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    Where Less Is More
    Where Less Is More
    Where Less Is More
    Ebook90 pages1 hour

    Where Less Is More

    By Wayne C. Long

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Flash fiction reigns supreme in this wonderful fifth ebook in the vast LongShortStories Collection by the prolific and delightful short story master, Wayne C. Long.
    Where Less Is More comprises thirty of his best flash pieces. From the stately one-hundred-word title piece to the creepy “Brown” that weighs in at just under 1000 words, this anthology is a winner.

    Strap yourself into the creative mind of one of America’s most cutting-edge short story writers and enjoy the ride of a lifetime!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWayne C. Long
    Release dateAug 9, 2012
    ISBN9781476347387
    Where Less Is More
    Author

    Wayne C. Long

    Wayne C. Long is an unusually gifted electronic short story teller. His love for and mastery of this delicious and powerful art form puts him right up there with the best! Having written all his life, whether as a copy writer in the business world or as a writer of edgy short fiction in the digital world, he does one thing particularly well: he mines the edges of human experience for those powerful ideas that no one is tapping into. He visualizes onto the page what other writers overlook, using his cinematically-trained mind’s eye. He distills down the creative essence of the short story, to where less is more. Wayne’s work has appeared in QST magazine where its international readership voted to honor him with the coveted QST Cover Plaque Award two years in a row. He has also written for the Wisconsin Writers’ Journal and is known throughout the blogosphere. For over six years now, his website LongShortStories has been his writing home. There, he offers two free sample stories. On the pages of his blog at www.LongShortStories.com/wayne/, he teaches and engages readers in the art of short story writing. Wayne C. Long is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and his wife, Diane is also an N.I.U. graduate. They recently built a home on a hill overlooking the headwaters of the Milwaukee River as it meanders into a charming century-old millpond occupied by hundreds of Canada geese. Wayne and Diane are proud of their two married children (a daughter and a son), one very special granddaughter and a brand-new grandson.

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      Book preview

      Where Less Is More - Wayne C. Long

      Where Less Is More

      by

      Wayne C. Long

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 Wayne C. Long

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Dedicated to my wife, Diane

      CONTENTS

      The Schumann

      Catatumbo

      Pierce and Tatt and Where They’re At

      Galveston, Oh Galveston

      Brown

      Taggers

      White Witch

      Mystery

      Sliding Down

      The Ballad of Jim and Buzz

      Expletive Deleted

      The Break

      Out of Gas

      Windows

      The Dark Ages

      Stroke Me

      The Double Man

      I’ll Be Seeing You

      Night Terror

      Feathers

      Be Careful What You Wish For

      The Fruit Cellar

      Too Much Pain and Far Too Little Love

      Audacity

      Fatherland

      A Ring For Rebecca

      The Mercy Marriage of Myron Mercator

      Storybook Ending

      A Stand-Up Guy

      Where Less Is More

      THE SCHUMANN

      Chicago’s acoustically perfect Orchestra Hall is full tonight. Full of light and expectation. Filled with an audience here to pay homage to one of the greatest composers of all time and his seminal masterpiece: Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor.

      I call it The Schumann.

      From where I sit, I can clearly see the orchestra and the majestic Steinway concert grand piano, its ebony case glistening from its recent polishing by a loving professional tuner brought in for just this event. The orchestra is tuning up. Flautists trilling; oboists, bassoonists, and clarinetists fingering keys to warm up their action; horn and trumpet players working the valves of their brass beauties; percussionists checking the tonal echoes of timpani runs; and chordal riffs from masterful fingers upon fingerboards of the string section.

      The house lights blink, calling the stragglers from the vestibule to their seats and a hush flows over the audience like an ebbing wave.

      From the velvet curtained wings the conductor and the guest pianist stride to their respective places of honor. A crescendo of grateful applause rises up into the ceiling of the grand hall. It is time to make history.

      With a flourish of his baton, the conductor commands the strings and timpani to strike, introducing the first movement.

      Allegro affettuoso: (lively, with emotion).

      The pianist fingers a laser-sharp descending attack upon the eighty-eight-key real estate of the majestic Steinway. Oboe and winds send shivers down my spine as they release the pent-up energy of the first of many themes to the star of the show, the concert grand.

      I am scanning the audience with my antique opera glasses. My lenses fall upon a handsome couple seated in an intimate stage-right box; chosen, no doubt, for the unobstructed view it provides of the pianist’s powerful hands upon the ivories. They smile approvingly as the artists parry the delicious A minor thematic element back and forth, while the clarinetist plays counterpoint to the piano.

      And now it is the piano’s turn to sing to the glorious heavens with a long cadenza that is soon voiced by the full orchestra in all its melodic splendor.

      Building.

      Building.

      Building, before they all peak in the ecstatic finish. My God, how beautiful this night is!

      *****

      After a hushed pause between the first and second movements, it is the Intermezzo or interlude that is next, in F major.

      A delicate tune is introduced by the piano and the strings and they run with it until they are joined by the sonic richness of the celli. I watch awe-struck as the Romantic splendor of this all-too-familiar orchestral masterpiece unfolds before us.

      It is as if I am back there. Back on that nervous night over seventy years ago when I silently communed with God and, together, we delivered one of the finest interpretations of this beloved concerto a Chicago audience has ever experienced.

      All one-hundred pages.

      From memory.

      It was the culmination of relentless months of practice and sacrifice that ultimately honored my Depression-era parents with their daughter’s Master of Music degree from The American Conservatory of Music.

      Summa cum laude: (with highest distinction).

      Nothing but the best would do. Failure was not an option.

      *****

      The conductor deftly steers the harmonic assemblage into the third and final movement without missing a beat.

      Allegro vivace: (very fast and lively).

      It is the string section that now takes flight as the piano drives the A major theme to sublime heights. Our ears are flooded with its royal grandeur.

      I can’t help drawing my attention back to that box where the handsome couple is now embracing as the concerto’s ¾ time signature wafts over the spellbound audience.

      I know what is coming.

      My eyes

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