting to old for just breast milk and real solid food needed to be fed to the boy. A boy, ‘I am the father of a boy’, he thought with pride as he jammed the controls of the tractor.

He did not speak English, but he did smile and nod his head real well. But because he did not speak English and the tractor was in need of a tune up he did not hear the site foreman yell to stop. And he drove the bucket into the soft brown soil one more time. He made the tractor kick the bucket in so that the dirt would stay in the bucket. But there was some resistance and he jammed the controls again to swing the bucket to the right a bit. The resistance stopped and the arm swung up. And now in the perfect hole was a large pipe sticking up. The air around the pipe end rippled and swirled like the air on hot day next to the black top.
The boy struck the striker on his lighter once and then twice. And a huge fire ball erupted under the stairs and grew to encompass the entire block.

The lumber that held the dreams and addictions of the people who lived here, had not seen water in over 150 years. So the block of houses shuddered just once before splintering and shattering into so many parts and laying waste to any hope or prayer that may have existed here in this old neighborhood.

The boy at first felt the warmth of the blast then the searing pain of his sins and his father's sins as he burned up into a pile of tar like substance.
-Rev Sleestaxx



What is a "short story", I have one that i would like to post for some edit advice but part #1is 3200 words and part 2 is 2500.

That wasn't stream of conciousness. Those were freakin class-4 rapids. Preach, Rev, Preach!

Novelette: 7,500 - 17,500 words
Novella: 17,500 - 40,000 words
Novel: 40,000+ words

so you are saying a short story is under 7500 words? holy cow that seems long for a short story maybe i should be raising my bar a little bit.

:0

I found this link giving lengths of microfic to epic. Similar to yours, just tweaked numbers a little.