Five Sentence Stories

 

Over twenty years ago, a writing friend and I would email each other these short, five sentence stories.  I think one of us had read about some famous author using such short stories as a way to get the juices flowing.  It was a challenge and we saw it as a way to hone our skills.  Ultimately, I turned a couple of these exercises into longer short stories and I’ve had a few in some of my story collections.

A few years ago, I gathered four of these stories and posted them on a website.  Unfortunately, the other week when I randomly remembered these and went to reread them, I found the website was no longer around.  But I fortunately was able to find a copy of the post I had made, so these random writing exercises from over twenty years ago will see the light of day again.

***

It’s uncanny how at the most inconvenient times – for me at least – my neighbor will start having sex. Last week I was talking to my parents and his girl of the week started screaming unintelligible words.

“What is that?”

“Nothing mom.” It would probably be really annoying if he could last more than a couple of minutes.

***

While walking home one day, I saw a guy waiting at a bus stop look in my general direction and mutter something. I thought I heard him ask what the time was. I looked at my phone, but before telling him that it was 4:37, I asked, “Excuse me?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said.

A few seconds after I had passed him I realized how odd it would be if you were minding your own business and some stranger walked up to you, told you the time, and then continued on their way thinking they had done you a favor.

***

“Living Death”

Nick sat on the couch with the TV remote in his hand. Click, click, click. The talk show channel, the game show channel, the unbelievably bad movie channel all flicked across the screen. Click, click, click. The sound of his life passing by.

***

“Captain Belch verses Sir Sudorific, Part III”

When last we saw brave Captain Belch, he had just discovered that the villainous Sir Sudorific had captured the lovely Polly Precious and tied her to a keg of gunpowder.

“You’re too late Captain Belch; all I have to do is drop this torch and your Polly Precious will be gone forever.”

“Bleeeeeeeaaaaaaacch,” replied the Captain. Not only did the noxious fumes of his belch render Sir Sudorific unconscious, it also blew out the torch, thus saving Polly.

“My hero,” she said, as Captain Belch untied her and took her in his arms.

***

Image from Pixabay.