Modern Flash Fiction

I arrive home to an empty house. There’s a note from my mom on the kitchen counter.

Molly and I are at her eye appointment.

There’re leftovers in the fridge.

Love you Hunny!

Queen of the notes, my mom. Secretly, I do prefer them to a text.

I traipse up the stairs pausing to scratch my cat, Mazzy, behind the ears. Mazzy purrs loudly as she blinks her emerald eyes. She has a deep gray coat with white stripes and white paws that makes it look like she’s wearing slippers.

Mazzy follows me up the stairs to my room. I collapse onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling fan going around and around. I zone out for a moment, letting my body relax.

I get up and decide to go for a bike ride before it begins raining. I love my bike. Biking is the best. I started biking to school every day when I was in the 5th grade. There’s something about biking that’s so freeing.

I open the garage door and wheel out my bike. I observe the sky with its thick dark clouds of gray. The clouds roll closer like torrents of smoke. I need to get going. I swing my legs over the seat and push off. I decide I’ll go the straight and narrow path since I just want to zone out and not think about anything.

I pedal harder and faster, and my breath begins to match my movement. The dirt path opens onto a forest-like scene that seems to stretch on forever.

I let myself fall into that familiar rhythmic flow to where it doesn’t feel like I’m doing any work. I’m just sitting back observing. I feel the earth run up through the bike’s wheels to the ribbed rubber of the handlebars. And it feels amazing.

Each minute drips by like a grain of sand in an hourglass. I enter a state of perfect stillness in my mind. I’m totally free.

Suddenly, I begin to feel a most peculiar sensation—a swirling energy blooming behind my belly button. The sensation grows until I feel a warmth of vitality spinning inside my abdomen. I concentrate, and the swirling energy begins to flow out through my arms to my legs and I feel at one with my body. Instantly, my legs start cycling twice as fast and my breathing becomes smooth and luxurious.

I’m so taken aback; I almost crash into a tree. I quickly recover and focus on this newfound force. The energy courses through my bodily fibers. It’s like I can see light beams cascading throughout my being, washing me clean. I’m soaring. Green splotches blur past my vision, and I feel like I’m in an animated cartoon. I’ve so much vigor.

Emotions erupt in me. Each feeling has such character, such depth. I feel infinitely confused and eternally grateful simultaneously. I laugh at the insanity.

The energy is radiating through me as I turn into the backyard and park my bike in the garage. I run upstairs making a beeline for my laptop.

I type into Google, “Energy in abdomen.”

A million results flash before me. I scroll through a bunch of radiology results till I find one that looks promising. I click on the link and up pops an article with the title, “A Journey into Chi.” The article begins,

I’ll never forget my first encounter with Chi. I was watching Bill Moyer’s PBS documentary, “The Mystery of Chi,” when towards the end he shows a Chi master who can move people physically through his personal Chi. I found what the Chi master did hard to believe, yet I was intrigued because Chi has been an important part of Chinese culture for millennia. So, I began to investigate Chi. What I found was that Chi is at the core of traditional Chinese understanding of health and disease, and it represents the Life Energy that flows throughout the body.

I finish the article, and the ball of energy is still swirling inside me. I peel off my sweaty clothes like I’m shedding an old layer of skin and hop directly into the shower, but the orb of energy is still gently whizzing.

Stepping out, I feel reborn. All the colors seem more saturated and brighter. All the sounds are clearer. I feel so in tune with life.

“Clem?” My sister’s voice echoes up the staircase.

“Yeah? I’ll be right down,” I call back.

Swiftly, I gather myself into a state of mental normalcy. The spinning in my abdomen is beginning to die down, but my mind feels like it’s melting. I scurry down the stairs suddenly anxious to be around others.

Molly observes, “You look different.”

My face drops. “What do you mean?” I ask nervously.

She squints her eyes at me, “I don’t know—you just seem different.”

“Molly, have you ever heard of Chi?” I wasn’t sure if I should tell her because I wasn’t sure she’d believe me. But I don’t want to go through this alone.

Molly furrows her eyebrows. “No, what is it?”

“I went out for a bike ride, and halfway through, I began to feel this spinning sensation right where my belly button is. It was crazy. I can still feel it when I think about it. It’s really an intense experience. When I got home, I researched what it might be. I read this article on Chi and it sounds exactly like what happened to me. And then I scrolled down to the bottom of the article and guess who the author was.”

Molly’s eyes widen in curiosity.

“Dad,” I say and watch her face carefully.

Molly looks at me like I just asked her how many elephants were in her cereal this morning.

She stands up, “Show me.”

Margaret Marcum loves cats and she lives with Adam, Angel Claire, and Mazzy, with the last cat rescued from a parking lot. She was recently awarded an MFA in creative writing from Florida Atlantic University. Her literary interests include ecofeminism and healing the collective through personal narrative. Her creative writing has appeared in literary magazines as Amethyst Review, Scapegoat Review, October Hill Magazine, and Children, Churches, and Daddies, among others.