Flash Fiction: March 4, 2025
The writing prompt: A character falls in love with someone who claims they have been dead for ten years.
Without making eye contact with the man, she let him light the cigarette dangling from her mouth. It was her third one in the past hour, but she tried not to think about the circumstances that were fueling her stress.
Earlier that evening, she couldn’t have anticipated her encounter with the man, who was now trying to convince her that he was simply an essence of her imagination. If only for the sake of her own sanity, she started to drown out his words as he elaborated on his origin. Something about a car accident that had occurred near the nightclub she frequented. He spotted her outside of the club sometime around dawn the week prior. When he realized she might be able to see and hear him, he made his move.
This Wednesday night, in particular, was rather warm for March. The woman didn’t expect to have company when she stepped outside for a smoke break that evening, especially given the time of day. Every conversation she had struck up to that point had left her restless. There was no better time for the man to approach her, and her body language told him everything he needed to know.
The more he described the details of his mundane career at a financial conglomerate, she leaned in with intrigue he had never seen before. It wasn’t until he murmured something about his family back in New Jersey that he noticed her blushing. Slight probing uncovered that she had recently diverted from a similar job to open a pottery shop on the north side of the city. She began to bite her bottom lip when it came time to reveal that her family was also from New Jersey.
The details of his death, however, had struck her in a way that he did not expect. Rather than showing interest in deepening their connection, she had pulled away. Now the woman looked rather lethargic as they sat on the curb together, no longer effortlessly drifting toward each other under the overcast sky.
He knew that the least he could do was light the cigarette resting between her lips.
She knew that the least she could do was bury her disappointment in discovering that her future was dead on arrival.