Category: Action/Thriller Publisher: Greg Jackson
ISBN-10: 1482319365
Type: Fiction
Pages: 144
Copyright: Jan 24, 2013
ISBN-13: 9781482319361
Flash Fiction Freakshow is a collection of Flash Fiction stories from many genres.
Welcome to the Freakshow! This is a collection of flash fiction stories from the Greg Jackson, author of Operation Mistletoe, MacGuffin Files and Fractured: Athena Rising.
There are 33 Flash Fiction short stories centered around the human condition. Sadness, despair, love, redemption...vampires and werewolves! From gritty Westerns and behind to the future and beyond, the Freakshow has them! And yes, there is even a sweet story about a clown and the person who resides beyond the painted smile.
Also in this collection is a short story entitled "Fallout", a post-apocalyptic tale with a Steampunk flare. "Fallout" is not flash fiction, it is a 5,000 word short story added as a bonus feature.
Advisory: This collection does not contain adult content as far as "adults only", but there is some content that may not be suitable for younger readers. There is violence and some adult language. Enjoy them but please use discretion before letting your children read them.
The majority of the stories are PG to PG-13. A few of the short stories in this collection deal with adult themes. Please use parental discretion when allowing children to read them.
Excerpt
Channel 197.3 on Your Digital Remote
Copyright 2013 by Greg Jackson
40 year-old Albert Weiss ambled into his apartment without the energy to give a crap about anything. Coming from a horrible breakup dinner, his car was dinged and he hit three potholes, causing an annoying rattle in his undercarriage. And it was one of those nights where you cursed every wrong decision that you’ve made that resulted in…this.
He sat down on the couch and flipped through his DVR, not wanting to watch most of the shows that were hers. He didn’t delete them because we all share that insane notion that the breakup wouldn’t last and holding on to her shows was a desperate attempt at holding on to her. So he did what broken adults do. He ignored it and moved on.
He put on the SyFy channel and grabbed a beer from the kitchen. When he sat back down, he looked up and the station was changed. It was no longer SyFy at all. Instead, the number on screen read: 197.3. He went to turn it but as soon as he grabbed the remote, he saw…
Albert Weiss at the age of ten. He was sitting in a theatre, sandwiched between mom and dad. Albert cried as he watched his younger self on screen but as he was getting into it, the ten year-old Albert morphed to a teenager, where the language was peppered with profanity towards his parents.
And he sat on the couch, mesmerized at his whole life playing out in front of him in glorious high-definition. A smile crossed his face as he rejoined his prior life, back when things looked hopeful. The whole world was in front of the televised Albert; birthday cakes at every age, first kisses, spin the bottle where Jimmy stole his rightful kiss. He saw the trappings of unbuckling his first bra in the back seat of his parents’ car.
He saw his first girlfriend and the sex that they fumbled through like amateurs and he saw the bands he was in and that long hair.
What he wouldn’t give to be that kid again. He missed that cluelessly confident kid who did everything and anything with the resilience of making rejection bounce off of him like he was made of Kevlar.
He wanted a mulligan with his life. He wanted to say yes to Kayla, the homecoming queen who took pity on him. He wanted to say yes to the school that his parents disagreed with. He wanted to…he wanted to scream at that small, confident bastard on the screen and tell him to follow his heart or he’ll be on the couch watching it miserably thirty years later.
Where did that happiness go wrong? Where was the U-Turn that he drove off of? He didn’t know but he kept watching.
As the TV finally shut off, he saw his reflection in the screen and the senior citizen staring back saddened him, as he lived in his brighter past for so long that he missed his entire life.
The End
Thank you for reading this sample. I hope you enjoyed it.
-Greg Jackson
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