April 2025 Furious Fiction

Furious Fiction is at it again! This time, our challenge was to write a 500-word short story in 48 hours about:

• A story that takes place on a bed.

• The story’s first sentence must have no more than three words.

• The story must include the words SHAPE, ENTER and QUESTION.

My entry this time around was Bed of Rats.

The story tries to distill a homeless veteran’s trauma and societal neglect into a tight 500-word narrative.

On a stained mattress beneath a city overpass, his body is broken, and his mind is caught between the ghosts of Kandahar and the indifference of the present.

Told in a drifty, poetic, first-person voice, the narrative attempts to blend realism and dreamlike disorientation to explore the dehumanizing aftershocks of war — both afar and waged at home — to evoke a visceral image of decay while honoring the narrator, who, despite his surroundings, retains a quiet dignity.

It’s a story about survival after survival, a muted scream beneath the roar of passing cars. I hope it shouts for attention. We can do better for those who serve in this country.

Well, fingers crossed! Judging results should be back by the end of April.

R