The Flying Fetus
Flash fiction in 300 words
The following flash fiction was written in response to a magazine’s request for submissions. The theme was the seven words and terms that the Trump administration banned from use by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The editors asked writers to submit fiction using one or more of the following banned words: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
The Flying Fetus, the great American hero, stood small but proud on his black mountain pile of petroleum coke. Chubby club hands pushed back his cape and rested on his hips as he looked over the Detroit River.
His charred city upon the hill on the northern frontier was a bookend to the great big beautiful wall down south. Piled high by the Koch Brothers and dedicated to the glory of God and America, the hill was both beacon and bastion — a welcoming peak to citizens this side of the 49th parallel north and battle-tested stronghold to shipwrecked souls on the other side.
Rich black carbon-rich residue churned out from Canada’s oil sands comprised Koch Carbon’s pile of petcoke.
The Flying Fetus sneered at the land of diversity and confusion, of socialists and queers — gays, bisexuals, lesbians, the transgendered. He snorted a mucus plug of derision, summoning curses through his snout.
Not long ago — before beautiful, clean coal-like clumps returned to the city upon the hill — the faithless hordes threatened his existence. The heathens’ talk of science-based climate studies, of a multicultural mosaic and human rights were as dark clouds hovering, choking the glorious city.
But The Flying Fetus and his countrymen had a covenant with a higher power and it lifted them up, creating this citadel of freedom.
“I choose life so that my seed may live!” he said, crouching and preparing to launch into flight over the river to search out new frontiers.
Declaring the glory of all that is good and righteous, The Flying Fetus spread his black cape, bat-like. He kicked back pieces of petcoke to take flight, his straw-stiff combover perfectly still.
The plug in his orange-skinned throat stopped him momentarily and he coughed. It sounded like, “Covfefe.”
