Can a story be told in forty words or fewer? You decide. Here are six examples of micro fiction. See if you can recognize the keyword prompt.

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In Love — Prose Version

I love running my fingertips over your smooth whiteness. I inhale your heady scent, lost in the myriad pleasures of your delicious delights. But alas! I must give up my midnight meetings with you.

You’re making me fat, dear refrigerator.

~*~

In Love — Poetic Version

Over your smoothness
my fingertips play.
Your inviting scent
transports me away
to joyous worlds,
delicious delights —
but it can’t continue
night after night.
I regret to say this,
but we must chat.
Dear refrigerator,
you’re making me fat.

~*~

Busted

“You’re under arrest for murder.”

“What gave me away? I was careful not to leave any DNA evidence.”

“Your neighbors reported a horrible stench coming from your apartment. A dead body doesn’t keep well in a broken refrigerator.”

~*~

The Cure

“Why do you follow me to the kitchen every time I get out of bed, Harry? I’m just getting a drink.”

“Then why do you kneel with your head in the refrigerator for so long?”

“It cures my hot flashes.”

~*~

Fortunes

“It’s my wife’s fault I’m fat.”

“Good cook?”

“No. She insisted we get this new-fangled fortune-telling refrigerator.”

“Huh?”

“It keeps telling me a new body is in my immediate future. So I eat while I wait.”

~*~

Bank Card

“This is the third time I’ve had to replace my bank card because you wrecked it.”

“I don’t know how it gets damaged, Mom. I always keep it safe —attached to the refrigerator with a magnet — until I return it.”

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