NYC Midnight hosts eight writing challenges throughout the year. Their Flash Fiction Challenge is a 1,000-word story in 48 hours.

Their contests draw thousands of writers worldwide to participate in a multi-round, scored elimination.

Writers are grouped into cohorts who receive the same prompt.

This year, my cohort had roughly 40 writers and we received the prompt: suspense, in a cafe, featuring a cocktail.

My entry was Alchimie Numérique. This story takes place outside Luxembourg’s La Petite Cour, a fictional café nestled alongside a bustling market with cobblestone streets.

Isabelle, my protagonist, awaits the arrival of Jean-Pierre, a handsome and athletic young man she met on a Fench dating app. Isabelle is considerably older than Jean-Pierre, and she’s anxious to meet him in person, but she does wonder what he wants from her.

The story landed in the top 15 of my cohort and scored 8 points out of 15 in the competition, setting me up well for the second round kicking off July 28, 2023. These points will be added to my next submission in the contest. Those under the top 15 in my cohort didn’t score but can participate in the next round.

Generally, the judge’s reviews concerning the story, its delivery, mechanics, and style were favorable. However, it would appear I slipped a bit in rounding off the ending; the judges were unclear exactly where I was going with the story. They got a general idea but didn’t quite understand the ending or Isabelle’s relationship with Jean-Pierre or a stranger at the end in a ride-share. If the story’s conclusion were cleaner, it would probably have scored better.

French culture and language figure prominently in the story. The cocktail is a Kir Royale, a rather French drink; Jean-Pierre is an avid cyclist, a very French preoccupation; and Isabelle is a multi-lingual world traveler and businesswoman. The title is, of course, French, and translated means Digital Alchemy.

A part of writing a suspense story involves ratcheting up the tension and distracting the reader with red herrings. You want the reader to think one thing but then realize something else through a connection later. This story features several details meant to distract the reader and get them to jump to conclusions (the interruption/cognitive dissonance of both French and English in the same story, an ambulance in the background, the spy-like subliminal command words, a storekeeper’s repetitive sweeping, a judgy elderly gentleman, the presence of a stranger afflicted with a similar condition as Isabelle, etc.) I’m forcing the reader to jump ahead to make conclusions when they read these elements while the tension builds as the reader realizes what’s happening to Isabelle and what Jean-Pierre is up to.

This story has two themes. One is elder exploitation, very common in today’s society and should be easy to relate to. A young man exploits the affections of an older woman. This isn’t a new story in the sense my protagonist is elated that Jean-Pierre has taken a shine to her, but she’s also bewildered why he would want to date her.

The second theme is the story's suspense, and - although I wouldn’t want to ruin it for a potential reader - I’ll give you a hint since I wasn’t clear enough with the ending.

It’s about love potions.

Love potions rob victims of their agency and make them highly susceptible to suggestion, almost like mind control. But what if that love potion could be digital, copied, replicated effortlessly, and spread like a computer virus? Or through a video?

In fantasy stories, when you need a potion, you find an alchemist, so somewhere in the roots of Digital Alchemy is the idea of a love potion for the modern era.

Thanks for following and reading. After it's been judged, I’ll post my second contribution to this contest.

R