August 20, 2024 Flash Fiction

Surprise Endings

Surprise Endings Artwork by DALL·E

It was all a dream.

I’m actually a cat.

You have a split personality that’s way cooler and more assertive than you and gets all the ladies.

The doctor was the injured boy’s mother (because guess what? the patriarchy is real and women can be doctors, too).

It turns out they were aliens all along.

No they were monsters.

They were cats and dogs and a couple parakeets.

This was all the fantasy of a child with a snow globe.

You’re dead, dude.... How do I know? Because I… see… dead people…. And you’ve been haunting the shit out of my zeal for life.

He was alive this whole time.

She was a spy spying on the spies from both sides at one time and though she loves you she’s been lying to you this whole time.

It was Kristin the scheming sister-in-law and mistress. She was pregnant with their love child.

It was the butler with the candlestick dick in the library.

The answer was within you this whole time.

Red Rum is pretty obviously Murder spelled backwards.

It’s a sled. Just a goddamned childhood sled.

Because bang you’re dead.

Bang she’s dead.

Bang we’re all dead.

Damn this took a real turn.

Or maybe nobody’s dead.

The bullets were all blanks.

And this was all a big ruse.

Hurray, everybody lives.

The show goes on.

Except all the extras, innocent bystanders, who were crushed/pulverized by cars, busses, bombs, exploding planets, the negligence of superheroes who grew too cocky.

But everybody else, you know, it’s a real happily-ever-after-type-deal.

Lots hugging and balloons and confetti and fireworks and knowing looks between former combatants/on-again-off-again lovers and finally the aliens fly away and finally the aliens come down to teach us how to save our planet and to learn how to moonwalk and all the dead come back to life with no curses and they’re not zombies and even if they are zombies they’re perfectly nice zombies who just want love and sustenance the way we do.

And all dogs go to heaven.

And cats too.

And even those cocky goddamn parakeets.

Except us.

We’re all stuck here living in our new Utopia with slightly mediocre movie reviews and plant-based fast food.

And the smugass aliens are really starting to piss me off.