Tuesday Flash Fiction: Lashes

   c2011 Helen Reynolds

Lashes by Mary McCallum

The art of mascara isn’t hard to master. It just needs a firmness of touch, and a wiggle before the brush leaves the lashes. I’ve applied it on the run: on the toilet, eating breakfast, driving to work – one hand on the steering wheel, one on the mascara wand, both eyes on the road. I swear, I’d only look in the rear vision mirror once or twice to check I hadn’t missed anything.                                                      

         That last time was different. Something scratching – a dislodged lash? The mascara clogged on the brush. I remember tipping the mirror and looking deep into the weeping white of my eye.                
         The flash of yellow came out of nowhere. Tiny candy-pink tights cartwheeling. One shoe. On the bonnet, the daisy from the little yellow hat. That’s all I see now, and I refuse to frame it. I can’t. No more black plasticky lash-paint for me.                         

         Lashes, only lashes.

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It's National Flash Fiction Day on Friday and there's a prize (or two) at stake. Sadly, I didn't make the shortlist in the NFFD competition but others did. 

Just in case I get a NZ Society of Authors regional prize, I won't post my submission here until later... this is another piece of flash fiction I posted a little while back - half the length of this week's competition. The drawing is by my friend Helen Reynolds. 

Check out the Tuesday Poem hub which is all Flash Fiction this week thanks to NFFD organiser Michelle Elvy who is also a Tuesday Poet - and there are more flashes in the TP sidebar. FF is after all the love child of poetry and fiction.