Flash This

Posted an entry for a flash fiction contest on LitReactor – click through for the premise, the prompt, and to add yours. Meanwhile, here’s mine:

Always A Reason

Max knew there was a reason for everything. He didn’t always see it, didn’t always believe it, but he knew there was a reason for every little thing in this world. There’s a reason the sun comes up in the morning and blinds him through the hole in the third slat of his bedroom blinds. There’s a reason he ran out of gas last week in the middle of nowhere while trying to get somewhere he’d rather not have had to go to anyway. There’s a reason for the pain he felt in his knee back in March when he was helping Meg and Tony move from the downtown loft. There’s a reason why sweet Mrs. McGill fell ill and died from cancer while anti-sweet Mrs. Thomas just kept right on living and breathing and knocking over his flowerpot with her knobby wooden cane every afternoon. There’s a reason why coffee’s bitterness is just as necessary to life as sweet tea’s icy goodness.

And there’s a reason you’re not supposed to push the big red button on the weapons console. Max looked up into his Mini Cooper’s rearview mirror, the fierce flickering hillside ripping through the night as a reminder of that, barely diminishing at 80mph. Yes, there’s always a reason…