Mask (an 800-word Halloween flash fiction horror story) by Oren Shafir

There were no mirrors, but Frank could feel that the cut in his cheek was both wet and deep.

Lou’s words were running around his head: 'There is no right and wrong, just winners and losers.  When you understand that, you'll be free.'

The Pretender (a 100-word flash fiction horror story ) by Oren Shafir

How could I prove that I wasn't crazy when I was the only one who could see it -- the only one who could see that it was something alien: a parasite, an imposter, a pretender. And I had to get rid of it.

I went through it all in my head again as I hiked to the remote spot where I would abandon it. They had tried to tell me that something was wrong with her, but I knew it wasn't her at all. Something had taken her place. Still, as I left it there underneath the cypress tree I had to look away because, after all, it did look exactly like my baby girl.

.Read another freaky flash fiction story

Love letter (a 500-word flash fiction suspense story) by Oren Shafir

Celia my love,

´Photo by Zahra Pedersen 

If you’re reading this now, then I am dead. Since you were blocking my calls and emails, I had to figure out a way to get through. You see whenever I put my mind to something, I can make it happen.

Learning to Count (a 700-word) flash fiction suspense story by Oren Shafir

Miss Chandler hears herself counting and the numbers dance before her eyes.The bed begins to spin. She wants to steady herself, but The IV in her arm stops her from stretching. She is not in control. 

“Good honey. This is just something to help you relax before the anesthesiologist gets here,” the nurse says.

Miss Chandler must regain control. She closes her eyes and sees herself: young again, in charge, in her classroom, helping one of her young students learn to count.

The Geek (a 700-word flash fiction story) by Oren Shafir

They knew I didn’t do it because I was in Phoenix with my Dad that week and didn’t get back till the day after vacation ended. In other words, the day after the locker bomb went off, and Schuler and Davis were killed. But they think I’m the next geek who might get inspired and decide to blow up some jocks, or even worse, some cheerleaders. They knew what the jocks almost did to me, and after what I said at the assembly, they were all over me.

The Closed Door (a 400-word freaky flash fiction story) by Oren Shafir

A cloud covered the moon, and the room darkened. I’d been so busy trying to clean up before Mom got home that I hadn’t had time to reflect. But the adrenaline rush was completely gone now, and it seemed like it was someone else earlier and not me. Part of me wished Bob were still alive, and we could all be a family together. Part of me knew that was right, the way it was supposed to be. But I had an image of myself with my feet hanging over the edge of my bed listening to Mom and Bob behind her closed door. I sometimes thought I would explode – when that door was closed.  

Dina's Smile (a 450-word freaky flash fiction story) by Oren Shafir

Later, after she was raped by Shechem, I was the one Dina sought out for comfort.

That first time I comforted her, though,  she was around four, and I was around 12. Simeon had accidently hit her with a rock above her left eye. The women stopped the bleeding with some shepherds-purse. Then they passed her around like a loaf of bread, each one trying her own trick to soothe her: something sweet, a rocking motion, a rattling noise, even a breast. But still she wailed her heartbreaking tones.

To Sleep (600-word freaky flash fiction) by Oren Shafir

I stepped on the teenage girl's narrow sandaled foot with my hard black heel. Crunch. She whimpered, and I registered her look of pain and surprise, but I just moved straight past her. I was too tired to speak.

Source - Photography Mojo

A drop to drink (a 100 word freaky flash fiction horror story) by Oren Shafir

For the first time, Jason thought that they might just actually die out there. That his naiveté might have cost him not just his own life, but that of Gina, and God help him, his unborn child. The jeep was far away now. The farm farther. And home farther still. 

Golem (800-word freaky flash fiction) by Oren Shafir

Image from Der Golem film 1920

Heinrich only kept him alive because he amused the men. Eliyahu spoke four languages, and he could tell you the full name, birthday and birthplace of everyone in the camp, be they officer or soldier, Jew or gypsy, communist or dissenter, man, woman or child, alive or dead.

But Eliyahu was an idiot really. A giant idiot, with a coarse and abnormal face, less like man than dog really. He would ramble on incomprehensibly mixing information about errand lists his mother must have given him back in his little Jew village - about what to get at the butcher’s and what to say to the Rabbi - with random passages presumably from the Jewish holy books.

Appointment at the top (180 word freaky flash fiction) by Oren Shafir)

Is this the longest escalator in the universe, or is it just because it is so late? So dark. Because the ceiling is so high? The place so still and empty?  I fight the urge to run back down, but I know they’d only find me – and my family.

I look at the ads rolling by on the side. I see coke, and I think car acid. I see green-pea soup, and I taste vomit. I see a baby in a shiny white diaper, and I picture shit oozing out of the elastic seams and running down its chubby thighs. For a second, I think I can smell it. My stomach burns, and I feel dizzy.

Finally the top comes into view. Maybe, I think, they do just want to talk. I feel lighter. Yes, of course. How absurd am I. We can still work this out. I can make them see. 

The tips of shiny hard shoes appear. Followed by uniform-blue pant-legs. A thick black belt with pouches, lots of pouches. Then, I see the holster.

It is empty.

 

END

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I love the Dutch, that's why I came to Denmark... (short excerpt from comedy play by Oren Shafir)

In this short excerpt from my play, Better Off Dead, Ulla and her friends,  Lars and Lone, are trying to teach Rex, your average Texan cowboy, how to be Danish.

ACT I, SCENE III, ULLA’S LIVING ROOM

(Lars and Lone are just entering)

ULLA

These are my dearest friends, Lars and Lone Lonelarsen. Lars and Lone, this is my new boyfriend, Rex from Texas.

LARS AND LONE

Oh, an American.

REX

What’s a matter, don’t you like Americans?

LARS

Yes, of course. We are Danish.

 LONE

We are very tolerant and extremely non-judgemental.

LARS

But we believe that all Americans are narcissistic, dogmatic hypocrites.

 REX

Why I might take offense with that if I knew what any of those words meant.

 ULLA

Now we shall have Danish hygge.

LARS

Yes, now we shall have Danish hygge.

LONE

Yes, we shall have Danish hygge now.

ULLA

We shall explain.

LARS, LONE AND ULLA

(Lars, Lone and Ulla light

candles frantically as they

sing this song)

THE DANISH HYGGE SONG

DANISH HYGGE IS SO DANISH

IT’S AS DANISH AS CAN BE

DANISH HYGGE IS SO SPECIAL

BECAUSE IT IS SO HYGGELIG

DANISH HYGGE IS SO SIMPLE

AND YET IT IS COMPLEX

ALL YOU NEED ARE 500 CANDLES

AND SOME PEOPLE AT LEAST THREE

THEN YOU NEED SOME DANISH HUMOR

WE ARE VERY FUNNY

WE GAVE THE WORLD BLACK HUMOR

WE INVENTED IRONY

DANISH HYGGE IS SO DANISH

IT IS AS DANISH AS CAN BE

DANISH HYGGE IS SO CHARMING

BECAUSE IT IS SO HYGGELIG

ALL YOU NEED ARE 500 BEERS

AND SOME PEOPLE, AT LEAST THREE

REX

Oh, that’s Danish hygge. It’s kinda like...

Read more or download the full play as a pdf.

Listen to the first act read in a live staged radio reading