And so we come to Day #13 of my Flash Clash Challenge, unlucky for some maybe but certainly not for me (almost) with all of these wonderful literary creations at my fingertips.
Today, the best story was undoubtedly from Alex Burrett with his tale of ‘guineapigicide’. Not containing anything graphic or gruesome, Guinea Pig Killer is more about the narrator trying to remember a deplorable act he committed during his early childhood. A real shame then that the narrator tried to bring to mind an incident from a time too early for childhood memory to be easily recalled. It’s a great story, not least because Burrett is genius in depicting that niggling, little annoying thing, called frustration.
Sadly at the other end of the scale was one of the shorts from Dan Rhodes, Innocence. To be honest it was so full of repulsive language that it offended me. I can see why he used such language – it’s inherent to the story – but I can’t abide that level of profanity in my stories, I really can’t. Anyway, thankfully the other two offerings from Rhodes today weren’t so bad. Let’s have a look at the rundown:
| Author | Collection | Story Title | *Comment | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nik Perring |  |
Two Old Women Birdwatching in my Garden | Odd | Rating:   |
| Alex Burrett |  |
Guinea Pig Killer | Excellent | Rating: |
| Etgar Keret |  |
Plague of the Firstborn | Good | Rating: |
| **David Gaffney |  |
Last Chance to Turn Around Mask |
Nostalgic Fair |
Rating: Rating:  |
| ***Dan Rhodes |  |
Innocence Jam Kangaroo |
Deplorable Fair OK |
Rating: Rating: Rating: |
*Keeping in the spirit of flash I’m limiting myself to only giving single-word comments for each story.
**As they are incredibly short in length, David Gaffney’s stories are being ‘ticked off’ two at a time.
*** Dan Rhode’s stories are even shorter than Gaffney’s and to ensure that I finish his collection in time, I have to cover three per day.
Inspired by the publication of Nik Perring’s debut flash fiction collection, the Flash Clash Challenge is a fun contest in which
threefour other experts in the field are compared alongside Nik. You can find out more about it HERE.
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