{"id":1301,"date":"2008-07-11T16:27:33","date_gmt":"2008-07-11T16:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1301"},"modified":"2008-07-11T16:27:33","modified_gmt":"2008-07-11T16:27:33","slug":"new-flash-fiction-by-mike-montreuil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/new-flash-fiction-by-mike-montreuil\/","title":{"rendered":"New flash fiction by Mike Montreuil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">MORNING RUN<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Mary-Jane always believed that her morning run was the perfect way to start the day.&nbsp; Her husband, Malcolm, thought otherwise and soon began to resent those early morning intrusions into his sleep.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">This morning was no different.&nbsp; Mary-Jane heard the music from the radio alarm clock.&nbsp; 6 o&#39;\u0092clock.&nbsp; Malcolm groaned from his side of the bed.&nbsp; A weak &#8220;\u0093Fucking clock&#8221; was heard.&nbsp;&nbsp; She ignored the comment and began dressing.&nbsp; Within minutes, Mary-Jane was out the door; her run underway.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Now awake, Malcolm stirred under the blankets, scratching his balls and thinking about how to make his wife interested in a morning of sex instead of those fucking runs and work.&nbsp;&nbsp; Minutes later he was in the kitchen preparing coffee and his breakfast.&nbsp;&nbsp; Twenty minutes passed by and Malcolm began writing in his journal.&nbsp; But, the words would not come out and he decided to have another coffee instead.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Forty minutes had elapsed and Malcolm began to wonder why Mary-Jane hadn\u0092&#39;t returned.&nbsp;&nbsp; He finished his now cold coffee and began his morning bathroom routine.&nbsp;&nbsp; Looking in the mirror, Malcolm saw that his gray hair had invaded his chest.&nbsp; Age was catching with him and he knew it.&nbsp; If only they had succeeded in having children.&nbsp;&nbsp; Then, he would have a son to play catch with or even a daughter to give away at her wedding.&nbsp; He sighed knowing it was not to be in this lifetime.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">Almost ready to dress for work, Malcolm noticed that the TV converter clock showed 7:25.&nbsp; Where was Mary-Jane?&nbsp; For no apparent reason, he decided, then, to have a look around the block.&nbsp;&nbsp; After putting on an old pair of work jeans, Malcolm began to tie his running shoes.&nbsp; As the clock on the fireplace mantel rang 7:30, Malcolm became part of an exploding two story house.&nbsp;&nbsp; Fire and rescue crews never found Mary-Jane.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><\/font><font style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\" size=\"2\">\u2022 Mike Montreuil lives in Ottawa (Canada) and although he is a regular IS&amp;T contributor, he has only recently begun writing flash fiction.<br \/><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MORNING RUNMary-Jane always believed that her morning run was the perfect way to start the day.&nbsp; Her husband, Malcolm, thought otherwise and soon began to resent those early morning intrusions into his sleep.This morning was no different.&nbsp; Mary-Jane heard the music from the radio alarm clock.&nbsp; 6 o&#39;\u0092clock.&nbsp; Malcolm groaned from his side of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}