Who left the car?
In Australia, when a tourist leaves a car in the desert, even for a day, the parts often disappear…
This week’s challenge:
What are the differences between a prose poem and a flash fiction?
What are the similarities between a prose poem and a flash fiction?
Write a short prose poem about the car in the picture above.
As an alternative, write a flash fiction story under two hundred words.
Post your creations in the comment column.
5 Comments on “The Prose Poem”
The Truck
By D. Ross Noble
She staggered under the desert sun and collapsed to her knees on the red, Mohave sand. Her tongue was swollen from the lack of water and the empty canteen strapped over her shoulder offered no relief. The last liquid she drank was her own warm urine she had captured in the canteen and that was nearly four hours ago. Propped up on all fours like a solitary coyote, she stared at a nearby rock while a bright green and yellow collered lizard bobbed its head and stared back. She shaded her eyes looking at the horizon and saw something…. a boulder….a mirage. “Dear God let it be something”, she mumbled barely recognizing her own voice. The lizard scampered away as she crawled to the rock. She needed something to help her stand and she whinned in pain when her hands touched the skillet hot sandstone. She stood and began stumbling like a grade B movie zombie toward the object. She had stopped sweating and knew she had to have something to drink. Minutes seemed like days
as she staggered toward the shadowy hulk. “It’s a truck for God’s sake, a truck”, she whispered. As she got within a few dozen yards she realized it was a rusty hulk, long abandoned in the desert near an unused dirt road. She fell against the vehicle door holding herself up by the force of her will to survive. Inside
on the front seat was the dried mummy of a corpse and a pistol on the floorboard. Squinting, she looked through the broken window on the passenger side and saw a twisted, wooden hand-painted sign near the seldom used road. NEXT SERVICES – 103 MILES.
Nice try at the prose poem, Doug. You did use concrete language to help the reader visualize and that is one of the features of any short fiction, especially prose poetry. “The lizard scampered away…” I do love the twisted ending. Effective. Now, tell me why you think this is a prose poem and not a flash fiction? Or is it either/or?
Kaye, I wrote it in less than 25 minutes with flash fiction in mind rather than prose poetry.
Doug
I will get into the contrasts and similarities soon. This does have a mini story arc and works as a flash fiction. Kaye