Flash Fiction - Rope Bridge

I read a great post by Sarah Callender at Writer Unboxed yesterday, called That is the Question. It was about the importance of tension and choices in good storytelling. It inspired me to write the following flash fiction piece that addresses both (when I do exercises like this, I allow myself to be entirely melodramatic in a Saturday-Morning Serial sort of way).

Bill held his knife over the main rope supporting the dusty rope bridge that spanned the canyon. Hector sprinted across the bridge, toward Bill. If Bill cut the rope now, Hector would fall to his death. But Linda was hanging from the cliff's edge, about to slip and fall to her death. Bill had time to cut the rope or save Linda. Not both. He loved Linda. But Linda had slept with Hector.

Screw it. Linda was a bitch anyway. Bill sawed away at the rope. The bridge fell dramatically.

"No!" Hector shouted as he fell to his death.

"No!" Linda screamed as she fell to her death.

"Yes!" Bill said, satisfied.


More like Saturday-Morning Serial-Killer.

copyright ©2013 by David Hudnut