A Comic's Story - The Comic Book Artist - Punch Line

Flash Fiction / Micro Fiction

Length - 100 words each

Three pieces written for the competition theme 'A Comic Story'.
* 'The Comic Book Artist' finished 3rd place in the competition!

__________

A Comic's Story

I wake, my hotel room startling in its simplicity. I panic. Where am I? I check the date - it's the fifteenth. 'Oxford' I think, and breathe easy.

Almost three-hundred miles and seven hours later I croak my opening witticisms, birthing worded wings for thirty minutes in a complex, dazzling display. The social butterfly. Everybody's friend. Kind of funny really. I shed them there, and crawl back to my hotel room alone.

I wake, my hotel room startling in its simplicity. I panic. Where am I? I check the date - it's the sixteenth. 'Newcastle' I think, and breathe easy.

__________

The Comic Book Artist

'Be ready,' The Hero whispers to his freshly inked nemesis, staring up the nostrils of The Artist. 'We're looking more and more like him with every panel. Our time will come.'

The Artist stares down at the outlined empty face of The Bystander, caught up in the collateral damage of the fight. 'Cameo?' he thinks, 'why not? It's good enough for Stan Lee.'

Image mirrored, the pen fights back. He cannot escape 'The Pull'.

He wipes debris from his eyes. Above him, The Hero and The Villain loom before a battle ruined sky. 'Oh the things you've put us through...'

__________

Punch Line

'Quick, Mum! Grampy's fallen off the sofa!'

                The poor boy wants to laugh but he's worried, so I bark it out for him. He's shocked, but he joins me and I hang an old arm around his shoulders.

                'Why are we laughing Grampy?'

                'We call it slapstick comedy.'

                'But I'm young. You're old.'

                'The pointy-tailed man downstairs doesn't discriminate. You fall, we laugh, and you grow taller. At my age people forget it's funny. The man whispers his own joke instead and we shrink towards its terrible punch line. Go ahead and laugh, please, I'm not ready to hear it.'

__________

__________

Share using the buttons below!