#16: tiny fiction, tiny art
Hey, friends! Last week I was goofy levels of sick, so if you were wondering after your monthly historical mail gossip, know it existed in my phone and noggin as I drank cough syrup and read all about that time Bram Stoker fanboyed for Walt Whitman a little too hard. One of these days I’ll write an article about it for because it’s one of those relatable, embarrassing letters that evoke major schadenfreude for someone as famous as Bram fucking Stoker.
But I am up and at ‘em now, at least enough to write some sweet, sweet fiction based on the subscriber-generated prompt!
The votes are in
Patreon patrons and Substack subscribers alike voted for this month’s postcard-sized-fiction prompt:
Action: tossing a coin into a fountain
Word: reef
**Send me a suggestion for next month’s fiction prompts and I’ll pop it in the poll!**
For an added time-crunch challenge, I gave myself just twenty-four hours to crank out a story that followed the prompts and fit on a standard postcard. After a doctor’s appointment to get my meatsack in optimal condition, I posted up at a café on a quiet street this morning, ordered an allongé, and got to drafting.
The art: giants come knocking
Because my postcards go out at the end of the month, patrons got something special for the spooky season. Lately I’ve loved multimedia approaches, specifically how oil pastel interacts with the more fine-tuned medium of pen. It serves up such a contrast and is probably a metaphor for…something I haven’t gotten around to understanding about the meaning of life, but for now, I hope my patrons/subscribers enjoy the spooky world I built them (and that the rest of ya savor this digital version).
The story: underwater dining for the rich
Being sick, cruising on antihistamines, and absolutely bozo STOKED that my mom will be here in 24 hours (!), I struggled at first to wrap my head around this whole fiction-writing thing. But the hardest part of writing, even in the prime of health, is showing up for ourselves. So, I put the pencil to the page, let the words come, and spent several hours crafting this moment in a restaurant hostess’ life.
Here’s the postcard I wrote on:
And here’s the story I wrote:
If you’d rather read it this way, here’s a transcription:
The koi in the fountain behind the hostess stand patently suck. Judging you with their nasty human eyes, their bodies packed so tight they float shoulder to shoulder? No thanks. As a rule, I fucking hate fish, but I’m broke and this job pays, so I’m hostessing for this subaquatic fine-dining hell. Richies watch fish swim past floor-to-ceiling windows while hacking away at the fish on their plates. Sounds like a caricature, but on God, they do it for real. “A human tank for fishes,” my boss called it, like fish give a shit what we do in here. I’d hoped for a reef or something cool out the window, but apparently that’s just an ocean thing.
The elevator dings and a couple steps into the lobby. The dude’s in a $600+ paisley button-down that screams, “Hey, I’m laid back as fuck - I let passengers sip their Starbucks in my Benz at red lights.” He tells me his reservation deets while flicking the lilies in the vase beside me, scanning the dining room.
He nods towards the final window-side table. “We’ll take that one.”
On the way to their seats, his date squeezes his arm, pointing at the fountain. “Make me a wish, baby!”
The richie pulls a coin from his pocket and flicks it. It spins in the air, slices through a few inches of water, and plunks the raccoon-masked koi right on the head. With all the other fish boxing it in, it can’t shake the coin off, so it floats there, blinking. After a second, the coin slides off on its own, and it’s all so pathetic I gotta look away. The couple doesn’t notice, too busy ogling the lakeweed rippling outside. When I seat them, the guy tips me $20, already admiring his golden flatware.
He hasn’t looked me in the eyes once.
That stupid fish hasn’t moved when I get back. Its face stripe makes it easy to pick out. It’s just watching me and the crumpled $20 in my hand, and for some reason, it makes me so fucking sad I can’t breathe. Swearing under my breath, I yank the lilies from the vase. Nobody notices - not the richies slicing their fish, not my boss drooling over the richies’ Rolexes as they clank against their plates. I scoop the koi into the vase and hide it behind my back, flagging my boss’ attention long enough to mime a smoke break.
As the koi and I ride the elevator to the surface, I study him. He’s floating vertical and serving side eye, kinda pissed but mostly already resigned to life in a vase so tiny he can’t even float horizontal. His human eyes just watch me back, and it makes my throat so tight I look away.
The elevator opens onto a hot pier full of regular people jostling elbow to elbow. I snake past our doorman and into the press of bodies, crossing to one edge of the pier. I’m straight up crying now, an idiot bawling over a fish, but I get on my knees and upend him into the lake. The fish floats there for a second, regarding me through the water, then flicks his tail and flits off into the depths.
Your turn!
I’m surprised by how much I love this one. Already I want to dive back in for more edits. Empathy and money get my guts good, I guess. Maybe when my novel and screenplay are wrapped up, I’ll let myself dive into shorter prose again (if there’s anything left in my brain after).
I sincerely hope this story and its prompt have y’all inspired to write your own stories! Give it a whirl, and if you’re feeling brave, share the results in the comments! I love love love seeing what you whip up.
If you’re shy, pleeeeease send me an email with the story1 instead. My favorite part of Snail Mail Sweethearts has been reading the fiction you write based on the prompts :) Y’all are amazing.
As always, if you’re struggling to get started, read this article I wrote for NYC Midnight about the basics of microfiction.
Thanks for your time and love, y’all. If you enjoyed reading this, share it with someone who you think would appreciate it, too.
All my love and stamps forever,
Nikita, your Snail Mail Sweetheart <3
You can just respond to this email and it’ll go direct to my personal inbox :).