Trinity Sunday Eve
Flash Fiction - Short Story
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This >500 word short story is written for Scoot’s Flash Friction Friday challenge from MAY 29, 2026 (Prompt: Write about a long night; “Where are you going”; a character on the phone with someone; and “unequivocal confusion.”)
He separated coals in the dying fire. A bug bit his leg. He slapped it.
She had no right. He was 34.
He pushed one of the coals further, a black triangle formed in the void between the heat.
It’d been fine, her call, until she’d prodded him like that, asked, “Are you going tomorrow?”
“Where?” He’d asked to fill the gap.
“Church.”
He pushed the second coal further. She’d no right, he was an adult.
He shoved the third coal further than intended, frustrated at his answer, “Uh, maybe.”
Maybe! He broke the stick, fumbled on the ground, found another one, worse than the one before, bit too short, bit too thin. He had to lean further, prod without breaking. Of course he wasn’t going. Lame music. Lame people. Lame homily.
He stared into the black hole between the coals he’d divided. His mind tallying reasons. His heart bringing forth the excuses. His soul turned it’s back.
Of course he wasn’t going.
“Where are you going?”
He stared into the hole between the fires.
A bug bit his leg. He let it.
He let his vision go out of focus so that the red would blur around the edges and the ash within would fill his mind. He was falling, free, free-falling into endless, empty night. Plunging, face-first, into the void. All other voices being pushed aside like opposing magnets so as not to oppose his fall. He could reach out and touch nothing. It was bliss. Empty bliss, free of a mother’s nagging remarks at the end of phone calls. Free of being talked to like a child. Free. He was no child.
Bugs bit him, he didn’t let himself notice. Dark was the night, empty was the space. His heart moved away from feeling. A wind stirred. His soul cared not at all. Breathless, he was untethered. A childless man, a motherless adult, a free human. Just me, myself, and I, waving good bye to each other across the endless, empty, infinite darkness.
Suddenly, the dark flew too fast out infinitely on either side of his disparate self, gaped too broad with an acceleration that knocked the wind out of him. And in a panic he threw his arms out to touch something. He knocked over his drink. The liquid spilled onto his ankle, ran between his toes, into his OluKai flipflop. He felt the sticky beer creep beneath the arch of his foot. The entire fire came back into view. His three coals on the edge seemed cold. He hastily pushed them back together, a flame leapt up. He shoved them towards the rest of the fire, then deep into the flames. Light came back into the night. Warmth sizzled the hairs on his shins. He leaned back; heart, breath, mind reuniting. Maybe, he thought, just to make his mom happy.
Thanks for reading!
Notes:
In the spirit of “flash fiction,” this was conceived, written, and published within 24 hours.
The narrator’s age: It seems a bit more fitting for the narrator to be a bit younger, maybe late 20’s. However, I opted for early 30’s because: 1) That’s my age, and if I have a narrator I’m slightly critiquing, I’d prefer it to be kinda myself, rather than some “younger generation” I’ve shuffled blame onto; and 2) the voice feels like that of a millennial, which, again, I am.
The content of the story: late Saturday afternoon when I read Scoot’s prompt to write about a “long night,” I picked up and set down many autobiographical moments as too dramatic (waiting for a husband to finish a long training event, giving birth, being upset in college, etc.). Then in the vigil Mass that evening, Father gave a homily on the Holy Trinity. As he spoke, I remembered a moment in grad school when I was sitting in a transcendental poetry class, and the professor’s atheistic world view suddenly became real for me. I was suddenly in an infinite void of nothing. I could reach out forever and feel nothing. It staggered me, this is what life is without God. At the Saturday vigil, Father said something like, “It’s important to understand the Trinity, because we are made in the image and likeness of God, which is to say, in the image and likeness of the Trinity.” I’d never connected those points before. That I, in myself, reflect the Triune, the three persons in One. Vague definitions from St. Thomas Aquinas and (kinda conversely) Plato’s tripartite soul arose in my mind. Then, to combine all these, there arose the image of three coals being pushed apart by someone debating within himself, becoming less in communion with himself and others, creating the Hell within him, within him Hell. But, though I love Tragedy, I believe in Comedy, hence the ending.
Lastly, I began writing this story on the front of the bulletin while our kids sat for 10 extra minutes after Mass, practicing being still. ;) Picture as proof. Poor spelling included.
Another Mom inspired post…nice.