Micro Fiction Challenge: Horsehead

Posted by David Duhr in Micro Fiction Challenge      13 comments

Sep
4

Last time around G.W. Schulz won books 1-4 of the Harry Potter series by amusing us with his sorcery-based micro fiction. This week, we’re giving away another book prize to the winner–Texas favorite Rick Bass’ new novel All the Land to Hold Us, which begins:

For months after Richard first visited Horsehead Crossing–he had been sent by his employer in Houston to explore the largely worked-over oil and gas deposits in the Permian Basin near Odessa–he would dream nightly of what he had seen: the salt-preserved skulls of thousands of horses and cows tipped up in the saline banks of the Pecos, and in the surrounding, shifting sand dunes–horse and cattle skulls trapped in the sand and silt like the pale fossils of the limestone cliffs above.

How’s that for a grabber?

This week’s word is “horsehead,” and you’re free to use it in a variety of ways. The dictionary tells us that a horsehead is “any of several silvery marine fishes with very flat bodies.” There’s also the Horsehead Nebula, as well as Horseheads, New York (pop. ~20,000). You can also use “horse head,” two words, in reference to, well, a horse’s head.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a piece of flash fiction using the word horsehead in any of the ways mentioned above. As always, keep your story to 25 words or less, write it out in the comments section below, click “Notify” to keep abreast of your competition, and feel free to use a pseudonym if you’re shy. Your story doesn’t have to make us laugh, but as some cutesy fool once said, “Funny is money.” We’ll announce the winner in this space soon, and we’ll give a shout-out to our favorites on Facebook and Twitter.

(And even if you don’t win, check out Rick Bass’ new book.)