The Wolf (Mini-flash version)

[Keith exD]

48 words

Snow, black as coal, lays under a moonless sky. A darker shadow moves between the trees leaving invisible footprints. A death squeal, muffled by falling snow, only heard by ears deaf to pity. At day-break, coal black snow turns white. Blood and footprints lost under a billion snowflakes.

[Ben Allen]

I had to read this a few times, keith, to fully get the picture.
I think that the economical use of words puts these kind of stories into the poetry area in a way. Everything has to count and the reader has to allow the image to build itself in the imagination. Everything is there to provoke the image, you just have to let it do it's work.

Snow, black as coal, lays under a moonless sky.

Snow/coal - the contradiction threw me at first but then 'moonless' no reflections made the first line a trigger for building the image.

Flash fiction strikes me as very clever and artistic form, close to painting a picture with just a few strokes of a skilfully wielded brush to project the story into the readers mind.

Enjoyed
All the best
Ben

[Messiah]

May I pick the nits out of this?

“Snow, black as coal, lays under a moonless sky.” Lays what? Or do you mean lies?


“A darker shadow moves...” There is no mention of another shadow, so how can it be a darker shadow?
“Invisible footprint - footprints lost under.” Oh, I've lost my invisible footprints! If they are invisible, how would you know they were there to lose in the first place?

Why is daybreak hyphenated?
Snow is mentioned 4 times.
Who counted the snowflakes?

Otherwise, effin great!

[Ben Allen]

I took the darker shadow to be the movement in the trees and you wouldn't see the footprints because the ground is so dark.........
My eye for reading isn't as critical as it should be, although I think it's getting better with practice.

Well, the image is there already and once the points raised by Messiah's critique are addressed I think it'll be a really good piece and may even have fewer words (if it can get much less)

Good point about the snowflakes.........

Ben

[Keith exD]

Steve can I borrow your nit combe? I need it 'cos my typing and grammer trips itself up on occasions. Hmmm: Lies Lays or potato crisps? Well spotted
There is a lot of snow in this cos it's very cold where Canadian Wolves live (except London Zoo). Actually the snowflake count was: 978,567,439,254 and a half. I rounded it up , sorry
Did I mention this was based in Canada?

Ben, this was a poem and I did some diddling to make it prose. I think you are right. When something is this short it might border on poetry. You'll need to ask a GW expert if you want to know.

Yup, the shadow was intended to be darker than night, not darker than another shadow. As I'm sure you understand in total darkness snow is black because it cannot reflect light.

[Sylvie]

I enjoyed all the juxtaposing flashes of imagery in this piece. It's very tightly weaved together, creating lots of suspense.

My only nit pick would be the lies or lay but apart from that, I have no qualms with snow as that is black as coal because it takes me somewhere I haven't seen with my own eyes before.

Thanks for posting and sharing.