VERY SHORT FICTION by G.S. Evans
Our Nation Will Continue to Confront its Spiritual Crisis
In her life she had travelled across the world some thirty times, experiencing more in the process than the three of us (you, me, and the ashen-faced man living next door) combined. In fact, so long and so fully had she lived that she had thought she'd experienced everything there was to experience. Until, that is, her painted portrait took its first lover while she was away, vacationing in Waikiki.
Toward the Abyss
"It always rains here," I said, even though it doesn't.
"I agree," she said, even though she didn't.
We stepped outside. There wasn't a cloud in sight.
The Aesthete
The young owl is watching as the old house burns.
The Human Condition
It amazed the man, as he crossed the alpine meadow, how much the mountain range looked like a soaring bird of prey. The rounded peaks to the left and right looked like the shoulders and the sharper central peak the bird's head. So when the man stepped on a large egg and heard an angry screeching from above he did not panic. He knew such a bird couldn't fly. No more than he could.
Autumn
The leaf lying on the ground barely stirred when the wind started to pick up. But when a strong gust of wind came along the leaf was blown some number of feet ... this time, maybe, for the last time.
Sport
The stadium would been filled with people if: a) it had still existed; b) there had been any people left; and, c) two good teams would have been playing.
The World's Greatest Lie
Clouds turn red when the sinking sun finally sets.
End of an Era
It was an older cafe, of that I'm certain. Probably elegant in its time, but its time was long, long ago. In spite of this it was crowded with men who seemed quite modern. They were identical in both look (clean-shaven, short-cropped hair) and dress (blue business suits). None of them, however, said a word, each apparently content to sit in silence and stare at the others. Since there were no empty tables, I approached the nearest one and asked the gentleman sitting there if I could join him. He looked up at me with an equal measure of surprise and disdain. "You should never speak," he said, "unless you have something important to say."
A Mountaineer's Requiem
"Some things in life are so easy to do," thought the man as he fell to his death.
Reinhard's Third Rule of Social Etiquette
"I am the Queen of Siam!" Mrs. Jones shrieked, suddenly and unexpectedly, during a meeting of the Lady's Auxiliary of Dover, Delaware.
Proverb I
A dry but grassy field stretching to the far horizon. A tall, striped, cylindrical pole rising into the night sky. And a lone statue which is classical in form if not theme.
These are the things, they tell us, that make life worth living.
Proverb VI
Those who have loved and lost and those who have loved but never lost.
The Village Homecoming
Everyone who lived in the village or who had ever lived in the village waved each day at the train as it passed by.
They waved, that is to say, at a train that never had anyone on it.
A Crown Jewel of Acadia
The book sitting on the table was opened to a page that proclaimed: "Monarchy will always be a monism!"
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